stop motion

smithgallTV

smithgallTV

Active member
i know stop motion has been around forever but i was wondering is it done with a film/video camera or is it a still camera. I have always assumed each movement was a still shot and then these are simply threaded together to make motion. Given that assumption If I wanted to make a sequence that involved the motion of an inanimate object such as dolls I assume that the use of a better quality digital camera would be a better choice than using a DV video camera.

I want to make some reals dolls come to life for an idea I have and stop motion would be a better look for me than trying to create an animation of any kind. Am i thinking straight on this? Has anyone every done it before.
 
Two different approaches, but both work.

Some animation is done at 15 fps, which isn't as smooth as 24 fps, but is a lesser load of work for one second of story.
 
Tim Burton used the Canon dslr 1D mark 2 on "Corpse Bride".

It's the first time a digital stil camera was used for stop frame animation.
 
Stab,

Do you happen to know why it was the first time? Is there a technical limitation that i am unaware of. It would seem that it woudl be a natural decision.
 
I think it's the one of the first times someone has made a stop motion movie since the development of software and digital SLR technology that makes it a viable method.
 
smithgallTV said:
Stab,

Do you happen to know why it was the first time? Is there a technical limitation that i am unaware of. It would seem that it woudl be a natural decision.
Click to expand...

My guess is there just isn't a high volume of big budget stop motion films so there hasn't been a lot of innovation. Sure, there were two flicks this year, but they were done by the two main players in stop motion: Aardman and Burton.
 
smithgallTV said:
Stab,

Do you happen to know why it was the first time? Is there a technical limitation that i am unaware of. It would seem that it woudl be a natural decision.
Click to expand...

I got the info at the Dpreview.com forum.

Apparently Tim Burton was evaluating a whole bunch of dslrs for his movie, and settled on the Canon.

My understanding was the Canon 1d mark 2, at 8 megapixels was good enough to match 35 mm in resolution.

It's kinda exciting... you too can use the same equipment a Big Film Studio!

Don't know if I could do stop motion though... it sounds excruciatingly boring.

Some of the Canon folks are also shooting very brief movie clips with the Mark 2. It has a huge buffer and a fast frame rate.... it was designed for sports.

Maybe in a few years, they'll come up with a still camera with huge enough buffer and frame rate to actually do 24 fps movies (sigh).
 
That statement has been pretty misleading to alot of people. It's not the first time a dslr has been used for stop motion, shoot i've been doing it on national spots for years. They should've said the 1st time in a major, high-budget motion picture it's been used. Before that Burton used old vintage Mitchell motion control cams.
 
stabwound said:
Maybe in a few years, they'll come up with a still camera with huge enough buffer and frame rate to actually do 24 fps movies (sigh).
Click to expand...

Then it wouldn't be a still camera ;)
 
I did a stop motion short with just a consumer-grade sony mini-dv camera and a mix of premiere (back when they made it for mac still) and a program called "frame thief".
It was never well known for it's quality, continuity, or lack of errors - but it was a lot of fun to do, and I hope in the future to use stop motion for special effects in my next project/s.
If you want to check it out:
http://diamond.ath.cx:81/~chasm/Skank.mp4
It was for a video contest with an assigned theme (Skank being said assigned theme).

I definitely recommend shooting it with more frames than less - once you get into the pace of animation - it is not that difficult to shoot more - that way if you decide to slow it down more than anticipated, it will retain smoothness.

If it's a freestanding project, obviously it can be at whatever res/frame rate you wish, but if it's to be integrated with live footage, it might be a good idea to keep everything the same - my plans to use stop motion for SFX mean I'll be using my dvx for said stop motion sequences with all the same settings.

Spencer Berry
 
kai said:
Then it wouldn't be a still camera ;)
Click to expand...

That is very true.

But then again... a convergence is occurring.... even now some video cams will do stills, and some still cams will do video (albeit really crummy video).

Pretty soon some cams will do all above equally well, and even play mp3's and dvd quality movies....
 
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