Pixilation - Frame-by-Frame Stop Motion: The Guide to Non-Traditional Animation Techniques - page 45

worked in the advertising industry in short subject filmmaking (commercials).
Some might consider PES a three-dimensional collage artist. In his first
successful film, mentioned earlier in the topic, PES animated real chairs on the
roof of a New York City apartment building. This film, Roof Sex , has a strong
sense of art direction in color and composition and the chairs, which bare
no human features, are moved in a way that mimics humans consummating.
Understanding the effects of movement through testing and reference film
allows an animator to reproduce a particular action that may not normally
be associated with that object. As humans, we recognize certain actions
associated with our species, because we understand ourselves (mostly). Once
that motion is transposed onto another object, we identify and find interest
and humor. PES has a simple trick that he uses on his website and in his
2009 film, Western Spaghetti . He mimics a flame, on a stove or in a fireplace
on top of pretzels (that look like logs) using several different size candy corns
and replacing them in front of the camera every two frames. It is so simple
but so effective. This technique, which is known as replacement animation ,
calls for the substitution of one object for another similar but different object.
The changing objects create an animated effect. This is one way to achieve
squash and stretch in object animation. Replacement animation is one of the
cornerstones of all stop-motion techniques. People can be substituted for
people, objects can be substituted for other similar objects, and the effect can
be magical, as in the PES candy corn flames.
Fig 3.15 Several different sizes of candy corn are used as replacement models, imitating a flame. Courtesy of and © PES.
One simple exercise that anyone can try involves taking any object, like
a saltshaker, and moving it around a table in front of a camera, frame by
frame. This requires a digital still camera or a digital video camera that is
controlled or hooked into a capture software program, like Dragon Stop
Motion or Framethief. Dragon works well with the digital still cameras
and standard definition digital video cameras work well with Framethief.
Mount your camera on a tripod and lock it down with tape or sand bags.
Make sure the tripod is on a hard flat surface like a concrete floor. Do not
(Continued)