The second of four Stop Motion short films I’ll be making throughout the summer. For this feature myself and my Girlfriend Amy Ginty came up with a loose concept & prop and she ad-lib’ed the rest.
‘Balloon Girl’ was shot with a JAG35PRO Depth of Field adapter attached to my HD-Cam and a D-SLR +70-300mm lens for the stop motion sections. Leave your comments and any ideas you might have about what the next Stop Motion feature will be in the comments section below.
Directed & Shot by James Williams
Balloon Girl: Amy Ginty
Music: John Foxx – Smokescreen from Tiny Colour Movies
Location: Bournemouth, UK
This summer will see a influx of content for Many Chefs Broth and also some very exciting news – which unfortunately cant go into just yet.
Any how – do you ever get an idea that makes you think “That might just work?” and feel the urge to try it there and then? On the walk home from work I was thinking about shooting with DOF adapters and the many frustrating little issues with doing so – like the Horizontal and Vertical flip expected though the optics, the tricky cumbersome payload without propper rail/rod support system’s, the lack of Auto Focus (although not a big problem for many, as this allows for much greater creative control) and issues with vibrating /rotating focusing screens. Shooting with DOF adapters is not the answer to achieving ‘great looking cinematic shots’ but what it does do is open up plenty of creative possibilities.
With this in mind i was deterred from going out and shooting with my Camera and DOF adapter, with the very limited time i had before i ran out of light i needed to shoot what i had in mind in super time. I would also require to have full and speedy control over aperture, ISO and shutter speed. Of course, my film camera has these controllable options but not quite like a DSLR.
This lead me to the possibility of stop motion, it would allow shallow DOF (the kind of stylisation I had in mind) and I would be able to set up quickly and shoot instantly. The main issues being 1.My D50 is limited to shooting at about 4 frames per second in JPEG mode, this is a country mile away from the standardised 25 fps usually used in film and 2. Camera motion is exaggerated when using the 70-300mm lens. You’ll notice (2) in the first jerky shot of the glass of Orange juice.
This is a first attempt at stop motion in an outside environment. This summer i’ll be making 4 stop motion shorts. This being the first, which is purely for experience and experimenting.
Check out the video below, dont forget to watch it in HD!
