Stop motion animation, what I have learnt!

Stop Motion animation

What I have learnt!

During the last few lessons we have been focusing on stop motion animation and from this we have learnt different factors of this type of animation, and how this can effect the final product, for example:

Frame Rates: Frame rates are the rate (or frequency) at which film or video frames run, this can be altered manually, or it can depend on the device you happen to be using at the time and the automatic frame rate it is set too. For instance the most common and standard frame rate being 24fps which is considered to be a full-motion video. When making a stop motion animation frame rates are really important, by increasing the frame rate you can speed up your film and vise versa by lowering the frame rate.

Another important factor when making a stop motion animation is the illusion of movement, for example from watching videos and conducting my own experiment by making my very own thaumatrope, your eyes can illude you in to thinking you can only see one image, when in reality there are two images playing simultaneously at speed causing your eyes to see them as one. One of the ways in which you can do this is by using an instrument called a Thaumatrope, this is a small disc held by pieces of string. On either side of the disc an image is drawn which when spun, superimposed on to the image on the opposite side. If used properly the device is flawless, for example you can have an image of a bird on one side and on the opposite side there could be an image of a cage. When spun rapidly the images superimpose to what seems to be an image of a bird in a cage. 

 The thaumatrope can be seen in the following diagram:

And you can see it in action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv6QArYoHik


Here is a self made video whereby me and a partner have our own attempt at making a stop motion animation using a flip book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOGhkef42AU&feature=plcp