Stable lighting will improve the quality of a stop-motion film project.
Stop-motion animation is the process of filming puppets or models one frame at a time with stable lighting and advancing the figures incrementally between exposures. The result is the illusion of inanimate figures coming to life. The key to quality animation is to keep the light level as steady as possible during the animation and film-exposure process. Household electric current results in slight power fluctuations that are not noticeable to the human eye but do affect the brightness of lamps over a period of time. Because in stop-motion animation the movie camera captures individual frames, these light fluctuations will be very obvious in the finished film. The result could be a strobing effect or apparent flashes of lightning. Follow this guide to illuminating your stop-motion projects to eliminate these unwanted effects.
Instructions
1. Use at least two lamps on the stop-motion "stage" with bulbs of different wattage to reduce the strobing effect, as one light will compensate for power fluctuations in the other light over the course of animating the scene.
2. Place the more powerful light in front of and at a 45-degree angle to the subjects, and position the other lamp behind the subjects and out of camera range for backlighting. This eliminates shadows, improves image contrast and helps reduce the flickering effect that a single lamp would cause.
3. Use a third lamp positioned over the animation stage to light the background.
4. When only one lamp is available, place translucent (not transparent) paper in a cardboard frame between the lamp and the animated figures. The translucent paper acts like a filter to balance the light reaching the animated figures. This helps cut down on flashing and strobing effects.
5. Avoid filming stop-motion projects in sunlight. The rotation of the earth relative to the sun will cause the lighting to change during the frame-by-frame shooting, creating a time-lapse effect that will make the film look as though shadows are racing across the scene. Clouds will cause similar lighting problems.
Tags: animated figures, effect that, power fluctuations, stop-motion projects, strobing effect
