Javan Ivey: And I like light table what I needed if I am doing drawing. I have got my camera for my down shoot. I keep all my tools up above, I got cutting surfaces. This is my old my old mini Divi Cam.
All you have to do is get the images somehow, be it a camera, be it one of these. It could be -- you can use this. A lot of these kind of cameras have like -- it will say like a frame recording sort of feature in any camera menu you can kind of look through and find -- they will call it a frame record. It gets like three frames but when you import that you can usually crunch it down, you know, when you speed things up. You can crunch it down and you can get your single frames and it's really, really fun, and it's really, really simple. The being is probably most of you are video folks, you probably have a camera already.
So the trick is just figuring out a way to get that live feed out of your camera into your computer and then you can capture those frames off of the live feed. FrameThief is really good. I think they have it for Mac and PC. I could be wrong, it might be just Mac but I can't remember, iStopMotion is another good Mac program. If you have a PC there are so many so many just simple capture programs. There are not too hard to find. You start googling iStopMotion or image capture is a good keyword, and you can just start going from there.
Here is one of the biggest, the weirdest little -- it's a very interesting little tip. In a lot of cameras, they have like an auto shutoff feature. Sometimes you turn it off. Sometimes you can turn it off, sometimes you can't. If you can't find a way to turn it off take the tape out of the camera. I can't find how to turn off the auto shutoff on this camera but if I don't put a tape in, it won't turn off automatically.
So what we are going to do is just set up really simple. We will break up the clay. You know what I have, in plato you can get -- I have got three of these little tubs for it was like $0.99 at Target and Plato is cheap, and you can do whatever you want with it. Frame rate, with iStopMotion you are going to have a lot easier time at 12 frames per second because you only have to do 12 positions and you get a full second out of it rather than a video running at 30, you have to do 30 positions to get a full second.
So 12 frames per second, while, it depends, Wallace & Gromit is like 12, Corps Bride is on a full 24, it's on what we called ones. When it's every frame we call it ones, when it's every other frame like 12 frames per second we call it twos. So once you have it it's just like a simple like spacebar sort of thing and we will just do some things and make it creep across the table. And there are different settings you can use. You can onion skin it and give it like an echo of where it has been and you can set that more or less and this is iStopMotion by the way, and when you run it, you can run it back and just see where it's going and then you just kind of start moving off from there.
The most common mistake somebody is going to make in terms of timing when they are first starting out is everything is going to be very even. Some things are going to like look and then move its arm and then go like this, and it is just going to keep moving in this sort of -- it just sort of goes and doesn't pause and it will grab something and then it will throw it like that and you know it will go on but you have got to kind of pop it a little. You grab something and you hold on to it for a second, and then you start here and you throw a little bit and then you are all the way at the end. You throw that thing, you know, it's like give it -- they call it ease in and ease out.
If I want to move my hand from here to here I don't go one, two, three, four; it's more like one, two, three, four. So I am going to start smooth and end smooth and simple things like that are really going to effect how the character is perceived. Secure your cameras as well as you can. Nails, don't be afraid of -- well if you have got a cheap tripod like this one. I will nail this to the floor and that way even if I do kick it it's not going to go anywhere. That's usually a pretty good way to keep them fixed with six nails, especially if you have got these nice little --
The next time you are filming in your parents bedroom nail the tripod to the floor. Don't do that. I mean and we kind of recognize that as a head because it kind of looks and then looks around and that's due to the pausing, oops. If it just started waving it could be an arm, it could be a leg, a foot, a hand like we wouldn't know what it would be.
Host: What's the best thing to do for any up and coming whether they are in video, whether there in animation, what's the best thing for them to do to get their work out there and work with big name people?
Javan Ivey: I think it comes down to just getting out there and talking. If you find somebody -- find the people whose work you like, and go talk to them. They are just more people. I mean there are all just people to and I think you will find if you just approach them, a lot of people would be really approachable, and everybody loves to talk about themselves.
So that's probably the best thing you could do, is just get involved. Internships, like find a company, you like their work and see if they will let you work for them for free, because they probably will. They are not going to turn that down usually.
Hell I got a job. That is right. So a lot of people get jobs. I mean that's where I ended up on that. The thing was I was interning at Bent Image Lab and they do wonderful things. I really, really enjoyed the work they come up with and the Directors there are really good. I think Michelle White and David Daniels, like, I love their work. They have great things.
Thanks guys for coming out. My website is www.javanivey.com. I am sure it will flash it about somewhere around here on the screen at this place and that's me. So buy guys.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services