Love defies all odds. That is the theme of my new stop motion project: Across to You, Love. You follow Simon, a cat who spots Cleo, the love of his life across the street. And through a small journey, he makes his way to her. So come with me, as I create this stop motion project that I have spent two weeks on!

Animated Storytelling: What a Wonderland

With all the coloring and animating that I would have to do, I went back to our good old friend Animated Storytelling by Liz Blazer to see what I could learn this week. And boy, these chapters are quite the read.

Chapter 7: Sound Ideas

One of the best aspects of animation is sound. Blazer explains that sound will play a key role in what you make, and starts to explain how sounds work. All sound no matter is either Diegetic or Non-Diegetic. Diegetic means sound that appears on screen or implied off screen (like if there’s a dog and we hear it bark off screen).

She goes into the different of sounds that can exist: sound effects, music, dialogue and narration/voiceover. Each serves as a way to enhance the viewing experience of an animation. And to make such an immersion requires good timing. All this combined equals great sound for your project.

Chapter 8: Design Wonderland

This is my new favorite chapter. Design Wonderland focus on world building and environment. Blazer begins by saying that world building doesn’t come right aware. Your first step is finding influences. They act is as the starter shape of the world.

Then comes the 6 stages of World Building

1. What time period does your project take from?
2. Is there a natural order?
3. What’s social life/hierarchy like?
4. How’s people’s day to day?
5. What’s the community like?
6. How advanced is the civilization/world?

And lastly, she tells the viewer on exploring our world. No matter what we make, there is life, culture, history that exist. Once we see the visuals and values all around us, we can really get a grasp on where to go.

We look to What We Love

I didn’t want to just find great stories as inspiration. I wanted to find content that set a standard on how it portrayed love. This could done in multiple ways like composition, sound, lighting, acting, and more. It was these videos/clips that would help lay a ground for Across to You to stand on.

Us Again (Audio)

What a story. Us Again proves that no matter what age we are, love prevails. Its a sweet and charming short film about an old couple who discovers that for one day, the rain makes them young again. And the best part of the film? The sound. With no dialogue, beautiful jazz music is used to illustrate the entire movie. And it helps covey how the characters feel and act throughout the film. I highly recommend Us Again, its only 6 minutes after all. You got all the time in the world.

Paperman (Audio)

Flying all the way to you, Paperman is another great of a love story amplified by its strengths. The sound design and animation stick out the most. Comprised mostly of sound effects with a bit of music, there is no talking in the short film, and with stellar animation, you get a great way of telling a simple story of finding your love at first sight.

I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You (Lyrics)

One of the most popular forms of text based media are lyric videos. And I think that one of my favorites is the lyrics of “I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You” by Elvis Presley. Its nothing too complex, but the calm and soft editing of the text makes it both engaging and fun to watch.

Pretty: JVKE

Effective text doesn’t just have to be just animated alone. Visuals can help put emphasis on the words as well. This edit to Pretty by JVKE isn’t that long but it does use text extremely well. Especially on the photos, each text is surrounded by visually stunning animation without losing its place.

Across to You Behind the Scenes

Oh boy was this journey thrilling! I am so sorry for the late update! I’ve had to go through trial and error in the worst way, but ultimately, its worth it! So lets get into the details!

The behind the scenes was messy to say the least. Here’s what my living area looked like while I was working (I’m stunned my roommates didn’t yell at me).

To put this in perspective, I created:

• Over 20 hand drawn backgrounds
• Over 40 character models
• Filmed and recorded for 3 and 1/2 hours
• Edited video and audio for 2 hours

Overall, the process took around 26-30 hours to create! Which isn’t the worst but sometimes, man it was a lot. But I really did want to do this. So I began. I used a mix of Stop Motion Studio (collecting photos) and After Effects (editing them all together) to get the job done. It was a load of fun to film and record (all though my back could be better lol).

Despite the work load, I am actually grateful I did this, its taught me a lot about my time management especially. You don’t really get how hard stop motion workers are until you sit down and do it yourself, and man, I did not prepare properly. As a result, things took longer than expected.

But I know better now, and such delays shall not happen again. And I don’t regret the extra time this took. Despite being 45 seconds, you can see the level of work I put in, and while my management should have been better, I’m at least proud of the outcome, I hope you all enjoy!