Japhy Riddle
The Suitable Form
the suitable form is my first completed animation shot on film. it was shot on a nikon f3 with the md-4 motor drive, and the nikkor 50mm f1.2 lens, on 5½ 24exp rolls of 35mm film. i've never seen an animation shot with a 35mm still film camera before, so perhaps this is the first (wishful thinking).
the inspiration for the film came to me when i found a box of 1 centimeter cubes in a thrift store. i knew they could be photographed and possibly animated. i quickly built a very simple set, and then designed a character from a mouse skull i had purchased. i built the body from clay around a wire skeleton, and then attached fur from some coat. sofia greenberg helped with the model.
since i'm a renowned cheapskate, i decided to develop and scan using the walgreens service, which i'm not recommending if quality is what you seek. and to also save money, single frames were duplicated for moments with no movement. this saved a bit of money here and there, but created a lot more work in post. to keep the still moments full of life, i emulated the film jiggle, grain, and brightness variation of the film i used, in shake. this gave those segments the appearance of being multiple frames. another cheap move was to not buy any film for this project. i'd collected a handful of expired rolls of various brands. this saved money, but each stock had very different color rendition, which took over an hour to completely correct and make them all match.
the music was recorded using rubber bands, kalimba, and guitar. the entire sound design was done in a few hours, and was the easiest part of the project.
conclusion: overall, the project took around 35 hours. 2 to build the set and models, 5 hours to do the stop motion, 23 hours to edit, stabilize, unstabilize, degrain, regrain, and color correct, and 5 to do sound. a lot of time was spend rendering and compressing for playback, for my computer is not fast enough to play 1800 x 1215 uncompressed video. i had to make a compressed version everytime i wanted to check the edit. about $35 were spent for film developing, which was the only expense. in the future, i will shoot on one and only one film stock. i will spend the extra money to shoot multiple frames for static segments, and i may even shoot half-size frames to get twice as many per roll. with a mask for the gate, this can be done. with these adjustments to my workflow, i should save mostly time, and potentially some money.
i hope you enjoy this short film experiment.
for a higher quality copy that also runs smoother, visit: www.sandoth.com/japhyriddle/art/suitable_form,_the.htm
The Suitable Form
the suitable form is my first completed animation shot on film. it was shot on a nikon f3 with the md-4 motor drive, and the nikkor 50mm f1.2 lens, on 5½ 24exp rolls of 35mm film. i've never seen an animation shot with a 35mm still film camera before, so perhaps this is the first (wishful thinking).
the inspiration for the film came to me when i found a box of 1 centimeter cubes in a thrift store. i knew they could be photographed and possibly animated. i quickly built a very simple set, and then designed a character from a mouse skull i had purchased. i built the body from clay around a wire skeleton, and then attached fur from some coat. sofia greenberg helped with the model.
since i'm a renowned cheapskate, i decided to develop and scan using the walgreens service, which i'm not recommending if quality is what you seek. and to also save money, single frames were duplicated for moments with no movement. this saved a bit of money here and there, but created a lot more work in post. to keep the still moments full of life, i emulated the film jiggle, grain, and brightness variation of the film i used, in shake. this gave those segments the appearance of being multiple frames. another cheap move was to not buy any film for this project. i'd collected a handful of expired rolls of various brands. this saved money, but each stock had very different color rendition, which took over an hour to completely correct and make them all match.
the music was recorded using rubber bands, kalimba, and guitar. the entire sound design was done in a few hours, and was the easiest part of the project.
conclusion: overall, the project took around 35 hours. 2 to build the set and models, 5 hours to do the stop motion, 23 hours to edit, stabilize, unstabilize, degrain, regrain, and color correct, and 5 to do sound. a lot of time was spend rendering and compressing for playback, for my computer is not fast enough to play 1800 x 1215 uncompressed video. i had to make a compressed version everytime i wanted to check the edit. about $35 were spent for film developing, which was the only expense. in the future, i will shoot on one and only one film stock. i will spend the extra money to shoot multiple frames for static segments, and i may even shoot half-size frames to get twice as many per roll. with a mask for the gate, this can be done. with these adjustments to my workflow, i should save mostly time, and potentially some money.
i hope you enjoy this short film experiment.
for a higher quality copy that also runs smoother, visit: www.sandoth.com/japhyriddle/art/suitable_form,_the.htm