Preparation - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 171

every change in speed of the animation it wouldn't l ow. This is hard and restrictive. We have
strobing to contend with, something less of a problem with live action and CG, where the
blurring of the image is a helpful part of the process. Depending on the budget, we can blur
the image in postproduction or move the camera during the exposure of the frame, but still the
animator has to follow the camera.
This is unnatural. Like good editing, which is usually invisible, camerawork wants to be
inconspicuous. The worst moves direct the eye, anticipating something or giving something
unnecessary import. Relating a moving camera to the eye, the eye is watching something in
front of it, and then gets distracted by something to one side. The i rst response is to move the
eyes, only moving the head when necessary for a better view. The body follows. Likewise, once
the eyes have focused on the object they stop, and the head and body eventually catch up
before coming to a halt. It doesn't happen all at the same time.
When a puppet starts moving, it is a mistake for the camera to move on the same frame.
Like anything in animation, nothing starts at full speed, so the i rst frames of a camera move
must be small fairings, building up to the accepted speed. If the camera delays for too long
or takes too many frames to get up to speed the puppet can move out of shot, unbalancing
the framing. Slowing down the puppet while the camera catches up or suddenly speeding
up results in an awkward move. In general, once a camera is plotted and on its way, there's no
stopping it. Shakespeare was prone to jumps in Next , with the camera following him. These
jumps had to be carefully plotted and anticipated in the bar sheets. The heavily structured
music score helped. I plotted the camera move to accommodate the jump on a certain beat,
and trusted that I could animate the puppet into the right place at the right time, coordinating
with the camera. This takes a lot of planning and even more instinct.
A camera move, like the animation itself, wants to l ow, but, like the animation, this is not a
matter of mathematics and equal division. The animator needs to work precisely with the
cameraman, plotting the camera moves, rehearsing them, making marks, giving the impression
the camera is following the animation.
Rigoletto was shot in a suitably Gothic railway arch in with trains regularly going overhead
causing vibrations in the studio. We anticipated these by pausing, but we had not anticipated
the electrical and magnetic surges that played havoc with our carefully planned camera moves.
The camera wandered of in totally the wrong direction. (As did the radio-controlled animals in
the stage musical of Doctor Dolittle , set of into uncontrollable spasms by passing taxis and the
overhead planes coming into land.)
Rigoletto needed as much camera movement as possible to illuminate the music. Because
the schedule was tough, walking the puppets everywhere on a huge set was impossible.
They couldn't be static with that lively music, so the moving camera helped to suggest that it
was i nding the characters on the run, giving the illusion of more movement than there was.
Some scenes were passive, but a slowly creeping camera stopped the scene becoming stage
bound, in the worst sense. Our particular camera was limited to two axis, but we
were inventive enough to push its limited movements. Moving the puppets to the
camera with this music became like dancing with a partner.
These puppets were particularly impressive, able to take close-ups of their
amazingly articulate mouths. To have shot this i lm with too many close-ups would
have worked against freeing an opera from the stage. I wanted a dimension that