Box Animation 3/11/11

Today we got into groups of four and made an istop animation using a box of coins and making them come in and out of the box. To do this we set up a tripod and a video camera and had the camera pointing down to the plain blue paper and our box closed. Like Jan Svankmajer we wanted a fast paced animation of the coins to come out and move around the box in a stylish way. We set up the istopMotion on the laptop and connected it to the camera. For every move we made to the box we took a still frame of it we carried this throughout. We thought about where the pennies would go and what they would look like to our audience. We wanted the box to fall over and then the pennies could move around the table and then the pennies could go back into the box. To make it more interesting we left one coin where it was and so this coin would go into the box on its own and it would also make it easier for the lid to get back on the box without it jumping. When the box was falling we needed to balance it on its edge we were given bluetac to keep it in place the only problem with this, was because our box was see-through you could see the bluetac if we had longer on this task we could have thought of a way without using the bluetac. Each time we made a drastic movement we played it back to make sure that this main movement looked good, if it didn't look right or we got someones hand in the frame we just deleted that frame and did it again. Once we had done our final frame we took more of the same frame so that it didn't jump and start again too fast we were then done with the film but next we needed to add sounds. For making our sounds we set up final cut and imported our video and then used the voice recorder to capture the sounds we would make. To make the sounds we recorded them all individually for expample when the box clicks open.Then we started a new recording for when the lid pops off. If we needed the clip more than once we copied it the right amount of times so it all sounded the same this worked with the box closing and opening. Once all the sounds were added and put in the right place to the film we watched it back and thought if anything could have been improved. When the pennies move around the box we didn't think the sound was emphasized enough. So we copied the same clip and played it at a different time to make it sound like there was more movement. I think the sounds relate a lot back to Jan Svankmajer work and it all came together really well. Below is our final video.