W1-Stop Motion

I tested the Stop Motion Studio app with a simple idea, which animated a napkin into an airplane and flying off the frame. I set the phone on a transparent chair that elevated the phone high enough to include the entire napkin. However, this setup also captured all the shadow cast by the spotlight above, making the frame messy. And my partner, Rachel Wang, pointed out the same issues as well. I hope I could have a better lighting setup next time. I initially set the frame count to 15 and took one photo for each step of the foldings. After recording the folding actions, I realized that the frame count was too high for viewers to overlook details. I adjusted the frame count to 5 to get a more desirable speed. For the flying frames, I added additional frames to animate the plane backward slightly before flying off. I think this made the animation smoother and more lively. Also, to suggest a higher speed, I placed the plane further away from the previous position between frames.

For the second stop motion, I wanted to add more characteristics to the objects. One way is adding emotions, and the other is adding more frames between keyframes. In this piece, I animated a story of two helping hands who just noticed each other's existence and their emotional shifts from being shy to becoming friends. Instead of a clean background, I also included a messy work station in the frame, setting up the story's scene. After observing my dog, I animated the right helping hand to touch the other and immediately jump back to wait and see. The tip of each helping hands rotated twice one and after another as a way of saying hi. The story ends with two hands twisting together, implying hugging with each other. The challenge of animating two objects was that I often forgot to animate both at the same time. I got carried away with one side but completely ignored the other one, making a side of the animation feels less natural.