Set-up done

Eeeek...tonight I set up my at home stop-mo station. It's very simple and may not be as good quality as the one at uni but it can add to the authentic hand-made feeling of my under the camera piece.

I don't have glass with a backlight and at first I was just going to tape paper down to the table (which, once again, might move around and have textures/bubbles but could add to my animation) but then decided to use a wooden cutting board to work on. I think the textures will add to the look and feel and looks great with the coffee and red cloth. It's very earthy and raw.

The camera has a back light which didn't looks too bad (first image) but the desk lamp has a much warmer look so I'm sticking with it. (second image)

I'm using a freeware stop-mo program called 'Frame by Frame' for Mac. It's extremely basic but it's great because it has onion-skinning and I can watch what I've captured at different frame rates. Unfortunately I can't export what I've captured as separate images but I'm thinking that I can just export it as an uncompressed 10-bit movie and then export it as an image sequence in quicktime so that I can still edit it and then go back and have it compressed for my final export.

Having set up my at home station means that I've had a chance to play around with my materials. The cloth that I have is a bit stiff but I've figured that I can use pins and wires to make the shapes that I want to make it more flexible and stay still in a shape that I want it to. The coffee is a bit harder to work with than I thought because it springs around and leaves the tiniest granuels when it's moved but I think that this adds to the beauty of it.

These are two videos of really quick experimentation with my materials. (excuse the hands!)

Now it's time to start on my piece. It's going to be a lot of work but I'm really excited about starting now.

P.S. No good quality coffee is being harmed in the making of this animation!