I’ve been inspired by and attempted a lot of things in my life. Sometimes people look at me oddly for all the things I’ve done. Of course, many of them I’ve only gotten a taste of.
For example, the “warm glass” class I took one Saturday nearly 10 years ago. I really liked it, but I found out 2 days later I was pregnant with my 2nd child. It did give me a great appreciation for the work of glass artists though, and I always visit the glass making shops in Estes Park whenever I get a chance.
Once, what seems a life-time ago (in my early twenties), I was inspired to go to college because I wanted to become an animator. Life happened and I didn’t finish that course of study, though I really enjoyed those years in college and was introduced to amazing literature and art.
My love for artistic and interesting animation didn’t wane. In fact, I had a pretty extensive collection of animated films and shorts on VHS long before I had children in my household. Finally, nearly 30 years after that dream of being an animator was left in the dust, I’m brushing off that fantasy and making another try at it.
One of the lovely things about today’s technology is that animation for the hobbyist is far more readily and affordably available. With just my digital camera, laptop and some video editing software I will be able to create my own stop-motion animation.
Even better, my first attempt is going to be using crochet and yarn as my “objects”. Nothing I love better these days than combining my “art” and “crochet”.
I’ve been researching on-line what the recommendation is for the number of frames per second. The more frames you use the smoother the motion will appear. I’m a little impatient and have decided to go with 15 frames per second, I also like the “artsy” look of the slightly jerky motion from fewer frames. Will see what I think of it after I create this first short little film.
Even at 15 frames per second (15 FPS) I’m still going to be taking a lot of photographs for a 20 second sequence. That’s 300 photos. Then I have to import those all into my video editor and turn it into a film. This might take a while. I’ll let you know once it is done.
Meanwhile if you want to see a marvelous example of Stop-Motion animation in a feature-length movie, go check out “Shaun the Sheep the Movie”.
Mamas2Hands 