1st Kong Scene

Even though I was fighting a cold I seized the opportunity of the weekend, skipped doing the dishes and started setting up at 9 once got the kids to sleep: set, lights backdrop, framing, technology (dslr to computer, webcam to computer, ipod to computer (as external harddrive for large images) animation software, planning software, trick the dslr software), puppet touch ups, blah blah blah. Ready to animate at 11. Animate til 2, discover camera has run out of batteries. Consider options, finish off the current arc for the bad web cam and get to bed by 3.

Stop motion is so super fun to animate!!!!

Lessons:
Setup computer where can see it from the animation, and where stepping to it to snap the frame will be out of shot.
Can't wing the set, have to figure out how to make it solid, in this case would have had to build a giant wood structure, especially since flying rig was grabbing the set, and set being so delicate it would move a lot.
Those coat tails were a stroke of genius, hid almost all flying rig on him.
Animation is super fun, straight ahead just do it.
Flying rig probably would have worked better doubled, and needed something to support against.
Make sure everything you might want to move is far away from set/camera so there's no accidental bumps.
Mark with tape where feet/legs/base of set/tripod are, so if gets bumped can just put back.
Build the set then plan, not make a plan and build set to fit, because actual set will change the plan.
Okay to trust the process and feel the flow, can wing it more than I did with the animation.
Puppet will hold onto the set itself, he was actually holding onto the window ledges, self supporting (a bit)
Super helpful to have on the x sheet when I wanted a hit/accent, and a vague idea of where a bouncing ball arc was gonna be (so could plan to make sure I'd be at the top of it at the right place (ie 5 frames to peak)).
Webcam live view kinda off of actual photos, might need to look into a spy cam through the eyehole.
Need to get a better handle on flying rigs (probably I was abusing them by pushing to far)


Pictures:

The aesthetic from the start was always to have a cardboard city, cuz it's cheap and easy and not very important since the point of this exercise is to just have something to animate and wear away my rough stopmo animation edges. Was also thinking maybe I'd desaturate it, almost to sepia as another nod to the original Ape's movie. I had thought maybe with the paper bag windows and a light behind them they would glow, but I only had 2 desk lamps so that didn't happen. I would up suspending this building from the ceiling with tacks and dental floss, and then resting the bass on a chair. I had colored blue (with some help from my kids) a big 5x3 piece of paper for a sky, but it wasn't big enough, so used a sheet. All you people with garage's or extra rooms you can dedicate to your projects sheesh, this project lives in a paper bag under my bed when I'm not actually doing it :)

The star looks more like a bear than an orangutan, I think because the muzzle projects so far, guess I should have tried to cut them in half, but the mouths are solid tinfoil wasn't sure how I could cut it with out destroying it. 

Here's the timing planning in flash (somehow the arcs with little tic marks didn't come through) I did a whole sheet of pose sketches from primate videos before this. Hmm, sound didn't come through

 

here's the good camera, which ran out of batteries, also no sound

 

and here's the 10 year old web cam I was using as a live view (it had 16:9 guide on it while I animated), the missing footage that I animated but the good camera quit on. THIS ONE WITH SOUND

So, first scene=fail (he was supposed to get all the way to the top of the screen) but lots of fun and lots of leraning. Can't wait to do it some more, but I'm reconsidering ways to simplify so I can focus on the animation.