Video and Sound Production/ Final Project: Stop Motion

28/06/2024 - 04/08/2024 / Week 10 - Week 15

Lim En Yu / 0354452

Video and Sound Production / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor’s University 

Final Project: Stop Motion

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Instructions

2. Lectures

3. Final Project: Stop Motion

4. Feedback

5. Reflection

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Instructions

Fig 1.1 Module Information

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Lectures

Week 10 Lecture Slide:

This is a slide briefing for our trial shoot of stop motion, and also information of our grouping and task distribution.

Fig 2.1 Week 10 Lecture Slide, Week 10 (28/6/24)

Week 11 Lecture Slide:

This week Mr Martin has taught us how to edit stop motion video in After Effects and Premiere Pro.

Fig 2.2 Week 11 Lecture Slide, Week 11 (5/7/24)

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Final Project: Stop Motion

During the first week, Mr Martin has assigned us a task which is choose 3 favourite short motion shorts and explain reasons being chosen based on style, art direction, character design etc. 

The first stop motion short that I have chosen is "Good Intentions". The reason that I chose this short film is because it is really meaningful and can be analyzed in different ways based on different people's perspective. It talks about how guilty could slowly devour a person which teach us that we should be responsible for every action that we have made. The film's art direction sets a somber mood with its dark tones and desaturated colors. Somehow I still scared if there got jumpscare or ghosts suddenly popped out as it really created a horror ambience. 

Fig 3.1 "Good Intentions" by Anna Mantzaris

The second stop motion short that I have chosen is "Negative Space". Before I watch it I have no idea of what the story will be like. However, I was amzed by the creative idea in the scenes like the undersea clothes which act like aquatic animals and plants. And also the perfect transition between the scenes. The one that impressed me the most was the last sentence, "looked at all the wasted space". This sentence could represent a lot of different meaning as it also a main point throughout the whole film.

Fig 3.2 "Negative Space" by Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata

I have chosen my third favourite stop motion short "Takri (The     Basket)" which is an almost 13 minutes stop motion, this really require a lot of hardwork to complete and I really respect to it. It does not have a  lot of fancy transition that amazed me but it captivates me with its straightforward and heartfelt narrative. I was touched and impressed by the storyline as this stop motion brings out the meaning that love is the most important thing.

Fig 3.3 "Tokri (The Basket)" by Suresh Eriyat

My prefer medium for this final project will be clay and legos. I will need to work solo as what Mr Martin has mentioned that Animation students will need to learn how to produce a film individually.

Week 10 Stop Motion Trial Shoot

Activity: Shooting stop-motion frame by frame to prepare students for their final project.

Objectives: Understand stop-motion shooting workflow

Group Members

• QISTINA NURALYA MARIA BINTI AZLY (Group Leader)
• LIM EN YU
• TAO YUZE
• KHU YING YING
• HANSON PEA WEI HAO

Images of the stop motion shooting: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XhJWOmTfiLdQUmIKe_ZWo4nRiL4BoRKi?usp=drive_link

Fig 3.4 Footage for clay stop motion, Week 10 (28/6/24)

Fig 3.6 Footage for paper cut stop motion, Week 10 (28/6/24)

After importing the photos taken as footage, we make it as a composition also to adjust the frame rate.

Fig 3.6 Import as footage, Week 11 (5/7/24)

To chane the frame rate, we can change the timeline setting in preference which is the number of frames of still image default duration. Also, we can utilize time stretch function to adjust the speed.

Fig 3.7 Adjust frame rate and speed, Week 11 (5/7/24)

After we have adjusted every shot, when we want to compose them together, we will need to open a new sequence to import all the shots' sequence together, thus we can adjust them individually.

Fig 3.8 Open new sequence, Week 11 (5/7/24)

Outcome of stop motion trial cut:

Fig 3.9 Stop Motion Trial Cut - Clay, Week 11 (5/7/24)

Fig 3.10 Stop Motion Trial Cut - Paper Cut, Week 11 (5/7/24)

Proposal

I have proposed my idea to Mr Martin and he was okay with everything. My idea was inspired by the "Bench" stop motion, as I was really shocked when I first watch it. It is a very nice stop motion but suddenly become so horrible, but I kind of like this style.

Fig 3.11 Proposal of final project, Week 11 (5/7/24)

Shooting

As I worked solo, I decided to do the shooting at home. Also, consider about the lighting issue, I have bought a ring light online RM15+, it is cheap and good to use! Other than that, before the shooting, I have bought the props needed and also printed out the background and floor picture. I sticked them on the cardboard so that it could be standing while shooting.

When I have not bought the clay yet, I used light clay that I have to try to make the characters to estimate the size. I think they looked cute! The small one looks like it fall in love with the big one.

Fig 3.12 Trying out on characters, Week 13 (15/7/24)

Fig 3.13 Set up for shooting, Week 13 (15/7/24)

Stop Motion Editing in Premiere Pro

After I finished shooting all the scenes, I have imported to my computer and separated them into different files. The same goes, I created different sequence for different scenes and shots.

Fig 3.14 Frames for different shots and scenes, Week 14 (22/7/24)

The software that I decided to use is Premiere Pro as I think it is easier to edit the video. First, I started by importing all the images into sequences according to the shots so that will be easier for me to edit everything afterwards. I have created 18 sequences in total.

Fig 3.15 Different sequences in premiere Pro, Week 14 (22/7/24)

After that, I have combined all the sequences together in the final sequence for me to edit the speed/duration, scale and length. I have increased the speed of most of the scenes as it seems a bit too slow. Also, I have made some keyframes on certain sequence which are zoom in and zoom out scaling effect.

Fig 3.16 Importing all sequences, Week 14 (22/7/24)

I decided to use my voice for both of the characters, as I no need to search for the sound effects online and I was able to make any voice that I want. For Greeny, as it was short and skinny, its voice is very high pitch and cute, so when I was recording, I tried my best to increse the pitch so it will be more natural when I done editing in Premiere Pro. I have utilised pitch shifter audio effect which we have learnt before and increase the semi-tone to 10 and it actually have the outcome that I wanted.

Fig 3.17 Adjusting pitch for Greeny, Week 14 (22/7/24)

Same goes to Bluey, I have also utilised pitch shifter audio effect function to lower down its voice. I deecreased the semi-tones until -4 only or else it will become too low as I have already lower down my pitch while doing the recording.

Fig 3.18 Adjusting pitch for Bluey, Week 14 (22/7/24)

For the sound effects, I actually do some by myself but mostly I searched them on the internet. I have also done screen recording to get the sound effects as sometimes I cannot find a mp3 file of it. Also, in order for the audio or sound effects sound natural, I added crossfade audio transitions which are either constand grain or exponential fade to the audios.

Fig 3.19 Adding audio transitions, Week 14 (22/7/24)

On the other hand, I only used simple video transitions by appling the dissolve transition which are cross dissolve and dip to black. I only used them at the end of the video in order to join with my credits ending.

Fig 3.20 Adding video transitions, Week 14 (22/7/24)

Colour Correction & Colour Grading

After finishing all the editing of the frames, I proceed to the colour correction and colour grading so that it will not looked that raw as I film it by my phone. I started by basic colour correction on the brightness and contrast of the scenes.

Fig 3.21 Colour correction, Week 14 (23/7/24)

Next, I have done my colour grading by slightly adjusting on the colour wheel. I did not adjust that much as I discovered all types of colour in shadow or highlight I found out that the original one is already okay after colour correction.

Fig 3.22 Colour grading #1, Week 14 (23/7/24)

Lastly, I also made some minor adjustment on the curve map to adjust on the contrast.

Fig 3.23 Colour grading #2, Week 14 (23/7/24)

Title Animation

I have done an intro of the title animation as I wanted to do this already during the proposal stage. I just want to do a simple but cute one as I think if just purely text of the title it will looked a bit boring. I have made the title into 3D texts in Adobe Illustrator so that it will looked more natural when I animate it.

Fig 3.24 Title in Illustrator, Week 14 (23/7/24)

After that, I animated it in After Effects with simple animation that dropping down every letters and with slightly movement.

Fig 3.25 Animating title in After Effects, Week 14 (23/7/24)

Fig 3.26 Final outcome for title animation, Week 14 (23/7/24)

Final Outcome for Final Project Stop Motion

Fig 3.27 Final outcome for final project stop motion, Week 14 (20/7/24)

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Feedback

Week 11: This week I have proposed my idea to Mr Martin with the synopsis and visual references. Mr Martin said that the idea was okay but he asked me why I wanted to add the scene in bakery, that was because I have the lego :D.

Week 14: I have shown Mr Martin my first cut this week, he was okay in overall, just that the bakery scene I could duplicate greeny outside the bakery one more time to let the audience know about the flow and not confused. Also, the last scene I could add key frames to zoom in, so that it would not be that shaky. Mr Martin said well done!!!  

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Reflection

Experience

This final project is so fun!! Just that the processof shooting is a bit tiring and tough as I need to be the director, animator, photographer and control the lightning all by myself. It is a bit hard for me to handle all things at once and need to make sure the outcome is good also. I took 5 hours in a day to complete the shooting which I think is quite fast and efficient (maybe). I think the most enjoyable moment was when I watching the final outcome, I cannot believe what I did with the clays can become an animation! Like I was watching my baby to learn to walk like that hahaha. Anyways I think this project is my favourite among all of the projects in this module. It is interesting to learn about stop animation and its shooting process.

Observations

In this project, I definitely observe how important that a single minor movement of the objects could affect the overall scene of a stop motion. This is because when everything was continuous and looks great, some minor mistakes of the wrong movement that you did not notice during shooting could destroy the whole scene! :( Other than that, actually working alone is not a bad thing also, as I could make decision all by myself, only I know what is the result that I want to present and how should I film it. Honestly I prefer working solo than pair very much but I just want to grumble that it was tiring.

Findings

Through out this semester, I find this project very useful as it definitely can plan my patience and organization skills whether I could plan everything organisely and neatly such as the props, backdrops, lighting, time, camera, animation, editing and etc. Before this prooject, I did not have much interest in stop motion, as I think it just simple animation but made by photos, nothing special. But now, I will really admire everyone that made good stop motion as I know it is not easy at all although it might not as fancy and dramatic then 2D or 3D animation. Now, I find stop motion very interesting and when I watch this kind of animations, I would watched it till the end and think how it works behind the scene.