Hello, all! I've been lurking around here for a while and just really haven't posted. And for that, I apologize! But I come here in search of some help! For my video production 2 class, we are required to make a stop motion film. It has to be 90 seconds, and I've chosen to use my little Halo Mega Bloks collection and put it to good use. Here is my dilemma though. I have no idea what to do. And I ask you, Forge Hub, for some ideas! Keep in mind, it has to remain relatively simple. I'm got a strict timeframe (which I don't even know the due date... Yeah, that's high school I suppose.) and need to obviously be able to construct and shoot it. I have a few ideas, let me know what you think, and if you guys have any ideas of your own! I think I may do more of these in the future just for fun if it all goes well. Idea 1) Blood Gulch, Humans vs Covenant CTF I wanted to do red vs blue but I simply don't have enough characters. I would construct a simplified version of Blood Gulch (i.e. The two bases, and just some rocks with a background of pictures) and get to use some of the vehicles I have. My other variation of this idea is to only construct half of blood gulch, possibly with more detail, and just break up the shots differently. Idea 2) A smaller map, either based off of an actual map or just something of my own creation for Slayer. This may be easier, but may require more complex camera angles, which could pose a problem. Idea 3) Have a warthog with marines and a spartan on patrol on a street with a city backdrop, and have them fight any covies that appear along the way. (This may be the easiest, requiring less camera angles as most of it would be on a 2D plane so to speak.) If you guys have any suggestions for this project, or future ideas of things I should try on my own, do let me know. Thanks for taking the time to read all of this and I will certainly share my final project with you all.
the thing about stop motion animating is that your ideas can have a way of getting way ahead of you. here is some things that i've learned from stop motion animating that might help you: try to keep your ideas simple so that when it comes time to shoot, you can execute a plan. HAVE a plan. dont just "wing it" plan out a crude storyboard, setting up your scenes and shots so you know what to do ahead of time. if you're going to have a certain scene with a certain motion in it, be sure you know how you are going to actually accomplish that motion. how are you planning on shooting it?
Do you have all the required equipment? To make a good Stop Motion film, you're going to want some Light Modifiers, to make sure there isn't excess Glare. Are you planning on a stationary or moving camera? If this is your first, I wouldn't suggest moving. And do you have a stop motion camera? While you can use any, it's much more efficient to use one specially tailored for stop motion animation, so you can see what the film looks like before putting it on your computer.
I had a friend who wanted to do something like this and he contacted bungie so that he could make it and was contacted back with a letter saying that since red vs blue has already done something similar there is no need for it and if you proceed with the project we will not back you. They said something about a lawsuit if they proceeded as well.
yea lighting, forgot to mention that as well. lighting can be a real *****, esp when it looks different on the camera than it does when you bring it into the computer. he said its for high school. its not for profit or anything, i doubt he'd be sued.
I used to do stop motion with LEGO years ago, I did most of my films just before YouTube started (or just as it was growing). Thats right, before YouTube. I used Anasazi, its free and simple to use with a webcam. What camera will you be using? You'll need one with manual focus and manual exposure, otherwise each frame will be focused differently and you'll get different exposure levels between frames which creates flickering. You'll also need at least 2 lights for your set. I agree, you can have huge ideas for films but stop motion animation is incredibly time consuming. Its not likely you can just "undo" a mistake like a lot of modern CG animation, if you make a mistake you have to redo that shot. I don't want to discourage you from brickfilms (stop motion with LEGO) but if this is a project for school and you've not done stop motion before then you may want to start with something with less moving parts and especially avoid animating a full on Halo battle scene! One thing I found difficult was animating with such small pieces. Even at 15fps (I wouldn't recommend animating any lower) you're moving pieces fractions of millimetres and you've got to move the pieces by the same fraction of a millimetre consistently from one frame to the next for smooth animation. 90 seconds isn't long, its not enough to tell a complex story. Look on YouTube for "stop motion", you'll find lots of videos which are jut funny animations. I saw one which just had objects moving about the screen and changing in to similarly shaped objects and another which was a rubix cube solving itself. With a battle scene you wouldn't just be doing a project on stop motion, you'd also have a lot of work to do on the cinematography and audio! Besides, things like blobs of blu-tac having an adventure up a bookcase is more entertaining!
Thank you all so much for your replies! It means a lot Ah I don't even know what to say first. Well, I do have plenty of lights. So no worries there. I'm also taking each picture with my Nikon D5000 SLR, (I believe that's the model name... don't bite me if it's wrong xD) so I have manual exposure and focus. Hmm. I know my project will probably end up getting ahead of me. All of my school projects tend to do that. But I manage well. So I'm not too worried about that. Also, I've played around with stop motion in the best so yeah, it does require a lot of work but I'm dedicated to getting it done. Plus, with a snow storm this weekend I'll be stuck indoors most likely anyway, so I can get some real progress. But hey, for a little high school project, it doesn't need to be perfect. xD I'll just do my best, and I'll be sure to show off the end result. I ended up choosing the little warthog kinda scene. I'm going to have a lone ODST soldier meet up with some marines and a Spartan or two and fight off some covies and that be it. I'm sure that will fill 90 seconds and be more then enough. Then, I'll be using Final Cut to add effects and sounds. I also chopped up different ODST trailers and made an intro movie But thank you all so much for the replies! I was kinda worried no would ever look.