Sorry peeps, not a lot going on or anything to talk about, except a ripoff from my Blog Brother LIO's most recent post. He posted links to Corky Quackenbush's excellent Mad TV claymation Cops parodies:
Clops 1
Clops 2
Clops 3
Clops 4
Clops 5
I really dig this stuff! Kind of like the forerunner to Robot Chicken, but cruder (visually) - more handmade, and with a much stronger artistic feel to them (especially in terms of lighting and atmosphere). Also the humor is (a little) less sick and twisted, and a lot more creative. I watched these over and over, and I love the darkness and all the practical lights - windows, streetlights, flashlights, police flashers etc, as well as the constantly moving camera. There's something magical about the scene where Gumby is sliding along the street on one foot through pools of darkness, only occasionally passing through a lit area. Also, while Corky's films do have that handmade quality that gives them a certain charm, they're always very elaborately done. It's amazing if you really look at all the props and how good most of them look. I'm guessing he didn't do these completely solo? Probably had assistants to help crank out all the stuff. Anyway, just thought I'd share something so people don't think I fell off the face of the earth!
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Lightmatters - or A Hobo in the Studio
Nice Film Noir effect, huh? Accomplished with the help of my own personal HOBO (as seen below). See, Hobo is my acronym for Home-Brewed Gobo (pretty sweet, eh?). A Gobo, of course, is a focused studio light that projects an image onto the set - they're commonly used for stage shows etc, but are also very nice to have around a stopmo studio for effects like shuttered windows, branches casting shadows on the ground, etc.
For mine I just bought an old slide projector off ebay - something small and without the bulky carousel. Analog slide projectors are relics of the past now - phased out to make way for the shiny new digital projectors. But these things are stockpiled away in closets and attics all over the place, just waiting for you to snatch them up. Mine is an Argus AP200, a thing of beauty made in a time when looks counted. It's got this great sort of Art Deco look, kind of reminds me of the front of a train. It takes a 200 watt bulb (no longer manufactured, but can be sourced online at various sites that handle these kinds of things). It's pretty small, but weighs about 10 pounds... but fortunately it has a threaded hole in the bottom to go on a tripod. To create the Gobos you just have to place something opaque on a transparent slide of some sort that fits in the slide housing. I just cut some plastic from the front of a DVD case and stuck a few strips of gaffer tape on it for my admittedly rough shutter effect. A little online research reveals that blu-tac also works.
Another good alternative would be to get an Opaque Projector like the Artograph Tracer. There's a smaller, cheaper model called the Tracer Jr, which has a 3.5" x 3.5" platten for inserting artwork and takes a 75 watt household bulb, which might be good enough, but the regular Tracer takes a 100 watt bulb and allows artwork of 5.5" x 5.5". These would be much lighter than my heavy slide projector and allow you to draw line art using markers or something, doubtless a lot easier to create complex patterns than by cutting tiny pieces of tape to go on a slide!
I've decided to step up the lighting department in the Darkstudio - lighting is essential in creating a good visual effect. This is just one of the tools I'm creating for my arsenal - I'll be detailing more in future Lightmatters entries.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Up to par?
Well, the awesome Pro-Light, my birthday present to myself, arrived the other day - and what a treat to assemble it and hang it on my grid! It looks perfect there, and it lends my entire "studio" a nice professional look. However, as soon as i got it all set up and switched it on, I must admit to a bit of disappointment. I mean geez - I paid quite a pretty penny for this beautiful little gadget, and it turns out all it does is cast light on my set! Hell, I've got lots of things that do that! Yes, it's got ultrasexy barndoors (well, it doesn't sound very sexy, but oh yes, it sure looks hot!) - but they do so little - seriously I could accomplish more with a little cinefoil (thick black aluminum foil used to shape light beams) or some cardboard attached to a wire in front of a light.
The main advantage to this particular light - really the reason I bought it - is it has an "adjustable, focused beam" that they say is "fresnel-like". Well yes, there is a switch on the side that changes the quality of the beam. It's supposed to change it from spot to flood, but mostly it just seems to function as a sort of crappy dimmer. I suppose the width of the beam does change a little, but it's hard to tell - maybe if I had more room, but I'm using it about 6 feet from my set. Well, I began to wonder it this (rather expensive) light is really all that much better in any way than my good old par cans. So I put them to the test. Below are a series of pictures demonstrating the shadow clarity of each light under various conditions. See, that's the beauty of a focused light like a fresnel (or the Pro-Light, at least supposedly) - it's able to cast a good crisp shadow. I can think of certain situations where I'd want to use this feature.... for instance in a shot where all you see is a puppet's shadow on the wall. Here's how the lights stacked up, with a surprise contender at the end ( the object casting its shadow is my animation camera).....
Lowel Pro-Light, beam centered:
Lowel Pro-Light, edge of beam:
(Yes, I discovered a strange thing quite by accident - shadows are a good deal clearer at the edge of a disc of light than at the center!)
Par 46, beam centered:
Par 46, edge of beam: (not too shabby really!)
But here's our surprise contender folks.... by far the best and crispiest shadow yet....
What is it, you say? Why, but of course - it's nothing more than a simple hardware-store clamp light housing an unfrosted 75 watt bulb from the corner convenient store - total cost about $3.00! Not as bright as either of the centered images above of course - those lights are 200 or so watts each, but it's about as bright as the non-centered images. Here's a nifty shot of our little hero:
Normal household bulbs are frosted, giving them that familiar whitish appearance. This scatters the light beams, diffusing them for a more pleasing appearance - it softens shadows, see? But it also fuzzies them up quite a bit. The unfrosted bulbs are less common, but can still be found at most stores that sell bulbs, and give a nice clear shadow quality. I wonder if they can be bought at higher wattages?
Anywhoo, I'm now convinced that the single greatest feature any light can have is some form of gel frame or filter holder, so you can insert colored filters or diffusion or scrims to tailor the light. The par cans have them, and I could buy ten of them for the price of one of the Pro-Lights! In fact, I even have a swingarm desk lamp with a piece of diffusion taped over it! See, what I'm finding is that the pro quality stuff is maybe slightly better than ordinary household lights, but not at all worth the enormous price difference! (And in some cases, for certain specific applications, the household stuff is actually better.)
The main advantage to this particular light - really the reason I bought it - is it has an "adjustable, focused beam" that they say is "fresnel-like". Well yes, there is a switch on the side that changes the quality of the beam. It's supposed to change it from spot to flood, but mostly it just seems to function as a sort of crappy dimmer. I suppose the width of the beam does change a little, but it's hard to tell - maybe if I had more room, but I'm using it about 6 feet from my set. Well, I began to wonder it this (rather expensive) light is really all that much better in any way than my good old par cans. So I put them to the test. Below are a series of pictures demonstrating the shadow clarity of each light under various conditions. See, that's the beauty of a focused light like a fresnel (or the Pro-Light, at least supposedly) - it's able to cast a good crisp shadow. I can think of certain situations where I'd want to use this feature.... for instance in a shot where all you see is a puppet's shadow on the wall. Here's how the lights stacked up, with a surprise contender at the end ( the object casting its shadow is my animation camera).....
Lowel Pro-Light, beam centered:
Lowel Pro-Light, edge of beam:
(Yes, I discovered a strange thing quite by accident - shadows are a good deal clearer at the edge of a disc of light than at the center!)
Par 46, beam centered:
Par 46, edge of beam: (not too shabby really!)
But here's our surprise contender folks.... by far the best and crispiest shadow yet....
What is it, you say? Why, but of course - it's nothing more than a simple hardware-store clamp light housing an unfrosted 75 watt bulb from the corner convenient store - total cost about $3.00! Not as bright as either of the centered images above of course - those lights are 200 or so watts each, but it's about as bright as the non-centered images. Here's a nifty shot of our little hero:
Normal household bulbs are frosted, giving them that familiar whitish appearance. This scatters the light beams, diffusing them for a more pleasing appearance - it softens shadows, see? But it also fuzzies them up quite a bit. The unfrosted bulbs are less common, but can still be found at most stores that sell bulbs, and give a nice clear shadow quality. I wonder if they can be bought at higher wattages?
Anywhoo, I'm now convinced that the single greatest feature any light can have is some form of gel frame or filter holder, so you can insert colored filters or diffusion or scrims to tailor the light. The par cans have them, and I could buy ten of them for the price of one of the Pro-Lights! In fact, I even have a swingarm desk lamp with a piece of diffusion taped over it! See, what I'm finding is that the pro quality stuff is maybe slightly better than ordinary household lights, but not at all worth the enormous price difference! (And in some cases, for certain specific applications, the household stuff is actually better.)
Friday, June 22, 2007
Let there be light!!!
Here it is - the Lowel Pro-Light. It's something I've had my eye on for some time and tonight I just decided to go ahead and splurge. The linketty-link will take you to B&H Photo, where I purchased this sweet little piece of lighting bliss. It's fully focusable, from a flood to a spotlight, accepts barndoors and gels (purchased separately) and takes various bulbs with a wide range of wattage. Plus it can be converted (quite easily) to work with batteries or mounted to a camera's hotshoe. Quite a versatile little device, if you ask me! Of course, it hasn't arrived yet, so I can't tell you if it actually does what I need it to! Oh, and the price for the light with bulb plus barndoors, a spare 200 watt bulb, and a nifty Tota-Clamp and packet of 8 Gel-Jaws only set me back a cool $220! Not a bad purchase, pro-lightingwise! And now at last I get to have a super-cool pro-looking light with freakin' BARNDOORS hanging from my grid! Maybe THAT will jumpstart me back into some sense of motivation!
Many thanks to all my various webfriends who've kept me company (as much as I've allowed them to) and tried to keep my flagging spirits aloft - especially Kelly Mazurowski, one of my first animation buds who recently contacted me with a shot in the arm in the form of a super-inspiring talk about animating and his job over at Shadow Machine Films. Also, I've drawn a lot of comfort from reading all the blogs you fine people are running - you know who you are!
Friday, June 08, 2007
Friends with Framethief once again!!!
Just wanted to pop in and say that I've at least solved my Framethief woes. No other framegrabber for the Mac works nearly as well, as far as I'm concerned. Not sure what will happen when everything is all Intel Macs, and Framethief doesn't work anymore. Guess I need to keep this raggedy old computer just as a relic that runs Framethief!
Aywho, the way it got fixed was simple as pie. Somebody had mentioned either here on at the message board that they had a similar problem and fixed it by downloading the latest version of Quicktime. Well, I already had the latest, so that wasn't an option. But a few days ago I got the old System Update popup window saying there was a new version, so I DL'ed it and immediately checked. Voila! Instant connection!
So pretty soon I'll be doing some animation tests and blowing off the dust of ages, mauybe post a few things to the Puppet Exercises section over at StopMoSjorts - hey, it looks like everybody is having a lot of fun in there!
But I'm still having some computer issues, so I'm not back to full strength. It has been nice though to experience 'real time life' for a while! I'm getting the basement all cleaned up, and when that herculean task is complete, I build myself an animation table - then it's back to it! But for now this is just an extra post to spread the news about Framethief. Anybody else who might be experiencing similar problems, just get on the new QT.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Temporarily closed
Sorry folks, the computer problems are too much! I never know when it's going to suddenly freeze up on me - a bit hard to keep up with a blog under these conditions. One of these days I'll have everything fixed up though.I'm also finding it hard to answer email sometimes - sorry if it takes me a while to get back to anyone!
Monday, March 19, 2007
I Can't Animate
Maybe you've heard of the Mac-only framegrabber called I Can Animate? Well I can't! Let me relate my woes....
For many months now my computer has been on the fritz. It began innocently enough, the occasional glitch and sometimes it would freeze up. Then it got more frequent and more severe, until I got used to actually spending an hour or more some days re-starting it over and over before it works, and then there's no telling how long it will last. Watching video generally kills it, though I can often get in a few minutes before things start to go wonky. So I tend to wait till I'm about done for the day before watching any clips.
Then a few months ago I tried to start up my trusty Framethief, and lo and Behold! It was unable to connect with my camera! That had never happened before! Oddly, iMovie connects to it every time without a problem. I ran my diagnostic software, which told me at this point the only thing remaining to try was a complete re-install of my operating system. Failing that the computer needs to be serviced. Well, I did a re-install - took the better part of a night, and the problems still persist! I've been putting off getting the computer serviced, partly for monetary reasons (no idea yet what it will cost) and partly while I try to decide if I should just get a new one or not instead. The new Macs are intel-based, and from what I understand there are problems getting them to play nice with some video programs. I'm sure Framethief won't run on the intel macs (and from my recent experiences, I want my Framethief back!).
I'm listing this info mostly for my own benefit, so I can always refer back to this post in the future when I need the info. Here are my experiences thus far with trying alternative mac framegrabbers:
The first one I tried was iStopmotion. To my surprise, it immediately connected with my camera (a Hitachi HV-C20 run through a Canopus ADVC-100 analog/digital converter to convert the signal to Firewire). It's not a bad program for the most part, very Framethief-like, but with limitations. The biggest problem for me (a fatal one) is that it doesn't store individual frames in a folder the way Framethief does. Instead it creates a temp folder and when you're done with your session you save the project or export it to Quicktime. What this means to me specifically is that, if (when) my computer crashes I lose everything I shot - unless I've been saving frequently, and even then I lose everything since the last save. But that's really no good unless I save after every frame shot, otherwise I'd need to somehow go back and painstakingly re-position the puppets precisely where they were at my last save.... a laborious and heartbreaking procedure that I'd rather not even mess with.
Another problem with iStopmotion is that you can accidentally mix up your frames! This is really bizarre... I don't see the benefit of it, but apparently you can grab a frame (there are little tiny thumbnails images along the timeline) and drag it to a new position! I can see where this might be neat for a beginner, or maybe a pro in extremely limited circumstances, but it's not something I'd ever use, and I wish there was a way to disable it. The problem is that the thumbnails are so close to the playback head, which I want to grab to try to scroll through my animation (another problem, that doesn't work in iStopmotion, but it's a habit from longtime FT use).
And the final iStopmotion problem that really seals the deal.... sometimes when I try to export my animation the program crashes and I lose everything I shot. No good!
So I tried I Can Animate next. It recognizes my camera. It also doesn't allow scrubbing-through by dragging the playback head across the timeline, a feature I like to use. Unlike iStopmotion however, I Can Animate doesn't have to render out a clip every time you want to play it through to see what you've got. So that's a plus. But it also doesn't save individual frames as image files, and doesn't automatically save every time you take a shot (which amounts to the same thing). AND it causes my computer to crash very quickly, just like iStopmotion. I also don't like that you can't use the space bar to take a single frame... that's pretty standard in other 'grabber's ive tried. The 1 key is hard to spot, not front and center (and BIG) like the space bar! Finally, I Can Animate also causes my computer to crash after shooting just a few frames!
So next I tried Stopmotioner. It can't find my camera, so that's that!
Sorry, I know this post doesn't mean anything to my readers.... it's just a notepad for my own use today!
For many months now my computer has been on the fritz. It began innocently enough, the occasional glitch and sometimes it would freeze up. Then it got more frequent and more severe, until I got used to actually spending an hour or more some days re-starting it over and over before it works, and then there's no telling how long it will last. Watching video generally kills it, though I can often get in a few minutes before things start to go wonky. So I tend to wait till I'm about done for the day before watching any clips.
Then a few months ago I tried to start up my trusty Framethief, and lo and Behold! It was unable to connect with my camera! That had never happened before! Oddly, iMovie connects to it every time without a problem. I ran my diagnostic software, which told me at this point the only thing remaining to try was a complete re-install of my operating system. Failing that the computer needs to be serviced. Well, I did a re-install - took the better part of a night, and the problems still persist! I've been putting off getting the computer serviced, partly for monetary reasons (no idea yet what it will cost) and partly while I try to decide if I should just get a new one or not instead. The new Macs are intel-based, and from what I understand there are problems getting them to play nice with some video programs. I'm sure Framethief won't run on the intel macs (and from my recent experiences, I want my Framethief back!).
I'm listing this info mostly for my own benefit, so I can always refer back to this post in the future when I need the info. Here are my experiences thus far with trying alternative mac framegrabbers:
The first one I tried was iStopmotion. To my surprise, it immediately connected with my camera (a Hitachi HV-C20 run through a Canopus ADVC-100 analog/digital converter to convert the signal to Firewire). It's not a bad program for the most part, very Framethief-like, but with limitations. The biggest problem for me (a fatal one) is that it doesn't store individual frames in a folder the way Framethief does. Instead it creates a temp folder and when you're done with your session you save the project or export it to Quicktime. What this means to me specifically is that, if (when) my computer crashes I lose everything I shot - unless I've been saving frequently, and even then I lose everything since the last save. But that's really no good unless I save after every frame shot, otherwise I'd need to somehow go back and painstakingly re-position the puppets precisely where they were at my last save.... a laborious and heartbreaking procedure that I'd rather not even mess with.
Another problem with iStopmotion is that you can accidentally mix up your frames! This is really bizarre... I don't see the benefit of it, but apparently you can grab a frame (there are little tiny thumbnails images along the timeline) and drag it to a new position! I can see where this might be neat for a beginner, or maybe a pro in extremely limited circumstances, but it's not something I'd ever use, and I wish there was a way to disable it. The problem is that the thumbnails are so close to the playback head, which I want to grab to try to scroll through my animation (another problem, that doesn't work in iStopmotion, but it's a habit from longtime FT use).
And the final iStopmotion problem that really seals the deal.... sometimes when I try to export my animation the program crashes and I lose everything I shot. No good!
So I tried I Can Animate next. It recognizes my camera. It also doesn't allow scrubbing-through by dragging the playback head across the timeline, a feature I like to use. Unlike iStopmotion however, I Can Animate doesn't have to render out a clip every time you want to play it through to see what you've got. So that's a plus. But it also doesn't save individual frames as image files, and doesn't automatically save every time you take a shot (which amounts to the same thing). AND it causes my computer to crash very quickly, just like iStopmotion. I also don't like that you can't use the space bar to take a single frame... that's pretty standard in other 'grabber's ive tried. The 1 key is hard to spot, not front and center (and BIG) like the space bar! Finally, I Can Animate also causes my computer to crash after shooting just a few frames!
So next I tried Stopmotioner. It can't find my camera, so that's that!
Sorry, I know this post doesn't mean anything to my readers.... it's just a notepad for my own use today!
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