[Adam Taylor]

hey john, i like the tilt shift examples you posted. The brightly saturated colours really help sell the effect as well.

adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

sorry – depth of field is not key to making something look like stopframe although in the right place it could help sell an effect.

Maybe if you want it to look like it was shot on your kitchen table, then you would probably get that effect due to a lack of decent lighting.

I worked on two worldwide syndicated stopframe shows for six years, and i can honestly say, the only time a shallow depth of field was used was when that effect/style was called for in the story.

You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned the lower frame rates and the lack of motion blur. Those are the things that really single out stopframe animation.

I think the effect you are referring to as “Miniaturization” is actually called “Tilt Shift”, fantastic for making images look like a model https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/11/16/beautiful-examples-of-tilt-shift-photography/‘>

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

much stopmotion animation is done by shooting “doubles” ie, every frame is shot twice, so in effect your video will be running at 12frames per second (in the UK).

Different frame rates do get used for effects, such as camera pans.
These will usually be shot on “singles” – but remember to also animate the characters on singles as well, otherwise you get a bizarre effect which gives you a smooth camera motion with a very staccato character. If you are really unlucky, it can even look as if the character is moving backwards every other frame if they are animated for doubles but shot for singles.

The other thing to remember, which is often forgotten, is that in stopmotion there is no motion blur. Unless you have an expensive motion control camera than can expose the shot during a move, then everything will be clean and sharp when exposed.

Thats what gives stopmotion its characteristic motion, now apply those parameters to your video and you should be able to get a pretty ok look.
or you could actually shoot it as if it were stopframe…but that will take you ages.

adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

you may want to check with them what reference level was used.

You may find they have recorded the files with a -20dbfs (or -18dbfs in europe) reference.

Ideally, they would have either included a sine wave tone signal ( although these are becoming less common in the digital file age.

If you are working with the full audio range in FCP then anything coming from a post audio facility that has been recorded with lower reference will sound quieter.

You need to know that reference level so that you can accurately compensate for it.

adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

hunh?

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

first thing is to stop thinking that hard drives are the best backup solution – they’re not.
As you have noted yourself, you are having loads of drive failures, so why expect a backup drive solution to be any different?

I use a tape based backup and in the past three years it has saved my bacon twice when major failures on hard drives caused total data loss (two different incidents on two different raids).
On one incident, i had two enterprise grade Seagates go down causing the Raid 5 to become unrecoverable and fortunately, i only really lost a days work (there were 4 years worth of projects on that raid). Its worth checking your raid drives warranty because although my Seagates were over a year old, they had 5 yr warranties, and were replaced free of charge.

I would never trust my data to a hard drive only setup.

I use an Overland Arcvault 24 LTO3 tape library along with Bakbone Netvault backup software.

Essentially, this gives me an automatic backup solution which i can set to do backups at evenings and weekends when i’m not working. It holds 24 x 400gb tapes (total 9.6 tb), and this allows me to do backups from three mac hard drives and 2 Raids.

Obviously you can get larger tape drives to backup larger systems. Also i think the Arcvault is no longer in manufacture, but the current models should have something with the connections you need.

Its worth remembering that tape is still the prefered method of backing up at all the banks, financial institutions and Governments. Its a proven storage method with much longer lifetime than hard discs.

rgds
Adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

just for a laugh i once got the gallery to drop in a “Library Pictures” caption even though the shots were brand new that day….the story? all about a library!!

Tickled me, but no-one else noticed.
sadly, you just don’t get that kind of opportunity everyday!.

adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

i think you can also get those same dropped frame errors if the hard drive you are capturing to is having problems.
Ensure you have a drive capable of 7200rpm, and also do not capture to the system drive if you can avoid it. Last time i checked, USB drives are not recommended either because they write data in bursts (packets) rather than as continuous data streams such as in firewire.

adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

perfect !

thanks Arnie.

with H & A as my pen rocker settings its working a treat!

don’t know why i never thought of that before.

adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

[Adam Taylor]

glad to hear it worked for you, Craig.
adam

Adam Taylor
Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
Character Options Ltd
Oldham, UK

http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk