On the Subject of Animation

Eggs and Spoons

Here is a much more elaborate stop motion test, where I explored lighting and camera position. No eggs were harmed in the making of this video, and the spoons were a delight to handle! <- see what I did there?

Tags eggs, F15, spoon, stop motion

Animation

The Virgin Toenail

Based on the idea of a Virgin Thumbnail (explored previously), I wanted to see what happens if one extends the scripture to the another appendage.

Featuring my very old Skool Vans sneaker and paper-cutouts.

Tags F15, stop motion

Animation

Coo Coo Cachoo

Here is a stop motion short featuring that I made with features both hand drawn frames and object animation.

I started by drawing the actor, “Egg,” using a light table. I have a round plastic peg bar, made by Lightfoot.

I then photographed each drawing…

And I used Dragonframe to export all the images as video.

I’m learning a lot from this process, especially the need to pay attention to the lighting. This little clip took more hours to produce than I’d like to admit, but I can see ways to streamline the production. I was very interested to see how the line quality of Egg’s tie and jacket would present when animated. I then switched to a thicker marker as he approaches his “freeze” scene. At one point, I accidentally blew on the “Jimmies” coming from his head, which scattered them across the table. I laboriously recreated the original position of each piece. And I didn’t notice until after shooting the entire sequence that I am visible in the spoon. I left it, but that was a “mistake.”

Tags eggs, F15, stop motion

Animation

Camera Test

Further exploring stop motion, I made the following test, which is a reprise of an older Flash animation experiment. This time, I moved all the layers by hand. The whole thing took a long Sunday afternoon, which entailed making the scene, boat and actor, exploring lighting and camera settings and then putting this together. Again, it’s just a test but shows great potential.