The bus stop – Making of (by Lukas Palm)

Last week I finished 3 videos for our tour. A music video, a making of video and an interview. It always takes more time and patience than I expect in first place. Even if I have a clear vision in my mind how I want my video to look in the end. The one-minute bus stop motion film took me 30 hours of work. Normally, postproduction takes me longer than the actual filming. This time once more, the postproduction required a lot of patience and time but the filming really kicked ass. Because stop motion can be a form of sweet torture, especially when you love making it and you want to get it right.

zeppelin orchestra on tour - teaser by zeppelin orchestra on Vimeo.

Zeppelin Orchestra - Teaser (Stop-Motion) Making of by zeppelin orchestra on Vimeo.

Making of - Stop Motion Trailer

Getting your vision on film

The goal was to transport the idea of the tour and the project in one very short film. What I wanted was a small bus driving around in front of a neutral background. At the same time, various names and sentences should appear on the screen. The bus is controlling and triggering the letters. It "transports" the messages. Therefore, I needed a small studio, a bus, my camera,good lighting and some tricks to make it look real.

No green screen? I don’t care!

For the studio, I used my room. I took some white screen and three lights. It was somewhat difficult to find the right lighting for each scene because I wanted a complete white environment that surrounds the small bus. The idea was not to replace the background, like you do it with a blue or green screen, because it all should look real, which isn't easily done when you light a green screen with unsuitable lights. But shooting on HD makes it more difficult because the camera sees everything! It picls up every detail and even dust particles. Check out on the making of video, you'll see me cleaning the white screen between the scenes.

What’s the plan?

For my video I needed a series of pictures with the small bus in various positions. Normally you move or alter the object and then take one picture at a time - at least 12 frames per second of film. I thought I'd film the whole process and at the end I'd pick the pictures, because for one stop motion trick I could not completely control the movement of the bus just by positioning it. In all the scenes of the video, where you see the bus driving from one point to another I just moved it in steps of 2 or 3 cm. That is why I am measuring the wheels in the making of video. For the main scene, when the bus is driving on the road and you get the illusion that the camera follows the bus, I had to use another trick.

I love playing tricks ;-)

My studio was too small for me to move the bus on the road at the same time as moving the camera. Even if this had been no problem the whole scene probably would have been very shaky by moving the camera. So I thought to myself well, I'll just move the road and not the bus. I painted an abstract road onto the screen, and then I rolled it up. I affixed the bus with a thin fishing line onto the chair. Now I was able to pull the street, the bus always stayed in the same position, and the wheels turned as if it was driving. The illusion was complete. In postproduction, I intensified the contrast, so that the fishing line was not visible anymore. Check the video. You'll see the line.  When I was pulling the “road”, the bus sometimes did not exactly stay in the same position. Well, this was no problem because, as I said, I filmed everything, so I had 24 pictures per second and could easily choose the best ones for the stop motion effect.

It took me 4 hours to get all the scenes on film. I forgot to drink, and in the small room with the three lights, it got freaking hot. So when I came out of my room, proud of my work, I was sweating big time. My flatmate had just come back from jogging, also sweating, but he was kind of surprised and confused why the crazy guy had been sweating for hours in his room because of moving a small bus all over the floor.

Still, stop motion is one of the coolest ways to make movies. It is not a computer-generated animation. It is “real”! That is one reason why I love the Wallace and Gromit films or the stop motion finale in the film Army of darkness. It is handmade!