The Trouble With Foley

Last year I had a stop-motion project called "Desktop Warfare". Initially it was a box of pencil top erasers at war with each other. They had paperclips for weapons, tape rolls and CDs as helicopters, and even a glue stick as a nuclear missile. The project was actually really fun to make, but unfortunately, after I got all of the shots, effects, cuts, and frame rate fixed, it came to audio and sound effects I drew a total blank. Not only did I have a lack of a sound effects library, but I was at a complete loss for what should go where. I manage to scramble a few gunshot sounds from a few of my old computer games, and that's frankly as far as I have gone up to this point.
But I vow to myself: Finish it. What I'll probably do is pay someone to time together all the low key things: individual gunshots, background noise, just the most tedious things. And since my teacher has a whole class full of kids who I think would gladly do it. In that case, I would still have to figure out what I want them to do and what I don't want them to do. I think I will tell them that to only put in sound effects for the standard paperclip rifle. Everything else like the crayon bazooka, the wire clip sniper rifle, and the glue stick nuke would be much easier to put sound effects in for.
On another note, I need to ask around and see if there is a program in After Effects that can match the frames color wise. Unfortunately, I used a regular webcam for the video, and since it is automatic in virtually every aspect, each frame differs slightly in gamma and exposure slightly from the one before it.
Should I ever get this finished though, I will definitely be proud of this. It's the first stop-motion film I've done where there are a multitude of moving parts scooting about at once. I do look forward to being able to post this online, and here on the blog.

Why I Prefer Stop-Motion

     I'm a big fan of stop-motion animation for two reasons:
a.) I thoroughly enjoy it
b.) I don't have to put up with actors
Even with the short films I've always been doing over the years, there has consistently been a problem of the actors/grips not giving a flying f#$%. I'm not much of an extrovert, so this generally does drain a lot out of me to constantly have to keep everyone else focused. It's exhausting for me. Therefore, I like using stop-motion. I don't need to get my actors rides to the set, I don't have to pretend to care what they are talking about between shots, and I can start and stop shooting whenever I feel like it. Not a single person in my way except me, which in itself is still quite a task. I have a lot of ideas I would like to put into paper, but in many cases I lack something that makes me rethink it completely. Whether it is the right camera, proper materials, or even sometimes the things I am using breaking. It's extremely frustrating on a lot of occasions.
However, it beats having to deal with other people.
Other people just annoy the living daylights out of me.

InkBlood

Over the past week in my graphics art I've been working on an image, and it's finally finished. What started out as a bored sharpie doodle evolved into something AWESOME. It wasn't too complex: just your average four-armed ink alien. I drew it on paper sometime in July, during one of the many hours I spend barred in my room. I started with the head, as I always do, and soon the rest of the body followed suit. And frankly, I've been fussed at before by multiple people for doing that. Of course, I try to follow their advice; drawing a quick basic sketch-skeleton and then merely adding details. Unfortunately I seem to draw worse that way, and drawing the head first gives me almost a theme for everything that follows. I feel it's almost a much more fluid system of channeling ideas to paper. Almost like a comedian performing improv. Sometimes the best ideas hit like a train with no warning or preparation. I'm proud of it frankly, no matter how much the rest of my family laughs at the connection I have drawn between the phrase "ad nauseum" (latin for 'to sickness'). The black ink reminded me of death and illness, and also the black plague, so i figured it was perfect for the title.