Harryhausen Like Stop Motion Effect

R

romantico

Member
I am trying to do a couple effects for a film short and I want it to have a very old style sci-fi look to it. Is there a way to get a stop still motion effect? I have a scene that is very brief (maybe 15-20 seconds) where two skeletons come alive move around like humans. A similar scene was used in Spy Kids 2 not to mention Ray Harryhausen's classics. What is the easiest way to do this?

Here is kind of what I am looking for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiTSyZbIjAg
 
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there are a number of applications that will let you do stop motion. I only know Mac software but there are probably lots on the PC side as well. iStop Motion, Frame Theif, Single Framer etc. They will use your camera to grab frames and most also do onionskining so placement is easier.
 
Thanks! I am using a Mac so I will check it out. Anyone know if there are screen tests or tutorials that show this? Just curuious. Thanks again!
 
use a digital still camera, you will be able to get a much higher resolution then an HD camera. Just shoot it frame by frame and export as an image sequence.

I just did a stop motion music video worked out pretty well.
 
While using a still camera works, there are a few caveats to be aware of. The biggest problem is that still cameras aren't designed to maintain a constant exposure, so there will be slight variances from frame to frame even under tightly controlled lighting setups. Most good stop motion softwares can compensate for this, you have to be careful, and prepared to clean up some frames manually.

Of course, this all depends on the fidelity you want. If you want that old style look then you can fudge here and there and the results will be usable, but knowing and understanding the rules and technicalities is the first step to breaking them.

Some cameras can also do live output which can be captured via software, but then they are usually limited to 640x480 res, unless you have something like the D300 with full 1080 live output.
 
Hey Oneinf, Here's a little test of your knowlege:

What was the first movie to overcome the one real limitation of stop motion animation, and how did they do it? No Wikipedia either or you will be a cheater cheater bo beater. :thumbsup:



It also happens to be one of my all time favorite movies.
 
oh, and what about using a remote to start your video canera, after you have made the adjustment, film for 5-10 seconds, hit pause, change the position, again use the remote to start, film for 5-10 seconds, and hit pause.

Do that over and over and over, open with an NLE with Scene Detect on, you will have a crapload of little files, import them all at the same time (they should line up in order) and then just export a frame from each clip as a .tga or something.
 
Matt Grunau said:
Hey Oneinf, Here's a little test of your knowlege:

What was the first movie to overcome the one real limitation of stop motion animation, and how did they do it? No Wikipedia either or you will be a cheater cheater bo beater. :thumbsup:



It also happens to be one of my all time favorite movies.
Click to expand...

I don't know. I'm not a stop motion expert, just have always had an interest in learning more if I ever find the time.

For a wild guess...James and the Giant Peach?
 
oneinfiniteloop said:
I don't know. I'm not a stop motion expert, just have always had an interest in learning more if I ever find the time.

For a wild guess...James and the Giant Peach?
Click to expand...

I'm not an expert either, I just wanted to have some fun. :thumbsup:

It was Dragonslayer, where for the first time they used what is called Go-Motion to achieve animations with motion blur.


I found that out a few years back when I happened to see that it was playing on HBO and when I watched it, I could clearly tell it was stop motion, but also had motion blur. Curious, I looked it up. Cool technique, each "movement" is made and a very primitive type of computer thing remembers the position change and when they shoot the frame, a motor/hydrolic system moves the puppet.

Really neat stuff.


By the way, in my last post about using multiple video clips and Scene Detection, do you think that would be an effective way of doing what he wants?
 
That second one is insane. I am stunned.


There's one out there with some guy making pancakes, but I can't find it. It is extremely impressive.
 
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