This was one of the hardest assessments I have ever done. It was something completely out of my comfort zone, normally when I encounter other assessments, I know something, know how to start, know what to do or know something of the software I have to use. In this case, I did not know anything, not After Effects, not taking photos with a professional camera and for sure, not creating a stop motion.
When I started with the assessment I had another idea in mind, but as any creative process, that idea turned out to be not so good. I started to look at examples and case studies of stop motion and I found a few that I thought were a good idea. One of them was stop motion with Legos, I have always loved Lego pieces and I had a few of them at home.
The Legos I have at home reflect my love for Star Wars, Dragon Ball and the Avengers. I thought that doing a weird battle between these characters could be fun and different. I took advantage of the desk I had home to use it as the surface for the fight, a rough terrain, a desert and used the different props the Legos come with to create the story.
I exported the photos into Lightroom to edit them. The intention was to edit the pictures with a different preset depending on the ambiance or the mood I wanted to convey with each scene. When the Storm Trooper is introduced, the general mood is gloomy, dark, grey. When Captain America is introduced, the scene looks brighter and with a vintage glow, alluding to the fact that Captain America was created in the 1940’s. When the fighting scene is introduced, the colours change, they are brighter and the colours of the environment have more contrast. With this, I wanted to focus on the fact that the fight was taking scene on a rough environment. In only one picture, a completely different preset was used, and it was when Storm Trooper was about to kill Captain America. This one was black and white, but I increased the contrast to create an emphasis on this scene. The last preset was when Goku was introduced, in this case, the general scene looked brighter and with hope that everything was going to get better.
Something the videos and the study cases I found from Lego had in common was that all of them were done with a tripod, making a more fluid sequence. I did not have access to one, so the result was very “bumpy”. When I showed in class what I was working on, I told Peter my concern with this, but he told me to take advantage of that bumpiness to emphasize the idea of chaos, violence, and the fight scene behind of it all.
Two more things I wanted to add to the video were texts and music. The text was introduced in those places in which something had to be explained. This also allowed me to make the time frames for these images longer and in the end, make the bumpiness of the video to stop in some moments. In other examples, without the modification of the time frame, I felt the video was very dizzy like.
I also had to experiment on ways of making them look animated and add that little extra spiciness to it all. This was a tricky part, it was important to put the texts but allow for enough time for people to read, and the animation in the text also made it difficult to read. In the result, the animation of the text happens after the viewer has focused his attention into the text. Something I must work on for my next stop motion is the fact that some images do not have enough time allowed to read and to look at the image, making it difficult to understand or to keep the rhythm of the story.
The music selected was found in a website in which music for videos can be downloaded for free (https://motionarray.com/royalty-free-music/epic-cinematic-orchestra-65262/). The song selected was one that would convey that general message of battle and fight. I was lucky enough to find one that started a little calm but then it got louder or more “chaotic” such as the battle. I tried to put this upbeat part of the song as soon as the fight was introduced, allowing the viewer to feel more engaged with the battle through music.
One of the things I had to explore the most for this assessment were the length of the time frames. It was not easy to understand them and edit them depending on the message that specific image had to give. Specially when it came to texts or to images that had to emphasize something. I had to edit them repeatedly because people also had to be able to read or to look at something important. All the images were set to have a determinate time frame, which worked perfectly for the fight scene and the moment the characters were being introduced, it was fast. But when those other scenes that were important for some reason were introduced, the time frame had to change. I tried putting a bigger time frame for all, but it made the whole video look boring and slow.
I was happy with the result, but I would have liked to take more photos and have a tripod to minimize that bumpiness of the whole video. I had a different idea of it, I pictured it way more fluid, but being my first stop motion, I’m happy with the result. I know for the next one I must take more pictures, create a clear storyboard and allow for more time to get it done.
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