Best way to shoot for stop motion

[Andrew Hogan]

With my XL1s I'm about to shoot some more video to make a stop motion/animated sequence.

In the past I have done this by just letting the camera roll and i reach into the frame and move the item a little then I lean back out of the shot, then lean forward again and move it a bit more etc etc. Then i cut up the footage in FCP taking out lots of footage of me in the shots.

Is this the best way or is hitting the photoshot button on the XL1s give a better or worse quality picture?

[Ken Tanaka]

Andrew,
Have you considered using the Interval Timer feature? I would think it would be very well suited for this work.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

1) The photoshot button will not give a better quality picture than stills taken from frame movie mode (see my thread on these boards which employed a qualitative-but-scientific assessment to prove this was so... I think the images are still up on my web server, as a matter of fact...)

2) Josh Bass will have a lot to say on this topic, as he produced his (quite excellent) claymation short The Ninjews using an XL1S.

Old versions of Premiere used to have a stop-motion feature. One could hit the spacebar to grab a single frame from a camera source. I wonder if this feature is still around.

[Rik Sanchez]

andrew,
check out this thread about a stop motion action software:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...&threadid=7408

[Josh Bass]

Here's my method: I put the XL1s in interval mode, using the shortest interval you could: .5 seconds, every ten minutes. Just make sure it pauses after you're done recording. You'll have to figure out what you want your framerate to be (as far as the animation is concerned, that is. I wanted fifteen separate images per second, so I calculated the length of all the moves and such that way). In post I sped the footage up by a factor of approximately 7.5x (this gives you a framerate of 15 images per second, where each image is two NTSC frames). Also shot in frame mode, which I didn't really need to do. Oh well.

Let me know if this makes no sense.

[Alex Knappenberger]

For a camera that doesn't have the interval stuff, what is the best way to do this? My science teacher was interested in doing some stop motion stuff, but I looked kind of puzzled, because I figured if you just left it record, you would run through lots of tape, and it would be a big hassle to edit, and even using the "photo" feature on my camera wouldn't be good, because it records each picture for 7 seconds onto the tape, and a lot of them would eat up lots of tape. I'm not concerned with using a tape or 2 on the project, its just the matter of having to edit all them, and it takes lots of frames to even make a minute of stop motion.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

There has got to be a software solution out there, a la the function that used to be in Premiere. (Maybe it's still there, I don't know, I don't have the latest versions...)

[Josh Bass]

Vegas has a single frame grab feature. Maybe buy an old 8mm film camera? How bad could it be?

[Andrew Hogan]

Thanks Guys!

Ken, yes I thought of that too but the camera would have to make a beep or something so I knew when to move the model to the next position, and when I needed to be clear of the shot.

Robert, thanks for that info. I suspected the photoshot would be a little worse compared to rolling video quality.

Rik, Yes I read that Thread before posting my question, Thanks!

John, .5 second every 30 seconds would work out ok but every ten minutes would take way too long to shoot the sequence. I think I might just let the camera roll and do a lot of deleteing.

In Final Cut Pro you can export out still frames out of the footage but it take quit a few clicks for each still. I supose if I just let the camera roll, capture the tape, then set "In & Out" of say.... 3 or 4 frames in length and then drag these straight to the timeline, and see how it looks for smoothness. I don't want it too smooth.

anyway thanks again everyone for the suggestions

[Josh Bass]

No no no. You don't have to actually wait ten minutes for each half second of recording. I set it that way so it wouldn't go off while I was setting up the next frame. You can activate it whenever you want, but it won't go off on its own for ten minutes, which is good if each new frame takes lots of rearranging.

[Andrew Hogan]

John,

Thanks for the clarification. Yes, I just read my XL1s Manual on Interval Recording again

I'll give it a try

[Andrew Hogan]

Sorry,

I meant Josh not John

[Josh Bass]

The way you could do it, if you have Vegas (maybe your NLE has this option too)is: you set up to capture, but instead of having your camera on VCR mode, have it on regular recording mode. You should be able to see what your camera's looking at on the capture screen. Then, capture a single frame instead of video.

[Nigel Moore]

Originally posted by Robert Knecht Schmidt : There has got to be a software solution out there, a la the function that used to be in Premiere. (Maybe it's still there, I don't know, I don't have the latest versions...)

The latest version of Premiere still supports stop motion capture.

[Dean Sensui]

Premiere also supports interval frame grabs. You can specify the interval in minutes.

Has the big advantage of not putting any wear and tear on your camera's video heads.

Capture can be done via firewire.

Dean Sensui
Base Two Productions