26 December, 2015. We spent a beautiful, quiet Christmas, but today I have been given a day off to finish Assignment 5. Most of the work I did during the days before the Christmas holidays and as with my first animation the major part of the time I needed to edit the photos. I had thought at first that all my changes, including a tripod, an incredibly bright 500 W halogen floodlight, working with all the blinds closed in my workshop and taking two photos at a time would help to decrease the flicker in the photo series. But no, it was as bad as in the first animation. So I had another look on the web for stop motion forums and what did I find there? The main culprit are mains voltage fluctuations, which are next to unavoidable. Also, something I had not been aware of at all, was the physical impact on the camera and the tripod by the shutter opening and closing, so a wobbly image can only be avoided by taping the camera down (!) on a very stable, heavy surface. Well, never mind. I had a few very intense days editing photos with some success and composing the animation, which also gave me the wonderful opportunity to think about rhythm in an animation and while I can already see the places for further improvement I am happy with the result. Also, and no matter what the outcome of the official assessment, first of all it is a message of hope dedicated to my little son and so tying the ends of the thread running through this blog.
My tutor advised me to upload the film to vimeo. I marked it private, since it might not be suitable for younger children to watch. The link is https://vimeo.com/150048400 and the password Hit_and_Run. Since this is a first version likely to require some more editing after tutor feedback, the size of the film is small. If required, I will replace it by a larger size format for formal assessment.
Which makes me realise that all that remains for this course is my artist’s statement and the actual preparation for formal assessment. There is still a lot of work to do, especially regarding reworking a few of the earlier pieces, but I think I am making good progress and I am looking forward to revisiting the different stages of the course.
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