I did an animation tonight using the pop thru ideas mentioned in the previous post. Here is the result.
Category: Work In Progress
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RE: Pop-thru Animation Technique Posted by Sven
Sven posted some intriguing ideas about utilizing pop-thru in a project as the actual method of animating for stopmotion. The idea appeals to me especially in terms of time. Wanting to see what it felt like to I threw my character on the stage and tried some poses and here is the result. The total time was about 30 minutes from setting the puppet in front of the camera, transfer of image files, color grading, editing, and rendering out the edited frame sequence from Vegas…in short it was fast. I have other thoughts to post about this later in the week or possibly the weekend.
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Camera Dolly – Test Shots
I tried out the dolly and confirmed that the current tripod mount is unstable…although I kind of like the uneven quality of the movement. I’ll probably try to mount the whole track on something more stable.
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Camera Dolly 2008
Recently I read some information about camera rigs and the concepts found in model railroad designs inspired me. So, I browsed the “orange” home improvement store and found some items to build a dolly over the weekend.
All photos are on the Flickr site (click the photo to see them). You can probably get the idea from the pics without further description but post a comment if you have any particular questions and I can upate the info.
Pros: It seems to work pretty good.
A test video is coming soon.
Cons: The tripod mount is too unstable and results in camera shake. Putting the rig on a firm stand should do the trick. -
Index Card Exercise (Follow Up to Starewicz Post)
Ok, so I’m done with the exercise. Here is a photo of the final board.
I forgot to mention in the previous post to work the exercise quickly…do not over analyze anything…it’s more stream of consciousness in that respect I suppose. Just go with the ideas that come to mind as disjointed as they may be at the time. Make cards at the moment a visual strikes you, regardless of where you are in the exercise, and post it anywhere on the board.
Before this exercise I had some loose notes and thumbnails of my next project…but I was unsure of the final act. I always like to solidify the final scenes of the movie before I start any filming so I know the direction I’m going. Sometimes the end can change when you are filming but at that point the production is moving so changes become more or less justified by what you see developing. This exercise paid off by giving me a complete skeleton to hang the production on and move on to the next step which will most likely be animatics to confirm how the concepts are holding up in the video medium.
When positioning my cards some visuals were indicative of breaks or pauses which seem to equate with acts so I moved the cards around…sort of like paragraphs or sentences. Once I got the main visuals on the board I started filling in with other scenes like mortar between bricks. I also stopped to ask questions about what happens at this point or that point…and somehow (this is the beauty of being in a creative zone – I have no explanation for this type of stuff but if you’ve experienced it you know what a charge it can be) some new ideas came out of nowhere and tied up the ending.
If my theory hold up it looks like the film may be around 5 minutes, not that it matters, it will be as long as it wants to be…the film is in control now. 😎