There is no assigned reading for this week, so I figured I’d talk about my animation. My animation is a 2 minute experimental stop-motion about a Ken doll. When I started to think about what I was going to for my sop-motion, I wasn’t what the story line was going to be or what characters I was going to use, but just randomly I found this Ken doll over spring break and thought it would a good thing to use. The story behind the doll is a very simple one, but I’m not how it translates just because of the fact that it is an experimental animation.
The story involves a man represented by the Ken doll, and he has cheated on his girlfriend. The animation begins with a “Garden-of-Eden-esk” location, and Ken is seen walking up to an apple. He is surprised when snakes pop out of the apple and strangle him. This scene portrays, how Ken has succumb to temptation, and now is paying for it through mental and emotional turmoil. There are many other set-ups with the girl portraying Ken’s significant other and scenes of Ken contemplating his life.
The actual making of the stop motion was very very hard to do as well as time consuming. A lot of my shots were from directly above the doll, so I had to stand of on a chair from time to time to look through the viewfinder to make sure everything was framed correctly. In one of the set-ups I actually got one my friends to help me and the process wen to much faster. Editing the frames was the most tedious part about the project because I could not find a preset to change the duration of the pictures on the timeline. So, I ended up having to just edit what I got when I dragged the pictures onto the time-line. This whole project has given me so much respect for people who do stop motions. My set-ups were relatively easy to do, but I can’t imagine how complex some of the set-ups can get.
