After feeling really frustrated that I don't know who to ask for help on the technical stuff, I was going over some old animtions and came across the stop motion piece by Eleanor Stewart, graduate of Glasgow School of Art, Visual Communications.
Hoedown from Rodeo from Eleanor Stewart on Vimeo.
As a fellow VisCom'er I thought she might be a good person to ask if she's had support or not with animating, and if so what's the best thing to do when doing a stop-motion... any advice on planning/lighting/frames per second & timing of things etc....
She emailed back pretty much straight away and gave me loads of info, so so grateful!! Thank you Eleanor!!!
* Aardman Animations book by Peter Lord, called Cracking Animations ... Great for basic info on timing, lighting and movements
* Make sure all equipment is firmly secured - tables/camera/tripods/lights.. use tape,blue tack, anything!
* Storyboard everything down to the last frame - plan it out at 12 fps, it's time consuming, but makes the filming much easier and much more slick
* If you're using music, recommended to find the music first so that you can break the music down and animate to it - change in tempo/key changes/sound effects etc.
* Ask photography department for advice on backdrop/lighting/settings
* Good method of lighting is one light pointing at subject, and another bouncing off white card or wall
5 comments:
Hey Jodie!
Stop Motion is really time consuming, but when done well can look absolutely amazing.
What is it you want to know and how have you been doing it in the past?
I go to your college, 3rd year film student.
Hey James,
Yeah my problem is I'm struggling with how to do it well..
I think just getting the knack of how to make movements slick and timing it all right is my first problem.
I'm not really too strong on my photography either so it takes me a while to get the best lighting/set up/settings on the camera...
I'm gonna check out the Cracking Animations book to see if that's got some good stuff in!
Any other advice if you've got any would be great! :)
Checkout a book called the Animation Survival Guide, thats really good, breaks down walk cycles and things.
To make it slick, little movements. If you think there are 24/25 frames a second! Not much happens in a second, maybe 2 leg movements in walk cycle...
Download one of the free frame grabbing programs, like frame thief, and just start animating things. Even if it's just a pen moving across a table. Don't try being too ambitious straight away.
If you do use a frame grabbing program have your mac/laptop/pc a decent distance from your subject to avoid getting your shadow in shot.
Watch these and feel inspired! http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2010/04/video-gallery-stop-motion/
ohhh! They're so good!
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