Stop-Frame Animation
- Maxine Callow
- Jun 11
- 2 min read
Long ago I made a stop-frame animation video for a song for my daughter’s band, Hello Mabel. It was in the Zambian heat and it took me a week to get all of the pictures, hindered by the heat keep melting my Plasticine models. It was fun, time-consuming and a labour of love.
This week I decided to make another for social media to promote my attendance at Ceramic Wales. Using my ten wee mice, I wanted to have an amateur, old fashioned, Victorian feel to it.
In the studio, with the never-failing assistance of Tom, I set up a backdrop and some spotlights. Tom set up the tripod with my iPhone and a remote to take the pictures. We managed to get around 150 pictures that I could turn into a video and then add some audio and a voice recording to.
To actually make the video I used Edits by dropping all the pictures into it and then laboriously setting the timings on each one to slightly longer than recommended, 0.7 seconds. This I hoped, should produce the clunky effect I desired.
When this worked, I downloaded the set of pictures as a reel noting the duration. I then uploaded the reel back to Edits so that I could further work on it.
Using voice notes on my phone, I then recorded a section of the relevant poem until I could get it to the same duration as the clip. I added this through Edits.
I researched some Victorian sounding music as a background and, again, added this through Edits, cutting at the same duration.
Finally, I added a filter to enhance the aesthetic of the pieces yet still give an old-fashioned feel.
It didn’t actually take that long. I used a whole lot of phone battery, but it wasn’t too time consuming. The final effect pretty much hit my brief, and I was pleased with it. It’s never fun to hear your own voice, but Tom politely declined that request. And my mice looked really cute. It’s something I may look at in the future as a means to ring the changes on necessary social media posting.
Comments