I've been up all night tinkering around with my new homemade greenscreen and testing some stop motion animation out. I'm new to both and was having a blast, even though the end results of both were pretty crummy, I'm sure they'll improve as I fiddle with different ideas.
In any case, here's a quick run-down on the components that make up my new greenscreen:
2 pieces of lime green poster board (one for a back wall & one for a floor)
1 large picture frame (it just happened to be there, I was gonna tape the shit to the walls, hehe)
8 small squares of duct tape to hold the poster board down.
The whole mess is lit from above with a fluorescent light that was already in the room. I need to pick up some poseable lamps at some point in the near future, but will make due with what I've got onhand for now.
While I was picking up the materials for the greenscreen, I swung by the toy department, mostly looking for models & miniatures that might be fun to work into some of these video projects. I ended up spending $5 for 10 little cans of Play-Doh(TM-beatch!) in assorted colors. My girlfriend, Elizabeth, spent an hour or so quickly creating a family of clay mutants for me to animate.
While I do have a camcorder handy, I chose to use my still camera in order to capture stereoscopic views of each frame (by capturing a left and right view of each frame) so I could render the end result as a 3D anaglyph video. After studying the end results, I believe I can achieve faster, cleaner images by using a camcorder and frame capturing from that footage. This will keep the variation in camera movement to a minimum. Sadly, this means that 3D video of my stop motion animations will have to wait until I can afford another camcorder (or borrow one for a day or so).
The stop motion animation was thrown together without thought for plot or direction. I was simply trying to see what we might be able to do with what we have, and get an idea of what what we will need for future endeavors. I'm pretty happy with the results, all things considered, and can't wait to start focusing on putting something a bit more substantial together.
