Those years at Aardman must have rubbed off!

Many years ago I was given something called a "Magic Tree".  The premise was that you stood the cardboard shape in a shallow tray and poured the sachet of clear liquid into the tray.  The liquid soaked up into the cardboard and then as it dried (over the space of several hours) it formed crystals and also absorbed colour from dye impregnated into the cardboard.  Very clever and interesting to a scientist but not magic.  ;-)

I'd not seen them for years until my Mother-in-law gave me one for Christmas.  I was going to send her a photo of it to say thank you but then I had a better idea.....how about a time lapse movie of it developing!

I was, at this time, working as the Financial Controller of Aardman Animations, the company behind animation classics such as Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run.  I obviously didn't get too involved in the creative side of the business but some of it must have rubbed off.

Christmas Tree
The model she gave me was a Christmas tree.  A fairly simple affair, bauble chain and star on the top.  My camera was a simple Casio digital compact.  I set it up on a table top tripod and had to manually expose each shot.  I started every 5 minutes but i t was developing quite fast so I increased it to every 3 minutes.  As it slowed down I changed this to every 4 minutes then back to 5.  In the end I took 217 frames.

I didnt' have any fancy video production software so I simply used Movie Maker.  The results were pretty good but were lacking something, a soundtrack.

I couldn't decide what sort of music to use so I created two.  I had to set the frame rate differently for each so that I could spread the shots across the whole piece of music.  I quickly realised that I didnt' have enough shots to make a smooth animation but my primary concern had been either the battery running out on the camera or running out of space on the SD card.  I could change neither without moving he camera and removing the tripod so it was a one shot deal.

Despite this I think the results weren't bad for a first attempt.

So impressed was the MIL that the next year she gave me something a little more ambitious, a mountain scene.  Again I had the same equipment and recording limitations but confidently set off at a frame every 6 minutes.  I soon reduced this to 5 minutes once the initial soak had passed.  As the trees developed , however, progress slowed again and I stretched it out to every 10 minutes.  I continued this until 10.30 pm. (I had started at 9.30am!)  I felt I had to go to bed so I left it overnight and took a final picture in the morning when everything had dried out.

There was such a difference between the penultimate and last shots that I had to find a way of making a feature out of it rather than trying to smooth it over.  I hope you like what I did.  ;-)  This animation is made up of 121 frames.

All was quiet for a couple of years and then I received another mountain scene.  I had by now upgraded to a Nikon D5000 and had a mains power supply.  This had the added benefit of having a facility to leave it running and it would automatically take a picture at a preset interval.  This was going to be a lot less labour intensive than previous projects where I had to sit and take a picture every few minutes myself.

I also tried to learn from my mistakes and turned the heating up so that it wouldn't take overnight for it to develop fully.

I set the timer to take a frame every 1 minute.  I had a massive memory card in and mains power so wasn't concerned about running out of either.  In the end I had 2055 frames and a different take on the musical accompaniment.  Enjoy!

Orthodontic treatment - second adjustment

Already I'm feeling an old hand at this brace malarkey.  I've had them for almost three months and apart from the wire pokeing out of the lower buccal tubes and a small amount of discomfort when eating I've had practically no trouble with them.  At Christmas the 15-18 month treatment estimate seemed like a lifetime but now its feeling more manageable.

Middle of March and its time for my second adjustment.  Its fairly routine.  Quick check on how its going, inspection and then a change of wires.  I've gone up to a 16/22 Niti on the top as its apparently time to start opening out the top arch and and 0.016 Niti on the bottom as they are pretty straight now.  Power chain LL7-7 to pull the lower teeth back and close the extraction gaps now that the lower canines are standing up.

Two things are noticable from the latest photos.  The first is that my upper arch seems a lot flatter on the right (left as you look at the picture).  I must check with Darren why this is but it might be as a result of me face-planting the Mendips as this is the side that took the brunt of my landing.

Secondly, the obvious gap between top and bottom arches.  You migth assume that this is jsut the way I'm smiling, slightly open mouthed, but actually this is currently as close as I can get my front teeth.  My rear molars are clamped tight together.  Darren tells me that the L7s on both sides (molar before your wisdon teeth) have tipped up slightly due to the previous power chain pulling on them to straighten the canines.  Its likely that next visit he will have to bond up my L8s (wisdom teeth) in order to straighten this out.

It makes biting anything very difficult and so eating in public somthing to be avoided unless I can use a knife and fork.

My molars were quite sore for a few days after the appointment but all back to normal now.

If you missed my last instalment you can read it here.  Orthodontic Treatment - first adjustment

Orthodontic treatment - first adjustment

Its taken a while to get around to writing about my 2nd appointment which was in January.  This is the first time I'd have had an adjustment so it was still relatively new ground.

Having abstained from anything that might stain the ligatures (you are given quite a list of food and drink to avoid) I decided that since they were gong to be changed anyway I would treat myself to a curry.  Horror stories abound as to how this will ruin the look of your braces but I knew I'd only have to live with them for a couple of days.

I'd not been avoiding tea and coffee (that would be a step too far for me!) and so a small amount  of staining was inevitable but curry was reported to be one of the biggest potential dangers.

I'm not a lover of searingly hot curies but I do like them to be tasty rather than creamy.  Hence my curry of choice for this experiment was a Chicken Jalfrezi.  This threatened to be doubly bad as cooked tomato is also on the list of serious stainers.

I was pleasantly surprised that the damage was minimal.

Apologies for the curry remnants still stuck in the brace (these went once I'd brushed) but you can see that apart from a small amount of yellowing I got away unscathed.  The worst affected was the power chain (both sides between lower 3 & 5) which went quite yellow.

Overall, it doesn't look too bad until you compare it with the new ligs lower down.

This was a shop purchased ready meal curry and, since I've another appointment this week to have my second adjustment, I've recently had a proper restaurant takeaway Chicken balti.  As well as being much nicer it also turned everything a day-glo yellow for 24 hours before subsiding to a similar residual stain.

Anyhow, my opinion is to not worry too much about the food stains, they aren't as bad or as noticeable as you fear when you contemplate a year without your favourite foods.

So, in late January I had my first adjustment.  "Adjustment" conjures up images of tightening and moving etc but in reality all they do is have a look at how its going and change the arch wire for a different size, or in the case of my lower arch, refit the same wire with new ligs and power chain.

I'd been in for a quick 5 minute "emergency appointment" to have the lower wire trimmed as it was sticking out of the back and the end was incredibly sharp and uncomfortable.  Literally a 2 minute procedure and instant relief.

The Vitis orthodontic products had continued to give relief and in stark comparison with my wife's experience I had suffered from no mouth ulcers at all even when teh wire was protruding and catching on my cheek.  I can't guarantee it was etirely down teo the Vitis products but I believe it certainly helped a lot.

My top arch went up to a 0.16 NiTi but, as I say, the lower arch was deemed to be still able to benefit from the original 0.14 NiTi so it was refitted.

It was a new experience as when the first arch wires were fitted I had been completely numb from the extractions 5 minutes before.  It didn't hurt as such but you can feel the orthodontist pulling on the lig to stretch it over the bracket.  Once its done all of your teeth feel tightly tied in, surprisingly even the ones where the wire wasn't changed.

Power chain was again attached LL3-7 to try to stand my canines up and move them back into the space left by the extraction.  I had hoped they'd be there by now but that is just my over optimistic impatience.  Darren wasn't expecting that and said they were on track.

Shiny new ligs and power chain and a new upper arch wire.  All set for another 6 weeks but the difference is showing already.

If you missed the previous blog you can read it here.  Three weeks in and I'm getting used to them