VIDEO – Armed with just a webcam and a free version of a program called MonkeyJam, nine-year-old Ari Reuven has been creating some very impressive animations on his family computer.
Ari is an enthusiast of stop motion, a rare and somewhat manual art form amid the current trend of digital effects, flash animation and computer-generated imagery. Perhaps best described as the photographic equivalent of flip-book animation, the craft is tedious and time-consuming, requiring a level of patience not often exhibited by your average fourth grader.
Frame by frame, Ari builds each of his creations. Each subtle manoeuvre must be carefully captured by a camera and then adjusted in the slightest manner before the next click of the shutter button in order to create realistic movement and smooth transitions. Take a Lego figurine for example, going for a quick walk across the field of view. The finished video might take all of five seconds to watch, but upwards of 30 minutes to create. Of course, the more figurines and moving objects that are added, the more complicated things become. “It gets harder the more frames per second you have too,” said Ari, who currently shoots at 15 frames per second, although he began at just eight.
Ari was introduced to stop motion “about a year and a half ago” by his uncle, a hobby filmmaker and animator himself. The two still collaborate on projects and share software. In fact, they are currently working to finish a movie they started last summer. The theme: a curious mixture of “guns, treasure and time travel.” Typically, the challenge of such a movie would lie in the area of special effects. Not the case of this project, however. With Ari now several inches taller and his hair several inches shorter, achieving a consistent look from one summer of filming to the next has been rather difficult.
For that reason, Ari has been spending less time in front of the camera and more time behind it. Since his initial attempts at stop motion animation, he has admittedly come a long way. “I was really bad at first,” he said. After receiving the basics from his uncle, he learned gradually through trial and error and with the aid of online tutorials and videos posted by others on YouTube.
“When I first started, I would have this Lego project that I made and I would take pictures and move [the camera] all over and be like ‘what’s wrong, why isn’t it working?’” he said, adding that he quickly found out that stop motion requires exactly the opposite—the figures must move while the camera remains perfectly still.
While his webcam “works pretty well” for snapping a steady shot of the action, it can still be difficult sometimes to keep the camera steady. Even minor shifts in lens focus and position can throw off an entire project. “When [a figurine] is in the middle of doing something, it’s really tough when the camera bumps because you can’t really do much,” he said.
Challenges aside, Ari enjoys his hobby and is hoping to upgrade his equipment one day to allow him to create more elaborate projects. “I really need a laptop,” he said, “because you can’t really hook up a big computer right by your stop motion [set].” He isn’t eyeing up just any laptop, though. Ari has his sights set on a Macintosh, the industry standard for animators. “What I hear from a lot of stop motion people is that it’s better to have a Mac,” he said. “There are a whole lot of programs [for stop motion] that just work with Macs.”
With his current computer, Ari is also limited in the number of files he is able to save. Videos take up a considerable quantity of space on a hard drive, along with editing software that can often push a processor to its limits.
For this reason, Ari has saved very few of his projects. “I usually just show everybody in the family and then delete them,” he said. However, he has held onto one in particular, if not only for the sake of drawing a reaction out of his mother every time he plays it. The video begins with Ari strolling nonchalantly into the middle of the street. All seems perfectly calm and normal until a delivery van begins roaring up the road at top speed while he continues standing blissfully unaware on the yellow line. The result, animated to a slightly alarming level of realism, is a predictable one. Thunk.
Boys will be boys.
So far, his PC has yet to meet the same metaphorical fate. It seems to still be plugging along, save for the occasional crash restart or surprise visit from the infamous “blue screen of death.”
A coloured screen isn’t always a bad thing for animators, however. Something called a green screen is actually a very desirable tool for stop motion. The invention, fashioned from a green canvas or painted surface, is lit from various angles to eliminate shadows. All action is filmed in front of this screen, its colour digitally removed and replaced with a background of the animator’s choosing. The technology is a popular tool, used everywhere from Hollywood movies to high-definition television newscasts like that of Global BC.
“There’s a guy who does really good stop motions, the best I’ve seen, and he just uses a table and a green screen,” said Ari, who was inspired to make one himself using green paper. Though the colour was right, he soon realized the secret was in the lighting. “I’d go to take out the green screen [digitally] and there would be all of these splotches around people,” he said.
Ari’s mother Sharon, a constant witness to all the “guessing and testing” so common of her son’s hobby, is quite often taken aback by his determination. “The patience he has is incredible,” she said. “It would drive me crazy.”
Her own patience must not be too bad either. On the day the Peak visited Ari for an interview, his animation studio had migrated to a rather large piece of real estate in the family living room. He said he tends to move it around quite often.
Occasionally, Ari shoots on location as well. His biggest project to date is a video he’s working on with three friends who have also taken an interest in stop motion animation and film creation. It was his friends as well who suggested he add animation to some of his finished stop motion films. Using a program called Adobe AfterEffects, Ari has created everything from muzzle flashes to water.
On request, he has put together a sample of his creations and interested readers can view it on the Peak’s website, www.prpeak.com. He promised the delivery van video isn’t included, although a guarantee against an equally cringe-worthy substitute could not be obtained at press time.
After all, boys will be boys.
