Constant Output 01: An Exploration in Modern Stop Motion

Hello and welcome!

If you find yourself reading this post, you are looking at the first of many posts exploring stop motion animation in 2021. I am an artist in many mediums and in media, and as I’ve created painting after painting, I’ve been having this feeling that some ideas are too grand to stay still. Over the next several weeks, I will be producing something related to this topic and hopefully develop a deeper understanding of stop motion as an art form. Some questions I hope to answer by the end of this experiment are:

• How can stop motion be utilized as a modern form of art in 2021?
• In what ways is stop motion superior to computer-generated graphics?
• How can stop motion be used for commercial purposes? Marketing? Social Media?
• How can I push the boundaries of stop motion to create something other than a puppet film?

To begin on this journey, I’ve done quite a bit of research on the process of making puppets, film, and the software available for an amateur like me to use. I decided that for the first time around, I’d just use my phone and Adobe Premiere for editing.

And finally, before I get into what I actually created this week, I’ve created a list of some of my biggest inspirations in the stop motion world so you can get an idea of the stuff that makes my creative juices flow.

Music Video for Loving is Easy by Rex Orange County

Another awesome music video. I love the two-dimensionality of this one.

Warning: Not for the faint-hearted!

If you thought Ghost Burger was disturbing, maybe you should save yourself the nightmares and not watch this one!

Here’s a more wholesome one but still within the uncanny valley.

I could write about each of these animated shorts for hours, but I’ll spare you the reading and just get right into the first project of my weekly experiment.

This Week’s Project

For my first weekly creative output, I wanted to create a stop motion animation self-portrait. Instead of creating a fully three-dimensional set for my characters to exist in, I’m going to try to create it in the style of a relief sculpture. A funky moving relief sculpture. This way I won’t have to worry about the technicalities of puppet making and set building for my first stop motion.

This is a quick gif I created of what I want my self-portrait to look like and how I want it to move. I think making quick animatics digitally before I get into the stop motion is helpful because I can focus less on the physics of the movement of my character and more on the process of taking pictures and getting it done.

My materials for this week include:

• Sculpey II Polymer Clay
• Clay thinning medium
• scrap fabric
• wood

Here is my finished sculpted head and set up for photography.

Selfie!

Smiling for the camera

And here is my final result! I edited the keyframes in Adobe Premiere.

Lessons Learned

Armature even for a simple bust sculpture is worth building! Otherwise, my clay head probably would have squished around out of place.

Be very careful around your tripod! I accidentally nudged the tripod slightly to the left and you can see if you watch my figure slide over a bit. Not a big deal, but could make or break the whole project if you move it dramatically enough.

It’s ok to defer from the plan. I originally just wanted to make the face smile, but I had the idea to make the smile keep going on the spot! I didn’t have a reference animation, so I just winged it. In the end, it was worth the risk because I think it makes the whole thing more interesting.

I can’t wait to get started on more mini projects like this one!