M GOAL: to attain mastery in the art of stop-motion animation.
MY PROJECT: to create a short video with stop-motion animation.
The vast realm of stop-motion is quite overwhelming upon first glance. One has countless options when creating a film using this technique. Just consider all of the possible ways in which the artist can express his thoughts...
- LEGO (building images with LEGO bricks was a common suggestion)
- Claymation (I tried using clay in stop-motion animations in a previous Enrichment class)
- Photography (My dad is a photographer, so this would be a good option)
- Drawing (I have experience in drawing and sketching)
I mentioned that I've had some experience with stop-motion. During middle school, I had a grand total of two stop-motion endeavors, the first being the Claymation video.
The Claymation was a music video for The Lonely Island's "Threw It On the Ground". My group had a great deal of fun animating a fake hot dog splattering in a clay figure's face, but the animation itself was rather choppy, to say the least. All in all, it was a decent first effort.
The second time I attempted stop-motion was not for a class. In a burst of narcissistic impulse, I decided to make a video game entitled "The Adventures of J. Shu". I will not name any names, but in my defense, one other person was also involved. For the character models, I had to draw a few frames of me moving. Here are some very crude samples (it's as good as it gets for The Adventures of J. Shu):
Deciding to take advantage of my artistic background, I chose to draw my animation. Thus, I had to consider the requirements of a standard stop-motion animation. A very smooth video should show 24 frames per second. If I were to create a 60-second video, I would have to draw 1,440 frames. Keeping the amount of time I have in mind, I decided to go with 12 frames per second instead. This will cause a slight decrease in quality, but drawing 720 frames is significantly more manageable. Perhaps, using a smaller frame rate may challenge me even more than 24 fps.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I will periodically consult YouTube for both techniques and ideas. There are a seemingly infinite supply of fantastic stop-motion videos on YouTube. Here is one that I particularly enjoy:
(If the embedded video does not appear, go to this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv_TOkGtreI)
I have several ideas about the story line, designs, and methods with which I will create my final product. Once I finalize my plans, I will post my second blog post.
Jason this is such a rad idea, and I can't wait to see what you come up with! Mixing your artwork with animation is a great idea. Also, I LOVE the video you added on the bottom.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the awesome feedback! The video was pretty crazy.
DeleteHopefully this passion of yours shall remain, at least for the duration of this project. I remember going through a phase of watching stop motion videos. I also remember that Middle School enrichment project about making a stopmotion animation with clay. It combined the classic video arcade games (I had an arcade game phase as well) of Pacman and Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong would break in and kidnap Ms Pacman so Pacman had to save her. A good story, except that we got a 4/10 on technique for that project.
ReplyDeleteStop-motion is so time-consuming, so it's hard to practice it regularly. Still, if I can figure out an efficient way to make stop-motion videos during this project, I will be able to continue this interest in the future.
Deletestop motions is definitely a great thing to try. I have always found it very interesting, and have watched videos with the art style. I realized that LEGOs was one possibility. I have seen videos like that, and i think they are amazing. If you have LEGOs, I urge to to try to use this style!
ReplyDeleteI think I will try it at some point down the road. If this project turns out well, I will probably try to find alternative forms of stop-motion to explore. I mean, The Lego Movie was surprisingly good, and it utilized Lego animation perfectly.
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