Dino Thunder! - A Brickfilm Short

[Chris Tempel]

The last time I did a brick film, I was in 8th grade and shot it on VHS. A lot has changed since then. The college where I teach continuing ed classes on YouTube and video editing asked me if I wanted to teach a camp for kids this summer and the first thing that popped into my head was to do brick films. Since it's been so long that I've played with stop motion, I figured I should figure out the workflow. I settled on Eagle Animation as the software. It's free, simple and works with webcams. Perfect for the camp!

I tethered my iPhone to my MacBook Air via bluetooth and used that as my webcam. I storyboarded the the short film, shot it in about two hours, and cut in Resolve. Sound effects are from freesound.org. Originally I was doing a real walk cycle and all that, but it was taking so much time. I wanted to see if there was another way that would work for the kids and came up the hopping.

 

[sfoster]

loved the roar

 

[Rusty Bolt]

That hopping instead of walking really works - better than an actual walk cycle in this case, I think! And, of course, it will be a lot easier for the kids. Sounds like a great project; they're going to love it.

When I taught elementary school I actually did claymation with a grade 2 class (I know, right? Sucker for punishment). We did extremely short clips (maybe 3 or 4 seconds) shot with a digital camera; they loved it, but it certainly wasn't Annecy quality, lol. My fav, though, was a tornado approaching a person who just basically flew out of the frame.

 

[Chris Tempel]

That hopping instead of walking really works - better than an actual walk cycle in this case, I think! And, of course, it will be a lot easier for the kids. Sounds like a great project; they're going to love it.

When I taught elementary school I actually did claymation with a grade 2 class (I know, right? Sucker for punishment). We did extremely short clips (maybe 3 or 4 seconds) shot with a digital camera; they loved it, but it certainly wasn't Annecy quality, lol. My fav, though, was a tornado approaching a person who just basically flew out of the frame.

Thanks. I got the hopping idea from the way my sister used to play with her Barbies. She always made them bounce when they "talked" lol. I think claymation would be great fun too, but maybe too messy for doing in a computer lab with carpets? My wife actually picked me up some modeling clay to mess with, so I'll try one of those next. And that tornado video sounds epic lol!