In need of Constructive Criticism

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djbobbyrhodes

Well-known member
For my Intro to Motion Pictures/Television class we had to do a stop motion animation short. Also, this was my first attempt at stop motion, getting behind the camera, editing, and SFX, oh and sound too. I guess I busted my filmmaking cherry on this one. :happy:

My teacher thought it was pretty cool, and he wants me to polish it up a bit so I can try to enter it in the school's MPTV showcase. Also, I get extra credit.

So, what I'm looking for is constructive criticism on ANY and ALL aspects of the video. Any and all comments would be greatly appreciated.

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I AGREE
 
Hey not bad.

1. Definitely cut a few frames off where the hero is tapping the bat on his hand (a whole beat really).

2. How about a cheesy blood swipe when you cut to 'the end'. Maybe some paper mache zombie brains in it.

3. Instead of having the hero take the second swig of booze can you just do a slow zoom on the radio?

4. Wonder if you could find a cool industrial type music sound for when the roller door is going up then when zombie appears cut music and go to a sustained violin note then back to music when 'the end' is shown.

Good luck!
 
Cool, thanks for the reply!

I totally agree with the bat tapping on the hand. It's way too long.

I might have an idea brewing for that one

Any reason for wanting to ditch the second swig of booze?

Interesting idea. Kinda build up the tension.

Cool. Anything else you would change or improve (besides the awful keying job I did)?

How does the music work, is the radio dialogue okay? etc. Anyone else have any ideas that could help me out?
 
DJBobby I think it looks pretty good. I did some stop-motion years ago on 8mm. This is better than my first attempt of a GIJoe getting attacked by a giant hand. What did you use for this? How well does it work for you? Good job.
 
reminds me of those ****ed up 80's commercials they aired when i as a kid...is the zombie drinking blood? does human blood contain a higher alcohol percentage then, lets say, snakes? I did a shot of snakes blood in TJ one time, I was so drunk I dont remember except it tasted exactly as nasty as you think it would.
 
i liked it, but i really wish you woudl have spent more time on the sculpt for your characer, would have looked so much better.
 
If you shot the second swig in a different framing would be ok but it looks like you've almost reused footage.

I like you're 'bad' keying as you put it.

Radio dialogue sounds good.
 
Brickhouse Media said:
DJBobby I think it looks pretty good. I did some stop-motion years ago on 8mm. This is better than my first attempt of a GIJoe getting attacked by a giant hand. What did you use for this? How well does it work for you? Good job.
Click to expand...

I used modeling clay over a wire armature for the priest (he does have a collar on if you look closely).

It worked really well for the character. However, I wound up wishing that I had just used a full articulated action figure by the end. The priest doesn't stand on his own all that well, and his joints weren't in quite the right spots. But for what it was, it was decent.

For shooting, I DL'd a free stop motion program. And then I hooked my old (I can't emphasize this enough) sony handicam to the pc and began clicking away.


jonE5 said:
i liked it, but i really wish you woudl have spent more time on the sculpt for your characer, would have looked so much better.
Click to expand...

I never claimed to be a sculptor. In fact, I think I kinda suck at it. But I think I did a my best. I'm guessing that a lot of the issues come from the camera as well as the green screen. The camera was taking super low res pictures like 1.5 or 2 megapixels. I lost a lot of quality there. I really did spend a lot of time on the characters, and I did have a lot of detail on the characters. The priest's face and hair were magical, and the dang zombie has his skin ripped off of part of his chest and his ribs are holding in some of his guts. That's pretty well detailed IMHO.

I have some cell phone images I uploaded to picasa that are (sorta) better than what eventually got translated to the screen here: http://picasaweb.google.com/104689429954656357347/ClaymationProject?feat=directlink


tmnt said:
If you shot the second swig in a different framing would be ok but it looks like you've almost reused footage.

I like you're 'bad' keying as you put it.

Radio dialogue sounds good.
Click to expand...

Busted. I actually couldn't get the character to hold anything in his hands. I made them way too complicated. Each hand was created with wire for bones. I mean every finger and knuckle. But when I tried to bend the hands, the wire cut through the clay. It was way too stiff. So I had to jimmy together a quick solution and that was 1/2 of a shot. So hands were useless, and his joints were way too stiff for fluid movement. I managed to get the bottle up to his face, but he wouldn't hold it still, so I couldn't get him bringing it back down to the table. So what you're really seeing is him grabbing the bottle, bringing it up for a drink, and then the same thing, but reversed. And I used it twice :undecided

So if I redo this thing, I will definitely be redoing that shot.

Heh, my teacher like the 'gritty' quality of the bad keying as well. He said it makes no excuses for itself. Sort of "yeah I'm right here! So what?" I think he's reading more into it than is really there.
 
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