Stop Motion Animation

I present to you, Skittle Scrimmage

I shot this on my ipad, using the imotion HD app. It's best when viewed fullscreen due to its tiny size!! In the future, I will probably use a different method to shoot my videos, unless there is a way to shoot larger pictures with my ipad.








I was inspired to try my hand at this type of stop motion after watching this video many years ago.

I came up with a plan based on how I thought the music video was made.
I shot a video of my gracious boyfriend playing with a soccer ball. Then I sifted through the video frame by frame to pick out what would basically be my keys, breakdowns, and in betweens.
I took these screenshots and scaled them down in photoshop to about three inches.
Then comes the tedious part...I printed and cut out each picture...114 in total.

Here are some of my sprite sheets.

The aftermath

I tried to shoot my animation outside, but the changing light and the wind paired with 114 tiny paper men, proved to be too cumbersome, so I had to bring my materials inside where I could control my environment.

I went through many test trials to see how exactly I wanted to shoot my animation. I first tried placing the character and taking a picture, then shifting the character slightly and taking another. I figured this would be the same as shooting on twos for a traditional animation, while giving it some "stop motion wobble". The results were erratic, and I ended up placing the character, and shooting it twice without shifting it at all, which worked better.

I learned many things through trial and error, but the most striking thing is that I didn't anticipate how hard it would be to have a character whose animations are locked in (paper cut out), and having a free character (the skittle). There were many times that I wanted the skittle to move a certain way but I had to conform to the animations of the cut out in order for the overall animation to make sense.

I learned so much doing this stop motion, and I had tons of fun!