Stop Motion

Behind the Scenes of: TobyMac – Christmas This Year

Take a look at the new Toby Mac video by www.samaritanspurse.org Learn how creative stop motion techniques help tell a story.

This past December there was a need to produce a creative stop motion project highlighting Operation Christmas Child music video. The goal was to partner with Toby Mac song Christmas This Year and get the message out for the Christmas holiday. So how do you get a three-minute video cranked out in two weeks using cut-outs, construction paper, and bunch of wrapping paper? That was the question I had only three days to work out in our small studio. Hundreds of elements had to be created and shot frame by frame in just three days we had for production. Once all these elements were created the post-production process began, and the movie magic started to unfold.

Movie Magic in Action

Once all these elements were processed and organized into scenes, I began my work in After Effects. The major tool used in AE is the time remapping tool. All the scenes needed to conform to 23.976 frames per second at a HD resolution of 1920×1080. Well that is fine, but each image was more than twice that size and had two times the number of frames. This was the first hurdle I had to over come. The fun part begins with bring each element to life by timing the animations with the music. The reason all the shots were larger and longer than I needed for the product was to allow room for changes. You never know what you find until you start digging into a project. So the more room you have for changes in post the better your project will turnout.

Bringing it all together

Finally all the scenes came together and they were sent to the edit bay for final delivery. This project was a fun and creative way of getting back to the basics of creativity and having fun with common everyday art and craft elements. I would encourage you to play around with your own stop motion ideas and give it a shot. Stop motion is fun graphic technique that adds energy and fun to any project.

Until next time!