Animated

On Saturday, my friend (a certain anonymous Purple Magpie) posted on Facebook a really cool video that used stop-action animation (still shots set in a video so quickly that the objects in the photos appear to move). I watched it, and then thought, "Waitaminute. I could do that!"

I immediately grabbed my Scrabble tiles and made this very basic attempt:



(Yes, "Fly To Me" is a Keane song.)

Some of the photos are blurry and I discovered in this exercise that holding the camera steady for 157 seperate photos (yes, one hundred fifty-seven) made for too much movement and disjointedness. I also learned that shortening each individual slide in the video to 0.40 seconds is still a little bit too slow.

So yesterday, I put together a very short, very basic little animation. It used far fewer photos, and a certain infamous rubber ducky.



The photos are a bit dark, but I like the animation in this one. Still, it's far to short at four seconds, so today, I tried yet again. This time, I even made a little studio set for Mr. Swimmy.

(I promise that I've also done some productive stuff today--a kick-ass workout at the gym, a run, and some good job searching.)



The picture quality is better in this one (and my little set and the "plot" are adorable, if I do say so myself) but I need to work on keeping the camera steady. In order to get the backdrop in the shot I had to put the camera on a book, and every time I pressed the button to get a shot, the book would press down, moving the camera. Future investment: a proper tripod.

Using still shots in videos isn't new to me--I posted my year in pictures video in December using that idea, and last week, I put together this charming little composition:



It's hard to explain just how much we've all come to mean to each other in a few short months, and all because of one amazing band and one silly joke about a rubber duck. And this is also proof that I am not the only one who takes my duck everywhere for photo ops!

I'm having a lot of fun experimenting with Windows Movie Maker. It appeals to my love of photography and my creative side. I have more to learn, and I can certainly get even better at this if I spend some more time doing it.