Details

I believe I did mention several weeks ago the stop-motion video I made for the OYAN video contest. Well, it's entered AND it's posted here along with at least some of the other entries, which you also might enjoy! Mine is the one called "No Small Potential", which should be the one that shows up. (It also says it's by King's Compass--that's my name on the OYAN forum, if you were wondering).

The video I made is about a minute long, but it has over 300 pictures in it. It was kind of an ambitious project, I suppose, but I didn't really know what I was doing, and I managed to finish it in one weekend, so I think it was worth it. But I can't imagine making a full-length film! That would take forever just to take all the pictures, let alone put it together!

So, the way stop-motion works is that it shows still pictures each with subtle differences in quick succession. The changes (usually a different position of some part of the subject) create the illusion of motion. For example, in the section of my video with the dragon, there's that part where he turns around. I started with his head first and moved it just a little bit and took a picture, then moved it another little bit and added some 'movement' somewhere else (he moves towards the girl) and took another picture. It was an incredibly slow process. Also, my 'stage' wasn't exceptionally large, so I had to be careful to show only the background I wanted (no bedroom carpet). This was especially hard with the dragon sequence, since so much was happening. In addition to all that, my little fairy girl didn't like to stand up on her own, so there were several times I had to prop her up with a needle or try to dangle her from fishing line and take the picture as quickly as possible before something happened (a.k.a. she fell over). I used fishing line for when the dragon tosses her sword in the corner and when her horse rears. There were at least 4 pictures in each of those small movements, if not more like 10, but in order to get them how I wanted I had to hold the fishing line in one hand and take the picture with the other. Thank goodness for my tripod to keep my camera from moving!

Over all, the process was long and tedious, but I thoroughly enjoyed it! I am most definitely a detail person, not to mention it was very quiet working down in my room by myself :). The final step was putting it all together on iMovie, which would probably have been easier and faster if I had done it before. I ended up adjusting each individual picture to have the right length of time so that the motion would be smooth, but also at a good speed. The process itself wasn't hard, just (once again) lengthy. If you're interested in how to do something like that, I'd be happy to show or explain, but I won't go into detail now.

One recommendation: if you're not a detail person who enjoys tedious processes and, well, details, stop-motion videos are not your project. Trust me.