Ok. So. It is now 1am. I have it done. Sort of. I will probably tweak it. But this is what I have. I think it turned out pretty good. As I watch it I see things I want to change. But for the most part it doesn't make me cringe. I think the magnet tie downs helped a lot. So here is posty posty before I make myself get some sleep.
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So I have finished the next scene, and shot the third scene. Now all I have to do is assemble the third scene, shoot and assemble the 4th then assemble the whole thing to the music. I have decided to play around with the music to see if I can find something that better suits this subject. I will still put it to One tiny thing, but I will also do it with some others and decide which I like best.
THIS IS SO FUN!!!! :) I realize I am yelling at you, but I am SO EXCITED to see something finally coming together. Not perfectly, mind you, but better than anything else i have done. Yes, it amuses me. It might not amuse anyone else, but it amuses me. And for those of you who don't know what chuffed means, it is British slang for being pleased with yourself. It isn't what you first thought. Get your mind out of the gutter. :P So I finally took the time to break down and story board for One Tiny. It took a long time. The pics look great. I was having problems with the camera, so I took it off the tripod and put it in the set, anchoring it down with rubber shelving webbing. Worked great. There were a few moves (when I ran out of battery) but overall worked well. Don't see that as a permanent solution though. Anyway, I took a lot of time calculating everything out, from the amount of frames I wanted to use for each second in the film, to how many pics to get each scene done in. And, of course, when I went to render the first scene in AE it crapped out on me. Not really crapped out, but the visual quality is really, really bad. I mean bad. So after several tries at getting it to render a good video I gave up for a bit and played with it in Windows Movie Maker. That is what I used in my very first video I ever made. The reason I abandoned it in the first place is because when it moved from the Vista version to the 7 version they removed a lot of the features that allowed me to do what I had been doing with it. That is why I started trying to learn AE. Apparently features have been added back in since I last played with it. I still can't set frame rate or how many frames each pic is held for, but I can now set each pic to hold for a certain amount of time. Makes it difficult to calculate correctly, but I can have it hold for, say .10 of a second. Which seems to be as close as I can get to it looking how I intended it to look. It looks ok, but the WM version is a whole 10 seconds longer than the AE versi0n. Here is AE version: And here is the WM version: I don't know. I still have to figure out what is going on, and if I want to continue with AE or WM. I am wondering if I don't have enough RAM to do a good rendering in AE. At least for that long of a scene. I guess off to do more research. Humphf.
Aha! I am finally starting to get certain things. By tearing apart my Cake video bit by bit and figuring out what I didn't like and what I can do to make it work better I have actually LEARNED something. Scarey. I invested a little bit of money in an ebook about stop mo. Included in that download were several bonus books. I am kind of excited about this. I thought I understood movement in animation, but there are many things i have yet to learn. And these books are helping me. I think if I had them when I first started they would have all seemed Greek to me. But putting my experiences together with the tidbits in the books are making multiple light bulbs go off. I have glued magnets to the feet of 2 of the soldier guys. I also glued magnets to the furniture pieces. It is amazing how much easier it is to keep from accidentally bumping and moving something when it is tied down with magnets. My original idea was to get a big magnet to put under the table and use that as an achor. That did not work so well. So in search of an alternative I was looking through my craft junk and found an old cookie tin. It is about 10 x 12. So I handitaced a piece of cardstock with a stone pattern printed on it to the lid. Works great! I have a big piece of cardboard I can tack a backdrop to (though admittedly I have not gotten to that yet). I am getting excited about this. I did a tiny test run this morning. I have to work now, but after I am done I plan on continuing the fun. :) So I have been busy. I did find a job, albeit a crappy one. I am still working on my stop mo. In fact, I have been analyzing my movies and picking them apart. One of my biggest problems seems to be continuity. I keep bumping my pieces, making it hard to keep a smooth line of action going. I have been thinking about this a lot. So the other day I was at the dollar store, and I saw these little magnet thingys. For your office. They are the perfect size for using to anchor my little soldier guys. 
All I gotta do is take the pliers and break the plastic collar and ease the magnets out. they are pretty strong magnets too for how cheap they were. 
Now I just have to figure out how to anchor them onto the feet of these guys so they don't break their glue and stick together. I have also tackled the focus issue....a bit. I invested $20 in a screw on macro lens for my point and shoot. As my budget is practically nil, I need fixes that are within my financial means. I would love to just go out and buy a better camera. But as that is not an option, this cheap lense will have to do. I am actually fairly happy with it. 
That whole assembly screws onto the front of my point n shoot. It doesn't allow me to get any closer, but it does make the little details pop. It just magnifies it. I took a picture of a tiny spider the other day and you could see every hair on his legs and body. Which means the pictures look a little better, considering the guys are only 1-1/2 inches tall. However, it also shows dust and lint, so I have take to carrying around a couple of makeup brushes to remove it.
Next to tackle is the lighting issue. I need to learn to light properly. Really. And for some reason my camera will autobalance, even when I turn off that option, so some pics are lighter than others. I need to figure out how to make that consistent. |
AuthorEleanor...nerd, musician, stop motion animator, techy, crafty. But not in the crafty crafty way...I just like making things. You can find me on Twitch & Twitter @TeaWeaselStopMO & Tiktok. 
If you feel like contributing to help me upgrade equipment or pay for building supplies, feel free to click this button. Anything you contribute is appreciated muchly.
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