Stop Motion Teamworking

The team worked together to create a stop motion animation, with the aim to capture movement of two still life models and bring them to life frame by frame.

Each individual carried out their role to capture the photos which would be used to create a dynamic short stop motion animation video clip. We decided to use two wooden mannequin models to tell a story through movement. The lack of dialogue meant that each movement in the frame was purposeful and expressive so that the viewer could understand the meaning of the movements.

Figure 1; Initial ideas for the animation using wooden figures.

After discussion the team decided the animation should follow the idea of love, dance, passion, pain and despair. The first scene introduces the mannequins meeting each other, they then transition into an embrace, in this embrace they spin together in a ballet dancing style movement, following this the pair sperate with one leaving the scene, the other then follows, they both re-enter the scene together and fall off the table together in a tragic moment. The two then appear separately then together again and fall off again together leaving the scene for the final time.

The photos are taken using a tripod to keep a consistent scene so that when the images are compiled the transitions will be smooth and easier to follow.

The final video will include audio to enhance the story of the animation. The team worked really well together to create the final piece, which each member having valuable inputs and ideas which contributed to the final result.

Figure 2; The stop motion animation group project.

Some positives from the final result is that the whole scene was utilised and ordinary objects became props, for example the desk was the floor where the animation took place. An improvement that could be made would be to use a greenscreen to change the background into a scene that would compliment the movement of the mannequins. Another suggestion would be to add sound to enhance the visual ideas behind the stop motion animation.