EXPERIMENTAL- Flower Tests

Leo's world inside of the book consists of a forest populated with flora that all lights up, literally. As Leo walks through the forest for the first time all sorts of unusual plants sprout up from the ground and glow in a bright blue tone around him.

Requirements:

-set must be lit enough to see Leo and landscape but dark enough for flowers to glow

solution: As suggested by Paul Fletcher shoot character and set separately and combine in post production. Or use uv lights and uv paint to get a brighter glow.

-Flowers must be able to unfurl

Solution: engineering with wires, liquid latex etc.

-Flowers must be able to flicker

Solution: Thanks to Paul Fletcher's help I was able to create this compact wiring system that allows me to switch between different levels of brightness. This will allow me to animate a flickering light for my candle scene and the flower flickering scene.

FLOWER 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avt_f-TaDBs

-Coraline behind the scenes inspiration

Inspiration: Avatar, Coraline.

Testing different glowing methods and materials

1. glass rod inside a glow stick 2. glow stick gel painted on flower petal fabric 3. crushed glass 4&5 comparing glow in the dark to LED 6&7 plastic leaves 8. Nail polish and wire plant 9,10 & 11. builder's dried up silicone roughly cut make good crystals.

Glow stick gel wasn't as bright as the LED and was quick to die out.

Flower 2

Tissue paper and Liquid Latex. The aim with this flower is to light it with uv paint and blacklight rather than an LED. The liquid latex make the flower very easy to manipulate for animating.

Test 1- I twisted and unfurled flower petals

Test 2- Was more successful as I exaggerated the movement of the bob and animated the petals bobbing up and down after the flower had stopped moving.

Flower 3

Hot glue gun flower and nail polish

Put wire in between tracing paper. Hot glue nail polish and roll out.

To get movement out of this flower I could cast the petals with wire inbetween.

https://www.instructables.com/id/Hot-Glue-Flower-Lights/

https://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-String-Lights-Made-of-Hot-Glue/ -builders silicone cast

Failed Tests

The aim here was to reflect the light in the plastic and to hide the light source so that the plastic flower looked like it had lit up by itself. The problem with this technique was that you nee alot of lights and you can't shoot any long shots.

1. Inspiration- late one night in the kitchen I got myself a glass of water and saw the reflections of the Zip tap lights bounce around in my glass cup. 2. nail polish and wire 3. bumpier surface of plastic reflected the most light 4,5 & 6. melting bits of plastic over a candle to get a flow petal shape. The surface was too smooth however and didn't create much of a reflection.

#graduatefilm #preproduction #animationtest #flower