Old News and Updates: or ...Welcome to my Blog archive Dec 03 2005 Slip-slidin' away Check out Berezin Stereo Photography Products. Some pretty sweet slidebar action... especially the 8" model machined from aluminum with click-stops. Probably not precise enough for stopmo perfection, but you could affix a couple of clamps as solid stops. I'm offering all this legwork/research to help pave the way for readers who might want to delve into 3D... but I'm also looking into DIY solutions. You could just as easily mount a tripod head on a drawer slide, or anything with good repeatable movement. I'm thinking I can just use the sweet side-to-side hand-crankability of my machinist's table with a couple of clamps as stops. Gotta make sure they don't move after 200 back-and-forths though. This way I can shoot both files for an anaglyphic process with 1 camera... now I just need to figure out how to batch out all the even numbered images from the folder into a seperate one...... Here's their page on Stereo photog/filmmaking books. The top one deals with filmmaking in 3D, but bear in mind, a stopmo film is made from a series of still images, giving us ultimate control and the unique ability to use a single camera with an inexpensive slidebar (or reasonable facsimile thereof) to render out glorious eye-popping moving images. Real-time filmmakers, eat yer hearts out! Comments Dec 01 2005 Moron.... More on... well, everything! Today I bring you more on all the subjects I've been obsessing over on recent blogs. First up: Moron 3d videography Here's an email I got from Lance Griffing: I see you have a lot on 3D stop mo. This is interesting. I have experimented with doing red/green anaglyphic 3D stop mo. I use a beam splitter device and filters to get a double image. The trick is to get the distances right because stop mo action and backgrounds tend to be confined to a relatively short distance. The anaglyph system will work on video or film. I have also tried polarized 3D. Basically it is a similar same set up but uses polarized filters instead of color ones. Also when projecting you have to re polarize the light on each of the images. I have tried this only on film however I suppose a video projector might work as well. (Or spend $130K and buy one of the new theatrical systems.) It is kind of odd but you end up animating differently when playing to enhance the 3D effect. I have found relative flat sets or backgrounds work best (easiest) at enhancing the effect of a character. On table top shooting it is easier to get a character poking out than creating a deep sense of depth inside the screen. Thanks Lance! Great stuff. Very interesting... a beam splitter and filters... I guess that means a red and a blue (or green) filter. After my last blog I did a little more web wandering and came across this excellent page on Stereo Photo World. Loads of free- and share-ware. My first impression is that Stereo Press and Stereo Press DV sound pretty easy for the Mac. Heh... I opened a couple of other programs and got a headache looking at all the complicated gizmos I couldn't understand. It seems most anaglyph programs (that I've found anyway) are Japanese and don't have good English documentation. Linked from that same page I found Harold Lloyd's glowing praise of stereo photography and a very nicely designed slidebar system that looks like you can lock your camera on each side... essential if you're having to switch it from one side to the other for every frame! Moron Darcy Glad to report.. but hardly surprised, that Darcy has won the Vote for Art contest!!! Moron writing I'd like to delve a little deeper into Objective. I sort of skimmed through it before. To refresh your memory, here's the Darkstrider formula for telling a ripping yarn: introduce your characters and their situation, reveal the main character's objective, bring on the conflict - and resolve it. I think objective is often missed by newbie filmmakers (and even pros sometimes). If the viewer doesn't have a clear idea of what the charater is trying to accomplish, you get the feeling of free-floating, or that he's wishy-washy. I hate to bag on anything as awesome (and recent) as Corpse Bride, but in spite of the incredible animation, the story itself was a bit flawed. In particular, Victor just drifted around like a spineless jellyfish, never taking a firm stand or doing anything of his own volition. He was essentially a "puppet", always manipulated by the women in his life. By contrast, Wallace always has a clear objective and is working diligently toward achieving it. It ususally revolves around his latest scheme/invention, and results in hilarious hijinx requiring clever action (usually provided by silent comedian Gromit) to resolve things. Moron Larry Semon I got the Vol. 1 of Larry Semon shorts, and I must say, I didn't like it nearly as much as his Oz. Eventually I decided the reason was that his character doesn't 'transcend' his situation the way Keaton or Chaplin or Lloyd always do... he seems to always be beaten down by hunger or poverty, and struggles against it almost futilely, and it seems like in the end he might have beaten his adversary, but never escaped from the grip of the social pressures or oppression that bear down on him. It's subtle... Im sure he never thought about all that, but in watching this DVD I thought about those other guys, and the Stooges, and realized that's what people love so much about them. Through their surreal humor and indomitable spirit, they always rise above those problems that ordinary folk are yoked under. But it seems like Semon doesn't, at least in the films I watched. I didn't get that feeling from his Oz though, probably because he wasn't playing a down-on-his-luck bum as he seems to do. Though I wonder, if I go back and watch it now, if I'll notice it? I'd like to add a note here relating back to story telling. The book Writing with Pictures states that every story has a subtle underlying "philosophy" that the common reader won't even be aware of, but that operates on a subliminal level. I suppose my above point qualifies... that transcendence you get from the great slapstick comedians is a sort of philosophy, or an underlying theme that operates on a subliminial level and brings an uplifting feeling. Comments Nov 27 2005 3D (...and 4D??!!) goodness!!! I probably shouldn't say anything and jinx myself, but since so many of our stopmo bloggers are back to work now on their various moneymaking projects, I'm trying to blog fairly frequently so you blog-heads have something to see every couple of days. And today I'm also following up on something started by Misha over in The Box. He's been raving about 3D stereo photograpy and its newest use in digitally projected movies... apparently worlds better than the old 3D monster movies we're used to. It sounds pretty exciting. Oddly, in a completely unrelated note, I was looking into whether or not the Logitech Quickcam Pro 5000 has a tripod mount or not (surprisingly hard to research online) and ran across BareHillSoftware.com where they'll fix you up to shoot 3D images or video, using a Logitech! Here's their Quick 3D viewer Pro, which uses 2 Logitechs mounted to a bar on a regular tripod (only for still images I believe, but you could combine the images and turn them into a movie), or they also offer the mighty Quick 4D Viewer that only requires one Logitech and will create 3D movies (the 4th dimension refers to movement). If you check out their Dimensionizer, it uses a pair of Dimage 7i cameras to shoot high-res stereo imagery for precision optical measuring. I don't know if this particular camera would meet the demands of stopmo (probably not), but it does conjure up exciting possibilities! Any of you who haven't been around Anthony Scott's message board for more than a year or so might not know about Roger Evans, former resident tech guru who specializes in cameras and visual effects. On his site Moviestuff.tv he has a page all about stereo photography using what's called Free Viewing... where you just cross your eyes until the two images merge. No glasses required, but it takes a little more work than the anaglyph method (red/blue glasses). Check that link out... lot's of cool mind-bending 3D images to drool over from the Lord of the Rings and other movies. He discovered that you can extract images from a movie if the camera was panning sideways and get two that will work beautifully together, as long as nothing but the camera has moved. It was hard for me to see the images in 3D until I held a finger up in between them and focused on my fingertip. That made my eyes cross and I could see the two images begin to merge. You can focus by moving your finger toward or away from your face. Once you get the images lined up and suddenly the middle image leaps into startling 3D clarity, you can pull your finger away and if necessary use your hands to block off the two pesky images on the sides. Really cool stuff, but I don't know if I could sit and watch a whole movie with my eyes crossed without puking up my guts a few times and getting permanent eye damage. So now there's Pokescope, for free-viewing those images without needing to cross your eyes! They also sell a camera mount system for shooting the images that I'm sure could be used to make 3D stopmo flix. I offer the above as an addendum to Mish's recent bloggage in hopes that if we all pool our resources together we can crack the riddle of 3D stereo stopmo. Um... hey, let's not tell Tennessee though... I don't think we need to see his film in 3D! *** 4 days remaining in the Vote for Art constest, and Darcy's film is now up to 49.4 %!! If you want to help hammer it home in the last leg of the race, click on the big picture below and add your vote(s). Also, it's nice to see Ethan and Jurgen on Frappr. Apparently Ethan is living in the wilds of Hollywood's foothills, and Jurgen is so far out in Germany's hinterlands that there's no satellite imagery of the area! A few new names showing up too... great to see! Thought of a few things I'd like to add. To the left is a picture of the Pokescope 3D camera slidebar setup. I can see it wouldn't be hard to make something like it with a couple of C clamps. Apparently BareHill offers special software that puts the pics together to make the 3D images, but I'm sure you could batch-process them in Photoshop for the same effect. One really nice thing they offer is the remote device that triggers both cameras simultaneously without needing to touch them. But if you're using a framegrabber, I think you could alternate... shoot with first one camera and then the other (ok, I haven't quite worked out how to do that one yet). Then all the odd frames would represent one camera and all the evens the other one. You could then batch process to separate them and go from there. And obviously, you could use a better camera than the Logitech webcam. OR... just get one of the Quick 4D View devices and mount a decent camera to it. Much simpler now that I think about it! But all this stuff I'm talking about is for creating the stereoscopic 3D effect, like the old Viewmaster goggles. You'd need to free-view or get some of the $40 Pokescope glasses. And I honestly can't see those being handed out in theaters... so this would probably work strictly for your own home movies to be viewed on your monitor or TV screen with friends. I'm sure there's a way to process the twinned images into anaglyph format (hey, Mish did it!). Then it would work with the much cheaper cardboard glasses. OK, a few seconds on Google and I turned this up: 3D Anaglyph Software. It's just the first one I ran across... haven't tried it or compared with others. I'm just throwing the info out here so you my readers can run with it. Comments Nov 22 2005 Let's help Darcy finance his next film This picture should look familiar... I posted it recently. It's from Darcy Prendergast's excellent clay-animated Off the Rails. He's got it entered in a contest called Vote For Art at Noise.net. Click on the image to see it (and vote for it), as well as its competitors. There are currently 9 days remaining to vote and Darcy's film is way out in the lead at 46%... but every vote helps! Voting is kind of unusual on this site.... it seems you can vote every day, and use as many email addresses as you have. So if you have 3 different email accounts, you could vote 3 times every day!! I'm certainly not asking anyone to go to that extent... but let's definitely get him a cool grand to put toward making another great flick we can drool over! Heh... and then when you get your next film in an online contest somewhere you can bug Darcy to vote for it (Or at least let me know and I can blog it for ya!) *** Been tinkering with my header a little... not quite sure about it yet though. I definitely like the darker blue text and the whole Darkblog thing, and having two little pics is good... but I'm not sure these are the right pics. I also don't like the placement... should be centered better in their spaces. I'll have to make it a table... but sorry, enough tech talk. Glad to see a few new faces showing up on Frappr... especially Shelley and Tennessee! California is getting pretty thickly populated with those little pushpin-thingies, or whatever they are. Heh... actually, if all the peeps out there working on Robot Chicken and other various stopmo productions such as Moral Orel would Frap, it would probably drop off into the Pacific! 22 members in our little stopmo group so far... I want to see more!!! There's nothing to worry about... It doesn't actually show people your house. It seems to put everybody in the middle of vacant lots or sports arenas within a few miles of where they actually live. But it's good enough so someone in the vicinity might decide to contact you and take things from there. Who knows, we may spark off some stopmotion love connections! Or at least organize a few little get-togethers for day-long movie marathons. Comments Nov 21 2005 Secrets of STORY-TELLING revealed at last! I've hinted around about it in past bloggage, but never really went into depth about it, so here goes... Actually it's very simple and straightforward - you introduce your characters and their situation, reveal the main character's objective, bring on the conflict - and resolve it. Of course, there are other ways, such as slowly unraveling a mystery, but this is the method I've been studying and finding to be worth it's weight in depleted uranium. It might sound too simple, or too restrictive, but trust me, you could write thousands of stories using exactly this method and never once repeat yourself. Along the way, as ideas begin to unfold, you'll find you've left some loose ends. These must be tied up by story's end! Any loose ends left hanging will leave viewers with a nagging feeling that the story isn't finished... it just won't be satisfying. And let's face it... as filmmakers, we're total story whores... we have to satisfy the customer at all costs! The end should wrap up the conflict completely, hopefully in a clever way and maybe with a surprise or twist, but best if it's somehow hinted at in the development of the story. Think of it as a puzzle the viewer solves... they like to piece it together along the way, but not if it's too easy, or too hard. Of course there are other ways... like non-narrative or experimental filmmaking, but that's beyond the scope of today's discussion. One completely legit method is to slowly unravel a mystery... in that case you might not have a clear objective or even a clearly defined conflict... in fact, the characters' identities might be subject to change. In fact strange films that don't fit any category can be the best ones... but I think it's still good to understand the 'rules' before you go breaking them. In fact, I'll admit it here and now... until very recently I didn't know the first thing about writing a good story. I thought it was enough just to have cool-looking things happening. I was a victim of the Quay Syndrome that sucks in so many amateur stopmotionists. It's quite seductive... 'surrealism' is a perfect disguise for dark artsy vagueness. Now... that said, I appologise to any readers who are currently immersed in Quay Syndrome, but I hope even you will take heed and begin to think about putting some kind of meaning into your films. Try showing them to people other than your friends... if they get impatient and start fidgeting a lot, you might need to rethink. It doesn't mean you have to abandon the darkness... just give the viewers something to chew on along the way. As you're writing, each new idea you introduce will affect the entire script. Try to keep the whole shebang in your mind loosely and feel it out as you try new concepts.... sometimes an idea will create new possibilities but tying up all the loose ends will take too long, or the whole point of the film might shift. Sometimes great visuals will jump up, but just can't quite work out... these must go! You've got to mercilessly prune out the ideas that wreck the story. How many times when you're watching deleted scenes on a DVD will the commentary say "We had to cut it for pacing reasons"? Often these are the best scenes - but they changed the story dynamics too much, or just didn't drive the story along. Now... since I'm concerend specifically with short stopmotion films with no dialogue, it's important that everything be done visually. Just like with the old silent films, nobody wants to have to read a lot of title cards, or see characters flapping their lips at each other like they're talking. It's all about the pantomime, and about using cinematography and mise-en-scene to explain plot points. There are always creative ways to get an idea across... put in an appropriate poster or street sign, use props or possibly let a secondary character demonstrate something before a main character begins to do the same. We're beginning to get into the area of Puppet Pantomime now. We're dealing with little puppets that don't have the facial muscles we do, and can't emote with their eyes or their hands the way a person does without even thinking about it... not only that, but there are things the puppets can do that people can't... That's puppet pantomime. And it can be a powerful tool for creating your story. Here's the way I do it (I say, as if I've done it a lot). Start by actually making the movie in your head. The mind is a projector with a built-in editing station. Just imagine your first set.... get the establishing shot, maybe do a slow zoom or pan, just like you would in the film. Use all the cinematic tools at your disposal - cuts, pans, dramatic camera angles and lighting.... use sound to it's best advantage (sound can create a lot of added depth and fill out the unseen parts of your film's world). Now, your character makes his entrance. How does he do it? What would best exemplify his personality? Is he a clown or a serious stodgy type? What is he doing? How does he relate to the other characters? Answer these questions, not with words... do it entirely through moving images and sounds! How long do you need to show something before the point is made and you can cut to the next scene? How much can be implied rather than spelled out laboriously? Be an editor and producer even as you're writing... think about how many sets this idea will require, and how many puppets. What about props... does it mean you'll have to make a fleet of fully functional Rolls Royces? Probably time to rethink! At this stage you can afford to make the movie over and over, trying out changes. It doesn't cost you anything but time. Watch each scene... sit down and review the dailies... hopefully things begin to resolve themselves little by little. There should come a point where the movie begins to write itself. Comments Damn, you pretty much nailed it on the head there. Very nicely done! Don't let this one disappear as just another one of your blog entries, post it in the newbie section at SMA or in a Tutorial at SMS, store it in vault or something. It's a keeper. BTW, I'm enjoying the hell out of the new KONG DVD. StopMotion bliss! - Eric Scott Thanks Eric buddy! I was thinkin' the same... but I want to develop it a little more first in another blog or two. My Kong should be here any day now. I think Amazon sent him over on a slow boat. Ψ