Stop Motion: Production and Post
Reading
Design Wonderland
With the power of animation, you can bring your wildest worlds to life. But once you define the rules of your world, you have to abide by them entirely, or your audience will give up on your story. No matter how strange your rules are, the audience will follow along until you fail to respect your own rules.
Before you begin, you have to choose your rules. First, specify the time and place of your world, then establish your physical, social, and visual laws. Adherence to your established laws will make your world authentic and consistent, keeping your audience's rapt attention. The time and place of your choice may not exist in the real world, but they must be logical and clear. Don't make wild and crazy rules because they seem cool; they must be relevant to the story. Fantastical worlds will overshadow your characters and storyline, altogether ruining your plot. Each society has a social structure to comply with, and your world will, too. The social norms of your world don't need to rely on any rules of the physical world, but they should enhance your story. In addition, the visuals you use to represent your new world must also be consistent. Take advantage of all art forms available at your disposal. Explore shape, color, texture, and space, or use an unfamiliar medium. Once you've narrowed down and established the visual aspects of your world, you can't change your visuals later without starting over.
Sound Ideas
In our world, the sound around us grounds us to our reality. Sound is reactive and obedient to an action. We generally expect certain sounds to follow specific actions: we see trees sway in the wind, and we expect to hear the leaves rustling. We step in a puddle and expect to hear the water splash. Every action in your world will need a subsequent sound to accompany it. According to Imaginary Forces founder Karin Fong, "music and audio do eighty percent of the work." By this, she means sound supplies the majority of context in our stories.
Of course, there are a few different types of sound. For example, diegetic sounds react to visible or implied actions—things such as dialogue, footsteps, barking, or thunder. Non-diegetic sounds are non-native to the movement on screen but enrich the environment you've created.
There are also different elements in sound: sound effects, music, and dialogue. Sound effects are a great and entertaining way to add meaning and subcontext to your story, but take caution not to overuse them. Well-placed and logical sound effects are beneficial, but excessive use will tire your audience quickly. You can also use music for sound effects to enhance the tone of each scene.
Music helps you identify the emotion and tone of your story, set the pace, and lead your audience's journey through the story. Sometimes, it will be best to use your music to underscore your theme, but other times it might be more effective to use compositions that contrast with your scenes. In addition, it might be best to use the sweet sound of silence (or subtle, atmospheric music) to move your story along.
For many films, dialogue is the main story: we want to see the emotion between characters in our movies. But with animation, you have unlimited visual freedom to express your thoughts and enhance the progression of your story. So unless you have tried all possible visual representations, dialogue won't be necessary for your animations. Nonetheless, you may need dialogue, so make sure your dialogue reinforces the identifying traits and personality you've created for your characters. Make your characters speak as they naturally would: use slang, dissociate, or veer off. Allow them to imply subcontext or set the mood of your story. Make your script clear but also entertaining. As Liz Blazer states in Animated Storytelling, "write brief and write clear, but also write visual."
Research to Inform
Effective Audio
My favorite cartoons growing up were Scooby-Doo, Looney Tunes, and Tom & Jerry. Tom & Jerry rarely used written dialogue, and most "vocals" were some form of yowling or laughter. Of course, the cartoons hardly needed dialogue because the soundtrack offered viewers the right amount of context. We can tell when they're running to chase each other or running from another character. Each object in the cartoon makes its own sound effect, making those sound effects one of the star characters. When the show used dialogue, the characters often had voices that bizarrely contrasted against the character's appearance. Here's an example:
Another classic example features Mickey Mouse in the 1928 cartoon "Plane Crazy." There are a few vocals, but again they're mostly laughter or shouting. The sound effects accompany on-screen action, and a musical composition underscores the animation.
Effective Text Animation
Here are the title sequences for Scooby-Doo shows between 1969 and 2016:
Not all of them are fully animated, but many use great examples of changing technologies in text animation throughout the years. They're also amusing and nostalgic.
Wizards of Waverly Place might have used the same title sequence for the first three seasons, but the animation used was incredible, including the text animations.
Create
Last week, I came up with an animation concept about a pencil who wants to draw but doesn't have paper. Then, I created two story ideas for production: a linear storyline or a non-linear puzzle storyline. I chose to bring the linear story to fruition, so I developed a complete stop motion animation this week.
Before I started, I made sure I had all of my characters: a pencil, pen, pencil sharpener, and sketchbook. Then, once those were gathered and ready, I planned out the stage and how to make the characters move around the stage (after all, my characters are inanimate objects):
I wanted a desk reminiscent of elementary school desks. I happened to have old kitchen counters that are butcher block-style laminate pieces.
I compiled scrap wood from the garage and an old metal shelf piece to make a grid above the stage. The grid allowed me to manipulate the characters with ease.
I used another piece of scrap wood to hold my green screen (green muslin from Walmart for a prior project) on the rear of the grid so it would fall behind the stage.
With electrical wire, I attached my characters to the grid as puppets. The wire wrapped around the pen and pencil to hold them up while giving me the liberty to shift them around. Shortly into shooting, I changed these wires for a rope tied with a running knot. The running knot allowed me to raise and lower my characters. With the wire hooked on the bowl of the running knot, I could still change the positioning of each character.
Lights
In theatre, we like to say, "without lights, this is just a radio show." So, I gathered enough lamps to sufficiently light up my stage area. I chose to set everything in the garage because the garage has minimal natural light; thus, I can control every light source in my work area. I used a total of three lamps and the overhead garage light: one for each side and a third for an overhead center, attached to the grid.
Camera
For my camera, I used my trusty Nikon d3100, Sadie. Before shooting, I ensured all of Sadie's batteries were fully charged and my memory card had total storage capacity available. Next, I set Sadie atop a tripod and attached a remote shutter release to reduce the risk of shifting the viewpoint. Later, I added an adjacent tripod to film a time-lapse video with my phone.
Action!
When I began shooting with my characters attached to the wires, I discovered it was challenging to raise them. So, I added a rope tied with a running knot to the middle. I kept the wires attached to the characters and hooked over the grid for ease of use. The new setup allowed me to adjust the characters with the wire and lift them with the rope.
Then, I shifted each character slightly for each frame, following my storyboard. After two hours, I captured 580 frames and nearly reached the pencil sharpening scene. However, I left each piece exactly where it was and returned to it the following day. From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., I finished the pencil sharpening scenes and captured about 300 more frames. After 3:30 p.m., I finished the drawing sequence in the final scene. The shooting process took about nine hours, six of which I used on the drawing sequence, totaling 1065 frames.
I transferred the images from my SD card to a new folder for "Pencil Pusher." Then, I organized these images into a single sequence using Adobe Lightroom since the raw files jumped number sequences. After the photos were loaded into their new folder, I imported them into Adobe PremierePro as an image sequence. Once the image sequence loaded, I created a rough audio score of the sound effects I would add and where. Then, I returned to my makeshift stage and recorded the sound effects needed for on-screen actions. In addition, I recorded the vocals for characters and downloaded a ding effect for the lightbulb animations. Then, with Photoshop, I added the lightbulb effects in a video layer and imported the effect to PremierePro. I did have some difficulties with creating an ultra key for the green wires, but I do have some ideas and will update you soon.
With further ado, here is the premiere of "Pencil Pusher!"