Autumn Fires by Robert Louis Stevenson In the other gardens And all up the Vale, From the autumn bonfires See the smoke trail! Pleasant summer over And all the summer flowers, The red fire blazes, The grey smoke towers. Sing a song of seasons! Something bright in all! Flowers in the summer, Fires in the fall!
As for a person who always struggled to express and describe her own thoughts and feelings with words, poetry was a lifesaver starting way back from middle school years. So, poetry and often music helped me to reveal clear meaning and convey ideas and mood.
Hence, then autumn just started to touch leaves with yellow and red colours, I felt a deep need to find words that will represent my inner thoughts about changes that happening around with nature. Additionally, I collected some leaves during long walks in surrounded parks.
Moreover, then I discovered this beautiful poem from R. L. Stevenson, it gave me an idea to make a stop-motion animation using natural supplies that could be found outside.
So, this is a final result
I would add that it wasn’t the most straightforward task. Since we had no access to the university building and use the studio’s resources for stop-motion, I needed to figure out how to make it at home with tools available. Luckily I had a small tripod with flexible legs that I can adjust to basically to everything.
You can see my tricky camera setup. I used a Stop Motion Studio app for the phone. I decided to get a paid version since it gives more flexibility to working on a project.
But the most challenging part of making this animation was the lighting. In the beginning, I tried to set up a station in the room using two desk lamps. However, the artificial light changes colours of leaves and other supplies drastically. Therefore I decided to use natural light and set the station on the windowsill.
Even though it helped a lot, however, pictures still had to be edited to get rid of unnecessary shadows. So, I transfer them to Photoshop to edit.
The next step, I uploaded all materials to After Effects, composed and add some finishing touches, so the colour will be even for the whole video.
Evidently, it turns out not the easiest and quickest “project for a day”, as I planed. Despite this, I enjoyed working on it. I successfully overcame all small challenges and recalled how to use Photoshop and After Effects. And I really like the final result of the work.