Today I tried something I’d always wanted to do: stop motion!
Another fun little challenge that I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while but had never put away the time to do it: stop motion. I kept it simple so as to minimize the number of errors I could make and the length of time it took. Overall, though the finished product is only ten seconds or so, it turned out pretty well. (Yes, there are a few shots of my hand in the mix but I left them in there because it gave it a little bit of “home made” quality.)
Here’s a “behind the scene” shot of the set up:
As you can see, it’s quite a simple set up: cell phone, light (for consistency), coins, power bank (so I didn’t have to string the power chord very far), and remote control for my cell phone.
I put the cell phone on a mic stand as it was the only thing I had readily available. I could’ve used my GoPro instead and then had more options for how to mount the thing, but I had not way on remotely activating the picture, so I went with the cell phone instead.
I used the light despite having good light from outside. If it was a longer shot I may have closed the curtains and set up another light or so but, since the overall light profile was pretty good, I kept it simple.
Next, I set the phone to “Pro” mode and manually adjusted the settings. With a telephotos lens enabled, I had to move the phone a bit further away from the object in order to focus properly. I used the sunlight white balance and used the macro focus. Shutter was set to 1/30 and the ISO to 200.
Next, with some 330 photos, I imported those into FCX, set them all to a duration of 1 frame, and then applied sound effects and a basic ride cymbal soundtrack to give the video a bit more of a feel.
I exported to 4K and 1080p to upload to YouTube and Instagram (follow @mayyoumakeyourmovie).
The takeaway from this is that it took about an hour to do the photography followed by about 30 minutes to do the soundtrack and sound effects. Not overly long nor too difficult, but I can say that stop motion in general is usually pretty neat to look at.
Hope you enjoyed!
Full May You Make Your Movie playlist can be found below!