VIDEO & SOUND PRODUCTION | FINAL PROJECT — STOP-MOTION

This is the promotional short for my favourite band's newest album, The Maybe Man. The short utilises different techniques and mediums (such as painted backgrounds and claymation), almost as if the animation wasn't sure of what it wanted to be. I find poetically fitting with the lyrics of the song.

Fun fact: The music video this short was clipped from, Maybe Man, was nominated for the 2024 Berlin Music Video Awards Best Animation category.

2.1.2 CLAY BOY ATTENDING HOGWARTS

Figure 2.1.2-1: Clay Boy Attending Hogwarts by Guldies, Week 2 (02/05/24)

I like this short simply because of how silly it is. The animator really took advantage of clay's flexibility to overexaggerate Clay Boy's response. The cute sound effects are a plus.

2.1.3 CREEPY STUFF HIDING UNDER MY DESK

Figure 2.1.3-1: Creepy Stuff Hiding Under My Desk by Guldies, Week 2 (02/05/24)

This short was animated by the same animator as the Clay Boy short. Claymation has always unsettled me due to how uncanny it looks. That, combined with the creepy subject matter, is why this stop-motion gives me the heebie-jeebies in the best possible way.

2.2 RUNDOWN

We were given the option of doing this project solo or in pairs. Those specialising in animation were told to do it solo, so I'll be tackling this alone. Not that I mind 😅 — I enjoy having full creative control.

2.3 PROPOSAL

Figure 2.3-1: Proposal, Week 11 (05/07/24)

2.3.1 MEDIUM

While brainstorming for the topic and storyline of my stop-motion, I thought about the medium I would use to tell the story. Some things I've considered:

Clay stop-motion: Cost-friendly and (seemingly) beginner-friendly.
Lego stop-motion: Beginner friendly, however I don't have a lot of Legos.
Paper-cut stop-motion: Cost-friendly, but labour-intensive.
Mix media stop-motion: A mix of different stop-motion mediums. Costly (need lots of different materials). Might look inconsistent.

I want to base my stop-motion on a 2D game. I figured I could reuse the game assets (i.e. backgrounds, character animation sprites, props) and lessen my workload by doing paper-cut. Cutting out millions of pieces of paper will still be time-consuming as hell, but at least the animating part should go by quicker.

2.3.2 IDEATION

Some of the games I've considered:

Octopath Traveler I / Octopath Traveler II: HD-2D RPG.
Hollow Knight: 2D Metroidvania action-adventure game.
Among Us: Murder mystery game.

I ultimately chose Hollow Knight because of the sheer number of storylines available. One of the side quests, A Nailsmith's Obsession, is a favourite of mine.

Long story short, Nailsmith (the quest-giver and blacksmith) requests for increasingly more materials to upgrade the Knight's sword. At the end of the quest, Nailsmith asks the Knight to kill him using the fully upgraded sword. At this stage, a lot of players like to take revenge on the Nailsmith for his heavy demands by killing him with a fireball instead.

Due to the time restraint, I modified the story slightly so that I wouldn't work myself to death. In-game, the Knight gathers the smithing materials from different parts of the map; in my version, the Knight robs one of the scary-looking NPCs at knifepoint.

2.4 PRE-PRODUCTION

2.4.1 DIGITISING

Figure 2.4.1-1: Paper-Cut Props, Week 12 (09/07/24)

Figure 2.4.1-2: Before (Original Images) & After (Props), Week 12 (08/07/24)

Backgrounds, characters & props:

I found most of the characters' sprite sheets on the VG Resource and scoured the Hollow Knight Wiki for the remaining characters, backgrounds, and props. Most of the images I found didn't need any editing, the exception being the character Nailsmith. I couldn't find his sprite sheet anywhere, so I colour-matched different images of him in Photoshop to be used as different angles of his head.

Text:

I used Bembo Std Semibold for the dialogue text and Trajan Pro Bold (the official font used in Hollow Knight) for the larger text.

2.4.2 PRINTING & CUTTING

Figure 2.4.2-1: Cut Props, Week 13 (18/07/24)
Left to Right: Characters, Props, Meme Visuals, Text

I'm pretty sure I gave myself arthritis cutting all of this.💀

2.5 PRODUCTION

Figure 2.5-1: Lighting Set-up, Week 13 (19/07/24)

We were told to use artificial lighting during filming so that the lighting stays consistent. I installed a clip-on ring light behind my camera to remove the shadow from the tripod stand, however, this causes the backgrounds to look overexposed and washed out. It doesn't help that most of my backgrounds are very dark and my props have a reflective finish to their surface.

I figured the direct lighting was the cause of the overexposure, so I angled the ring light away from my set-up and reflected the dispersed light using a white paperboard. This fixed the issue of the tripod stand shadow without compromising the details of the props, at least for the scenes with darker backgrounds (Scenes 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7). The scenes with lighter backgrounds (Scenes 1 and 6) still looked overexposed, so I shot them in natural lighting in the morning.

I didn't end up adding the credits as I felt the video would be too lengthy. Instead, I had the characters make a cameo during the "THE END" title card.

Total frames taken: 216

2.6 POST-PRODUCTION

Figure 2.6-1: Uploaded Frames in PowerDirector, Week 14 (25/07/24)

Once the filming was complete, I uploaded all the frames to PowerDirector to convert them into a stop-motion video.

Figure 2.6-2: Raw Footage, Week 14 (25/07/24)

The raw footage is unfortunately in the wrong aspect ratio because my camera was in portrait mode when I took the images. I rotated the footage later on in Premiere Pro.

2.6.1 AUDIO

Figure 2.6.1-1: Audio Transitions, Week 14 (25/07/24)
A1: Sound Effects, A2: Dialogue, A3: Background Music, A4: Sound Effects

The dialogue and 25% of the sound effects are taken from the Hollow Knight game file. The rest of the sound effects and background music are a series of popular meme sound effects, which is by far the best part of this project.

2.6.2 SEQUENCE

Figure 2.6.2-1: Video Transitions, Week 14 (26/07/24)

After adding the "Directed by Robert B. Weide" sound effect, I realised that the "THE END" title card was too short. I doubled the length of the ending, which synched up perfectly with the length of the audio. Other than that and the Cross Dissolve at the beginning and end of the video, there were no major changes to the sequence.

2.6.3 COLOUR CORRECTION & COLOUR GRADING

Figure 2.6.3-1: Scene 1 & 6 — Original (Left) VS Colour-Corrected & Colour-Graded (Right), Week 14 (27/04/24)

Figure 2.6.3-2: Scene 2 & 4 — Original (Left) VS Colour-Corrected & Colour-Graded (Right), Week 14 (27/04/24)

Figure 2.6.3-3: Scene 3 — Original (Left) VS Colour-Corrected & Colour-Graded (Right), Week 14 (27/04/24)

Figure 2.6.3-4: Scene 5 & 7 — Original (Left) VS Colour-Corrected & Colour-Graded (Right), Week 14 (27/04/24)

2.7 FINAL SUBMISSION

Google Drive

Figure 2.7-1: Final Project — Video (Final Submission), Week 15 (04/08/24)

Figure 2.7-2: Final Project — PPT (Final Submission), Week 15 (04/08/24)

3.0 FEEDBACK

3.1 WEEK 11

Specific Feedback:

Can base your stop-motion on an existing franchise.
The storyline must be interesting as a stop-motion.

QUICK LINKS

EXERCISES

PROJECT 1 — AUDIO EDITING EXERCISES

PROJECT 2 — SHOOTING & EDITING

FINAL PROJECT — STOP MOTION

FINAL COMPILATION

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VIDEO & SOUND PRODUCTION | FINAL PROJECT — STOP-MOTION

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.0 INSTRUCTIONS

2.0 FINAL PROJECT — STOP-MOTION

2.1 FAVOURITE STOP-MOTION SHORTS

2.1.1 THE MAYBE MAN