Stop Motion

A competition has been announced by the makers of stop motion movie ” A town called Panic” Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar The text of their announcement is shown below.

Dear Animators,

In celebration of the launch of our new stop-motion animated film, A Town Called Panic, Zeitgeist Films is holding a stop-motion video contest open to beginners and experts alike! The winning film will be included as a special feature on all A Town Called Panic DVDs released in the U.S., as well as on the film’s website. Videos must be loosely created around the theme of “panic”, and should be a maximum of three minutes. They will be judged mainly on creativity and content, but craft will certainly not be disregarded. This contest is a great way for you to have a chance to be exposed and critiqued by the widely acclaimed animators of A Town Called Panic, Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar!

Full details on entry requirements, prizes, and submission dates are available via the film’s website http://www.atowncalledpanic.com, on our fan Page http://www.facebook.com/pages/A-Town-Called-Panic/171898410739 or by following twitter.com/panicthemovie.

A Town Called Panic is opening at Film Forum in New York on December 16 for two weeks only before opening around the country. See http://www.atowncalledpanic.com for other playdates around the country in 2010, and for updates as more dates are announced.

We look forward to seeing your ideas come to life!

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Wallace & Gromit, the webmasters over on the W&G website asked members of the website to submit their questions to Nick Park. Twenty of the top questions were selected and put to Nick in a special video interview shot in the new Aardman cinema! Here is a transcript of the questions. Check out the video below for the answers!

What was your inspiration behind creating Wallace and Gromit?

Do any of your characters represent your own personality and if so which one?

What Wallace and Gromit animation is your favourite and why?

Did you think Wallace and Gromit would be so popular and what was it like winning your first Oscar?

I was browsing on the internet and saw a topic about you planning a second movie, is this true?

I have always wondered what age Wallace and Gromit are, do you know yourself , or do you think it is better not to say?

Are there any plans to bring back Fluffles?

How did you get the idea of a penguin being the villain?

What made you decide that Gromit didn’t need a mouth?

Why did you change Gromits appearance after a Grand Day Out?

I always wanted to know how did the cooker get up to the moon, and why it was coin operated?

Are there any new animation techniques you would like to learn and develop?

Did you take any courses or was it just something you just picked up naturally?

What is the greatest advice you have ever received in regards to animation?

Given your existing use of animals in your work what is your favorite animal?

Have you ever thought of giving up animation and moving in to something else?

Before you became an animator did you want to do any other jobs as a child?

Do you dream of Wallace and Gromit and if so what do you dream?

When you worked with Julian Knot on the music for you films, do you give any suggestions to him or do you hand him the script and let him have a go at it himself?

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if Wallace was Prime Minister and what laws would he pass if elected?

Stop motion walking tutorials are plentiful on the internet, some better than others. So in no particular order of preference because everyone has their own preference, here is my top 6 stop motion brickfilm walking tutorials.

Nathan Wells is a well respected brickfilmer. I would say if I have a favourite walk cycle it would be his one.

MagicofLego ( MOL Productions ) has a step by step version with text for both running and walking at 12 and 15 fps.

xxxFancyPantsxxx gives an excellent tutorial here on running (rather than walking ) and also talks about the importance of “ease in and ease out” as he calls it in stop motion. It’s well worth checking out this one.

BlobstudioALT does not make the minifigure arms move in this stop motion tutorial but the result is still reasonably good. His channel also has some other useful tutorials for those starting out.

Kevin Macleod aka Rsteenoven has a very excellent tutorial on running here at 15 fps.

I would advise you to try a few of the different exercises shown above and find one that suits your needs. Nathan’s version is in my opinion the best one to aspire to however some say his running cycle looks a little bit like skiing. I wouldn’t agree but it’s up to you.

We decided because of the recessionary times we live in to test out two big name entry level webcameras for under $25 for stop motion use. We have just purchased the Logitech Webcam C200 and the Microsoft VX-1000. We already reviewed the VX-1000 on the stopmtioncentral site some weeks back but we thought it was about time to review the lastest compeditor on the market.

The results are quiet surprising. We did state that the VX-1000 was a very decent webcam for the price. And we still stand by that assertion. However once we ran the same tests on the Logitech C200 it was clear that it was much better. Compare the two images below. The first is from the VX-1000 and the second is from the C200.

The main difference is in the clarity at close range. The C200 is better. However in fairness to the VX1000 the color is a little truer than the C200. Also the C200 has a easier to use manual focus. The clip on the C200 is also more awkward to secure than the flat base that is on the VX-1000. But when it comes to sharpness of image I would have to come down in favour of the C200. Both images were capture at 640×480. Both cameras have built in microphones. Also both claim to capture video at 30fps at the maximum resolution of 640×480

Laika, the makers of Stop Motion animation movie Coraline have decided to move away from CGi animation techniques in favor of stop motion going forward. As a result they have laid off 63 staff from their computer animation department in Portland Oregon. They will continue to use some CGI as part of their advertising work and to supplement their future stop motion movies releases.  Phil Knight, (founder of NIKE -one of the rishest men in the world) and Laika’s Owner, while still celebrating the 120 million dollar success with Coraline in the US and overseas has always favored stop motion. He promoted his son Travis ( a stop motion animator) to CEO of Laika in March.

Phil and Travis Knight

Travis started his animating career in Will Vinton Studios in Portland in 2003. The studio was renamed Laika (pronounced LIKE-uh) in 2007.

These recent layoffs reduce Laika’s work force from 243 to 180. Last December, the company laid off 65 after scrapping a computer-generated feature called “Jack and Ben’s Animated Adventure”

A Danny Turner from SunnySideUpFilm youtube channel posted a very nice stop motion and a behind the scenes movie called “The adventure of Olga’s Story” on our forum today. I watched the behind the scenes documentary with great interest. I always love to see how stop motion animators create their movies. The approach they take , materials, sets etc.

And the behind the scenes movie below.

Great work Danny..oh and Olga..nice job

I have just finished putting up some information about the launch of the Montreal Stop Motion animation film festival. This is its first year. It will run from October 24th to the 25th. Erik Goulet is behind this ambitious project. Erik worked with SoftImage ( the CGI software from AutoDesk) as a software demonstrator for a number of years before taking up a position with University Concordia in Monteal, Canada. It’s great to hear about the efforts of those passionate about stop motion from around the world.

Montreal Stop Motion Film Festival

The festival includes a competition in a number of categories..namely..
Professional: films commissioned or produced with funds

Independent: films produced in an independent setting with or without subsidiaries

Academic: the film has been made in an academic environment as part of a course or as an assignment.

Read more about it here and spread the word !

Ever wonder how they made those clay puppets talk in Coraline, the hit stop motion movie? The effect is achieved by using “replacement mouths”. That is to say that each syllable or mouth gesture uses a different mouth. So for example an “oo” sound will have a specific mouth made for it and swapped in to the characters’ lower half of their face when needed. Coraline as you can imagine had a whole set of mouths for each character. Below is a snapshot taken from the backstage shorts of the movie.

Coraline - Replacement Mouths

It’s interesting to note in this case the nose and the lower part of the characters eyes are included in the mouthpiece. Normally it does not include the nose or eyes..just the mouth.  Amateur versions can be found on the internet , youtube, animation sites etc. A very effective and basic one shown below from sk8inLeo.

sk8inleo Simple Replacement Mouths

sk8inleo’s approach is well within any budget and experience. It is something worth trying out if you have not done so already.

The Coraline (professional) method uses the full jaw at least when replacing mouths but the alternative is to just stick the replacement mouths onto the surface of the face is done by AndreasFrancis with his below video.

Stick on Mouth Replacement Method

One of my favourite very simple stick on mouth replacement stop motion shorts comes from sebyoung.
So simple but very well done

Then there is the whole area of lipsync. If you have your mouth replacements made then you only have to watch your timing. For example if you are capturing images at say 20 frames per second then depending on the speed with which the character is speaking you may leave a paticular mouth piece in place for 5 to 10 or even more frames. It comes with trial and error. Most good stop motion software programs allow you to copy a frame as many times as you like. So you do not need to capture the exact number of frames for the syllable you are using. You can fix it in your software.

So if you have not tried this with you stop motion I encourage you to give it a try.

Not much today guys..just decided to change my blog design /theme from the default to Tropicala by Goro. His theme is clean, stylish and looks good. I hope you like the new look and come back to check out my post tomorrow.

Uncle Creepy returns in stop motion!

In 1966 Warren publishing introduced a group of three horror comics (in magazine format to avoid censorship) called, Eerie, Creepy and Vampirella. The comics were in black and white with the exception of the front covers designed by renowned graphic designer such as Williamson, Crandall, Evans, Angelo Torres, Gray Morrow, Joe Orlando, John Severin and Frazetta. The series ran for nearly 18 years.

In 2007 Craig Haffner founded “New Comic Company LLC”  and purchased the rights to the Creepy and Eerie magazines. Craig who is a fan of Ray Harryhausen approached the Chiodo brothers to produce a stop motion video for the launch of his new Creepy Comic first edition at Comic Con in July 2009. Chiodo brothers are best known for the puppet producers on hit movie Team America and the stop motion producers in Will Ferrell’s Elf.

Below is the result of that work..

Executive producer and written by Craig Haffner and Dan Braun, Stop motion animation by Chiodo Bros. Production Inc., Stephen, Edward and Charles Chiodo. Stephen directed the short stop motion “ad” and used green screen or chroma keying for some of the backdrops.

Below you can see the main set with green screen in the background. The shape and layout of the set make it easier for the animators to move around the character.

John Deall created an intricate armature for the face to allow facial expressions. The effect is very interesting as you can see in the clip above.

Haffner hopes to create a number of 3 minute shorts featuring Uncle Creepy for internet release in the near future.  Let’s hope it’s not too long. It looks very exciting indeed.