stop motion animation tech and set-up guide[1]

8/14/2019 Stop Motion Animation Tech and Set-Up Guide[1]

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HOW TO CREATE YOUR STOP-MOTION ANIMATION USINGADOBE PREMIERE IN STUDIO B:

Setting Up:

Even though you have been shown in a workshop up in the control roomof Studio “B”, you will actually only work on the floor in Studio “B”. This is theonly place with the software and inputs to do animation.

You will need:

• A beta-camera with a digital back on it (it’s very small, the size of a thinpaperback) with a power-supply.

• Enough BNC (blue) cable to reach from your set-up to the Trunk lines at

the base of the stairs.• You also might need the animation table if you are shooting down onto a

table. This is stored in Studio “B” control room.

To Set Up:

• Once your cameras is on your stand or tripod and on, take the BNC andplug it into the digital back in the camera (it’s the only hole it will fit into).

• Run the BNC over to the wall trunk lines. Make a note of which you’ve

plugged it into.• Upstairs in the Control room, go to the patch bay and patch from your

trunk (out) to the digi (in). This will feed your signal directly to theinscriber computer.

NOTE: You do NOT need to bring up your feed in any of the preview or programmonitors. If you want to check your work on an alternative monitor, you cansimply look at the Inscriber monitor.

Getting started:

• Double-click the Adobe Stop Motion icon on the desktop • Before you begin the program, you will be asked to enter a series of

settings – you need only enter values for General Settings, VideoSettings and Capture Settings – all of which can be accessed using thepull-down menu.

• Enter the values as follows:

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General Settings: Editing Mode: Video for WindowsTime base: 29.97 fpsTime Display: 30 fps Drop-Frame Time code

Video Settings: Compressor: Microsoft Video 1

Depth: ThousandsFrame Size: 720X480Aspect: 4:3Frame Rate: 29.97Quality: 100%

Capture Settings: Capture Video Rate: 29.97 fps

• Once you are done entering these values, click OK

Once you are in Premiere:

• Click File

• From the pull down menu, select Capture

• From the Capture menu, select Stop Motion • Once the preview screen is open, right-click the mouse to reveal the

Stop Motion Option menu

• Select Capture Type • In the capture type menu, select Manual Capture • Ensure that “Final Movie will play back” at 30 fps


YOU ARE NOW READY TO BEGIN YOUR STOP MOTION ANIMATION!

Creating a stop-motion animation:

• At the top of the preview window, click the Start button (once you’vestarted, this button will be labeled Step, rather than start)

EACH CLICK OF THE ‘STEP BUTTON’ WILL RECORD ONEFRAME OF VIDEO (ie. 5 mouse clicks = 5 frames of video)

• There is a counter located at the bottom of the preview window – this willhelp you keep track of the total number of frames captured.

• Once you have finished capturing the desired number of frames, click onthe Done button at the top of the preview window.

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• IMMEDIATELY go to the File pull down menu

• Click on Save

• Enter a filename and save it as an AVI movie file (This will save your fileas one, big sequence)

• Click Save

• You can now play your sequence using the controls at the bottom of thepreview screen.

But you’re not quite done yet, because the AVI you’ve created isn’t compatiblewith editing software. You need to complete one more step – exporting your AVImovie into a targa sequence.

• Select file – export – movie

• This will bring up a save window, but you have to change some settingsfirst. Click on the Settings button. It will take you to a new window.

Change the file type to targa sequence and ensure the export video box ischecked.

• Now you can click okay which takes you back to the save window andexport to the hard drive into your own folder. This can take a VERY longtime – be prepared!

• Now you can grab any labbie and have them transfer your work onto thenetwork (ginger) enabling you to take it anywhere. You must removethese files within one (1) day of putting them on Ginger by either burningyour targa’s to a CD or a DVD. This ensures you have a disk copy thatcannot crash.

HOW TO CREATE YOUR STOP-MOTION ANIMATION USING ADOBEPREMIERE 6.0, the Laptop and the Sony PD 150 Digital Camera

Setting Up:

The best thing about using the digital camera and the laptop is you can do itvirtually anywhere! Just set your scene up, light it and go. Plus, Premiere 6.0includes an editing platform; so ideally, you could end up with a finished roughcut by the end of a weekend.

• Plug in the laptop with the power cord. Then plug in the camera with the

power cord (hint: it’s in behind a little rubber plug on the back of thecamera.)

• Then run the fire wire from the camera (on the side hidden by anotherrubber plug) to the laptop and you’re ready to go!

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You will need:

• The Sony PD 150 Mini DV camera with its power supply.• A mini DV tape.• The laptop with power cord and fire wire cable. (Make sure you have this,

each will be useless without it!)

To Set Up:

• Once your cameras is on your stand or tripod and on, do all the regularcamera things you always do, white balance, check your zoom and focus

• To log on to the laptop, the username is “animate” as is the password

• To capture, the camera input must be Camera • Open the larger viewfinder for a better way to see what you’re taking

Getting started:

• Double-click the Adobe Premiere icon on the desktop • The first window you will come to is the “Load Project Settings” - click OK

Once you are in Premiere:

• Click Project and from the pull-down menu choose General.

Under Project – Project Settings - General Settings:

Editing Mode: DV PlaybackClick on the DV Preview button on this screen. It will take you to another window

which will give you the choice of where your preview will appear while you work.Go into Playback Settings and choose only the Playback on Desktop mode. Ifyou choose the DV camera playback too, the laptop will slow down from sendingand receiving so much information to and from the camera.

Time base: 29.97Time Display: 30 fps Drop-Frame Time codePlayback Settings: Playback on desktop (only), just click on either

of the others to turn them both OFF

Video Settings:

Compressor: Microsoft DV (NTSC)Depth: MillionsFrame Size: 720 x 480Pixel Aspect Ratio: D1/DV NTSC (0.9)Recompress:

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Capture Settings:

Capture Format: DV/IEEE 1394 Capture

(If “unable to capture driver” appears, the camera needs to be on Camera Mode)

Capture Video: Device Control: 5 secondsTimecode Offset : 0Log using Reel Name:

Capture Audio:Report Dropped Frames: Abort dropped frames:

Click OK

From the pull down menu, File – Capture

• Once the preview screen is open, right-click the mouse to reveal theStop Motion Option menu

• Select Capture Type – Manual Capture


YOU ARE NOW READY TO BEGIN YOUR STOP MOTION ANIMATION!

Creating a stop-motion animation:

• At the top of the preview window, click the Start button (once you’vestarted, this button will be labeled Step, rather than start)

EACH CLICK OF THE ‘STEP BUTTON’ WILL RECORD ONE FRAME OFVIDEO (i.e. 5 mouse clicks = 5 frames of video)

• There is a counter located at the bottom of the preview window – this willhelp you keep track of the total number of frames captured.

•

Once you have finished capturing the desired number of frames, click onthe Done button at the top of the preview window.

• IMMEDIATELY right-click on the preview window which will give you thechoice to Add Clip to Project, click yes and it will prompt you to save

• Save your work

• Enter a filename and save it as an AVI movie file (This will save your fileas one, big sequence) into a new folder in the C Drive. Do not save inthe Premiere 6.0 folder.

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• Click Save

• You can now play your sequence using the controls at the bottom of thepreview screen.

To Edit:

• After saving, your .AVI will appear in the Project window to the left. Youcan now drag and drop it down to the timeline along the bottom of thescreen.

• Keep in mind all transitions must be placed in the Transition layer of thetimeline to work

• Just use the tools at the top of the timeline (hand, razor, etc.) to edittogether your piece.

Going back to tape:

• Make sure your tape is rewound and the camera input is on VCR• Make sure you have changed the Playback Settings back to the

default so that it will also playback in the DV Camera!• Pull down the File menu and choose Export Timeline

• Make sure your entire timeline is selected by moving the small arrow andlight yellow bar in the top line above the timeline so that your entiretimeline is highlighted.

• Choose Export to Tape and the settings will appear• You can then hit OK which will automatically dump your work back to tape

which you can either have transferred to DVC Pro to go into one of thenon-linear suites OR you can book time in the Matrox Suite where you can

fire wire the camera to the computer there to download your work directlyinto the computer.

IF the camera and the laptop refuse to “read” each other to go back to tape, thelaptop has defaulted back to the “Playback on desktop only” setting. To ensureyou can go back to tape, you need to close Premiere and restart the program. Ifthat fails as well, you need to restart the laptop. This will make sure that thecomputer is controlling the camera for record back.

YOU MUST GO BACK TO TAPE BEFORE BRINGING THE SYSTEM BACKTO US BECAUSE YOUR WORK WILL NOT BE SAVED.

kewatson 9/2/2004

stop motion animation tech and set-up guide[1]

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