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What the young do with an A300

DavidL

New member
From a student in the UK. using A300 and 8200 shot frame animation. It was work in progress but he was told it was so good he wouldn't get higher marks by adding to it. Modern education methods no doubt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpd9eXTHfB4

He's just been nominated for a "Yellow Pencil" award for Graphic Design, Student category. This is a prestigious world wide award. Not for this but for a graphic design project he did.

Oh to be young and creative again. Well young would do;)

I like how the music fits, although I don't really follow this type of music so I don't know if it's Garage, Hip Hop, Drum and Base, etc.
"I scream for crow" is as modern as I get.
david
 

DavidL

New member
Don't know aow I posted two. Maybe senior mind / mouse movement. If anyone can delete one please do.
david
 
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ddk

Guest
It must be my age but I don't get what's special about such a boring piece of animation. I painfully watched the whole clip for something to happen but nothing did, besides some dude chugging beer the entire time. The stop motion animation just made me nauseous, can you tell me what you found so great about this piece to subject the rest of us to it? :sleep006:
 

carstenw

Active member
can you tell me what you found so great about this piece to subject the rest of us to it?
Are you speaking for everyone here, or just yourself? It is hard to tell from your sentence.

I liked it. It wasn't great, but good, and it was an interesting way to do a movie. I think you missed the part about him missing the girl he shared a few moments with near the beginning. Unrequited love.
 

Terry

New member
I think we are so used to seeing videos that we don't think about what effort this took. Getting all of those camera angles to hold together for the "animation" had to be difficult. Also, think about how many frames per second we are talking about in movies. This video was 6 minutes long!
 
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ddk

Guest
Are you speaking for everyone here, or just yourself? It is hard to tell from your sentence.
For myself of course.

I liked it. It wasn't great, but good, and it was an interesting way to do a movie.
Maybe not with a Sony A300 but stop frame animation is nothing new, its been around forever so I don't see the novelty factor either.

I think you missed the part about him missing the girl he shared a few moments with near the beginning. Unrequited love.
No I didn't, that made it even more of a cliche, get dumped, get drunk, how original. :sleep006:

As I said, it must be an age thing to actually want/expect some quality or originality for content (edited/added for clarification) if something receives a so called prestigious award.
 
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ddk

Guest
I think we are so used to seeing videos that we don't think about what effort this took. Getting all of those camera angles to hold together for the "animation" had to be difficult. Also, think about how many frames per second we are talking about in movies. This video was 6 minutes long!
Did you like it?
 
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ddk

Guest
Were you supposed to?
LOL Jono, don't tell me you're going all esoteric and zen. Don't you think that content should have some value for an award?

(Edit) Having thought more about it, no you don't have.
 
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DavidL

New member
I just thought it might be of interest. If you hadn't known it was shot on a still camera, when would you have known? Probably on one of the sequences you noticed they were on the right side of the road ;)
The Stones did one of their videos like this way back when, and it was much better and cost a fortune.
Relocating the steering wheel would be easy it would be putting 8200 shots together that would be my problem:banghead:
The story is about a guy that's dead and trying to get in contact and can't. Tibetan book of the dead thing in my head. Stuck in a bardo, but Hey! aren't we all.
Anyway it has caused a bit of a debate so that's good.
As I said I was surprised the photographer overseeing the project, who is quite established here in the UK, said there was no point in improving it as it wouldn't improve the already high grade being awarded to the project. However, casting my mind back to when I lectured, part time, in photography. One of my initial problems was I got too involved in the technique and quality of images and didn't look into the ideas development. It was OK when teaching photography but when dealing with art and graphics students the ideas and their development were what the college were interested in.
David
 

jonoslack

Active member
LOL Jono, don't tell me you're going all esoteric and zen. Don't you think that content should have some value for an award?

(Edit) Having thought more about it, no you don't have.
David you have just equated enjoyment with value - which seems pretty esoteric to me!

IMHO there are lots of things with value which aren't enjoyable - I'm not sure that the opposite is quite as clear cut :bugeyes:
 
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ddk

Guest
David you have just equated enjoyment with value - which seems pretty esoteric to me!

IMHO there are lots of things with value which aren't enjoyable - I'm not sure that the opposite is quite as clear cut :bugeyes:
I agree with you, that's why added the edit, just don't see any value here for any kind award. I guess its the cynic in me that rises when I see mediocrity elevated to something more than what it is, something that I see happening all over and don't like. :(
 
R

Ranger 9

Guest
It was work in progress but he was told it was so good he wouldn't get higher marks by adding to it. Modern education methods no doubt.
I hope that was a teacher's tactful way of saying, "That's enough, already."

I'm sure that if he had shot it with an A900, it would have been better, and if he had used a Zeiss lens, it would have been a masterpiece >;-)
 
H

Hoang

Guest
It must be my age but I don't get what's special about such a boring piece of animation. I painfully watched the whole clip for something to happen but nothing did, besides some dude chugging beer the entire time. The stop motion animation just made me nauseous, can you tell me what you found so great about this piece to subject the rest of us to it? :sleep006:
I'm 19 and yet I also fail to see anything more than mediocre in that video, so it's not just your age ;). I closed it before it was close to ending because I didn't want to get a headache.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
I hope that was a teacher's tactful way of saying, "That's enough, already."

I'm sure that if he had shot it with an A900, it would have been better, and if he had used a Zeiss lens, it would have been a masterpiece >;-)
At TV type resolution, a P&S could be used. Anything of this sort is down rez'ed to dinky sizes.
 

jonoslack

Active member
I hope that was a teacher's tactful way of saying, "That's enough, already."

I'm sure that if he had shot it with an A900, it would have been better, and if he had used a Zeiss lens, it would have been a masterpiece >;-)
:ROTFL:
Absolutley :D
 
N

nei1

Guest
Well I actually enjoyed it,I thought the last couple of minutes could easily be compared to Kubricks passage through a black hole,
 

fotografz

Well-known member
The important thing here is that the young person is exploring his creativity, not whether some of us like it or not. Better than sitting on his behind playing video games and the like.

This "stop action" technique is part of what I did for a living for a long time. Many TV commercials have to be tested prior to being actually filmed at a staggering expense. So, often 2 to 4 different commercial ideas will be tested with consumers to see which is most effective ... however, shooting them for real, or even on video tape is cost prohibitive.

The proposed test commercial can be done using what is called an "Animatic" ... basically a stop action "Cartoon" drawn version or animated "Storyboard" of the commercial, or as an "Rip-o-matic", where stock images or tear sheets are assembled and animated to convey an idea. Finally there is the "Photo-matic" where something similar to this video is employed to actually shoot the scene sequences. In my case, commercials that my staff and I created would be shot and animated ... also being a photographer, I shot many of them myself, dozens and dozens of them.

The series of stop action stills would then be animated on an Avid or similar type editing machine using specifically timed cross dissolves to simulate the impression of motion that is usually shot at 24 or 30 FPS on motion cameras. In reality only a few frames per second is needed to accomplish this. Usually under 100 frames max for a 30 second TV commercial.

My first attempts at it looked like this video ... Herky-Jerky and vomit inducing. Better story board planning, a locked down tripod and simulated motion control fixed the issue and led to great success ... at far less cost per test commercial (around 22K each verses 40K for video).

The difference between a Photomatic and a Video was also clear when client changes had to be made. Photoshop layered corrections on a couple still frames verses motion tracking corrections on 24 frames a second of video is a huge price difference ... like $100 per hour verses $800. per hour with less time needed.

Probably more than you all wanted to know ... :ROTFL:

But I would LOVE to teach this to others ... because with home desktop editing like Final Cut, anyone could do it and it is a blast to alter the stills at will, then animate them ... something much harder to do with video.
 
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