Pixilation Research, Footage and Evaluation

Research
This part of Unit 10 sets us the challenge of creating a Pixilation Film. I had not heard of Pixilation before, and, at first, I thought that it was the same as Stop Frame Animation, which I do know about and have done in the past. But after doing research and talking with our tutors I now understand the difference.

Stop Frame Animation
Stop Frame Animation is where you take an inanimate object and take a series of photos while moving it very slightly in between the photos, then edit them together to give the illusion of movement.

This can be using any type of object, literally anything you have around. Or it could be using a series of drawings. The important thing is that the items being photographed move very slightly in between shots. This will mean that when you edit the series of photographs together, for example using Adobe Premiere Pro, it looks like the objects are moving themselves. It’s the same principle as a flip book, where a series of still images give the impression of movement.

This is an example of a fairly complex Stop Frame Animation, which the description says was made over 5 days, despite only being 57 seconds long. I think that the complexity of the images and changes of the images in between shots shows why it took so long, for example the image of the world appearing on the watermelon at 0:04 seconds in.

Stop motion animation fruit and vegetables

Another example of Stop Frame Animation is using Lego and moving it very slightly. A favourite of mine is the Lego Stop Frame Animation made to go with a sketch by comedian Eddie Izzard. There are 2 different versions.

Eddie Izzard – Death Star Canteen

Eddie Izzard: Lego Death Star Canteen

Probably the best known Stop Frame Animation is that of Wallace and Gromit. Below is a short video (2 mins 58 seconds) showing examples and some behind-the-scenes footage.

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit [Featurette]

Pixilation
So how is Pixilation different? Most of the process is the same, but the difference is that live actors are included in the shots and are also moved slightly to end up giving the illusion of movement.

This means that you can make it look like the people in the film are doing things that they could not do in real life. For example, if you get someone to jump in the air and take a photo when they are in the air, then get them to move forward slightly, jump in the air again and take another photo, then continue this for a lot of shots, you could make it look like they are floating along. But it is very tricky to get them at the same height each shot. Here are 2 examples where they use this effect to make it look like they are riding a broom (I’m not sure what the sound is all about in the second one).

Flight of the Broomstick

Broom-Flying For Muggles

Although I like the idea of being able to make it look like someone is flying, the perfectionist part of me is not convinced how good it looks. I did consider trying and seeing if I could make it any more realistic, but a few quick jumps showed me that neither me nor my mum could jump high enough off the ground to even begin to make it look better. Due to being in Covid-19 lock down, I am restricted to me and my mum as possible actors (my dad is recovering from an operation and although he was happy to sit on a chair for my final Pixilation film, jumping into the air was definitely not possible). If we weren’t in lockdown then I may have asked around my friends to see who can jump high enough to see if I could make it look like they were flying. But I am happy with what I decided upon as my final Pixilation film, so it’s OK.

Some adverts have made use of Pixilation, for example this Amazon Kindle Advert from 2010

Amazon Kindle Commercial 4 (official) Holiday

I’m not sure if this Red Bull advert is a real one or one that someone just made but it is pretty impressive. They make it look like drinking Red Bull turns you into Superman

Red Bull Stop motion commercial

This next example is a good example of Pixilation being used looking down from above to make it look like the guy is skateboarding in his living room. The video also shows how he filmed it. It took him 3 days to film it. I don’t have a room clear enough to do this, or the right equipment, but I do find it fascinating. This also showed me the importance of adding appropriate sound effects, since the skateboarding noises really make the video come to life.

Skateboard Stop-Motion Animation

A key feature of these is that they are filmed from high above, and I do not have the facilities to get a camera that high up. But they are a wonderful example of what can be done using the Pixilation technique. The following example and its behind-the-scenes video show a method that I could have used if we weren’t in lockdown. It uses a plastic piping rig to attach a go-pro to facing down, to lift it up high. But due to lockdown I can’t get any plastic piping. This is an idea that I would like to try out at a later date. I think that summer would be a better time, since lying on the ground for a long time in the cold and wet of winter is not a particularly good thing to ask my actors to do.

Stop-Motion Karate

Making of Stop Motion Karate & VFX

I feel that some good examples of Pixilation that are useful for me in this project are some by “Ruustic” who is an animator who I found during my research. [Note – although a lot of the video examples below spell his name “Rustic”, his channel is spelled “Ruustic” with 2 “u”s]. I talk about him in my Pixilation Journal entries. In the example below, he pretends to be ice skating even though there is no ice. The second example is the behind-the-scenes of how he filmed it.

Stop Motion ICE SKATING! (Christmas Video) – Rustic B

How to do Stop Motion – Behind the Scenes of Ice Skater

The next example is of a Mario Kart Race without cars, with 2 people sitting on the ground pretending to drive cars, and the shots are taken of them moving along very slightly each time. In the first film they have no props, and in the second film they have included props like the yellow “item boxes” and the “green shells” that exist in the Mario Kart video game.

STOP MOTION MARIO KART! (Pixilation Race) Rustic B

Stop Motion MARIO KART2! (mario kart 64 in real life) Rustic B

I like the films where you can use Pixilation to make it look like people are doing things they can’t really do, for example “being” a car, or riding an imaginary skateboard. I prefer these rather than some examples of Pixilation that I watched which seemed to just show the people doing normal things. I don’t feel that doing normal things makes the most of the Pixilation technique.

The Mario Kart examples gave me the idea of doing a parody of the bikes racing in the movie Tron. I looked at the races in both the new and original films and decided that the original film best suited my purpose. This is because I had come up with the idea of using some of my (many) trilby hats to form the trail behind the bikes and I felt that turning instantly at right angles would make best use of the Pixilation method and I could make the line of hats turn at right angles. Including my hats links it back to my “Hat Man” brand as well.

New Tron Race
Tron Legacy Lightbike Scene [4K]

Old Tron Race (The one I prefer for my Pixilation)
Tron Lightbike Scene

I like this final idea, because it is quirky and links in with my “Hat Man” branding. I always like to add a bit of “quirkiness” to my films. I can also add some interesting sound effects when I do my final edit, which will tie in with the sound that we have been learning with Attila.