Colors from Raj Brueggemann on Vimeo.
Over spring break, I used what clay I had lying around my old preschool play set to experiment with claymation. I wanted to use stop motion to combine with a dynamic camera shot, in which the subject of the image remained stationary but objects moved around the figure. I placed pieces of clay at different distances to enhance sense of depth and movement, while moving the character in a way to specifically react to the moving camera: peering over his shoulder, turning suspiciously, and limited by the form of his squishy, oily body.
The idea I called "Colors". I'd written a short story of a plain clay figure that was slowly being surrounded by colored monoliths that bounced and crept toward him.
I shot the video over four hours, but I only ended up with five seconds of footage. This experiment, I cannot help but feel like it was a failure. But it was a good failure. Here are the mistakes I made, and want to correct in the future:
-The camera panned too fast. I need to make the changes in camera angle more subtle between shots to have a smoother, slower view of the scene.
-I needed to make the character smoother, thinner, and move with more fluidity by having him ease in and out of poses. His overall motion, too, could have been slower.
-The lighting on some of the clay pieces could have been stronger, to help the color pop.
Overall, this experiment was a great learning exercise, and taught me to discipline myself by shooting more in-between frames. Animation is hard work, and to create a stunning video, there is no shortcut. It takes time, and perseverance, more than anything else.
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