Deepti Menon
Filmmaker & Animator
Prompt
Create an animation of objects that look similar.
Core Ideas
Shape, repetition, pattern, color.
Recommended Tutorials
Supplies
Use the supply list in our Stop Motion Animation tutorial.
Process
1.
Pick 20 different objects. Objects should relate to each other visually.
Example: 20 leaves, 20 books, 20 circular objects, 20 baseball cards. 20 red objects
2.
Examine your 20 objects and organize them in a sequence, from 1-20.
Example: 20 leaves organized by color. 20 books organized from smallest to largest.
3.
Set up your smartphone on your cell phone holder, facing down onto a table or other flat surface.
4.
Open Stop Motion Studio app.
Watch this video on the right starting at 02:45 min. to see how to use this app.
5.
Place object 1 underneath the camera, and center the object in the frame.
6.
Shoot a photo of object 1 by pressing the red capture button.
7.
Replace object 1 with object 2. Keep the placement of the objects consistent.
8.
Shoot a photo of object 2.
9.
Continue steps 7 & 8 until you’ve shot all 20 objects.
10.
Play around with frames per second (FPS) to see how the video looks at different speeds. Generally, 12 FPS works well.
11.
Export your movie!
Related Artists
Michael Langan, Conner Griffith, Caleb Wood
Examples
Ruth Lee
Project Assistant
“While it’s a simple project in theory, stop-motion transformations take a lot more technical precision and planning than I realized at first. This makes them a great way to get practice and training in making successful stop motions, because it forces you to focus on the details of execution when there is less complexity in the animated objects themselves and the motion they make.
For example, when working with the books in my room, stringing them together in frames at a faster speed makes any tiny shift in the camera and book positioning EXTREMELY obvious, even if it seemed very subtle or almost nonexistent when the various pictures were taken.
However, if you can get objects that are almost identical and keep perfectly consistent positioning in the camera frame, the visual effect of morphing colors has the same hypnotic “awe” factor of a kaleidoscope–and can be done with almost any object you can come up with.”
Stephanie Gibadlo
Project Assistant
“This project is very different from the art that I usually make! I took one animation class in my artistic career so I am a bit familiar with stop motion, but I could still learn more.
This project served as an interesting exercise. I think that the ability to make art of common things, like leaves I used, is really exciting and makes art more accessible to people. Also, who doesn’t think it’s exciting to make their art move?!? Making animation almost feels like magic to me!
I was very surprised with how user-friendly the app I used to make the animation was for this assignment. I was afraid that there were going to be many complex parts to the app that would get in the way with my animation experience, but I found that the instructions were very clear. I think with an app like this, anyone could get a start in animation.
I think something that we all care about here at ArtProf is to provide the message that anyone can do different types art, and I think this assignment is a good example. I think I’ll definitely do a project like this again in the future!”
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