Pixilation - Frame-by-Frame Stop Motion: The Guide to Non-Traditional Animation Techniques - page 48

Fig 3.19 Lightweight motion-control unit for outdoor shooting , designed by Joe Lewis. Courtesy
of Jamie Caliri.
and difficult to maintain. Some of the lighter units can be used in the field
but might not have the accuracy achieved on a hard studio floor with a
heavy machine.
These days, most filmmakers that work in stop motion and pixilation
shoot with digital single-lens reflex (dslr) cameras, which are small and
lightweight. As a result, the large, heavy motion-control units are no longer
necessary. Newer, more affordable lightweight systems are constructed
from off-the-shelf parts. We explore these in the following chapter about
time-lapse photography. The other advantage of these dslrs is that they
can be animated directly with no motion control. In my recent film Off-
Line , I took my Nikon D-100 and placed it right on my set. By focusing on
a particular object in the frame and utilizing my frame-grabbing capture
software, I was able to move the camera through the set in a relatively
smooth moving point-of-view (POV) shot. I held the camera to the set using
“Blu-tack,” a soft putty material, as I shot each frame from the computer. You
can even use a simple wooden guide to help control the placement of the
camera for each frame. There are many ways to be creative with the camera
now that they are small and light; and this kind of filmmaking becomes
even more accessible to anyone with a good idea and the desire to make a
pixilated film and do the work involved.