archived-videos Stop Motion Test Footage

Cracker Funk

Cracker Funk

Jake Sully's got the funk!

https://vimeo.com/44146545
PW: testing

or,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw-e7VX8VU4

Holy crap, stop motion requires a lot of patience. This meager two seconds of test-footage took me a couple hours to make (from pre to post).

Should the current plans move forward for the next music vid, the next stop motion will be in front of green, and will be a hand-built puppet (Sully was kind of a pain-in-the-ass to manipulate). And the next one won't be stapled to the floor.
 
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Vimeo keeps saying it has technical difficulties when i click the link.

A lot of errors have been showing up since they switched to the new interface. Im not in favour of it, which ive made clear to the vimeo staff like a lot of other paying users. I wont be paying for the 'vimeo plus' service anymore.

Will check out your work again in a bit and hope it works :)
 
Ernest Worthing said:
Vimeo keeps saying it has technical difficulties when i click the link.

A lot of errors have been showing up since they switched to the new interface. Im not in favour of it, which ive made clear to the vimeo staff like a lot of other paying users. I wont be paying for the 'vimeo plus' service anymore.

Will check out your work again in a bit and hope it works :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads-up. I've added a youtube link to the OP. :)
 
Looked pretty cool, though I'm still concerned with your fascination of Avatar :hmm:

How did you arrive at how much motion to apply to match the timeframe, btw? I've been experimenting with timelapse, and it seems to be a lot of wild guesswork at various speeds until becoming familar simply through trial & error.
 
Zensteve said:
Looked pretty cool, though I'm still concerned with your fascination of Avatar :hmm:

How did you arrive at how much motion to apply to match the timeframe, btw? I've been experimenting with timelapse, and it seems to be a lot of wild guesswork at various speeds until becoming familar simply through trial & error.
Click to expand...

I still love the movie Avatar (and likely always will), and you still need to see it! :yes:

The Sully action-figure was a joke-gift from a good friend. Whatever, I've got nerdier things in my house.

How much motion? I shot it for more frames than I would need, because speeding-up would look better than slowing down.
 
Vimeo still not working for me. Checked it out on YT. Personally, i think the motion could be smoother.

@Zen: You have some basic interval numbers for timelapses to start with so it's not totally wild guesswork. For eg, 10 secs for slow moving clouds and 5 secs for fast moving clouds.

But those are numbers you just start with and then change depending on how you like your motion. For eg, i like much smoother motion and use 3 secs sometimes for even slow moving clouds.

And yes, after a bit of experience you can just look at the sky or another moving scene and be able to tell with surprising accuracy as to what the interval should be to get the exact motion you want.
 
Thanks, guys.

Actually, I agree with Ernest -- this isn't exactly as smooth as I'd like it to be. But hey, it's test-footage!

We're not 100% sure we'll be going in this direction with the video, but if we do, it's to be an ode to old-school sci-fi. So, that being the case, even if I don't get the stop motion smoother, I'm perfectly okay with it being imperfect for this project (would kinda make sense, actually).

Though the motion is not as smooth as I'd like, I'm actually pretty happy with the fact that the background (and the floor) seamlessly blended together. In the actual video, it would be green, but I'm confident that I could light it well enough that I'd have no shadows, and since I'm planning on using a greyish character for the real thing, I feel like I wouldn't have to worry too much about green splash, while still oversaturating the background.

Of course I'd have to do test-footage with that, but this enough to make me feel like I can pull it off for this project. I'm hoping we officially decide to do it, cuz I'd personally have a lot of fun with it.
 
Hey, if it doesn't work out for the next project, it's something to do for the future, doubly so if you enjoy it. And now is a good time to observe just how amazing Coraline really is, now that you have first hand experience on what went into it!

But, yeah, stop-motion is awesome, and you can definitely pull it off!
 
Oh, no I didn't enjoy the stop motion aspect. That little 2-second clip was a complete pain in my butthole to make! :lol:

But it would be one small (but necessary) part of the project, as a whole, and I would definitely enjoy that, immensely. And thanks for the encouragement. At least for this project, I do think it would work.

And, like you mention -- even if this band doesn't want to do this video, right now, I'll always have the concept stored for any potential future project.

And yes, I have a tremendous amount of respect for movies like Coraline and Nightmare Before Christmas.
 
Cool stuff, man!

Not sure if you've looked into some of the stop-motion software available now, but onion skinning / overlay goes a long way in keeping things smooth since you can see your current frame as the character's being positioned vs. the frame(s) you just shot. It's kinda hard to prevent pops and maintain even spacing without a preview. ((I know this may be a one-time deal, so I'm not suggesting you get a pricey app like DragonFrame... but I believe there are some free ones available.))

At any rate, I think you did an excellent job with this test! Looking forward to seeing more!
 
Thanks, Frank! Actually, you answered a question I was about to ask, and that is software-related.

I figured I'd do some googling, before asking away, but since you brought it up --

Besides the incredible amount of patience required to gather the footage (I don't know how you do it so well), one of the biggest pains of this little test-footage was by my own doing. For capturing each frame, I used the free software that came with my camera. It's great for remote control purposes, but it's not designed for stop motion. I ended up inputting each still frame into my timeline, one by one. And then any effects I applied to one of them had to be copy-pasted to every other one.

Needless to say, that's dumb, and I only did it because this was such a short test-project. But for the bigger one, I definitely need software designed for stop motion. And, you are correct to assume that I won't be wanting to spend very much (better if nothing).

I'll do some searching for free software, and I'll be specifically searching for one that has the features you mentioned. Should anyone know of any, I'd definitely appreciate recommendations.
 
Cracker Funk said:
I ended up inputting each still frame into my timeline, one by one. And then any effects I applied to one of them had to be copy-pasted to every other one.
Click to expand...

I haven't tried my hand at stop motion yet so this may be completely wrong. But for still frames, when doing timelapses, i automate my photoshop to number the frames 001, 002, 003...

Then i import them into Premiere as a video clip. Premiere will give you the option to import all the pics inside a folder as a clip. Then interpret your footage into the frame rate you want. For eg, 12 or 18 or 24 for stop motion.

You can then apply your effects to that clip as a whole, as well.

Like i said, the procedure for stop motion may be different. Im sure others can confirm or correct me.
 
Cracker Funk said:
I ended up inputting each still frame into my timeline, one by one. And then any effects I applied to one of them had to be copy-pasted to every other one.
Click to expand...

As long as the files are sequentially-name/numbered (ie. "PIC001.JPG", "PIC002.JPG", "PIC003.JPG", etc...), you should be able to import "images as sequence" in most apps. I know it works in Premiere, After Effects, Edius and (I'm pretty sure) Vegas.

Once imported it's a matter of telling the app what framerate the sequence should play at. (in AE it's under Interpret Footage) The images are treated as a single video clip just like any others, so your filters apply to each frame.

Hope this helps!
 
Ernest Worthing said:
I haven't tried my hand at stop motion yet so this may be completely wrong. But for still frames, when doing timelapses, i automate my photoshop to number the frames 001, 002, 003...

Then i import them into Premiere as a video clip. Premiere will give you the option to import all the pics inside a folder as a clip. Then interpret your footage into the frame rate you want. For eg, 12 or 18 or 24 for stop motion.

You can then apply your effects to that clip as a whole, as well.

Like i said, the procedure for stop motion may be different. Im sure others can confirm or correct me.
Click to expand...

Aaaaaannnnd it would be cool had I scrolled down to see Ernest's reply. LOL! So yeah... what Ernest said. :)
 
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