A View from Above: Making a Movie
Posted by: dogtrax in Adventures in StopMotion AnimationThis holiday break, my sons and I did some stop-motion moviemaking of our own. My oldest made a movie called Shovel Trouble that we burned onto DVD and then he presented it as gift to all of our family members. It was very cute. He wants to set up his own movie website, so I will hold off on sharing it for now. But, what we did was set up a webcam above a workspace, and then he draw and cut out characters, moving them one frame at time. It was a little tricky getting it set up (I had to use an old music stand to hold the camera), but once we got it in place, it worked like a charm.
Here is what our setup looked like (and if you go to the Flickr site, you can see my notes as overlays on the photo itself — more details about what we were doing).
At one point, as my son was doing some drawing, I started to make the webcam take frames — like a time-lapse camera. It was very cool. And then my youngest decided that he wanted to do the same thing, so he made a snowman. Here is a very quick documentary.
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Peace (in movies),
Kevin
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January 4th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Love this–can’t wait to see the site. I am really looking for these different options for movies. Looking forward to more.
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January 4th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Wow, like totally ambidextrous, Dude! Wish I could write with both hands at once — I could do essay comments in half the time!
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January 4th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Great project. It must have been fun. I am anxious to see the completed video.
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January 4th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
How neat! I would love to do a project like this in the classroom!
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January 4th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
This is great. What a great project. I’m looking forward to the new website!
Lynn
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January 5th, 2009 at 1:30 am
What a brilliant project – and how fortunate they are to have such a supportive Dad. I’m not sure we have the equipment to do that sort of thing here, but rest assured I’m going to try! Exposing kids to different media and letting them discover the sources of their own creativity is such an important thing. From personal experience it’s amazing to see how quickly they pick it up too.
For example 30 seconds ago my daughter was drawing on my laptop with TuxPaint, then she calls me over to show her what she’s doing with the effects settings on Photo Booth, which she started up herself and already seems to have mastered. Really amazing stuff! I learn by watching her learn…
Your post is a great example of inspiring the next generation I think. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Mike
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January 5th, 2009 at 6:37 am
Thank you all for your thoughts.
The wonder of it is how quickly the kids can get it and do it themselves, with a little tech support. That blows me away each time (at home and in the classroom)
Kevin
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January 10th, 2009 at 12:12 am
Since you have posted so much about stop motion filims, I thought you’d get a kick out of this. It’s amazing!
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January 10th, 2009 at 12:13 am
Here is the url for my last comment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MThEoxSWURA
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June 14th, 2009 at 3:20 am
Did Shovel Trouble ever get published?
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