Steve: What is up guys? I am Steve Nelson and you are watching Indy Mogul Weekend Extra. Right now we are standing inside the garbage stable that is right outside of our buddy Javan Ivey’s apartment, who is an amazing animator who does some stop animation work so we are going to go inside and figure out some stop animation stuff.
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Javan: Hi I am Javan Ivey I am an independent animator and I tend to do stop-motion work and maybe a little compositing, after effects and yes, this is my place.
This is like the work bench, I have got a light table when I need it for doing drawings. I got my camera for my down shoot. I keep all my tools up above, I have cutting surfaces. This is my old mini DV cam. I got it like from 2001 and I was using it for a down shoot before I have this.
You can do it with this. This is easy, you got your images, take your pictures and you download them. I mean you can use I photo and just bring them in to final cut and layout your images.
Steve: So you can use I movie or windows movie maker or what ever and they could still slow their images in there and do what is necessary.
Javan: Yes. Yes. Yes. It is so easy to do. It is just a matter of, I mean even any animation is just a string of images.
Yes. Yes. This lamp was free. I picked it up off the sidewalk. This one I have like a $9.99 desk lamp out of Pick A Place Target or Home Depot or whatever. I like to have two lights because you can get a more even light when you are working in your down shoot. I like to have them on arms so I do not have to worry about C-clamps or have anything in my way and I can just have a nice backlight, too.
I like a dimmer switch. It is like out of dollar or something and that is nice for fine adjustments. You can do effects like; you can stop motion lights too. You do not have to stick to just puppets because you can go a little bit at the time you can get a bright effect like explosions. You can have—lights are really fun to do in stop motion.
But these are just two-by-fours. These are cheap. These are like two or three dollars for a full two by four. I probably pulled this out of some scraps from a two by four they used in another project. It is the same this with the frame it is just two by fours. MDF, this is the kind of wood that is solid, straight and you do not have to worry about grain warping. It has a nice surface and it is cheap.
What I mean is just L-brackets in miscellaneous hardware. These are the thing that cost fifty cents a piece. Somewhere between fifty cents and a dollar a piece for anything like bolts and stuff. It is just the other half of a light box. I just unbolted the cover off of it and got a couple of those like they are very small L-brackets and drilled some holes in my light box, drilled some holes in my table and screwed it right in it right in there with pilot holes and I just have some more scrap wood. Scrap wood is your friend. Find a wood shop. People are throwing wood all the time and they will be doing these huge projects so, I mean even this big piece of MDF is scrap wood to them. It is not so hard. Just a little measuring and a little elbow grease, and you can make anything. You can make anything.
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Javan: Yes, this is just an SLR. I usually connect it straight to the computer and use image capture because generally, the animation I do is a lot of replacement. Replacement is a technique of stop-motion animation where you basically have all your motion already set out for you. You have, say 25 positions and you shoot them in order and then you get your motion.
It’s difference with Claymation which tends to be straight ahead or puppet animation is straight ahead means you position your puppet and then position it again. Take a shot. Take a shot. Take a shot and progress. It is a straight ahead technique where as replacement you can set it all up beforehand.
So this is like an L-brace on a two by four frame. I can just use a bolt which just disappears, it likes to do that. But what ever fits in your tripod—light bolt. Yes. No. What size? I am sure.
Steve: Is this is like when we did the jib and just put the bolts in there.
Javan: Yes. Yes. It is just real simple stuff.
So here is the actual animation of it. Not a lot of people get to see this actually. This is all, I think there is like, four hundred or something pages of this animation.
You do not need to keep track of where your motion is if it is already set up, like I did not have to move anything I just had to shoot it after it was all laid out and some stuff I did like the stuff that is in blue pencil was just by drawing it. That stuff with a kind of had a kind of gray sort of outline actually did an after effects and then printed it out. I drew the animation first and then scanned it in. Set it up in after effects where I needed it to be and then just printed the frames. You can do this great thing with After Effects where you can just export the entire thing as a sequence of images which is really fun. To start playing with like in Photoshop or just getting it back out and playing with it more. I find some of the most fun things to do with animation just involve reworking and reworking and reworking things. So, finding different ways of doing things is doing it simply. You just play—the more fun that you are having, I mean why do it when you are not having fun with it anyway, right?
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