I chose stop motion animation because of its simplicity. The
process may be tedious, but the underlying idea is easily replicated; one just
needs to collect several frames of footage and play them in succession. The
myriad of software available for stop motion also provides flexibility in terms
of adjusting speeds, trimming clips and reversing/playback. I also chose paper
as my medium for its accessibility, as I want to prove that in this digital
age, anyone with a camera and limited resources can come up with something
creative and original.
I started on
stage one of creativity: Preparation, by looking for inspiration in other
Youtube videos posted on the padlet links for class presentations. One
inspiration was “Euphoria: a Stop Motion Animation by Guldies” depicting clay
animation. I thought that was a bit difficult to do and sourced for other types
of stop motion on Youtube. I discovered another video “Stop
motion paper papier papertcut Animation en papier @Oledie carte de voeux 2011”
which showed certain techniques that I later used, such as reversing frames to create an effect shown below.
(source: Elodie Oledie, an animation artist on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJEBbs9X6s4)
The original paper is shown at the end of the video, and the "waves" are created by tearing and rolling the bits of paper across the screen.
I also wanted to use as much original content as possible, so
instead of looking for songs to use as my soundtrack, I found a music-making
website and layered loops to make appropriate sounds to evoke the mood in
different scenes. The website I chose was Soundation.com, which gave me a wide
array of synthetic and electronic sounds that led to my idea to make a video-game inspired animation, as video games
often use electronic beats to match a fictionalized, artificial world. Examples include “chiptunes” and synthesized orchestral pieces. I also incorporated tribal beats to match the sped-up
portions of my video as I think an undercurrent thumping rhythm engages the
viewer/listener better.
(Example of a chiptune. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE520_WSusA)
