29/03/2012 Blue Peter

On today's show, if you like Shaun the Sheep and Wallace and Gromit,

stay tuned as I bring you the secrets of Aardman's latest Pirate

Adventure film. This guy here, recognise something he might be

wearing there? This just got a whole lot cooler, didn't it? Find

out how to paint an amazing picture using light. It's a monkey on a

tree. And if you have ever wanted to beatbox like a professional,

we'll show you how with tips from APPLAUSE

Hello and welcome to Blue Peter, we've got a jam-packed show for you.

We've got film, photography, music, there are loads of ways to be

creative. You send us such cool stuff, but you can also get

involved with the show as well. We are going to ask you a question and

I'll show you how to answer that question using my hands! This is

the question, summer is just around the corner, the sun's out, we are

getting excited, what are you looking forward to doing this

summer? Please get in touch. If you are watching on Thursday, we may

read your mail out later. Easter holidays are just around the

corner and there are some pretty big films hitting the cinema as

usual. One way to bring characters to life is by using a technique

called stop-motion. It was something that was used in the

Corpse Bride and Fantastic Mr Fox as well. The latest stop-motion

animation is The Pirates, by Aardman Animation. Look at his

little smile. He loved it! genuinely excited. They give me the

Hans to animate one of their characters by using their tricks of

the trade. Whether it makes it into the movie or not, I don't know,

time to have a look. The new stop- frame animation film from Oscar-

winning production company Aardman is about as swashbuckling as it

gets. I'm the Pirate Captain and I'm here for your gold. The film

follows the story of a Pirate Captain as he and his rag tag crew

try to get the much coveted pirate of the year award. This is

Aardman's first 3D stop-motion film and it's a massive undertaking.

With a crew of 525 people dedicating five years of their life

to making it! Today, I've been lucky enough to be

invited down to the studios in Bristol, get a behind-the-scenes

look and have a go at animating my very own secrets.

-- sequence. This massive warehouse has 40 individual film sets and

behind these curtains are the animators hard at work. Working on

a stop frame animating film is different from working on a movie

with real-life actors. If you are making a film starring Tom Cruise

say, you can only shoot one scene with him at a time. A stop-frame

animation movie can reproduce its lead character dozens of times. On

this film, there were up to 40 animators working at any one time

and they could shoot up to 20 scenes simultaneously with the

Pirate Captain in different parts of the studio. As well as the

Captain and the crew, one of the big stars of the movie is their

faithful ship. Now, that is what you call a pirate ship! This hand-

crafted beauty is made up of over 44,500 parts. It's around four-and-

a-half metres long and weighs a staggering 350 kilograms, that's

ten times as much as you! Look at this. I won't touch. See

this guy here, recognise something he might be wearing there? This

just got a whole lot cooler, didn't it?!

The crew already seem familiar with Blue Peter, but it's time for my

official introduction to them and their Captain, from one of the

film's chief animators, Jo Fenton. Which ship mates are we looking at

here? This is the main crew and this is the Pirate Captain.

main star is voiced by Hugh Grant. I'm not surprised by the level of

detail but I am taken aback by the size of them. I can't believe how

big they are. I thought they would be a lot smaller. Is there a reason

why they are this size? It makes it easier to animate. Any smaller, it

makes it fiddly with the little fingers and eyes. It's easier to

make them bigger. Even at this size, I'm certain animating these models

is a real labour of love and it's my turn to find out just how tricky

it is. I'm about to watch the director, Peter Lord, act out the

scene that he'd like me to animate on our Pirate Captain over here.

This is what I have to do. It's so quick, I have to watch it again.

It's not even a second, is it? frames, so just or two seconds.

second of a movie is made up of 24 frames. This clip is just two

seconds and 14 frames long. That normally would take you how long to

animate? Irbgs A day. How long have I got? Two hours. Better get

started then, hadn't I? Stop frame animation works by taking frame by

frame shots on a camera. Head turns a little bit... Between each shot,

the characters are repositioned a tiny amount. I'm happy with how

it's poised. When the shots are played continuously, it looks like

the characters are moving. Done, first frame. The key to this

process is patience and intense attention to detail. At the moment,

all I'm doing is making him crouch to turn around and chuck his sword

out, but when you crouch, your shoulders and head moves, your neck

turns, it gets incredibly hard. I'm hardly moving it at all and it's

impacting hugely on the screen. Creating a character is about more

than just moving their body. When I finally get the Pirate Captain

facing the camera, I have to think about his fairbt movements too. --

facial movements too. I'm trying to keep his eyes down the lens of the

camera so it looks like he's looking at you. Very intricate. In

the past, the mouth was moulded into the correct shape, but for

this movie, the animators have the luxury of a range of mouths created

on a 3D printer. Just to change the mouth takes some doing. You have to

take his beard off first and slide the mouth off, so fiddly. 7,000

mouths were printed in total with 1,400 for the Pirate Captain alone.

I've got 30 minutes left and I can already sense I don't have enough

time to get all the mouths in and take the pictures. Slightly over to

the left. With my two hours running out fast, and director Peter Lord

waiting in another room to watch my efforts, I start to panic just a

little. Put the wrong mouth on. Good. I'm going to improvise now

because I've completely messed this up. Peter's impressive movie

credentials include Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit, so the pressure

is on to do well. As long as it has the right feel,

good performance and delivers what Pete is requesting, it's going to

be good. I've completely disregarded Pete's video, I'm not

even looking at it any more, I'm so sorry, director, Sir, I've gone

with what I think looks right and half decent. What will the animator

think of my humble efforts. How are you? Good to see you. Welcome.

Thank you very much. It's the moment of truth. I'm not sure I'm

going to offer you a job today. What you've done with the turn of

the body, I'm liking that. If you were doing it for real, I would say

bigger, a bigger, bigger gesture, a bigger ark. I would have gone back

and do a few things different will you, but I just knew I had to get

him face on. Did you put the eyes on? Yes. His left eye is slightly

bongier. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you very much. Thank you and

you've done a good job there. OK, so it wasn't quite the glowing

critique I was hoping for, but not bad for a first attempt. For now at

least, I'll be leaving it to the professionals.

It's pay day! I'm the Pirate Captain and I'm here for your

gold... Geography field trip.

Did you add the Blue Peter badge or was that there? That was there,

they were big fans when they were kids, they thought, it's a family

show, there's a boat, stick the logo on there. A touch of genius. I

had a fantastic day at Aardman there. Still to come today:

Find out how to paint with light and capture it on a photo. I know

this looks daft, but the picture I've got in my head is amazing.

Have you guessed what it is yet? And if you have ever wanted to

beatbox like an expert, we've got a beatboxing legend here in the

studio to show you how. We love hearing from you guys and

you never let us down. We get bags of post, letters, poems, somebody

sent me a scarf the other day and we really appreciate it, so thank

you very much for that. I like cake... You can't send cake in the

post... Yes you can. One thing we get asked often is, how do we get

our Blue Peter badge. The ones you can get immediately for getting

involved with the one in the middle, the ordinary one, and the one on

the far left hand side, the silver one. You can get those by sending

things in, like Livvie has done. A few weeks ago, Helen made a Brooch

for Mother's Day. This is Livvie with the Brooch she made for her

mum. Well done you. Charlotte in Fife sent us a picture of a

blackbird. Charlotte smiling away there. Thank you very much for your

drawing of a blackbird. She earns herself a silver badge. Here is

Matthew. He's cool! Got the cool look going on, but he knows how to

draw a bad guy. He's done a picture of the Daleks. He's written

exterminate down the side so we know what they do. Eve in Bedford

written a poem, she wrote a storm poem, so thank you very much for

that. She already has a blue badge, a silver badge and green badge.

Wowsers. Top of the class. Here is Lucy. She's already got a badge on,

so she's after another one to. Get it, she sent this, a picture of

Helen and myself as penguins. Because she don something very

different, she gets herself a silver badge. Helena in crew didn't

do a poem, letterer drawing but created a poster called Save Our

World. There is her poster. Because she did something that had a bit of

an environmental theme, she earned herself a green badge. Remember, we

have one more. This is a picture, it's me, Helen,km Shelley and

Barney. I met Freya when I was dressed like this for a charity

event. Thanks freya, brilliant. you have a Blue Peter badge, you

will get into over 200 attractions absolutely free, including a

special Blue Peter session of the Oxford literary festival which is

happening this Sunday. The address I am putting together a photo

calendar for the year 2012. Every month has a different photo and

it's using a different photography technique. In January, Barney

introduced us to the macro technique and created that picture.

In February, he showed us pin hole and created that picture. In March,

no disrespect, but this is my favourite so far, Eve McLoughlin

won the competition to have her picture on the calendar and it's

her three Guinea pigs setting off on a race. The month of April, so a

new photo and technique which is quite literally enlightening. I

can't even begin to tell you how excited I am about tonight's shoot.

I'm doing so much more than just taking a photograph. Tonight, I'm

going to be learning how to create a unique piece of art. You may be

sat there wondering what that's got to do with a man waving around some

funny lights. Well, follow us over here. Let's have a look.

And there it is. That's what it's all about. This is light painting

and this is Michael. Michael BA San co is a light

painting artist who's transformed some of the best-known landmarks

into his own masterpieces by use ago light as his paint brush and

the whole world as his canvas. He's going to teach me how it's all done.

We are going to start with a quick photograph. It may sound obvious,

but there are two ingredients to create this kind of photo. It has

to be dark and you need a light source, whether that's a torch,

bike light or a specialist light like Michael's. For his first

demonstration, he's drawing a Not a lot of time to draw anything

there really. InTed of drawing a leaf, all we've capture suicide a

dot of light and here's why. That click you hear when you take a

picture is the sound of the shutting opening and closing very

fast -- instead. The light goes through to the lens and that

records on the sensor and you have a regular photo. The more time the

light has to make an image, then you get something like Michael's

work. For the next one, we'll keep the shutter open longer to try to

turn this little spot into a complete picture. If I hold this

down for ages, 20 seconds, lets's see what you can do in 20 seconds.

This is going to look good. Michael won't be seen in the final image

because he's wearing dark clothes and the camera will only pick up

the bright light. Time's up. Oh, yes. Michael, have a look at this!

That's loads better. The leaf on one side and the other, a bit of

reflection here. I guess we just need lots of time to draw lots of

detail. Exactly. Looks brilliant. Can I have a go? Of course you can,

man. I'm a keen photographer in my spare time but this is totally

different to any photo I've taken before and I'm itching to learn

from the expert. Do you have any tips? Keep your movements fast,

fluid. Fast fluid movements. Like painting with a brush? Yes.

Have the torch pointing towards the camera lens. Of course, otherwise

it won't see the picture you are painting. When you are done, turn

the torch off. Got it. OK, let's have a go at this.

Got a picture in my mind of what I'm going to do. Michael made this

look easy but I'm struggling to visualise the picture in my head.

Thing's it. Aye, it's a monkey on a tree! It's hard, when you draw the

body and arms, you have got to remember where you did it because

it's not like a paper where you see the pencil physically, you have got

to remember it. His head is floating off his body there, but

for a first go that'll kind of work. I want to play more. This is my

first attempt but I need to up my game if I want to get even close to

Michael's work. This means more colours, more than one object in

the picture and most importantly, detail.

Watch me go! I know this looks daft, but honestly, the picture I've got

in my head is amazing. Have you guessed what it is yet. I think

this is going somewhere. Let's have a look. Not bad. Can you

tell what it is? No. Well, it's a robot in the middle there with

light up pants and I've got red eyes. What I'm doing is firing out

through my hand my laser beam and this is where I live in Roy bot

house -- robot house. Here is the control centre with the panels on

it. My second attempt is much better so I think I'm ready for my

final challenge. We are dog the Blue Peter calendar and I think we

should do something spectacular with light painting. We have to

plan it if it's going to be be be big. It's right that my photo has a

haunted theme. What do you reckon? Yes, good. It's going to take a lot

of effort though. I thought this might be the case. There's a lot of

detail there. It just so happens I've met a team of light painting

enthusiasts who're itching to get going. Shall we go meet them?

This crack squad of helpers are the hardest workers in town and they

need to be with what I've got planned for them. Take a look at

this, guys. Everyone gather round. Megan, you are going to do the face.

What kind of face? Scary. We all know what we are doing then? Yes.

After a crash course from expert Michael... We are primed for our

first attempt at the calendar photo. Ready, go.

You know what, it's getting there, guys. Michael, have a look at this,

see what you can think about it. We are so close to creating a

masterpiece. All it needs is a bit of fine tweaking. Thomas, your star

bursts, bring a few out here and hold the torch really still. Quite

low as well so it picks up anything on the ground. Everyone ready to do

another one? OK. That might look good if you were going against the

tree, it might reflect the light. After five attempts, we finally got

a photo worthy of a place on the Blue Peter calendar. Look at that!

Nailed it on the last take. Who wants to see it? Ready? Here we go.

I think that looks wicked. What do you reckon? Yes. Yes. Yes. Michael,

happy? Superb, yes, phenomenal. Well done you. We are artists! And

here is the photograph that will appear on the calendar for the

month of April. It looks absolutely brilliant. It's something you can

have a go at yourself isn't it? get a camera, a torch, get

somewhere dark and get paintings. Head over to the website if you

want the calendar. While you are there, keep a look out for Barney's

video. He's being humble but he's very good at photography. You have

done a video we detailing your top photography tips. This time, this

guy is so amazing, check him out, he's shlomo, a beatboxer, he's

performed everywhere, he's got awards, he's been to Glastonbury

and he's here in the studio to give you some top tips on how it's done.

A round of applause, please, for shlomo.

Hello. Hi. We should just point out, this is your vocal orchestra, not

just your friends. Let's talk about beatboxing, it's

making the noise of drums or rhythm with your mouth? Yes, making music

with your voice. Just like that! But there's no backing track or

anything, all the sounds come from your face? All the music is made

with your voice. It's traditionally done by individuals, yet you have

created an orchestra. Tell me about this? The vocal orchestra is a

stage show that we have pull together. We have created the show

and it will be running in London, opening next week. The idea is,

beatboxing works really well on your own, but if you bring together

multiple voices, every single one of us has an incredible voice so we

can create a real excitement, we get to travel back in time and play

all the songs from the '80s, '60s and '90s. If it's all about numbers,

two more wouldn't go amaze?. Can you show us? Have you ever

beatboxed before? A little bit. Never been allowed.

The basic sounds are P, K and K. So P will be like Prrrr... I feel like

a horse! The high hat is the letter T, tttt... Try and make it short

and crisp. And the third is the snare, that's the letter K like

this, Krrrrrrrrrr... Nice. Put them together. P, T, K. Try putting on

the mic, wrap around your hand like this so you get a strong base sound.

We've got about 40 seconds left to get a performance, so if I join in

as well. Barney, do your thing. What sort of rhythm?

APPLAUSE Thank you so much. That was wicked.

I'll let you guys get ready for your actual performance while we

tell you what is coming up next week. We'll take you to the zoo.

With spring in the air, we give you a look at the new baby animals

being born at this time of year. We show you how to use a balloon to

create a unique Easter egg. If you can't wait until next week for that,

head over to the Blue Peter website for an exclusive sneak peak. You

can see how to make the eggs before we show you on the programme. Send

us in the pictures of your eggs if you make them and we might get to

show yours next week. So tasty! Earlier in the show... He

was like a kid, came back with chocolate all over his face. We

asked you to let us know what you are going to be doing this summer.

We thought you were feeling summery. One person is looking forward to

body boarding on the beach. Another person looking forward to chilling

in the garden with friends and looking forward to beating dad at

swing ball. A barn holiday staying with two dogs in Norfolk. Another

girl is going to run in the sea and have a water fight in Blackpool.

Florence is going to have a water fight and there are lots of school

holidays. We love to hear from you and we love your posts. Now it is

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 48 seconds

time for an exclusive performance # Let's dance

# Put on your red shoes and dance the blues

# Let's dance # To the songs that are playing

# I feel love # I feel love within my heart

# Within my soul # Win my mind

# I feel love # Said I feel love

# I feel # Said I feel love

# One, two, three # My baby don't mess around cos she

loves me so # And this I know for sure

# But does she really want to stand to see me

# Walk out the door? # Don't try to fight the feeling

# Cos the thought alone is killing # Right now