Stop-Motion Production

Apr 28th, 2008 by spvc

Hey guys, this is the first time I’m blogging here. Hell, it’s the first time I’m blogging anywhere, so bear with my language.

Note: Only some of this information was taken from sources liek wikipeedia, so if you think I’m just bull-crapping at some points, I probably am.

Now, I’ll just skip on all the history crap, and get down to the one thing at hand:

What is “Stop-Motion”?

Well, to answer that question, let’s look at the definition of video in some random online dictionary:

â€¢ noun (pl. videos) 1 the system of recording, reproducing, or broadcasting moving visual images on or from magnetic tape. 2 a film or other recording on magnetic tape. 3 a video cassette. 4 Brit. a video recorder.

(Alright, it’s Oxford.)

Basically, a video is a series of still images put in order and played back at a rate fast enough for our brain to register as motion.
We call these still images in a video “frames”, but you probably know that already.

Now, say we actually take this a little more literally, the “still images” part to be exact. Yep, you got it, that’s where stop-motion began, especially when video was still “new” in the old, old days.

The following are classified in “real” stop-motion though(according to the weekee):

Animation of non-animated objects.
Animation of living things (using photos, duh)
Pinscreen animation (round and round it goes)

And etc. Gawd, I am lazy.

King Kong (The 1933 one) was a stop-motion. Quite famous in its time.

Model animation falls into stop-motion too.

And “claymation” too. Woo.

So, at this point you pretty much get the idea what it’s all about.

Feel like making a stop-motion too? Don’t worry, it’s pretty simple to do. You just need:

An actor/several actors (can be anything inanimate, even a 10-cents coin will suffice)
A decent camera. (and a decent tripod/stand)
A good sense of imagination.

I made a simple stop-motion video myself, using the very laptop I’m blogging on right now. Yes, I still believe it’s the epitome of (most) evil. Never trust it. >_>

Yes, it’s really basic, and the camera shots are a bit off (I used a point-and-shoot without a tripod, what’d you expect?!), but I was told it’s good. What has this world come to? :S

Of course, with a little bit more work, you’d prolly end up producing something like this:

That’s the advert for the new Nokia N-Gage application btw, whatever that is.

Yay, so that’s the end of my post. This is the Great Baka, signing off.