Stop-Motion Character Animation

This stop motion animation was made together with Jessica Tong and Edric Yamamoto. At first we were thinking of using rubik's cubes and transformers, but it got a little complicated and so we decided to simplify. Ed has his son's shoes and we thought we could use just the shoes to tell a story about a person's life. So we begin to brainstorm about a concept and a story, then we set up our stage. 

 

 we used an app on the ipad called StopMotion and used clamps to attach the ipad to the ladder. The app takes pictures and combines it into a video for us. It also has a playback setting, undo and onion skin - which helped very much. We diffused the hanging lamps with just paper and tape and add another light source to create even lighting.

Edric made platforms for the shoes so they'll be able to pose in different positions while Jessica started planning how to animate the walk. We did the walk in 6 frames per second and 4 frames per second. We have passing positions and contact positions for each one of our walks. we decided to create cycles that blend into each others to show continuity of character and we tried to simulate camera pan by moving the shoes back and forwards.

 We also used tapes to mark where the edges of cameras are. also to mark where the center for the shoes are. to keep track. A mark on a piece of cardboard become a measurement to make sure the shoes are moving at a consistent pace. 

As you can see from the picture, I animated the sneakers and also the heels. we all took part animating step by step and we all took part in planning the story, timing and movement. It was good to work in a group because we can make sure everything was on place. 

of course sometimes there are interruptions.