QUESTIONS ARE PRE-2004 UNTIL LISTED
Hi Oliver,
I was interested in the comments you made about the stop frame animation, creating fades in-camera, could you please elaborate on this technique. Thanks for your time, Rob Malloch. Paraparaumu, New Zealand.
Way back when, we teenagers started our fascination with cinema by buying 8mm and Super 8mm cameras. Some of the good ones had a "single frame" facility that allowed you to shoot one frame at a time. So I'd make animated films of just about anything: put the camera on a tripod,take a frame, move something (a doll? A person?) a small amount, take another frame and so on. I guess I made the first Spiderman film in 1968 by cutting up the comic and animating "Spidey" in a short 8mm film. Nowadays, you can buy a 16mm second-hand Bolex and make a very high quality animated film if you so wish. Fade in/out is a facility that many of these cameras offered as an "effect". Norman Maclaren (a Canadian filmmaker) used a lot of these techniques to great effect. Today's animators still use this and many other more modern digital techniques to create their moving images.
I was wondering how you photograph photographs (i.e.) Chris Markers, La Jetee, or the photo montage in Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. Is there any specific equipment or technique used? I ask because I am making a short film on digital hoping to use this effect, and was wondering if you could give me any advice on achieving this? --CM
There is no special technique for this other than a good tripod and two lights to light the photo from either side- without flare. The term "rostrum camera" is used for the professional cameras (usually a Mitchell 35mm) used for this in movies. Camera moves have to be very carefully controlled as a small movement of the camera will result in a large movement of the subject, depending on the size of the photo. If you use an amateur DV camera and can switch off the auto focus this will help, as the camera may search for focus during the shot. Many DV cameras will focus surprisingly close, and you may be able to zoom to make the movements on the photos.
If you want to make dissolves and layers then you can do this on a computer, but not in the camera. Serious amateurs use Super 8mm or 16mm for this as then you can do "stop frame" animation and make dissolves etc in the camera.
Do you have any practical advice for shooting puppets, to keep them fantastically realistic, Dark Crystal/Labyrinth meets Meet the Feebles/Evil Dead styles? ??--Mike
Two things to think about with puppets: how much depth of field is needed, and how to light them. The answer to the first is controlled by the iris (Tstop) , the selection of lenses and the nature of the medium you are shooting (digi,16mm etc). This will determine how in or out of focus the creatures are. Depending on the scale, your puppets will need more or less light to render them sharp and the background out of focus. If you go for a focus relationship that is somewhat similar to that of a human portrait, then that will tend to make them look more "natural" and vice versa. Lighting the eyes is always important to make them seem alive. Use a small light near the lens and that should make a suitable highlight in the eyes of the "good" creatures?. You might want to go for a more sinister and darker look for the bad guys. The motion of the creatures is, of course, vitally important... you?ll have to ask an animator about that.
Often on documentary channels, it is shown that the camera is kept at one spot and an entire day passes by, from sunrise, to sunset, to fast moving clouds, etc. How do they achieve this feat? Do they actually keep the camera on for 24 hours? The shot goes pretty fast. Does it involve some special procedure???--Vishal
Generally speaking, this is a technique called stop frame animation. Sometimes called single frame animation. It can also be done by running the camera at normal speed for a few seconds every 5 minutes or so, and then "printing" the desired frames later. A similar result can be achieved with video, although nothing looks as good as shooting it the "proper" way with a camera capable of shooting single frames at pre-determined intervals (say one frame every minute). Exposure and various other factors contribute to making this process one for the experts. A very secure camera mount is essential otherwise the shot will wobble badly. Changing the film stock is generally not a good idea either: if the camera moves even a tiny bit the day?s work will be ruined (unless you fix it later with an expensive computer).
Often on documentary channels, it is shown that the camera is kept at one spot and an entire day passes by, from sunrise, to sunset, to fast moving clouds, etc. How do they achieve this feat? Do they actually keep the camera on for 24 hours? The shot goes pretty fast. Does it involve some special procedure???--Vishal
Generally speaking, this is a technique called stop frame animation. Sometimes called single frame animation. It can also be done by running the camera at normal speed for a few seconds every 5 minutes or so, and then "printing" the desired frames later. A similar result can be achieved with video, although nothing looks as good as shooting it the "proper" way with a camera capable of shooting single frames at pre-determined intervals (say one frame every minute). Exposure and various other factors contribute to making this process one for the experts. A very secure camera mount is essential otherwise the shot will wobble badly. Changing the film stock is generally not a good idea either: if the camera moves even a tiny bit the day's work will be ruined (unless you fix it later with an expensive computer). (now-days (2007) you can do this very well with a digital stills camera.)
2006
I suppose this might be a silly question, but is there any secret to doing time-elapsed filming (specifically with a miniDV camera)?
Scott
I've always just turned the camera on and let it record for an hour straight and then speed it up when I edit, but there must be another way. I'd rather not use up a whole tape to film a sunset that will only last 10 seconds in my movie. Also, some events I want to shoot last days, take the shot at the end of Adaptation, where the sun goes up and down several times.
The favorite method at the moment for time lapse seems to be to use a digital stills camera along with a laptop computer. You'll find a lot of discussion about this on Cinematography.net. With a miniDV you won't get anything like the resolution of a stills camera so this is generally a better way to go. Some, like the cheapish Canon S60 have an intervalometer built in. At the high end there is no amount of money you can't spend. Personally I have become a bit bored of the technique as every man and his dog seems to be doing it. On the Heathrow Express train they seem to use it like wallpaper on the TV and that might be the right place for it.