Leraning the Art of Stop-Motion: Lesson 3

SHOOTING STILL ANIMATIONS:

For regular movies and films, the camera takes videos - it captures live action - so it doesn't really matter if the camera is bumped a bit while recording; it's natural. But that doesn't work necessarily for stop-motion, since it captures still images.
One small little movement of the camera, just one little tap that moves the camera about a millimeter, can ruin an entire scene. Here's a demonstration of this happening:

You don't really notice it in the still pictures, but when they are played consecutively as an animation, the one odd image stands out.

This is why you can't just take pictures clicking the button on the camera either. You'll move the camera while you try to take images! So then... how exactly do you take pictures for stop-motion animations?
Simple: you need a program that takes the pictures for you.This is called tethered remote shooting.
There are many stop-motion programs that has a tethered remote frame capturing system, but there only a few cameras that are compatible with tethered remote shooting. These are the cameras I've mentioned earlier - DSLRs.

There are many available tethered remote frame capturing programs:
Dragon Frame: the official (and best) software for stop-motion editing and animation. Many big movie companies such as Disney uses this software for their stop-motion movies. It has the most advanced tethered remote shooting system, and the entire software costs $290 - $350.
Monkey Jam: the best free stop-motion animation software that has a tethered remote shooting system.

Basically, this is how a tethered remote shooting system works:
1. You connect your DSLR camera to a computer or laptop.
2. Open your tethered shooting frame capture software.
3. When you click the "Capture" button in the software, it also automatically takes a picture in your camera connected to your computer.

This is the best way to take stop-motion animations since you never ever move the camera at all.

Learning the Art of Stop-Motion: Lesson 2

TYPES OF CAMERAS:

There are many things that change a good animation... to a great one.
Lighting, Color Correction, FPS (Animation Smoothness)...
But none of that will matter if it lacks one, small, little object: a camera.

A camera is the most important and most useful equipment needed to make any sort of film, and how you use it to shoot a film determines how good it is going to be. There are many kinds of cameras from many different kinds of brands: Canon, Nikon, BlackMagic, HDV - there are hundreds and even thousands of cameras to choose from! But there are cameras made specifically for stop-motion; these cameras are called DSLRs.

DSLRs are cameras that are specifically designed to capture very close-up, still, auto HD images. They work very well with capturing stop-motion and professional photography. The most commonly used DSLR camera for stop-motion are the Canon EOS Digital Rebel series, Canon EOS Mark series, and Canon EOS Digital KISS series:

Canon EOS Mark 5D

Learning the Art of Stop-Motion: Lesson 1

LIGHTING SETUP:

Lighting is a key factor in any movie. Since stop-motion generally takes a long time to shoot, animating in places that have direct sunlight from the Sun isn't such a good idea. Everyone knows that the Sun rises from the East and sets in the West, correct? Well, this also means that the amount of sunlight at a certain location will change as the day progresses. In addition, clouds may also block the Sun, decreasing the intensity of the light. You might not realize this happening while you are animating, but it will become obvious once you play your film and the lighting suddenly goes from dark to light to dark to light.

You can see an example of this happening in the video from my first blog post, where I shot the film right next to a huge window in broad daylight. Notice how the shadows change in every frame (picture), and the lighting intensity varies between every scene.

To completely master the art of lighting, and make a film look as realistic as possible, you want no sunlight - none at all. How to accomplish this? Simple; you shoot at night. Well, technically, you could shoot in a room with no windows or any other types of 'holes' that reveals any sunlight, but that's not an option for me right now...

A basic lighting setup for stop-motion includes three light sources (lamps) set in different positions of a set:
   -A key light: the main source of light illuminating the scene
   -A fill light: illuminates or fills in shadows and reduces contrast.
   -A back light: illuminates the scene from behind
This is called the 3 Point Lighting Setup, and is used in almost any shot of any stop-motion animation.

I will try to use this lighting technique, and test around with it during my future animations.

The 20% Time Goal

Hey, guys!

For my 20% project, I want to accomplish creating one or two short stop-motion films.

Just in case you don't know, stop-motion is an animation technique that physically moves or manipulates physical objects to make it appear to move on its own.

OK... That might've sounded too complex. Basically, you take a picture of a still object, move it a little, take another picture, and so on. When you play all the pictures consecutively very quickly, the object gives an illusion that it is moving. Or at least, that's the main concept.

I've done some stop-motion animation before when I was in 6th grade, and the only thing I remember from that is that these things take time - lots and lots of time. I remember shooting this short 1 minute film took me about 4 days to complete:

By the end of this year, I want to become at least somewhat good at stop-motion animation, and I just hope to make at least one or two decent short films (about 10 minutes long) using stop-motion for my 20% project   :)