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stop motion animation mixed with live action performances

N

nobudgetfilmmaker

For my fan film sequel, I'm upping the ante. Unfortunatly that also means 'upping the effects'. For a segment of the movie I want a creature to attack the actors (the creature being the Licker from the RESIDENT EVIL series). I figure that the best option would be stop motion animation (making a costume is WAAAAAYYY out of the question) but I have never tackled an effect like this.

Does anyone out there know of any easy methods to do this kind of any effect? I've done stop-motion before, just not added to a shot with live action performances.
 
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you take pictures of your creature on green screen, take all of your pictures, throw em in premiere, create a video sequence.
then u go to after effects, remove the green screen, and then you can insert the video of the creature onto your footage.
 
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I've been thinking about this, as something I'd like to try, for something kind-of "Evil Dead"-esque. I've never done it, so I can't be 100% sure, but...

As dlevanchuk stated, you'll just shoot it before a green-screen. Then key the green out. When I've been looking into this, the one thing that's sprung to my mind is about depth and perspective, so it'll fit perfectly into the scene. You'll need to shoot the stop-motion as you would shoot any other miniature, meaning you need to check your angles and distances. This isn't something I've done either, but there's a good section on it in "The DV Rebel's Guide" by Stu Maschwitz.

Also, keep in mind that it will look comical. Theres no fooling the viewer that what they're looking at is not stop motion. For my idea, as I said, trying to recreate the asthetic of "Evil Dead", it'll work fine, it's meant to be funny. If your film is serious, think about it a little more.

That said, there's no harm in trying, right?
 
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I echo the above suggestions.

Locked-off / tripod shots are always easier for this kind of stuff but if you did want extra realism, you can use slight camera movement.

Camera-matching shouldn't be hard if you avoid moving in and out of the footage (depth) and keep it mostly X/Y. Track the camera motion, and insert the keyed character (think of it being on a 3D plane) into the footage.
 
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