Today, I had the opportunity to experiment with stop frame animation. I originally wanted to create a person out of clay, as presented in my storyboard, but did not have any, so I had to make do with different subjects.
To start off my experimenting, I decided to get an object and experiment with moving it slightly and taking photos to understand how to do this effectively and how to set up the camera etc. I came to the realisation that you need to make sure that the camera does not move between shots unless following the object as it can make the footage less effective.
I took photos of a speaker I have that looks like a little person moving. I thought about movement of a body when walking, and figured that the hands would move as the body moved therefore, I made sure to move the arms in opposite directions as I took each photo.
Once I had got my images, I took them into premier pro and lined them up in the right order.
Once I had put them in them right order, I made sure that they were all the same length in time so that the animation did not look jumpy. After watching the video just doing this, I felt that there was something missing as I felt that the transition was not smooth enough. Therefore, I added a cross fade between each of the photos, to create a much smoother transition.
After adding in cross dissolve, I was satisfied that the video run smoother.
After completing this video I was satisfied that I had successfully completed a stop frame animation, but was not satisfied with some details, such as I felt that the camera position could have been Better as well as the lighting. you can also see the camera move between some of the images which I feel was not good.
After completing this animation, I wanted to have another go with a different subject. I am interesting in skating and felt that somebody doing a trick as a stop frame would be cool as you would be able to properly see the trick being preformed. so I took photos of my friend doing a skate trick and took it into premier pro to do the exact same process that I did with the previous animation.
I was not sure if This example looked Better with or without the cross fade, so I saved both to show.
Overall, I have learned a lot going this task as I was not very confident on animating before as I haven't done it much, but from doing this, I have different ideas on how I could incorporate it into my work more often. I feel that I successfully completed making stop frames, but feel I still have room for improvement which I will work on.
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