Recyclables (Animation)

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Recyclables
A stop-motion animation project
Created with the help of Adobe Photoshop & Adobe Premiere Pro.

Episode 1 (1 min.)

Musical Score: 'March of the Spoons' by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Episode 2 (1 min.)

Musical Score: 'The Show Must Be Go' by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

...

About the Project
A friend had shown me some old Heineken promo material that utilized traditional stop-motion animation techniques. I thought they had an interesting quality to them. For context, see the 'Makers of History' short below.

These shorts inspired me to try my hand at creating some traditional stop-motion animation. Having limited resources, I decided to use the beverage containers themselves as the characters in the story. Also, one of the primary goals for this project was to keep it as low-tech as possible (i.e. no 3D modeling or other complex visual effects). Thus, I used inexpensive equipment and some old school techniques to create the animation.

All the images were captured with a basic point-and-shoot camera (perched on a mini-tripod). The lighting was either natural light, indoor bulbs or a combination of both. I realized that the lighting was not ideal. However, I didn't have the time to set up complicated lighting solutions. The staging and animation was most important so I decided to devote most of my time and effort to that.

When it was time to put everything together, low-tech met high-tech via the Adobe Creative Suite. After shooting thousands of stills, I assembled them into scenes using Adobe Premiere. Some of the action required hanging cans from the ceiling by strings or using clear tape to attach them to the sides of things. Any animation aids that were visible in the images were painted out using Photoshop.

I was able to get two [2] one minute webisodes done in about two weeks time. Then I had to move on to other projects. This is paint-staking work but, overall, it was fun and it was a great learning experience.

Attribution
The HEINEKEN name, logos and trademarks belong to HEINEKEN BROUWERIJEN B.V. or HEINEKEN USA INCORPORATED. For more information about their products, please visit: heineken.com. Also, please drink responsibly.

The music used in this project were created by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) and used by Creative Commons license.