Stop-Motion Videos Project
Joy Kim
FNDT-145-S002-2015
Professor Hoda
March 8th 2015
Synopsis
An Asian girl named Lucy was sitting near the table in the kitchen. She was reading a novel called “Anne of Green Gables.” which was her favorite novel. Suddenly, she stared to feel hungry. But, it was too early to have dinner by herself. Therefore, she decided to find some snacks to fill her stomach. She stood and walked into the kitchen. She found a mandarin on the table. The color of the mandarin was fresh and it seemed tasty. She picked up the mandarin and brought it back to the table. She sat near the table and tried to take off the skin of the mandarin, but the skin was too hard to take off. She brought a knife from the kitchen and sliced the mandarin, but it still did not work very well. She was wondering why she cannot tear off and eat the mandarin. She tried to tear off the skin by the knife once again and made a small crush on the skin of the mandarin. All of the sudden, two small eyes popped out on the mandarin, blinking its eyes. When mandarin found there was a girl holding the knife who seemed to eat itself, the color of mandarin changed from orange into pale blue. Lucy was surprised by the change of color of the mandarin. She outstretched her arm and tried to touch the mandarin. The mandarin was scared of the big arm coming towards itself and began running and jumping towards the edge of the table. When it was at the edge of the table, it looked at the ground and the girl. It thought that it might die if it fell to the ground, but it would be better to die than to be eaten by the girl. So, it bravely jumped from the table and fell to the ground. But when it reached to the ground, it got crushed and exploded due to the scar made by the knife. The brave mandarin was dead.
→ For corrections, I changed the type of book into the other one called, “What is it.” Also, I used my room instead of the kitchen for the setting.
Storyboard Before
Storyboard After
Final Version of the Video
Challenges, How to Overcome the Challenges, Lessons and Feedback
The big challenge in this project was how the video can be smooth. I tried to take as many photos as I can to keep continuity in the video. But since I took all the photos by myself, it was hard to adjust specific angles that I want for scenes. There was certain limitation for taking photos. Also, I need to control the movement of objects but it was not easy either. For example, I need to make the mandarin move in the video. However, using my hands made the movement of the mandarin awkward and I need to hide my hands, but it was hard to do that. Therefore, I decided to use a string to move the mandarin. But when I made the mandarin jump up, it circulates and the focus of the photos was not clear, but blurry. Also, hiding the string was not easy. In order to solve those problems, I used Photoshops to get rid of the hands or the string on the top of the mandarin. I fixed every photos that I took before I made them into the video. But through the process, I learned how to make the motion capture video and get familiar to the process.
Comments on my works are great, but one thing I'm concerned about is that there was not much feedback. I hoped I could see more feedback so that I could fix problems in my synopsis and storyboard.
Notes for Storyboard Hand out
The main idea of the reading is to engage readers to be familiar with how to organize the storyboard. For example when we organize a proper storyboard, we need to think about basic elements or principles for storyboard like the rule of thirds. Also for the action of characters in the storyboard, we need to learn how to express the movement of objects. Therefore, it is essential to perpetually practice drawing or sketching objects on our sketch books. In addition, proper knowledge about human body such as proportion, skeletal structure, muscle structure will help to draw movements of actor(s) in the storyboard. Not only the structure, but also shadow and light we need to consider for objects in the storyboard. Another element for the storyboard is angles. To express different types of angles, we need to know terms representing different angle shots in storyboard and how to express it. The most important thing to make good storyboard is to always ask to myself what is the good storyboard and whether I follow basic principles of storyboard or not.
Keywords and Definition
0. Foreground, middle ground and background ( FGD, MGD, BGD )
1. Rule of thirds : All framed shots are divided into thirds either (or both) vertically or horizontally, resulting in the placement of the center of action of any of the intersections.
2. Line of action : The gesture of a figure or the continuity of the action itselF in the storyboard.
3. Close-Up (CU) : Full face shot of actor(s) or up close shot of objects.
4. Extreme Close-Up : So close you see only actor's eyes.
5. Establishing Shot (EST) : Shows the placement of the actor(s) for the audience.
6. Long Shot (LS) : Shows the actor(s) or objects in the distance (background).
7. Medium Shot (MS) : Shows the actor(s) or objects in the MGD.
8. Over the Shoulder (OTS) : Taken over-the-actors-sholder; must stay consistent (on same shoulder) for an actor.
9. Panoramic (Pan) : The camera moves horizontally to take in a panoramic scene.
Tracking shot : The camera is mounted on wheels and moves smoothly on a track to capture the movement in the scene. sometimes a similar "dolly" shot is used, where the camera is pulled or pushed on a cart, like the crab dolly that moves in circular motion.
10. Zoom Shot : The focus goes from wild angle to CU with a zoom lens.
11. Key light : The primary light shining directly on the focus of a scene.
12. Fill light : Light used to reduce shadows.
13. Back light : Light coming from behind the subject.
Three Stories for Stop-Motion Videos
under the Theme of “Conflict, Cause, and Effect”.
1. There was a nice-colored mandarin on the table. A girl was sitting near the table, reading a book. She felt hungry and thirsty so that she found food to have. However, there was nothing which attracted her attention. She then found the mandarin on the table. The color was fascinating and fresh and therefore, she tried to have it. But when she tried to take off its skin, she could not do that. She closely looked at the mandarin. The two small eyes just popped out on the mandarin and the mandarin found there was a human being, which was the girl trying to eat itself. The color of the skin of the mandarin started changing into blue and began running away from the girl. But, when it jumped from the table to the ground, it got crushed and died.
2. One night, a girl was sleeping on the bed with her seal doll. All of the sudden, the doll started moving. The doll was actually alive, but it tried not to be recognized by human beings, it just stayed in the room and waited until night. On night when the girl and her family were sleeping, the seal moved around the room and looked for food. However, there was nothing in the girl’s room so that the seal decide to find food in the outside of the room. But the door was firmly closed so that it could not go out. It kept trying to open the door, but the girl suddenly woke up and walked to the door. She found the seal doll near the door and picked it up to her and went back to sleep. The seal doll failed to go out for food and therefore, it just stayed with the girl, feeling hungry.
3. There were pens and pencils in a pencil case. They were too unorganized so that some of them wanted to escape from the pencil case. But since the inside of the pencil case were too crowded, it was hard for them to escape from there. When they fought with each other to escape first, the pencil case fell down so that pens and pencils could go out. But the big problem was that they did not know where to go. However, one brave pen did not give up finding the door. But when it found the door to escape, the door was suddenly opened and the girl found the pen and the fallen pencil case. She picked up these pen and pencils into the way as they were before.
