Stop-motion animation II

The other day I posted about doing some simple stop-motion animation:

Stop-motion animation

I also talked about how I hoped to do some more animation with my boys.

Well, we did.

Storyboarding took one night, prop construction (the house, the backdrop [tablecloth over two chairs]) took one night, filming took one night, and image assembly took one night.


Click the play button. You may need to wait a minute. If it still doesn't work, you can see it here.
This video stored free at Putfile. Thanks Putfile!

The steps were more or less the same as last time - same camera, same programs. The people were filmed going into the house in forward motion, but the construction of the house was done by filming the brick-by-brick removal of the house, and assembling the images in reverse order.

There are three things we'll do better next time:

• Lighting and exposure control (to stop the flickering)
• Better focus control (stop the blurriness), and
• A better attempt to control the wobble of the base.

Still, we're happy with the result.

I don't think we should lose sight of the number one reason for doing it - to have some fun doing something a bit out of the ordinary. And it was fun!

Perhaps the thing my boys enjoyed most was that a few times, the timer went off with my hands still visible:



They thought that was a hoot! Each time they just went off their nut.

And a good time was had by all.