Production - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 296

stand-ins fail to convince us that the actors are there together. In stop motion everything we do
is about giving a convincing illusion of characters existing in a real space responding to each
other, so it does not help to shoot in ways that destroy this illusion.
Close-ups, etc.
Producers, understandably, like to encourage two, or even more, cameras shooting on
complicated shots to maximise the amount of useful footage. Sometimes this works, but most
animators are comfortable playing to one specii c camera. There is often some rig or other
tricks hidden from the camera by the puppet or the framing. This is blown by two cameras
running, and no matter how often you are told that the camera is only there 'just in case' or that
'it won't be used, you can guarantee that it will. Playing to one camera is not just for hiding
rigs, but animators go to great pains to ensure that the composition and the poses works for
that specii c viewpoint. Most dance is generally choreographed for the one, slightly general,
perspective of the audience out front, where all the patterns and the shapes of the body are
seen to read most clearly. Sometimes dance on i lm has cameras are all over the place with
some of the dancing looks a mess, as the shapes do not read. It is the same with animation,
particularly with many of the animal characters having a big snout or such, making both eyes
visible at once somewhat dii cult. An animator will perform the puppet bearing in mind such
quirks, making everything read for the camera. Two cameras ignore this, but then there is
extra footage and that should not be dismissed.
With two cameras shooting at once, the main camera is shooting a master wide shot while
the other covers things in close-up, but there is a great dif erence between animating in
close-up and in long shot. This is not just in terms of performance; an animator will rein in
his performance for a close shot and keep most of the storytelling acting to subtle facial
expressions that would not read in a wide shot, where broader physical acting is required. We
need a dif erent technique for close-up animation. In wide shots, where the character makes up
a tiny part of the frame, you can animate a gesture in broad strokes, as the space in the actual
frame that a limb travels through is still relatively small. A character can do a large wave in three
frames, which when reduced by a large framing may look smooth. With the same gesture in a
close-up, the distance these waving arms travels between frames in proportion to the frame
can be enormous, making it hard for one frame to relate to another. The gesture falls to pieces,
as there just aren't enough frames to tell the story.
I would encourage close-up animation to be more subtle, using many more frames to tell the
story; this slows the pace down, but big fast moves in close-up just do not work. However, this
is all about i nding the appropriate framing for the gesture. It is hopeless trying to contain a
large gesture in a tight framing. Remember that the camera should i t the animation, not the
animation i t the camera. Today, with digital shooting and high dei nition, it's best to have the
framing a little looser, to be cropped in postproduction. This is more satisfactory than having
two cameras shooting, with one camera producing well-structured and well-
animated footage, and the other capturing clumsily composed and rough-looking
animation that just may be usable.
Framing can be an issue of schedules. Shooting more close-ups means you can
get more footage out in a day, which is a vital consideration, but it leads to a very
dif erent sort of i lm, and perhaps one not best suited to movement. Inevitably,