View Full Version : Claymation experiment straight off cam


Ola Christoffersson
January 1st, 2008, 11:43 AM
Yesterday, on new years eve, me and some friends with children spent a couple of hours making an improvised spontanious claymation sequence using the EX1. We have no experience in doing this before, I did not have a tripod and we only used two desktop lamps for lighting but you might find this clip interesting since it is the mp4-file straight off the camera. No recompression or rewrapping. It shows the excellent macro and dof very well I think.
It was all done in one "take".

You can download the file from my ftp-server. Please let me know how to host it somewhere else since I won't be able to keep it on-line for long.

ftp://kamrat.selfip.net/public/EX1/Claymation_1080p.MP4


/ola

Brent Ethington
January 1st, 2008, 02:38 PM
Ola - send mail to Chris Hurd (you can do it from his profile). would be great to see - been meaning to try this myself

Ola Christoffersson
January 1st, 2008, 03:05 PM
Ola - send mail to Chris Hurd (you can do it from his profile). would be great to see - been meaning to try this myself

OK - I will. Are you saying that the download link does not work for you?

Brent Ethington
January 1st, 2008, 03:18 PM
The ftp server seems to either be on a really slow link or is unresponsive. I can connect, but the transfer doesn't start for me - times out. Could also be that lots of people are trying to download your video... :-)

Ola Christoffersson
January 1st, 2008, 04:37 PM
The ftp server seems to either be on a really slow link or is unresponsive. I can connect, but the transfer doesn't start for me - times out. Could also be that lots of people are trying to download your video... :-)


Sorry about that. It is on my home computer with a 8 Mbit upstream connection. I have sent an e-mail to Chris and when I hear from him I'll try moving it.

Brent Ethington
January 1st, 2008, 04:41 PM
No problem! I do appreciate making it available to check out. Looking forward to seeing it

Brent Ethington
January 3rd, 2008, 05:55 PM
Ola,

I tried to download again today and it worked fine - actually, the transfer rate was reasonable. Very silly. You're right about the DoF - looked great

I'll have to try my attempt soon. Thanks again for sharing

Brent

Ola Christoffersson
January 4th, 2008, 04:16 AM
Ola,

I tried to download again today and it worked fine - actually, the transfer rate was reasonable. Very silly. You're right about the DoF - looked great

I'll have to try my attempt soon. Thanks again for sharing

Brent

I still have no response from Chris so my server is all we've got still... I guess a lot of people tried downloading at the same time and gave up. Glad you enjoyed the clip.

Steven Thomas
January 4th, 2008, 10:00 AM
Ola, I was able to download. It looks good I imagine you spent a while working on this. ;)

Dave Elston
January 4th, 2008, 10:15 AM
Ola,
Got the file downloaded here too, looks like you spent your New Years Eve wisely ;0)

Can you elaborate on the frame-count settings you used for this, it seems to be a little more staccato in places than others - including some 'real-time'.

I realise this was just a bit of fun on your part, but stop-frame is an EX1 feature that seems to have been somewhat overlooked thus far (until this thread) and I'm interested in how it has been implemented.

When capturing more than 1 frame for a 'take' - are the grouped frames one repeated 'still' or are they real-time 'mini-clips' ?

Paul Joy
January 4th, 2008, 10:53 AM
I got it too, very nice work. My kids watched it and now they want to have a go as well.... there goes my evening :)

regards

paul.


edit
Well we had a go and it made me realise how much effort you must have put in, just a few seconds was bad enough! We used the kids playdoh and it dried up under the lights and the characters body parts started falling off :)

http://www.olikai.com/ex1/playdoh_720p.mov

Ola Christoffersson
January 4th, 2008, 06:15 PM
Ola,
Can you elaborate on the frame-count settings you used for this, it seems to be a little more staccato in places than others - including some 'real-time'.

I realise this was just a bit of fun on your part, but stop-frame is an EX1 feature that seems to have been somewhat overlooked thus far (until this thread) and I'm interested in how it has been implemented.

When capturing more than 1 frame for a 'take' - are the grouped frames one repeated 'still' or are they real-time 'mini-clips' ?

I had the camera set to 3 frames per "take". I might have accidentally "double clicked" the remote on some occation resulting in 6 frames. I find it a little bit annoying that you have to press two keys on the remote on each take.
I think the camera records a "mini-clip" and not a repeated still. At least the noise changes in the three frames.

Paul: Loved your film!! Tell your kids they were great! It was fun, wasn't it?! Our little film was really done fairly quick. Everybody at the party made their own little clay-caracter and they then had to come up with a small story for it. The different parts where then recorded in 10-15 minutes each. I was surpriced at how much we managed to record in such a short time. But then again - it isn't Wallace & Grommit.

Anyone else care to give it a go?!

Brent Ethington
January 5th, 2008, 07:45 PM
I had the camera set to 3 frames per "take". ...

Ola,

I just noticed that the frame rate of your video was 25fps. given this, I wonder if 3 frames per take was best since 25 isn't divisible by 3, and whether it impacts the video appearance at every second mark. maybe it doesn't matter...

I'm contemplating between using 24fps vs 30fps and the best # of frames to use in a given 'shot'...

thoughts?

Ola Christoffersson
January 6th, 2008, 03:35 AM
Ola,

I just noticed that the frame rate of your video was 25fps. given this, I wonder if 3 frames per take was best since 25 isn't divisible by 3, and whether it impacts the video appearance at every second mark. maybe it doesn't matter...

I'm contemplating between using 24fps vs 30fps and the best # of frames to use in a given 'shot'...

thoughts?

Brent - I can't see why the frame rate has to be devidable by the number of frames per take. Nothing "happens" every second that can be a reference. It is just a stream of frames. However if I was to convert from 50 Hz to 60 Hz at a later stage there might be a problem.