Digital Video

02/26/2005 - to view, download the free QuickTime player.

This stop-action animation is to the tune of Paco De Lucia's La Nina De Puerta Oscura.

This movie was created using a Canon PowerShot A95 digital camera, a tripod, many small plastic animals, scrabble tiles, a roll of black paper, naturalish lighting, steady hands, a quiet house, de Lucia's inspiring flamenco music, and iMovie.

How was this created?

1. Made other boring movies. Recorded my hands flipping over scrabble tiles to spell out "Who Owns the Octopus". Not very interesting and very slow. Set to sound byte from "Brazil" theme song.
2. Back to drawing board.
3. Experimented with a few shots and importing still photos into iMovie.
4. Set up temporary filming area. Black backdrop over flat surface.
5. Set up camera on tripod and determined framing area for photos.
6. Began shooting photos of objects, one frame at a time. This required setting up the objects, taking a picture, moving them slightly, taking another picture, etc. -- until enough content developed.
7. Imported photos into computer and into iMovie.
8. Imported music into iMovie.
9. Determined sequences of animations, reused and reversed various sequences.
10. Revised as necessary to achieve smooth transitions and timing.

Disclaimer: No plastic animals were harmed during this film, although the glow pig was a tad camera shy.

Inspiration:
This movie was subconciously inspired by the brilliant stop-animators whose work was created for ETV (Educational Television) in the late 70s (Sesame Street, Electric Company, Mr. Rogers?); other bizzare exposure to animation, animatronics, and puppets as a child (school puppets, singing fruit at Disneyworld); the extremely talented Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer; and the encouragement of my boyfriend--"Oh, I thought you were going to make a stop-animation". Thanks thanks thanks.