Stop Motion Animation Demo Show - ID# 489

Maine South

Demonstration

Entry Description

How to make a stop motion animation video using legos and the four step walking method. Music Courtesy of: Kevin MacLeod "Gymnopedie" www.incompetech.com

Recent Teacher Comments

• 4/24 10:57 am - *strengths: 1. Video quality 2. Materials clearly identified 3. Clear narration 4. You appropriately limit the scope of your demonstration by focusing on the "4 frames per step" technique. 5. This piece has a very polished look and feel. Nicely done! *Areas on which to work: What steps in your process could be described in more detail? For example, what else might you have said about your lighting scheme? Where are the lights placed to get the best results. Perhaps you could have explained the diffusion paper on your lights - is this not part of the procedure/process?
• 4/2 12:36 pm - Music throughout would have been good. Great pace. Great use of graphics and not the same old boring in the corner graphics. Solid good voice over that was clear and concise. Great use of out of focus shot to frame and then transition to graphic. Great use of picture in picture to demonstrate. Overall very well done.
• 3/4 1:38 pm - Audio is very low? I like the explanation of the four step method- clear and cleverly filmed. Good idea to add the time lapse. Narrator is clear. Nice touch at the end picking up the figure. How do you adjust the playback speed on your software? Should that be part of this?

Judge 1

Positives: Good job with "what you need" section of your script. Nice camera work and effects.Good frame demo. Good job with the script.

Improvements: Perhaps a bit more explanation on moving the Legos. Lighting in some parts a bit dark.

Judge 2

Positives: This is very impressive! In a very short amount if time you described a clearly stated, accurate way to set up a scene for a stop-motion scene as well as including a very articulate demo on creating a Lego walk cycle. You covered most everything that is important to insure a stable camera. I was impressed that you used a human walk as a reference instead of just winging the walk. The color scheme of your entire tutorial was consistent. Excellent work!

Improvements: I have to really try to come up with something that you could improve upon. The only thing I can think of is the playback rate of 12 frames per second. What you would normally make sure your final animation is played back at 24 frames per second. To achieve this you would either shoot two frames of each position (shoot on twos) or do a time stretch in the editing software that will do the same thing. When you double the length of a clip (without frame blending) the software will duplicate each frame so 12 frames will become 24 frames. If you single frame through the time stretched clip you will see that there are now two frames of each image you shot in the original animation.

Judge 3

Positives: REALLY well presented video! I enjoyed this one greatly. I can tell you have a lot of experience/practice with camera set-up, lighting, tripods, etc. Your tutorials and showing frame rates of yourself walking were a fun addition, and you really take the time to make sure all of your directions are clear as can be. You put a LOT of editing into this one.

Improvements: I honestly don't have much in the way of big improvements, everything here is really solid and well thought out. Take this with a grain of salt, but in the very intro, it's you talking on camera, but then it goes right into voice-over mode after that. There is obviously a difference in audio between the two, but it flows together well and it's not a DRASTIC cut/difference since there is no background noise.

Judge 4

Positives:

Improvements: