Last month, we embarked on our first ever in-house stop motion video, armed with more enthusiasm than experience and the vague idea that we were taking on something that would require a lot of time and energy. We researched best practices beforehand, but as we went along, we had to learn the hard way as well. We knew that once we started shooting the real thing, there was very little we could do to correct any errors without starting over from the top. Two days and much cussing later, we had a finished product that we were proud of.
At Pepper we’re all about sharing, so I wanted to pay forward all the little tips we learnt along the way:
- Masking tape is your friend. Use it to mark off exactly where your frame ends, so if the camera shifts you know exactly where it needs to be. Taping around the base of your tripod is useful too. Honestly, anything you can tape down easily, do it. Even a hand brushing against an object onscreen can spoil your continuity.
- Test before you start. Every little trick you want to try; every type of movement—try it out with a few frames before the real deal.
- Make sure your script is fool-proof, and try not to deviate. I can’t help but come up with ideas as I work, but with each shiny new idea I thought of once we had started filming, I had to jump back and think about how I was going to get back to where the script had to go next, and at some points I ended up almost working myself into a corner.
- Make sure your batteries are fully charged, and have spares on the ready. Ideally, you shouldn’t switch out until you absolutely have to, because…
- You shouldn’t touch the camera or the lights (or any still props) once you’ve started shooting. The slightest adjustment looks drastically different in the final video. Don’t even go near them once you’ve set them up. Some people use equipment to control their camera remotely, so they don’t even have to touch it to take the pictures.
- Stay away from sunlight. We shot in the only enclosed room in the building, where there were no windows, so no sunlight. That’s because the sun’s positioning throughout the day would cause shadows to change throughout the video… after a few hours of shooting, you’d look nowhere close to where you started.
- Use the grid lines on your camera. This may seem basic, but it only occurred to us after about an hour of shooting. Lining up text or just making sure you’re shifting the pieces at the same pace is much easier when you have a grid to follow.
- Play music while you work, and take breaks if you start to get frustrated. It’s a long, arduous process. We shot for about 5-6 hours over two days to get about 1 minute of footage. It can get stressful. But the more annoyed or tired you are, the more mistakes you’re likely to make, so take a breath if you’re overwhelmed.
- But no matter what you do to prep, you will make mistakes. Nobody’s first try is perfect. And that’s okay. Because every time you screw up, you gain experience for the next time.
Have any essential video tips and tricks of your own? Leave a comment and let us know!
