Class 1 Wednesday, March 9 th, 2011
Day 3 Teachers: AM - Deck, Baade; PM - Laurie
• Introduction
MORNING
• Identity discussion & exercises
BREAK
• Stop animation examples & discussion
LUNCH
• Stop animation research exercise & presentations
Here are some examples of the various types of Stop Motion videos available on the internet (mostly on Youtube).
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
1. You need an idea. Try to stick with something simple for your first one – any action that can be split up into smaller parts works well. While brainstorming, keep in mind that you can expect to shoot around 10 photos for every second of film.
2. Once you have formally decided on an idea. Experiment by storyboarding your idea into specific scenes & shots. Once you have formalized your storyboard, create a shot list breaking up different scenes & shots to ease production. Time your shot list with estimated actual times it will take to produce your images.
3. You’ll need a digital camera & tripod. Since you won’t be printing these photos, you can set your camera to a small size image setting. This will let you fit more images on your memory card at a time. Depending on how long you’d like your movie to be, you may need to “fill and dump” your camera (copying the photos to your computer and erasing the memory card) multiple times before you are finished.
4. In order to turn your images into an animated video you will need video editing software like Apple’s iMovie. Don’t forget to include audio & credits to your finished project.
STEP 1: SHOOT YOUR ANIMATION
Let’s say, for example, that you would like to make that sock move itself across the floor. Start at the beginning: place the sock somewhere and take your first photo. Remember, you want to use camera (still frame) mode, not movie mode.
Using a tripod and only moving your object will make it appear as though your object is moving through your frame. Keeping the object in the same general area in each frame by moving the camera along with it will make it appear as though you are traveling with the object (the background will be changing).
After you’ve taken your first photograph, move the sock slightly in the direction you want it to travel and take another photo. Move it again by the same distance, and take one more. Continue this until the sock reaches where you want it to stop. You can manipulate your object in creative ways to add visual interest to your film, just make sure that whatever movement your object makes is done slowly over several frames.
Finally, if you make a mistake while shooting, delete that picture on your camera and take another. This will save you from having to edit your film later.
STEP 2: DOWNLOAD YOUR PHOTOS
Now that you’ve captured your images, you’ll need to get them onto your computer. We’ll be using iPhoto and iMovie for the Mac.
First, import your image files to iPhoto from the camera, and give them their own album. Once your photos have been imported & are moved to your album, close iPhoto.
STEP 3: FIND YOUR PHOTOS IN iMOVIE
Create a new iMovie project and call it whatever you like.
**Click on the camera icon (photo browser) in the middle of the right hand of your screen.
Locate & select your stop-motion album. All of your photos should now appear in order.
STEP 4: ANIMATE YOUR PHOTOS
In order for your animated short to play properly, you must tell iMovie how long you want each photo to appear before showing the next one. It’s kind of like creating a slideshow, except instead of giving each image a few seconds, you give it only a fraction of a second. The timing you choose will affect the overall tempo and length of your film.
Since videos you create in iMovie usually play at 30 frames-per-second, a setting of 3 frames-per-photo means you’ll see 10 photos every second. Now you can see why you have to shoot so many photos!
If you use the 3 frames-per-photo setting, you can easily estimate how many photos you’ll need to create a movie of a given length. In our example we used around 100 photos, for 10 seconds of video. If we wanted to make an animation exactly 30 seconds long, we’d shoot 300 photos.
Time in iMovie appears in “0:00″ format (see figure 3). The number before the colon is the number of seconds and the number after the colon is the number of frames (so 3 frames-per-photo looks like this “0:03″).
This next step is very important, so stay with us! In iMovie, select all of the photographs in your stop-motion album (the quick way to do this is to click on the very first photo and then, holding down the shift key, scroll down and click on the last photo.) Now click “Show Photo Settings” and type in “0:03″ for your duration in the floating window that appears. Click the Apply button and your photos will start getting sucked into the timeline at the bottom of the window. [Older versions of iPhoto let you set the duration in your editing window without clicking "Show Photo Settings."]
Once iMovie’s finished filling the timeline, hit play.
You just created your first stop-motion animated video short!
FINAL TOUCHES: MUSIC AND SHARING
To fine-tune your movie, you can slow it down by choosing to use more than 3 frames-per-photo. You can also add music to your short by dragging MP3s or AIFF files to the timeline, or browsing your iTunes library from within iMovie. You can also add sound effects and/or voice overs.
To share your stop-motion video, you’ll want to convert it to QuickTime. The steps in this process depend on which version of iMovie you are using. In general, look for “Export” or “Share” options, and try one of the default options.
That’s it! Don’t forget to save your project often as you go along.
Have fun, be creative and always EXPERIMENT!
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