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One thing
is critical in stop-action animation photography. The camera must |
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not move
until all of the shots of each action sequence have been taken. |
This is
especially important if some of the objects in the set (such as the |
background
or buildings) do not move. In this case the camera must remain |
perfectly
still or the non-moving objects will appear to jump around when |
. |
the
animation is played. So unless you want to film an earthquake sequence |
. |
keep your
camera as "quiet" as possible! This is not so crucial if all of the |
. |
objects in the set are
moving since it will be difficult for the viewer to know |
which movements are
intended and which movements are accidental. |
. |
At the very least you
should mount your camera on a tripod. If you are |
using a
film camera, a cable release for the shutter will help a lot. And a |
. |
film camera with automatic
film advance would be the best bet. If you are |
using a
digital camera or web cam you can use the image viewing software |
. |
to toggle
back and forth between each successive frame. Or you can simply |
. |
. |
preview the animation to
check for jerkiness in the non-moving objects |
before
sending the animation on for final editing. To do this though you |
should keep the digital
camera or web cam hooked up to your computer via |
its data transmission
cable. That way you don't have to unscrew the camera |
from its
stand during the shooting of an action sequence in order to transmit |
the images to the
computer. |
. |
You can
also use registration marks in the set that will allow you to monitor |
the
position of the camera during the shoot in case it is nudged accidentally. |
If this happens the mark(s) will allow you to
reposition the camera close to |
where it was pointing before it was moved. |
. |
|
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A piece of
black electrical tape fixed to the backdrop of the set will serve as |
a mark.
Or you can use the edge, corner, or other point of some non-moving |
object in
the set for a mark. Simply make sure that the mark(s) is positioned |
in the
corner of the viewfinder (or LCD screen of a digital camera) before you |
take each
shot. |
. |
The most accurate way to
eliminate unwanted movement in your animation |
is to edit the image
frames in an image or photo editing software that lets |
you layer the images on
top of each other so that the non-moving objects can |
be
registered frame by frame with each other. Then you can crop all of
the |
frames at
once so that the frames will all be in register when they are
|
imported into the GIF
animation program. This procedure will eliminate |
most, if not all, of this
problem. |
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