Stop Motion Film - What do YOU want to see next?

**Amity** · 10-31-2011 03:53 PM

This is a short animation that I recently made at film school.
It uses a long-exposure photography technique called 'light painting', combined with stop-motion animation.
This involved using various light sources including LED torches and toys from the $2 shop, and 'painting' in the air, facing towards the camera.
We took thousands of these pictures and joined them together to make a moving animation.

View here ---> Stop Motion Light Painting - "What is Life?" - YouTube

I'd love to hear any ideas you have on ways I could further experiment with this technique.
Being a school assignment, I had to shoot the whole thing within a time frame of 4 nights, so a lot of it was rushed, and I wrote a lot of it based on achievability rather than creativity.

There's a film festival coming up that I'd really like to make something for, and I think a film in this style would be perfect for the theme.
I'll be shooting this one in my own time, so I can experiment with different techniques, and take my time to create better effects.

What would you like to see? I'd love to hear your suggestions!

Thanks so much!

**StaySharp** · 10-31-2011 10:03 PM

Well, you might've really expected that answer already, posting on DV, but nonetheless... What's a dream?
The video looks interesting and I would like to see something dream related with that.

**Amity** · 11-01-2011 03:57 PM

Originally Posted by StaySharp

Well, you might've really expected that answer already, posting on DV, but nonetheless... What's a dream?
The video looks interesting and I would like to see something dream related with that.

I actually made a short TV commercial in the same style, where a woman enters a dream world made of light.

Not quite what you suggested, but it's here if you wanna see: http://www.dreamviews.com/vbtube_sho...e=dreaming-art

**StaySharp** · 11-01-2011 05:51 PM

Looks interesting. Thinking about what I posted, you could really make a video with the title "What's a dream?". Then you could go through some definitions of the term dream, starting with wishes you develop in real life and ending with lucid dreaming maybe?

**Amity** · 11-01-2011 07:26 PM

That sounds cool. Before I chose "What Is Life", I really wanted to do "What Is Reality?"
I wanted to make people question our perception of reality, the same as we do for lucid dreaming.
How do we know that what we're seeing/hearing/feeling is real?
How do we know that every single thing we're sensing is not just an illusion created by our own mind?
Do I see the same colours that you see?
Do I experience time at the same pace you do?
What will we ever have to base that on other than our own experience?
I could ponder over this question for hours, which is why I thought it wouldn't work for a 2 minute film.

I think I want to do something totally different for the next light painting film.
I've done one in the "What Is...?" style, so now I'm thinking I'd like to make something with a narrative story, or at least focus on a topic miles away from the one I've already made.
Otherwise I'll just have 2 fairly similar films, and won't be able to offer anything new.

I'd love to make a "What's A Dream?" film one day, though. It's an interesting topic and would also give me the opportunity to recruit new lucid dreamers!