[ explorations in audio and moving imagery ]
Takuro Masuda, a filmmaker and stopmotion animator in Atlanta, has posted his animation “Death of a Matriarch” on YouTube. The film was made for the Center for Puppetry Arts XPT series.
ASIFA Atlanta’s Roll Yer Own Animation Festival, with entries from local animators, took place on Monday, May 21, 2007 at 8:00 PM. The venue was “the 5 Spot” at 1123 Euclid Ave in Little 5 Points. Thanks to Karl, Brett and everyone at ASIFA Atlanta for your work on the festival and for including my…
Update. I did another test tonight and got the motion smoothed out. This is more of the effect I was aiming to achieve. WATCH MOVIE Here is my original post and first test: Another test clip. I am finishing the assembly of the stage curtain and wanted to see how it would animate. The answer…not…
I did another test tonight. I am thinking that this armature is a bit unstable and has some spring to it compared to a wire armature secured with epoxy putty. I may have to make an epoxy version of the same proportions and try similar tests to confirm which is more stable for movement. WATCH…
I filmed a quick test tonight using my recent armature design. Here is the result: WATCH MOVIE
In both Man Drawing a Reclining Woman and the Sword of Damocles I have what looks like ghosting in the animation. My process is to shoot 12 photos for each second of animation then stretch that sequence in Sony Vegas to 24fps. Vegas then blurs every other frame. When analyzing the footage within Vegas frame…
Tonight I continued to put my set pieces back together and started shooting test photos to check alignment and spacing between the background, the stage, and the camera.
I’m hoping to get back into production on the Vitruvius film in April. I’ve started to re-build my sets in my new studio. The following picture captures my carts and stages better than previous photos.
Looks like some casual meetings took place on April 1, 2007 on both sides of the country. Here on the east coast, I was invited over to Takuro Masuda’s studio where he is filming his stop motion project for the Center for Puppetry Arts Experimental Puppetry Theater. His project involves Native American mythology and looks…
My new web address www.objectsatrest.com is now official. I was able to acquire the “dot com” version of the domain name. The former address www.objectsatrest.org should still work and redirect to the .com site but you may want to update any links or bookmarks that you may have. The former owner of the domain now…
There is a thread on stopmotionanimation.com about walk cycles. Here is a test that I did many months ago. I used the trial version of Stop Motion Pro and my web cam.
I had an interesting email exchange with J. Roche regarding non-linear editing using Sony Vegas and wrote down what I do when editing a film. My goal is to output DVD or HD-DVD resolution projects while also being able to edit that project using very small file sizes. The result is: improved performance of the…
I am in the process of relocating my studio over the next month or two. I plan to hold off on further filming of the Vitruvius project until I have the studio and lighting re-assembled. I have some compositing elements that I can work on in the mean time and I’m also exploring a new…
Last night (and still playing today) is “The Animation Show” curated by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt. I met up with Karl and also saw Brett at the event. Ward was there as well and I wouldn’t be surprised if he posts some info about the event in the near future on his blog or…
I needed to get some business cards to hand out at various times and decided to try the Flickr / Moo option. I have a Flickr site and read the specifications for sizing photos as Moo cards and made 10 card designs in Photoshop. I got the Moo 100 card pack for approximately $20 and…
The following links play very short clips of footage from the Vitruvius project. The files are Quicktime movies at 320×240 resolution. Unfurled Writing Book IV The Orders of Antiquity The Books of Architecture More to come as filming continues.
The lighting that I have been using for my films so far consists of incandescent bulbs and inexpensive Clamp Lights that you can get at hardware stores. I believe Karl at Between the Frames may be using the same lighting system. I modify them by putting 4 holes around the rim which allow me to…
The Sword of Damocles is a short stop motion animation that was made in response to the StopMoShorts December 2006 contest. The contest provided three words (sword, cave, and fear) to inspire animators. I focused on the sword with the idea of doing something related to the legend of the Sword of Damocles. I would…
My short film “The Sword of Damocles” is now showing along with several other stop motion films at the StopMoShorts.com web site. Here is a sketch of the character designs that I used when building my puppets. I plan to post more info about the making of my film later.
I recently attended a meeting of animators in the Atlanta area in a get together called “The Atlanta Animation Workshop“. As I recall there were more than 20 people in attendance and various works in progress, student works, and other animations were being screened. Members and guests come from all schools of animation so CGI,…
Listen to an MP3 of the Chord Progression Motif In between trying out the new Zigview video assist and doing other things I’ve started working on the musical score for the Vitruvius film. The motifs are being constructed in the key of G Sharp Minor and in the Dorian Mode. Why? Because that is the…
I just got the new Zigview S2 (model B) with video out which is intended to help with video assist. I tried it out tonight with my Serlio puppet and here are some photos, info, and some thoughts about the product so far. There is also a thread at the StopMotionAnimation.com forums with another Zigview…
I usually listen to music when animating. For the Vitruvius project I’ve been enjoying a mix of recent releases from bands such as Dungen, His Name is Alive, Simple Minds, Daniel Lanois and Wolf Parade. Speaking of Wolf Parade, I found the following music video of their song “Modern World” on YouTube. It looks to…
A couple of quick behind-the-scenes photos of the Serlio prologue stage sets. I’m in the process of shooting footage with the Serlio books and will finish the set design for the Serlio puppet when I begin shooting those scenes next. You can see my set framework in these photos which is constructed with pine…
It looks as though my short film “Man Drawing a Reclining Woman” screened at the Portland Indy Animation Festival. I don’t have other information at this time except for the online schedule which lists my film and my name.
View Quicktime Movie I used the Flash pre-visualization test (see previous post) to assist with a very short test using my actual set and objects. I printed out the Flash movie as a series of small thumbnails on 8.5″ x 11″ paper. I then used the printed sheets of individual frames for visual reference when…
I spent [another] hour with Macromedia/Adobe Flash tonight to experiment with animation timing and choreography of multiple objects. The result is the clip you see above. I used motion tweens to smooth everything out and added rotation to the objects to make the movement more dynamic. View the first version which was has very rough…
The secondary set (aka the Serlio Set) is almost done. Part of this secondary set development includes another minimal set that will be used for my prologue. I want to include some form of introductory segment in the Vitruvius film. The idea for a prologue emerged after listening to comments from people who saw my…
REVISED UPDATE – NEW PHOTO OF SECONDARY SET: Update to my update. I’m playing around with a desk, chair, and props for the puppet. ORIGINAL POST: The secondary set is almost done. It is a minimal and basic set for the Serlio character which is also being modified a little. I need to make a…
A growing number of stop motion animators are using services like blogger, wordpress, or moveabletype to run their webs sites. As such, the sites are usually accompanied by a web feed (RSS feed) which allows people to subscribe and keep up with new postings without having to surf around the web all day. It makes…
May 2006 was character development month complete with armatures, mask-making, and clothing. The puppets for the Vitruvius project are made of aluminum wire and epoxy putty for âbonesâ? in the arms, torso, pelvis, legs, and feet. Iâm using the Nick Hilligoss T-shaped tie down method for the feet. The head construction starts with balsa wood…
View Quicktime MOV (approx 4MB) Prior to 2003 I had been working with Lightwave and 3D computer graphics as my medium for independent film projects. As it turns out those projects never left the pre-production phase because in 2003 I made a wooden ball-and-socket joint to see if it would simulate the function of a…
Animation News The Animation Extravaganza took place Thursday night and I would estimate that about 300 people attended both shows. My film, Man Drawing a Reclining Woman, was the first to be shown which surprised me since I thought the line-up would be different. It is a different experience to see your film in a…
I went to the opening night event and got my filmmaker badge and the program. Tonight is a screening at the Center for Puppetry Arts called “Handmade Puppet Dreams” which I plan to attend unless it has sold out since I didn’t know about it until last night. Before the event there are tables out…
Here is some more production information about the Durer project which is complete and being submitted to various film festivals. The armatures and puppets are made out of bass wood, wooden beads, and threaded rods. The smallest bolts I could find are used to clamp the wood plates around the wooden beads that make up…
The main set for the Vitruvius project was constructed between April and May 2006. The following is a general description of the process and some photographs. Materials used: Pink insulation board for making set mock-ups, the background hills and buildings Durham’s Rock Hard Water Putty to cover the insulation that make up the background hills…
It is official. My short film “Man Drawing a Reclining Woman” will premier at the Atlanta Film Festival on June 15, 2006. It is part of the Animation Extravaganza which screens a group of selected shorts in a 2 hour venue. I’m looking forward to seeing “Ichthys”, “Dragon”, “Loom” and “The Wraith of Cobble Hill”.…
These are the anatomy pattern sheets that I have been using for my wire armature development. I looked through some “anatomy for artists” books and made the figure design based on 1″ units for the male pattern and 15/16″ units for the female pattern. The nice thing is that I can just pick any size…
I’m researching for cameras and lighting, mainly using the archives of stopmotionanimation.com right now [ read this thread ]. Since I know I’m going for a DSLR the information I’m trying to find out falls into the categories of lenses, focusing, apertures, and possibly flicker and light issues in regard to camera settings. Video assist…
I needed some trees for the set have more detail set so I got some poly-fil and something called “cluster stuff” which looks like very tiny cotton balls. I’m using a flat green interior latex paint for coloring the ground and foliage. I’m waiting for the paint to dry and will then attempt to put…
I sometimes paint on canvas with acrylics. The big easels at the art store always grab my attention but they can cost a large sum of money. Some time ago I stumbled across this web site with plans on how to build your own easel with 2×4’s. The advantage is that you can build an…
For my completed film, Man Drawing a Reclining Woman, I’ve made a DVD that is both NTSC and region free for my submission copy to send to film festivals. I’ve also registered with Withoutabox, which is a one-stop resource for describing your film and submitting it to many film festivals and paying registration fees. The…
I’ve finished my draft set design and now I’m working out the composition and refining the dimensions and space needed for the objects of the set and the background.
I recently completed my draft set design. (Photos 1 and 2) I used a sheet of foam insulation and hot glue to form the basic shape. (Photo 3) I also threw together some architecture props to see if using foam and watery putty was going to work. (Photo 4) I covered the foam with two…
I’ve been working on my armature development for the current project. The picture above ( click to enlarge) is of my latest armature tests. I’ve been using the aluminum wire and epoxy putty to make the skeleton of the armature then I use Sculpey Super Flex Bake & Bend to add muscles and body mass.…
I have been working with wire, Sculpey, and liquid latex to test armatures for my main character. I’ve also begun to try some animation tests to see how my armature will behave during production. Here is the first picture of my prototype character with costume. Vitruvius Project History (draft version while I revisit my notes…