Stop Motion Animation
Introduction
A stop motion animation is a bunch of photos edited together to create a smooth animation. It brings regular everyday objects to life! Some iconic examples include “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “King Kong” and many Tim Burton films including “Coraline.”
For my stop motion animation, I decided to create a PSA-styled advertisement for Pepsi. My original concept was “sip for smiles,” where every dollar purchased for Pepsi would go to clean water for those in need. However, my visual concepts evolved into a more refined storytelling concept that shows dirty water turning into clean water, thanks to a glass of Pepsi. I chose to do an advertisement and PSA as I wanted to combine my marketing, photography and production skills. Below breaks down my process for creating the animation.
Research
Throughout my motion across media course, I read Liz Blazer’s “Animated Storytelling.” In Chapters five, six and seven, she goes over the use of color, “weird science” and sound. When preparing to create a film, it’s important to step out of your comfort zone and put all aspects of the film into consideration. Tapping into your most creative state and not being afraid of what others think is crucial when creating your best work.
Colors are a great way to apply creativity into a film. Colors represent meaning and a story, and can also evoke emotions in viewers that they may not expect. The use of colors always fascinated me whether it be in film, art, fashion, beauty and marketing. I conducted intensive research on logos in advertising and how color plays a key role in influencing spending habits.
In Blazer’s book, she explains how color influences how a viewer watches a film. The use of hues (common color names in a spectrum such as red, blue, green, blue-green, etc.), saturation (the intensity or purity of a color), value (the relative lightness or darkness of a color) and tone (the reflection of brightness and darkness of an entire scene or shot, regardless of colors used) all play a role in how a picture is viewed.
When it comes to film and animation, it’s important to keep a simple color palette that’s easy to follow. Unlike a painting or drawing, a film moves and therefore needs a simple color palette to avoid confusion on the eye. If too many colors are used, viewers will get lost in what to look at. It’s important to use hues, saturation, value and tone to emphasize certain subjects and keep the background as a background.
When planning a color script, it’s a good idea to start with one color that matches the overall theme and tone of the story, and then gradually build the rest of the palette. To build a pre-color script, you create a storyboard of rectangular color bars that match the most essential story beats. When doing this, Blazer says the emotions a certain color can make viewers feel is important to consider when creating the palette. Choosing colors for your foreground and background and using saturation is also important to help the viewers focus on the star of the setting.
Blazer also mentions that creating and finding your own weird science is what will bring out your best product. Not being afraid to experiment and grab ideas from inspiration will allow for a more creative piece. She even recommends creating “bad” art, meaning break rules and not worry about what others think, just create. Getting out of your comfort zone and trying new techniques allows a creative to grow. Good areas to experiment in a film are techniques, design, movement, transitions, sources and sound. Overall, when creating a film it’s crucial to get out of your comfort zone and always try new experiments to create a product that’s better than you envisioned.
In chapter seven, Blazer explains how sound is crucial in video storytelling. Sound is described as “reactive, almost obedient to action.” Diegetic sound comes from sources that are visible on screen and come from the physical world. Non-diegetic sound is neither visible on screen nor has been implied to be present in action. When using sound effects, it’s important to not overuse them, use good judgement and make sure they add to the story. When adding music to a scene, make sure it fits the theme and dialogue.
While learning more about sound in visual storytelling, I thought of how I could use sound in my stop animation. I made sure my sound effects were realistic and that the music was captivating and properly set the tone.
After reading and learning more about animated storytelling, I did some research on stop motion examples. Below are some of my top picks.
“Candy” by Pilot Light
My first pick is “Candy” by Pilot Light. This stop motion animation is a perfect example of how to take a simple object and give it meaning through a story people want to engage in. The choice of music and sound effects added a whole extra layer to the story, making it more relatable. If a stop motion can make one feel emotional over an M&M, it just goes to show how powerful of a production tool it is!
“Negative Space” by Tiny Inventions
This Oscar-nominated example is a powerful and impactful animation with a deeper meaning everyone can relate to. The visuals are also very impressive. In order to achieve this seamless animation, there had to have been a bunch of hand made models of the characters as well as lights with different color settings. When objects, such as clothing, would move in the air (especially during the underwater scene), I want to guess fishing wire was used to move these objects and hold them in place for each shot. The one scene where the dad and son text, I believe was either shot through a moving set that moved 360º or a dolly camera. The script was also powerful and added emotion to the piece. Overall, this was a highly produced stop motion animation that took a large team of people to bring it to life.
“Foil” by Jacob Varley
This is a really creative and funny example of a stop motion animation. The fact this created with tin foil and paper really inspired me. The use of sound effects of the tin foil crackling as the figurines makes this animation more convincing. As simple as it looks, I can’t imagine the amount of time it took to perfect the positions of the foils, especially when they were holding pens. Overall, this is a really fun and creative piece that definitely helped me gain ideas for my own stop animation.
Pre-Production
To create my story idea, I filled out pre-production template and drew a storyboard to brainstorm my idea and bring it to life. My Pepsi story is a linear story ad campaign. The concept is about a soda company that is looking to put its profits into clean water for countries in need. The original campaign was going to be called “sips for smiles.” Text would be shown on the screen to give it a commercial-like feel and the visuals would be an empty glass being filled with ice, Pepsi being poured in the glass, a straw being placed, then finally the glass being picked up and cut to a close up shot of the drink being sipped and end with a smile.
Original Rough Sketch
Production
While shooting, I realized my original idea of the Pepsi being sipped didn’t display the clean water concept clearly. After brainstorming further, I decided to have a glass of dirty water cleaned by a glass of Pepsi clinking it.
I used a DSLR camera and tripod to take photos and Premiere Pro and After Effects to edit the video. I had about 70 photos to sift through and decide which ones were the best to use in editing. To create the illusion of dirty water, I poured some soy sauce in a glass of water. I used royalty-free sound effects from Pixabay.
This project was very fun to create and had me think outside the box. My changed idea had more of a storyline and created a more cohesive animation. The biggest challenge was making sure everything was properly in place and pouring soda into a glass while taking photos.
