To everyone shooting Instagram videos right now, just give up. No one cares about your 15 second selfie or crappy first video test. It’s never going to be as good as your pictures. But you should also give up because these guys used 1,600 different Instagram pictures to stitch together a wonderful stop motion Instagram video that kills every Instavideo dead.
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After taking a few shadowy pictures for the scientific world’s paparazzi, the atom is now ready for its closeup. Today, a team of IBM scientists are bypassing the big screen to unveil what they call the “world’s smallest movie.” This atomic motion picture was created with the help of a two-ton IBM-made microscope that operates at a bone-chilling negative 268 degrees Celsius. This hardware was used to control a probe that pulled and arranged atoms for stop-motion shots used in the 242-frame film. A playful spin on microcomputing, the short was made by the same team of IBM eggheads who recently developed the world’s smallest magnetic bit. Now that the atom’s gone Hollywood, what’s next, a molecular entourage?
Tetris, a game we all spent many a years playing in the back of classrooms, on the top of toilets and so forth, has never been played like this. Artist Chris Carlson created a 3D chalk art version of Tetris and played a quick round of the puzzle game. It’s incredible how detailed it is, you feel as if you could just step right in and play the game. Except if you were to play the game you’d have to draw out each Tetris piece, note the shadows, erase the Tetris piece, re-draw the Tetris piece and keep on going. It’ll take a lot longer but you’ll probably have a better chance of actually winning. [Awe Me Channel] More »
Okay arcade fans, prepare to have your mind blown. This stop-motion animation made from Post-It notes looks like real arcade game footage. It is completely amazing and has me nerding out. All of your favorites are represented. Well, not all, but several classic games are well represented.
It features Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Mega Man, Zelda and more. What you’re about to watch is 5,722 individual still frame images lovingly converted into an animation.
This feat was accomplished by Michael Birkin, who has a lot of free time and an amazing talent. Michael says it took him all of his weekends and holidays for the last 11 months to complete using 4800 Post-its and traditional stop-motion techniques. And while it’s possible it could have been computer animated (due to the barely-changing shadows and reflections), it’s still the coolest thing you will see all day.
And if Michael isn’t an awesome stop-motion animator, he’s an awesome computer animator. Either way, it’s a win.
[via Obvious Winner]
Stop motion videos are usually charming because they’re so bare boned, the choppy movements are part of the appeal. But at its most wonderful, stop motion videos can bring sketches or toys or static objects to life. This super creative idea from Wriggles & Robins shows just that—every angle of an art model is captured and translated to stop motion. More »
This house in the San Juan Islands of Washington hides itself in nature and reveals its transformer abilities depending on the day. There are floor to ceiling glass walls that can be exposed. Or can be made to be completely open. There is an extendable deck. There is a bathroom roof that can be raised away. Hell, even the interior walls can be re-arranged. It’s a house that can change its personality according to nature. More »
Stop-motion videos are always a good time, even if it’s just a stick figure dancing in a flip book. So imagine how fun a stop-motion video made with velcro (yes, velcro) is. It’s a freaking mind trip. More »
We drive around in circles trying to find the place. There’s no signage indicating our destination — no giant, looming cartoon characters or even a logo, just a faceless building in a maze of industrial parks, about 17 miles outside of Portland. It’s a beautiful drive of course, sandwiched on a vaguely winding highway by dense Pacific Northwest foliage, past Nike’s global headquarters. Compared to the world-class tracks and fields dotting the shoemaker’s campus, Laika’s own offices are an exercise in modesty (in spite of financial ties Phil Knight), virtually indistinguishable from the densely packed businesses that surround it. There are, perhaps, certain advantages to such anonymity — for one thing, it helps the studio avoid random drop-ins by movie fans hoping to chew the ear off of their animation heroes. It also means that our cab driver does a good three passes before finally getting out of the car and asking a smoker standing outside a nearby building where to go. He thinks about it for a moment and indicates a building — a large, but otherwise indistinguishable space.
The lobby doesn’t scream Hollywood either, but it certainly offers some less-than-subtle hints that we’ve found the place: a wall-sized black and white image of classic film cameras (ancient devices, someone tells me, that were utilized on the company’s previous film), and in one corner, a tiny room encased in glass, with Coraline seated at a table in its center. This building is the house that she built — or at least kept the lights on; “Coraline” was released after its planned successor “Jack & Ben’s Animated Adventure” failed to materialize. Inside, the cavernous space in excess of 150,000 square feet has become a bustling small town of creatives, laboring away in its recesses, many having traveled through several time zones to be in its rank, like carnies hopping from town to town. Stop-motion animation, after all, isn’t the most prevalent of professions, and while we’ve arguably entered a sort of golden age for the infamously labor-intensive art form, thanks in large part to the success of projects like “Coraline,” the number of studios actually investing in the form can be counted on one hand.
Continue reading How 3D printing changed the face of ‘ParaNorman’
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
How 3D printing changed the face of ‘ParaNorman’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Aug 2012 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It’s already considered a grind to produce stop-motion video — imagine creating a clip using the spreadsheet app that many dread seeing at work every morning. Joe Penna, better known to the internet as Mystery Guitar Man, isn’t afraid. He and his team recorded a performance against a greenscreen, gave the video a mosaic look in After Effects and proceeded to recreate 730 of the frames in OpenOffice (and occasionally Excel)… by hand. We don’t want to know how long it took Penna and crew to wrap up their work, but the result is probably the liveliest you’ll ever get out of an app meant for invoices and corporate expenses. The fully produced video is above; click past the story break if you want to smash illusions and see how the pixelated rumba came to be.
Filed under: Internet, Software
Stop-motion music video relies on OpenOffice and Excel, finds formula for success (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 11 Aug 2012 04:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sticky notes are a useful office tool. I can’t get enough of them, and after years of use I don’t know how many I’ve used. However, I can’t say that I’ve ever seen this many sticky notes used in a single animation.
Post It Life was put together by animation master FinalCutKing using no less than 7,000 Post-It notes. The notes are the perfect size to represent pixels of your favorite video game character, giving life to Mario as he jumps, runs, and makes his way through real life office desks and hallways. Pac-Man and Tetris stop by for a little fun too.
A word to the wise: always keep your sticky notes entertained!
[via designboom]
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