Stop Motion: Pre Production Ideas
Research to Inform
Something that immediately comes to mind when I think of great stop motion is the animated music video for the song Fish in a Birdcage by the same-named band, Fish in a Birdcage. Not only is it a good song, but the beautiful paper cutouts by Iris Moore create an intricate and elegant visual story. The scene at the end with all the silhouettes especially shows the incredible detail and effort put into this piece of stop motion.
Laika Studios is well-known for their amazing stop motion movies. One of my favorites is ParaNorman, and this clip shows them making the armature of the main character, Norman. The video uses stop motion during the construction process and then for Norman “coming to life” at the end.
Create
Story Idea #1
For both of my story ideas, I tried to think of what objects I had available to make the animations. I realized I had animal and dinosaur figures from when I was a kid and thought maybe I could use them for my Linear story.
Story Idea #2
For my Non-Linear story, I considered a few of the options. I thought about a Book End, and the Puzzle, but decided to go with the Countdown by having a character who needs to get something back just in time.
Thinking about what materials I could use, I realized Lego was a good option. I knew I had a couple Lego horses which is where that idea came from.
Test Animation
For my stop motion test animation, I thought it would be cool to do a simple origami crane. I used a stop motion app on my phone, but for my fuller works, I will probably utilize an actual camera.
Some things I had to consider for this test were 1. the lighting and 2. the framing. I thought it was too tricky to avoid shadows and get even lighting in one room, so I moved to another. Even with more flat lighting, the animation ended up with some strange flashes between lighter and darker.
For the framing, I had to think about how the crane came together and what direction would look best. Because it was hard to keep the paper flat, I decided to point the top towards the camera so when it popped up, it would show the surface rather than the inside.
A frustration I had was getting the paper to lay flat as more folds made it thicker. It was hard to show a section moving back into place when it wouldn’t stay down, no matter how I pushed and bent it. Though, I don’t know how much it affected the final product.
A great feature I discovered in the app I used was an opacity bar that, when lowered, showed the previous photo under the current camera view. This really helped me line up my shots correctly. Another thing I used was the “Pause” option. This allows you to make a frame stay on screen for longer. I mainly used this when the origami had to turn or flip because those parts could be too quick and confusing otherwise.
Overall, it’s not the greatest or most polished animation, and there’s definitely ways to do it better, but it is a pretty simple and cute bit of stop motion. In particular, I like the end when the bird stands up, flaps its wings, and heads off.
