Friday, March 28, 2008

Stop-motion experiments





Today was one of those days where I had so much to do that I couldn't do anything but procrastinate in an intense way. I should have cleaned my home and packed for Connecticut since we're leaving tomorrow for our post-wedding family party. I could have finished up some projects for the shop or at least done some editing. Instead, I got caught up in the idea that I should make stop-motion films all day.

I've never tried to make a film like this before and my first try was very simple and consisted of moving a bird figurine towards and away from the camera. My next experiment showed a basket of eggs twitching and jiggling like they were dancing. Both of these were very spontaneous and took less than twenty minutes to make so I moved to a slightly more involved scene that showed a dinosaur climbing around on a landscape I set up with some charcoal pebbles, a glass juicer, antlers painted blue and some paper. My final project of the day showed a pod of my gocco-ed barnacle whales moving through the ocean with one of them pausing for some spout action.

Of course, none of the films are quality but they were my first dip into a medium that I'll happily return to soon. I think making a stop motion film is one of those things that is incredibly easy to do on a technical level but takes a ton of patience and talent to do it well.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Such a tease....why didn't you post one of the films? Mean!

FWIW, the whale looks great as a standalone illustration. Love!

Michelle Engel Bencsko said...

What you call procrastination I call progress. When do we ever get goof off time to be creative just for the sake of it?! Good for you!

Anonymous said...

really... where are the films?? I want to see them! This is exciting! Post one somewhere Elise! (please.)

Elise of Argyle Whale said...

Goal for today: assemble the stills so I can show the full videos. I have only seen them by clicking through them rapidly in iphoto.