Today, I happened to notice a stop motion video maker app in my newsfeed, Frames. It’s by Studio Neat, the same people who made the Glif (which is a fantastic, minimal tripod mount for the iPhone4/4s.) Well, I was intrigued, and when I saw the Glif, I took extra note. Frames only costs $2.99, so I took the plunge and downloaded it. I figure at the very least, I’ll make some simple time-lapse videos of my brewing process.
Studio Neat has a short little video that demos the minimal (but effective) feature set and controls. I watched it, clipped it into my Glif, and gave it a go. The following little video (85 frames in total) took less than ten minutes to make and upload to YouTube.
Frames allows you to set the focal point for the entire video before you take a single frame of video. This prevents your camera from changing focus from frame to frame. It also has an “Onion Skin” mode, which let’s you see a ghost image of the previous frame over the frame that you are currently setting up. You can save your work, take a look at it, adjust your frame rate and come back to continue working on it later. Then you can export to your iPhone’s camera roll and upload it to YouTube. All without leaving your iPhone.
Overall, I found Frames really easy to use. It’s simple and uncluttered, but get’s the job done really well. You can tell that time and love was put into the app, and it’s quite polished. Lot’s of fun!
I stumbled across the Star Wars Uncut project a couple years ago, then forgot all about it. Well, it’s alive and well and there’s some fantastic stuff being made for it, including Malcolm Sutherland’s great animated bits.
So, while you should go and watch the entirety of Star Wars Uncut, I heartily recommend that you spend some time at Malcolm’s site and check out his videos. I really dig his style and wanted to share a couple highlights here.
I noticed this morning that there was a snowflake button on the YouTube video viewer this morning. It appears to be on videos that don’t show advertisements. Click it, and let it snow! Below is an image of one of my Unfriendly Giant cartoons. It’s just an image so that when summer rolls around and YouTube removes the snow button you can see that it was there. Click the image to go to the video and then click the snowflake to see what happens. Merry Christmas!
I haven’t seen an Apelad cartoon since I (tried to) shut down my flcikr account. But one came across my view today that I had to share. I present, the seven deadly sins of Star Wars. Man, let me tell you, I’m totally guilty of Greedo.
But really, I’m thinking that George committed at least seven other sins in Star Wars, the least of them being Episodes I, II and III. No, maybe those are the greatest. That’s not true. I liked most of Episode III. But Jar Jar? Man.
What do you think George Lucas’ greatest “sins” in Star Wars are?
So, this is the third Unfriendly Giant flash cartoon that I made. Again, I think it was a step up from the previous two in terms of effort and quality. Something that I notice right away is the new art style I used for the “props” in the cartoon. You’ll notice that there are lines edging many of the shapes on the skateboard and the BBQ. In the past, I kept things looking like (in my mind) paper or felt cutouts. Even when I animate, I imagine the art projects I did as a kid where I’d cut out all the body parts and pin them together at the joints. I think I also put more effort into the “acting” of the characters and the action of the cartoon as a whole. I felt that was needed because this cartoon was pretty heavy on dialogue, I thought.
Funny looking at the “rugrats” and/or “ankle biters” in the cartoon. They sort of remind me of chubby versions of my little Dude. I can’t believe I’d do an Unfriendly Giant cartoon and not put in an Easter Egg. If you can find it, let me know in the comments.
Let's be honest about what's going on here. I post to my blog, and I usually just share interesting links that I find elsewhere. I'm sorry that I don't post more regularly. I'm sorry that I haven't found the inspiration to post regularly with my own thoughts. But that's how it is. Thanks for stopping by though, I appreciate it. Let me know you were here by leaving a comment.
The Unfriendly Giant
Visit my Unfriendly Giant page for cartoons, videos, history, commentary.
