Stop Motion – Kevin Parry

Stop Motion Information

Master the technical and creative skills of stop-motion! In this course, Kevin Parry will teach you how to bring any object to life and create visually stunning animated content. Welcome to the intersection of high art and hot glue.

What is this course about?

Ready to step into the non-digital world of stop-motion animation? There’s no Undo button or Copy & Paste here! In this comprehensive course, you’ll learn all the stages of a physical stop-motion product – setting up and lighting a home studio, rigging objects for controlled movement, and making it all look pretty in post-production. All with a splash of animation principles.

A stop-motion is a straight-ahead approach to animation – one that requires a sharp instinct and the patience to build a performance one frame at a time. Kevin will share the unique insight and experience he’s gained over his decade-long career as a professional stop-motion animator.

Here’s what you’ll learn

LESSON #1: Setup and Shooting (Part 1)

Stop-motion production exists in the physical world! We’ll start with a full overview of a basic stop-motion set and the unique considerations of each piece of equipment.

LESSON #2: Setup and Shooting (Part 2)

Now that everything is set up, let’s put it all together by exploring how changing the position of any piece of equipment affects the scene.

LESSON #3: Timing and Spacing

Let’s start with the basic principles of animation and how to understand them with a straight-ahead approach (one frame at a time). In this lesson, simple exercises will give you an understanding of movement and how to trust your instincts when capturing a frame.

LESSON #4: Arcs, Multiple Objects, and Replacements

We’ll increase the difficulty by animating many objects, which means keeping track of several performances at the same time. We’ll also be getting a better understanding of using capture software to explore more advanced paths of motion.

LESSON #5: The Bouncing Ball (Squash and Stretch)

Warm up the clay! The classic bouncing ball exercise brought into the physical world. We’ll learn about the basic principles of squash and stretch while using rigs to float a jumping object.

LESSON #6: Rig Removal

Our first adventure into the post-production process. In After Effects, we’ll learn how to remove the rigging from the previous lesson as well as other pesky problems like camera shift and light flicker.

LESSON #7: Blocking Animation

When first learning stop-motion, you’ll often find yourself freezing on frame one while thinking, “Now what?” In this lesson, we’ll dive into the planning process of blocking key poses that’s typically used in television and feature film production.

LESSON #8: The Frog and the Rabbit

We’ll explore how the blocking pass from the previous lesson can be used to create various distinct performances and go on to fully animate our first character performance.

LESSON #9: Ball into a Box (Between the Keys)

Let’s get experimental! In this lesson, it’s up to you to decided how to creatively transform from one object into another. We’ll develop an appreciation for the breakdown poses between the keyframes all while flexing our creative muscles.

LESSON #10: Character Performance (Anticipation and Overlapping Action)

Grab your director’s hat. We’re diving deeper into the nuances of animation principles and performance by creating a full story about the interaction of two characters. A key lesson here is understanding how to control where the audience is looking when several moving objects are on the screen.

LESSON #11: Coffee Cup Advertisement (Part 1)

It’s time to put everything you’ve learned together and replicate the process of being hired to create an advertisement – from idea to polished animation. In this lesson, you’ll brainstorm and commit to a performance, resulting in a blocking pass of the advertisement.

LESSON #12: Coffee Cup Advertisement (Part 2)

Time to make the magic happen! Armed with your blocking pass, it’s now your job to animate the entire advertisement. Once that’s complete, you’ll need to polish the footage up in post-production by removing rigs, color correcting, and exporting the final video for the client.

About Author

It’s Kevin Parry!

I’ve animated on a number of stop-motion features like Kubo & the Two Strings, Missing Link, and The Boxtrolls. Lately, I’ve been animating and creating visual effects content full-time for myself and big brands (from my tiny home studio).

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