Stop Motion Video

Storryboard for stop motion film

I was thinking about possible stop motion ideas and decided to create a stop motion featuring myself. I put my friends camera on a tripod and told him to take over 80 photographs of myself based on this storyboard. I then cut out the photos of myself that took about 3 hours. I had recently gone to the cinema to watch a film in 3D and got given a pair of 3D glasses so I came up with an idea featuring the 3D glasses. I also thought about how glasses are an accesory in fashion at the moment even if you have perfect vision. I created a script that can be seen below each image.

After creating the script i recorded myself speaking on a hand held camera and layered it over the top of my stop motion film. This worked quite well and I was happy with the end product however I felt I could have made it better under less time pressure as each photograph of myself wasn't perfectly placed in the position of the previous one. I chose glasses because of their relevennce to a changing landscape of gimmick accessories in fashion thoughtout the years.

I also could have done with taking more photos even though I would have had to of cut out more because it would have been slightly more interesting. I also could have done with having more money; the recoring of myself speaking didn't sound great and would have sounded a lot clearler in a recording studio. However all in all the storyboard was helpful and I was pleased with the stop motion video.

Photomontage

The montage on the left was done by me in the style of David Hockney's montages. I took 15 photos in all from different angles and aspects of the tray and meat products. I opened up a blank file and gradually started adding more and more images into the montage and started overlapping the images.

I thought about the idea of changing food products in a landscape; sausages are fairly new in relitive terms where as porc chops have been around for years, tin foil is fairly new whereas wood top tables have been around for hundreds of years.

My second montage was all about me and my village, I incorperated a landscape photo that I took of Beltring station, 20mins walk from my house, my guitar in the right hand corner, a ceg, an ipod, peanut butter me and my 3D glasses in the top left the local post box in the bottom left and the facebook logo I got off the internet (my village is far away from most of my friends so its a good way to contact people in an isolated area. The lightbulb in the centre is a long lasting lightbulb and so better for the environment than tradition lightbulbs. In this way societies landscape of essential products is changing with social issues such as climate change. I recently discovered a guy in the year above me that lives in my village so the light bulb also symbolises the idea of a light freeing me from boredom. I originally had a background of my friends wall with a bubble pattern and this pattern is merged into all of the photos in the montage most clearly on the top right and ceg. I used a stamp affect on most of the photos to make it more interesting and aesthetically pleasing.

Edited photograph showing a range of skills and photomontage

I took the original photograph in Africa. I turned the photograph into a negative and selected the road. I colourized the road and tree with a red tone. I then selected certain aspects of the image such as the different mountains and changed the darkness of the mountains. I then decided that I would darken the sky and colourize it so it look dull and grey. I then went onto google and thought about the concept of a sun coming up in the background. I expanded this idea and thought about a Japanese type sun because its quite stylized and I think quite interesting. I copyed this in and put it onto a new layer behind the mountains. I then made the rays longer so they reached the edges of the photograph. I thought this was quite an interesting affect because it mixes a more realistic idea with a cartoon like aspect too it.

I researched Salvador Dalí, Man Ray and David Hockney who are three of the most famous photo montage artists. Man Ray one of the most famous photographers of the 1930s and 1940s.

Composite images

I took a tutorial to try and learn some new techniques that I could apply to some of my images. I put the two planes in (on new

layers) and made them look extra realistic b

y using the feathering tool after contracting t

he plane by 0.5 pixels. I blurred the image and

put a motion blur on the planes at the same an

gle as the plane to make it look as if the plane is traveling forward. You can also change the

number of pixels that you blur and so I only dragged the bar across a little because if you blur it by too many pixels you cants see the plane very well (just a blur) and I wanted to make the plane distinguishable in the photo.

The photo on the right is one of mine and I wanted to create an image in the style of David LaChapelle with the same techniques learnt in the tutorial and image I created in the image above. I decided that I would create an Image similar to the style of LaChappelle's by adding colour to this dull image. I also wanted to make a comical image that is rather unrealistic. I first found an image of an ice cream van and customer and copyed it onto a new layer. I placed it to the side of the track and feathered the edge of the van. I then placed a fun fair ride in the background next to the heard of wilderbeast. There was not a break in the heard so I had to clone stamp the grass in front before hand to erase some wilderbeast to make room for the fair ride. I then motion blurred the people on the ride to make it look as if they were going fast. I looked at the sky and noticed there was a big space; big enough to put a plane in. I took a lancaster bomber and placed it on a new layer. I then selected it and resized it by holding shift to keep it to scale. I then used the motion blur on it like I had in the previous image. I originally envisaged changing the hue to make it look almost cartoon like (like LaChapelles) however I didn't want to make too many changes to the image and I was pleased with the image in the end because the idea of a fun fair in the masai mara was rather interesting. Following on from this the lancaster (a second world war bomber) in the masai mara was also rather 'different'.

Filters

I decided that instead of taking one single image and transforming the whole thing by using one filter that I would select certain aspects of a single image and use a range of different textured filters and apply those to the selected areas.

To do this I first unlocked my layer by duplicating it. I then took the magic wand tool to select the sky and went to the filters. I decided to use one of the sketch filters and used the notepaper one. I kept it in black and white because I still wanted a bleak looking photo. I changed the hue slightly to create a light looking sky.


I then used the polygonal lasso tool and cut around the different buildings to create an image with a range of textures. I also added pieces of colour by colourizing certain area by clicking the colourize button.

I had an interesting image in terms of buildings but I thought the Thames needed to look more interesting. I cut around it and used the photocopy filter because I wanted to create a dark dirty looking river to keep in theme with the grey dull sky. I also wanted to create a prevoking image by doing this because it looks like oil that may have spilled from boats.

Monochrome

On the left is the original photo I took on a day out in London. First I look at the photo which I took to coincide with the title 'Changing Landscapes', I decided I wanted to empashasise the point of London being a dirty city and so changed the photo into a negaitve on photoshop. This gave the effect of a smokey sky with ghost like buildings.

I then thought about the idea of colourizing the photo to make it more interesting. I did this by copying the original layer to unlock it and changing the hue and saturation. I clicked colourize and changed the hue to a red colour. I then changed the lightness and made the red a darker colour so I could still keep the dark dirty theme of a changed landscape alive.

This looked quite good and I felt was an improvement on both the original photo and the negative version in just black and white.

Using Hue Saturation and lightness

A changing landscape

The image above is a print screen showing how i changed the image from a simple but effective shot of a changing landscape to a more arty styleized image. I changed the levels and clicked the colourize box to create a range of different bright coloured buildings. I moved the hue to change the colour and then i moved the saturation along to make it a darker and more saturated dense colour or a less saturated and dense colour. I then changed the lightness so i could make the colour dark or light.

After changing the colour of buildings i wanted too i opened a new window and cut out a banksy image. i then copyed it onto a layer on my existing window and moved it about. I put the image on a wall because the character looks like they are sweeping rubbish underneath the curtain and you can see the bare wall behing. I felt that this would show a good example of layers. I also used the magic wand tool to highlight the grafiti that was present already and changed the colours.

In the original image you could see the tracks (as it was taken out a train window) and so i cut these out.This is because I didnt think foreground was necessary and didnt really add anything to the final image. I decided to leave the sky in black and white because I felt if it had been a big blue sky the viewers eye would have been drawn away from the buildings.

Skills Develpment

Before and After photo

Before

After

The original image had a horribly dull boring sky so I used the magic wand tool and selected the sky. I then went to levels and used the filter tool, I chose a blue filter so the sky would look bluer and then i changed the brightness too to get the colour of sky i wanted.

I then selected the road and foreground with my magic wand tool and carefully selected different bits and brightened them up to give a reder coloured soil which i felt would look look contrasting with the blue of the sky. I then realised that on the horizon some of the sky was still a greyish colour because the magic wand had not picked up those areas. I then repeated the original process of changing the filter to get a similar colour that would be unoticable.

I was thinking of taking out the telegraph pole but decided that your eye followed them down the road and without them the viewer would not be able to image the lengh of the road and the surrounding bleak harsh landscape.

I finally decided that the sky was too big and cropped the photo at the top so the viewers eye would be drawn more towards the horizon and the firery coloured road.

Using Levels

1) A histogram shows the distribution of brightness in a photo. If its a very dark image then the histogram will visually show this. It is usually good to have a histogram that shows an even distribution of colour.

2) An under exposed image is very dark because less light has been let onto the film, a correctly exposed image is 'normal' and has had the right amount of light allowed onto the film, An over exposed image is very light as it has had too much light let onto the film.

3) If an image is high key it means it has predominantly light tones however if its a low key image it means it has predominantly dark tones.

4) Levels let you adjust colours and the contrast of a photo so you make a photo brighter or darker so it doesn't matter if the original exposure of a photo isn't perfect because you can change that.

5) The selection tools let you concentrate on a certain area of a photo which means you can edit that particular section in any way you like it whether its by changing the contrast or smudging it with the distortion tools.

6) Channeling means you can take an image and mask a certain part you dislike by altering the colour of the section you want to mask. Its very easy to use and for best results it should be used on a black and white photo or night time shot of a horizon with dark sky.

Using cropping tool

When considering when making a "cropping decision" I first think about what I would hope to achieve by cropping the photo and most importantly is it necessary. I first analyse where my eye is drawn too in the photo and decide whether its the main focal point. I then look at the proportions of the photo and look to see if there is any unused wasted space. If there is any space at any of the sides of the photo i decide whether it has a positive or a negative effect on the the photo. I have used it on a landscape taken in Chile because the sky was very plane and i felt that cropping the top of the photo would create a better photo, that displayed the depth of field in a more effective way. The viewers eye is now drawn towards the horizon rather than the dull sky so i feel the cropping I have done is a success.

Techniques I have used

Photoshop tools

I have used a range of tools so far in photoshop. These include:

Magic wand tool: This can be used to highlight an area of a photo where pixels are all of a similar colour. You can then change colour levels etc. In my opinion its the most important tool because you cant do anything else thats going to do a huge difference to the photo without knowing how to use it effectively.

Magnetic wand: This can be used to cut around an area manually and will stick to a line of pixels with a similar colour and is very efficient at cutting an area out quickly if your in a rush. In my opinion its a better tool to use compared to the lasso tool because people that are not used to photo editing can use it effectively.

Clone Stamp: The clone stamp can be used if you want to cover up an area discretely. I have used this in a few photos and its best to use it when trying to get rid of imperfection in skin on portraits if you want to see its best results.

Auto Levels: If you change the auto levels it automatically makes the photo brighter and this can be used, again if your in a rush and theoretically can achieve the same results as you wanting to do the same thing manually in seconds rather than tens of minutes.