For our final piece we have to use still images to make up a narrative film. There have been examples of this flying around for years using two different techniques. Stop motion is perhaps the most commonly used technique. Stop motion animation is created by setting up the shot, taking a photo, moving the scene slightly, and taking another photo. These steps are repeated many times, sometimes over 1000 images are used. These photos are then imported to video editing software, so when viewed as a film the scene moves. It might sound hard, or technical, but lets not forget that video is made up of lots of still images put together at 24fps. Most stop motion films use less than 24fps to give it a rougher and more unique feel.
Two videos that use the stop motion technique are ‘The Human Train‘ and ‘The PEN Story‘.
‘The Human Train’
The PEN Story
These two videos use stop motion very well. ‘The PEN Story‘ is perhaps better technically, and uses more ambitious techniques, such as including a story of photos within the photos. With the time left, number of shots and expense that this sort of video has, I don’t think that trying this would be realistic.
For my final piece I will try a different type of technique. I wanted my video to be a point of view story, so what the audience sees through the frame is as close as possible to what I see. To make this technique work, I will need to consider my fps rate, and take photos according to that. I plan to take photos as I go along, so that the movement of the camera will be as true as possible.
Sound is my major concern. Most videos use a soundtrack under the images, but this is not allowed. What I might do is mix some ambient recorded noises with an ambient soundtrack, and mis them on GarageBand. By using music software I can control the volume and track length of each individual recording.
