June 3, 2011

Stop! Motion...

Last year for Christmas, i gave Marko (& myself) an 8 week Stop-Motion Animation Course. We started 3 weeks ago and it's pretty damn cool. I've always loved Stop-Motion. Our instructor, Gerben Agterber, is great. So enthousiastic, you can tell he really loves this craft.

For our first animation, we had to make a coin 'bounce'. The trick is getting the right timing as well as the right movement. Tonight we had two challenges: With the jointed figures that we constructed we first had to raise the arms into action and in the second film we had to throw something. Here are our first attempts at Stop-Motion Animation:

"The Bouncing Coin"
"Marko Throws A Ball At My Head"
&
"Marko & i High Five, BAM!"




Since starting this course we've been investigating a lot of Stop-Motion Animation online. We've found all kinds of amazing things, which i will eventually share with you, but i'd like to start with...PES! What is particularly genius about PES his use of everyday objects to simulate other objects or creatures that he wishes to portray in his films. Here are two of my favorites, 'The Deep' & another one you may know (been watched 6 million times on YouTube) 'Western Spaghetti'. Please click here to see more of PES's amazing animated world.

4 comments:

superheidi said...

That's great! I did a stop motion course at the SKVR few years ago. I loved it, but somehow I can't find the time to continue at home, it eats hours of time (and I don't own a great camera). Pes are fab! They have a sweet fireplace screensaver on their site. Enjoy the adventure. stop motion rules!

Shelley Rickey said...

Man, It is incredibly time consuming! But i love knowing how to do it. I can imagine trying to make a professional music clip with stop motion....but i can't imagine doing it very often. What i really love about it is building the tiny sets. Cool!

superheidi said...

oh yes, that's what I liked as well, creating a whole new world with small objects. Ofcourse life size is an option as well (I used my dog and my shoes). But I really liked the miniature stuff.

Citizen K said...

You are so cool! I've loved stop motion animation since I was a kid. I kind of regret not making one when I went to film school but, I might have gone crazy if I did. PES is amazing - I hadn't seen the spaghetti one before!