The Judges Committee has awarded this submission Excellence in Digital Animation

PROJECT SUMMARY

How does technology bring art to life? For example, animating works of art creates as visual paragon. We created a stop motion video about the legend of the Yerba Mate by using a visual arts studio app to film hundreds of scenes of silhouettes moving and string them together for a stunning video. We experienced the thrill of producing movies and the complicated process of shooting films. 

WHY?

Photography and cinematography are actually more related than you think. We did this project to join the wonders produced by taking pictures with the amazing results of recording videos. We wanted to explore into visual effects and experiment with art fabricated with illusion. 

HOW?

Our process of creating the project was a tiresome process of taking endless pictures for each scene for smooth movement. First, we drew a storyboard to plan out the frames, and cut out the silhouettes from paper. After that, we organized the characters and objects on a backdrop and took photos, while constantly repositioning them. Once we had our stop motion video ready, we put in sound effects for extra stimulation. 

WHAT?

We are very satisfied with our stop motion video, for the action and special persepctives made the story really engaging. The fast transition of multiple photos really connects them together and makes the illusion of movement manifest. A discovery that we made is that pauses slow time down and numerous small shots speed time up. 

SO WHAT?

Our results play an improtant role in helping improve future stop motion videos. We can conclude that using classic techniques from movies and ensuring that there is change but level variation between each frame allows the stop motion to be pleasing to watch. What's more, the optimum frames per second for the most fluid stop motions is about 12-15 fps, when taking into consideration the minimizing of workload. 

WHAT'S NEXT?

We could extend our project by continuing the story of the Legend of the Yerba Mate with our own custom plot, or add more details into each scene. The next steps are participating or submitting it as an entry in a stop motion video contest. We could also obtain feedback as a way to keep building on our stop motion video. We could improve our project by revamping our silhouette style, make them better articulated, and get better shifts between each frame.

REFERENCES & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We created our Stop Motion video using the app Stop Motion Studio.

I want to thank my amazing partner who collaborated with me in this project and contributed to the brilliant results!

We are grateful for Ms. Fio's and Ms. Diana's continous support, assistance, and positive comments during our learning process.

We also really appreciate Ms. Renata's help in making sharing this with a broader audience possible!

JUDGES FEEDBACK

This is an impressive entry which utilizes art and technology to showcase excellent and culturally relevant storytelling. The story unfolds in interesting and unpredictable ways. Aided by sound effects, this innovative production was both capitivating and fascinating to watch. Improvement ideas: consider toning down some of the iMovie sound effects - the drama sound effect was a little distracting in particular. Are any of you musicians? A South American folk guitar song might aid the production further - perhaps sporadic guitar chords for certain parts to replace some of the iMovie sound effects.