Today I did a lecture on "medium hard puppet making".
"Easy puppet making" is taking a bit of epoxy and mixing it with armature wire.
"Medium hard puppet making" is still pretty easy (with practice), doesn't require any power tools, and gives you quite nice results.
"Hard"- cutting your own aluminum armatures (need a few power tools, and quite a bit of precision)
"Silly Hard"- making stainless steel ball-and-socket armatures (good ones). Why bother unless you're planning to be a pro puppet maker? Or are just really into metal work. If you need a ball and socket armature, buy it.
Anyway, here's a few pics of a semi-finished puppet:
And here's two images of the how-to: drawing him to scale, then on another piece of paper "light box" him around his edges, and then use that to draw in your armature of wire and epoxy, and make that armature (always working to scale)...
It was done using Dragon software, and the Canon Rebel T1. The result certainly is interesting, and implies a lot of creative uses in stop motion. Frame blurring or motion blur is typically lacking in stop motion. That's because one moves the puppet... takes an exposure. Then you move the puppet again... take an exposure. So the puppet is in a static position when each frame is taken. There is simply no movement to blur.
In live action, there are actual frames of film that are blurs of movement, when something moves quickly. And in traditional animation, the animator actually draws blurred frames. This lends the work a real sense of life, that can be realistic, or wildly stylized. But in stop motion, it tends to not exist.
But if you have a camera that can do a timed exposure (such as the Rebel can do, when working via Dragon), you can actually move the puppet while the exposure is being taken, giving blur.
In this test, the blurring is wild and extreme. If I did further tests, I'd use the technique more sparingly to see how it looks. What's curious (for camera nerds) is that for the first few frames of the test, there is very little depth of field. That's cause I was using a rather quick exposure time, to just get the held frames shot- around 1/8th of a second, at f5.6 (ISO 200). But just as the blurring frames start, you'll notice the depth of field greatly increases (most evident in the bg train). That's cause I had switched the camera setting to a 4 second exposure, and had to stop down to approx. f22 (still at ISO 200) to maintain consistent exposure.
This massive stopping down (from 5.6 to 22) greatly increased the depth of field. So it's neat to see a principle of lenses and optics (in this case: a smaller aperature increases the depth of field)so clearly at work.
Then, once the blurring frames were done, I switched BACK to 1/8th shutter and f5.6 (so as to quickly grab the frames, since they were just held frames) and you see the depth of field go back to how shallow it was in the first frames.
There's ways to reduce this visible shift in depth of field, namely I could have shot at a much higher ISO, which would have let my timed exposures be much shorter, and my f stop change be not nearly as dramatic. Or- I could have shot ALL the frames at the one timing exposure setting (in other words, set it and forget it, instead of shifting things on the fly). But hey- it's just test 01 of potentially dozens...
I'm very much enjoying the combo of Dragon and the fully manual DSLR for stop motion. I love being able to control all these attributes, something that was very difficult if not impossible in earlier "camera/software" stop mo setups.
Dragon really makes it simple, and easy. If you know your principles of lenses and optics, you can get to work making fabu stuff... fast.
NERD NOTE: As much as this is nice to do some fancy motion blurs here in 2010, check the video below. It's from The Mascot, by Ladislas Starevich. Shot in 1934.
Watch towards the end of this clip, as the animals jump around within the box. There's blurring there (and more in later clips, if you watch). And some wonderfully convincing rear-projection live action footage, as well!
Yet another reason why for my money Starevich is pretty much the tops in terms of stop motion historical figures. He did most of his stuff on his own, essentially at the same calibre as what was happening in Hollywood at the time (can say King Kong?), and did it all on a much smaller budget. And with far more charm (in my opinion).
I'm currently in production (on a co-production), with none other than Mr. Kaj Pindal, world famous animator. It's a film that features toy trains, brought to life through stop motion animation.
The concept is Kaj's, the trains are Kaj's... I'm providing some further creative insights, and my stop motion skills.
It's also a chance for us to test drive the studio's new HD set up that is running the Canon Rebel and Dragon.
The finished film will be about 3 minutes long, will be set to a lovely piece of music (a popular Danish tune from the mid 1800s), and will entertain both young and old. That's all I will say for now.
When will it be done? When it's done (I like Kaj's style towards release dates!)
I'll post updates on occasion. Here's a clip to get started:
I'll update the project occasionally, but here's a video to get it started. It was a great first day. We had recent grad (and super talented artist) Carla Veldman, Kaj himself, and our studio's technology guru Aldines Zapparoli, all grooving away.
It's a rare thing when you can get together a core group of talented and awesome people, of all ages (!) to make something exciting. And if you can listen to vintage jazz music at the same time, well... I think you've died and gone to heaven.
So I received a delightful surprise in the mail today. An advanced copy (I think that's what you call it when it's not on the stands yet) of Barry Purves new book, simply called "Stop Motion".
It's a beautifully designed book, laid out wonderfully, with great care. Super nice to simply hold in your hands. And as expected the content is fantastic. Purves has such a great writing style. It's passionate, assumes an intelligent reader, and never hesitates to take the metaphysical aspects of the medium seriously. I'm also very proud to say I have a total of three images from my own films in the book. I'm super excited to be amongst so many legends of the medium, and thanks to Barry who supports indie productions as much as (if not more than) big studio stuff.
Anyone who has breathed life into a puppet through stop motion can attest- something magical happens, something mysterious and deeply rooted in what it means to be human, the moment one lays hands on the object to be animated. Purves feels this deeply, and explores it. No other author's stop mo "how to" books do this, and it's vital to understanding the medium deeply.
A very nicely done graduation film from Sheridan's Animation Program.
I worked as Nathan's Mentor throughout the process, and it was a pleasure working with someone so dedicated and talented.
This version is about 90% done, and the unfinished portions are actually a great insight into the animation process. His rough animation is very confident and energized, which really shows in the few "in progress" portions.
I plucked this one off the stacks at Sheridan's library a few months ago, just at random. It's not for making stop motion puppets, but rather various hand puppets. The book very much impressed me for a number of reasons.
First, it's a very cute, tidy, "pocketbook" size. Charming. An easy read/reference.
Second, it's filled with very clear and well explained puppet "stuff". This includes not just hand puppets, but also stages for puppet shows. Some are very simple, some are complex, but all are explained very clearly.
Third, the book has a great tone. It's witty, and reads as though the writer had fun putting it all together.
Fourth, the actual puppets that the book shows how to make are clever and charming, and encourage the imagination of the reader to envision variations on designs and methods.
Fifth (and finally)- the book is DIRT cheap. Amazon.ca has it for approx. $10 (Can).
So if you're a serious fan/student/practitioner of animation, you know about Jerry Beck's site, Cartoon Brew. It's a real "go to" place for what is up in the medium.
So it's a very nice thing to see a recent Sheridan group film front and center on that blog.
You can read the entry, watch the film and read the very interesting (and passionate) comments by clicking here.
I love it when students have the guts to go for something on their own. When a student doesn't wait for a class to catch up, or to be given official "permission" to make something... he or she just goes for it. That act of "going for it" is always inspirational.
Recently in the Animation Program at Sheridan, the students initiated a "24 Hour Film Challenge". It wasn't for marks. It wasn't for credit. It was because they love animation, and want to become better at it. Those that accepted the challenge locked themselves in a room for 24 hours, and animated. Most did drawn animation. Above is a stop motion effort.
This was created by 3rd year animation student Jen Bamford, who seems to have been officially bit by the stop motion bug. The animation isn't perfectly smooth, and of course the trial version software has a watermark on it (student budgets). But you see through those things immediately. The film has a character in a great situation, one we can all relate to. And the creative use of materials (wire, tinfoil, papertowel), with simple but effective lighting, is great to see. So often students get tied to the idea that a puppet MUST look a certain way (ala Coraline, or NBC), when in reality a puppet can be anything. And an animated world can be anything (in this case, paper towel!)
This student's animation will get smoother. Her overall tech will only improve. But what is already there in this animation is a sense of story and development between characters, and a sense of tone and atmosphere that's instinctively very solid.
AND- it was done in 24 hours.
I think this idea of making an animated film under this time constraint is a fantastic learning experience. The final product won't be polished, but that can actually mean there's a manic, primal energy to the piece. It's so easy to take that energy and life and see it stamped out through the careful work of refining an animated concept. It's encouraging to see something raw, and lovely.
As a teacher part of your job is to (hopefully) inspired students. It's a great payback when on their own, students return the favour to their teacher.
