Make Something Every Week: Ray Harryhausen Tribute Video

I resolved at the beginning of this month to try something new for the next 3 months:

• I will read twice as many books as movies I watch.
• I will spend at most 30 free minutes on the computer each weekday evening. This time includes email, social networks, YouTube, and general surfing, but not time spent writing or otherwise making things.
• I will spend at most 90 free minutes on the computer each weekend day.
• I will make something every week, and I will publish something every month.

I might not complete the weekly thing by the end of the week, but I should have at least a solid draft. The thing may be a dice game, a short story, a gardening video, or anything else that takes creative effort.

Last week, with the death of stop motion animator Ray Harryhausen, I read tributes in which people promised to re-watch a Ray Harryhausen movie. I was struck that Harryhausen (and his estate) probably profited nothing from this. I doubt he received any royalties from the movies he worked on. So I thought: what would Ray want us to do?

I think he’d want us to make some stop motion ourselves.

So I grabbed a Gundam model kit and made this:

[iframe_loader width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/5ScqYHeSqRM” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen]

I learned a few things:

1. With a basic understanding of lighting and camera position, you can create something very quickly. My camcorder has a photo mode, so I used that to record each frame of the animation. Once I set everything up, the actual animation took maybe 10 minutes.
2. Tape down your model.
3. Gundam model kits are perfect for stop motion. They have a wide range of limb motion and stay where you put them.