Objects, People, and Places - Frame-by-Frame Stop Motion: The Guide to Non-Traditional Animation Techniques - page 85

“There's definitely a language of objects involved. I love playing with
the layers of association that come with objects, and I strive to tap
into these all the time. Examples abound in all my films. Take, for
instance, the boiling water in Western Spaghetti : I used bubble wrap
to create this effect. It was uncanny how much bubble wrap could be
made to look like boiling water. The effect was almost too good—too
good because there are people who don't even notice it's bubble
wrap until the third or fourth viewing, and that means some people
will miss the joke. Plus, bubble wrap has bubbles, just like boiling
water. They have that very important detail in common, but you'd
never imagine one could stand in for the other, no matter how much
weed you smoked.
“Another example in Western Spaghetti would be using the Rubik's
cube as garlic. This gag is a totally different approach than bubble wrap
because Rubik's cubes look absolutely nothing like garlic. I forged the
connection by focusing on the act of ripping a clove of garlic from the
head of garlic. In real life when you do this, you apply pressure with
your thumb until crack ! The clove comes loose. This action reminded
me of when I was a kid and we used to take apart the Rubik's cubes
and reassemble them into completed Rubik's cubes. This is something
many kids remember from the 1980s. You'd apply extreme pressure with
a thumb to one of the corner pieces of the cube. It would be pressure,
pressure, pressure, then crack !, the piece came off. Your thumb would
kill, but it worked. It was then easy to reassemble all the pieces into
a completed Rubik's cube. And, interestingly, that action is exactly
how you get a garlic clove off. So, the humor lies in the unexpected
connection, the logic I found there.”
Shooting Safe Zones
Subject matter is critical for a frame-by-frame film. Where you shoot plays
an equally important role. As we discovered, protecting and stabilizing your
camera is very important to have control in the overall image. Light, shadows,
environmental conditions, and power are all elements that have to be
addressed in any stop-motion production. Naturally, if you shoot indoors or
in a studio space, you have the option to control these elements. Natural light
can be blocked out and simulated through staged lighting, if that is desired.
Ideally, there are no erratic weather conditions in the studio, but a few issues
do need to be addressed in an indoor shooting environment.
The world is constantly changing. It breaths, expands and contracts. Often,
this is too subtle for us to see but time-lapse and extended shoots over time
reveal this fact. Humidity affects interior spaces, and this can be a problem only
if a shoot goes over an extended period of time. Objects get heated and their
molecular structure changes under stage lighting for long periods; and if those