You Outta Be in Pictures! (dolls on film)

*tilts head* One at a time? *is lost* ...I thought that was what all movie
making programs did? I just uploaded the photo's to the WMM...and then
played it...(and added music and text and such as I saw fit...^^; )
I tried letting it play faster at first but we thought it looked to..*searching
for word* choppy....^^;

 

Heres a video I made...

Rin-Rin: You need more frames... Try him so much between pictures. If you move just a tiny bit, you will have more pictures and it wont look as choppy...

We use Jasc Animation Shop 3 to make a gif of the pictures so you dont have to have a constant framerate. Then we put it into WMM and add music. You can only make a gif of about 50 pictures though, so you have to do it in parts

 

Ah, I meant to address that and forgot ^^ You can move them in small increments, but I find with arms, you will reach a certain point and all of a suddent the doll will no longer allow small movement. With mine and those that I've worked with, it tends to be when you are lifting the arm, trying to raise it above the head. It will get to a point about 3/4 of the way up, and then every time you try to move it slightly it will fall back down. Better wire might help, and sueding helped a bit, but I've yet to solve the problem to my satisfaction. And yeah, no shoulder movement is a bit of a let down. There's also a limited amount of bend in the torso/waist, and trying to bend and unbend legs while the doll is standing is incredibly tricky without some sort of behind support stand.

Don't get me wrong though, they're really fun to animate with ^^ Animating them as objects is easy, where you just accept the limits of the doll and move on. Trying to animate them as living objects is a lot trickier, but still possible. I find you can get a great deal of personality from very small subtle head movements, as well as smaller arm, leg, and hand motions. And, just to freak my class out, I usually end up taking a series of shots of first moving my doll's torso forward, then several moving the torso back slightly. Put together and replayed, it gives a very subtle in and out motion, like they're breathing.

 

:P

The only one of mine who'd want to be in a movie is Salem...and He'd
want to be the murderer in a scary movie...But I think he'd fit better
as the wicked character in a comedy....^^;

 

I don't think any of my dolls would play a character in a movie ^^;

Maybe just Bethie though. I made my first stop-motion with her. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps1hxoApFF0

 

Sorry, but I couldn't help but laugh at this one. Unicorn farts.... bwahahahaha!

Ahem...

If Michael were to be cast in a film he'd probably be the dark and broody type that has a soft side that one rarely sees. The best way to act is to act natural, right?

Samantha would probably do better in still photos as opposed to film.

 

I make little movies with my dolls. You can see some of them here: http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=cloudtrader

I've found that the easier of my dolls to use is Ailani, my Yo-SD. She can move in small increments and hold the poses better than the bigger dolls for some reason.

I'm currently in the planning stages of several other movies, but my big problem is light. My apartment doesn't have any, so I have to "film" on a day that is sunny, and those have been few and far between lately.

~Tara

 

cloudtrader: i love you movies so much! and i really love your ailani! she is just the cutest!!

 

i'm an animation student too. i do 2D, but i love stop motion. but i do NOT have the patience to do stop motion. XD i'd be too picky with it and try to go for really fluid movement and in my opinion bjds arent really made for stop motion film. someone already mentioned facial expression issues and my god can you imagine achieving a walk cycle??? not with my boy's legs. eeeh i'll pass...

 

I'm also an animation student in my second year. I do stop motion and 2D. So far I havnt used a BJD in an animation yet but I have made a humanoid angel puppet for stop motion, though I dont have the avi files to upload and show them to you.

One thing I have noticed is that alot of the animations really need way more inbetween frames, like someone else said, move them ever so slightly and capture, repeat, capture it WILL take forever to do but if you get smooth animation it's worth it. When I get a tripod for my camera I'll try an animation with my BJD Though his arms seem to be slack and wont stay in certain positions........they kinda flail around a bit.

In our animation studio we use a stop motion animation program called "SMA" (stop motion animator) you can hook almost any camera up to it and it will work, we use rostering cameras but have started to use different ones too. Once I get some of my stop motion stuff I'll post it up and show you.

I reccomend using 25 fps (frames per second) you should be able to set this in your program, and also grab 2 frames at a time. Then if you have adobe premiere or another video editing software, mess about with the speed e.c.t until you feel pleased with it.

Thats about all I can think of. I bet its harder to animate a BJD than a wire frames puppet though.

 

Ditto that. I don't think BJD are particularly suited to stop motion. Unless you wire them they probably won't hold a pose well for very long. Not to mention that to get a walk cycle you would have to have them stand on one foot. For several frames.

Of course my background comes from hand drawn animation. And I like slightly rubbery looking animation, which simply cannot be done with resin.

And a lot of the BJD animations I see have timing issues. Not just jerky motion due to a lack of in-betweens, but some general lack of understanding about basic animation timing. Not a lot of ease in, ease out or variation of timing (smooth and fluid is all well and good, but not everything moves at the same speed, nor do things start at one speed and maintain that same speed for the entire duration of their motion). I don't really hold this against the animators as I assume that most of them are amateurs and because I know that BJD are really ill-suited puppets. Still it bugs me a little to see the really awkward movements.

 

That is the coolest thing I've seen in ages. I'm doing some stop motion right now and this is a major help and inspiration! I know this post is a bit olod but it keeps spreadin' thw word!

-K

Thank you Thank you!!!

 

Although he's OT look up Little Walken on You Tube. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9sM_asJ1hgM I'm self taught and work with the equipment I have at hand. I also did the Bowie Twins http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYtpNBqmL-c their strings are tight which makes things a bit difficult. If the strings are right then things should work okay.

Size and movement wise I prefer working with plastic dolls. Obitsus are great with their magnet feet. Robot Chicken goes even smaller with 8" figures but the process is about the same.

Most of it is going to take time and playing with the dolls and film to see what you can get out of them.

 

yup! did one for fun this summer

you can see it on youtube (the quality is awfull but it was the best i could do)
or on my website quality not perfect, but a little better I think, maybe long to load)

I used after effect to put it all together, I was lucky enought to find a friend who could give me a copy althought this SMA thing souds really interesting I'll try to check it out for my future projects (so much of them, so little time)

 

Horror film, no doubt ^.^ All about creepy killer dollies...... >D