Interview

We interviewed a clay stop-motion animator named Marc Spess. He was very kind and helpful by answering all our questions. Here are his responses: 

What kind of softwares/apps do you use to create animations?
 1) The software I use for my animation is Dragonframe. It allows me to capture individual frames of animation, play them back and also turn the animation into movie files for editing. For editing I use Sony Vegas. You can put in your voice audio, music, sound effects, transitions and titles.

We currently use Flipagram, do you have a better software you would recommend? 
 2) I'm not aware of Flipagram, it looks like an editing program? The best programs are Sony Vegas and Adobe premiere. For the Mac I think IMovie is what most use.

What inspired you to become an animator? 
 3) My biggest inspiration was Will Vinton Studios (now called Laika) in Portland Oregon. They had popular animated characters like the California Raisins and Dominoes Pizza Noid. These were made of clay and on TV all the time when I was younger.

What style of stop motion animation is your favorite?
 4) My favorite style is clay animation which is the hardest kind of animation to do, because clay is heavy. But I love how the wax in clay makes figures look alive. Real skin is a little translucent and that's also why many famous artists sculpt figures in marble stone.

 Is stop motion animation your favorite kind of animation? If not, what kind of animation do you prefer?
 5) I love stop motion the most out of all forms of animation, but computer generated animation can also be beautiful to look at. However stop motion for me has a more realistic feel to it that draws me in more than other types of animation. Possibly because in stop motion everything is really there.

What type of cameras do you use or that you think are best to film/create the animation?
 6) I'm using a Canon 60D. It's a DSLR camera that can give you amazing images in your animation to work with for editing. However you can use anything from a web camera and even your cell phone camera with the right stop motion apps.

Do you have any tips in creating a set for a stop motion animation video?
 7) Some tips for making stop motion sets are to make the base of your set very strong. A very heavy table or using heavy wooden 2 by 4's prevent the set from moving when you animate. Also hanging heavy objects off of the bottom of your set prevents it from moving if you accidentally kick it. After the base of the set is built, the table area is best made out of MDF which stands for Medium Density Fiber board. It's a type of wood that doesn't splinter when you drill holes in it. Those holes are used to screw your puppets feet into so they won't fall over. The rest of the set can be made out of any material you can find. From cardboard, wood, plastic, plaster and styrofoam. Those are all common materials to make sets.

 How long have you been working in this field?
 8) I worked in the field of stop motion for several years as a freelance set builder, puppet maker and animator. Then I did my own films while creating animateclay.com so I could teach animation and animate too. My last short film was Zombie Pirate Tales.

Is there any suggestions for us to be able to make a more professional stop motion animation.
 9) To make really professional stop motion, study animation from different books as much as you can. Richard Williams has a very famous book called The Animators Survival Kit. There are also make YouTube videos on how to animate in stop motion. On the YouTube channel animateclay (this is my channel) I have tutorials on all these topics. One is on how to use a surface gage for stop motion. Surface gages help you to see where your puppet is in three dimensional space so when it moves you know exactly how far you move a puppet part. If you move your puppet parts in tiny moves for each frame, the motion appears slow. If you space the moves wide - the motion appears fast. Evenly spaced moves make the thing you animate move at one speed. Moving a part with tiny spaces first, wide spaces in the middle and tiny spaces at the end make the thing you animate look like it slowly became faster and then slow again.

Do you add your own music and sound effects to your creation? 
 10) For sound effects I usually go online to find those. There are a lot of what they call Royalty Free sound effects and music pieces you can download. One popular place to get free music that many stop motion animators visit is incompetech.com. Just google "free sound effects" and there are tons of sites. As long as you aren't making money off the sounds, most places will let you download them for free use. But as you get into making much bigger (commercial) productions, many people will record their sound effects in a process called foley. What they do is use their hands, bodies, tools and props to create the exact type of sound they need for specific shots. It's sometimes better to hire someone with experience in this. The other way is to buy sound libraries from people who record their sound effects and put them on data CD's, DVD's or hard drives. These can be very expensive but save a lot of time in making films.