The Making Of: the Video Blog Intro

21 May 2007 · 2 min

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2:16

In this behind‑the‑scenes narration, the creator walks through the step‑by‑step preparation of a stop‑motion/animated intro for a video blog. He first maps out 100 frames, labeling each to synchronize the animation with sound. He then crafts tiny clay eyeballs, inserting a toothpick to allow rotation for the pupil. To keep the set stable, he glues the sun element to construction paper, emphasizing that nothing should move unintentionally. He shows the modest home video camera, the lighting, and a tour‑map graphic that lists upcoming stop locations (Las Vegas, Long Beach, Bakersfield, Chico, Salem, Olympia). Backgrounds are drawn on construction paper with Sharpie outlines to make them pop. After arranging the camera, lights, backgrounds, and a computer screen, he declares the set ready to begin filming at frame 1.

Chapters

So I'm making the hills for the introduction. I'm mapping out the sound frame by frame so I can sync up an animation to it. I can go frame by frame and mark down each frame and what it's doing. So these are labeled frames 1 through 100. And you can see in the middle there is, I knew it all along. I knew it all along. So I'm currently making eyeballs. So what I need to do is I need to make little balls of clay like this, little white balls of clay, and then I put little black balls of clay in the pupil, and then I take a little toothpick, which is right here, and I shove a toothpick into the eye so that I can grab the eye and sort of rotate it around. I'm gluing the sun down to this piece of paper here, because when you make animations, it's very important that nothing moves unless you want it to move. So everything has to be extremely stable. There's our man right there. Here's the camera that I'm using to film, just a little home video camera. Here's my tour map. We got Las Vegas, Long Beach, Bakersfield, Chico, Salem, and Olympia. And more coming soon. I just drew outlines with a Sharpie on all of the construction paper backgrounds to sort of make them pop out. So, yeah, it looks something like that. Okay, I'm all set up. And ready to go. Uh, here's the set. Set's looking good. Got the camera, got the lights, got the background, got the computer showing up there on the computer screen. So I'm ready to take frame 1.