The video below is my entry into @lilyraabe's ART MIX UP contest (number 3) - please check out her post and support her and enter too!. Please feel free to watch the video and I'll explain it afterwards (or just scroll past and read the explanation!)
What is this video about?
OK so many of you will only know me (if you know me at all) as a short story writer. That is just a hobby (and a dream). My real job is B&B owner, but that isn't very artistic (although I do set a very attractive breakfast table, and the toilets are cleaned to a very arty sparkle). My other hobby/business/arty outlet is I am a wool artist (I needle felt little creatures out of wool). That is why I am called Felt.Buzz (that's the name of my felt business).
So I thought I would combine my two artistic hobbies (making creatures out of wool) and writing stories. And do a little bit of (very basic) stop frame animation.
The first thing I did was needle felt a rabbit out of wool (actually I was already making a rabbit - Easter approaches - when I saw this contest, so really I finished making the rabbit). The picture below shows the raw wool I use to needle-felt the rabbit
The picture (below) of the special needle I use. It has notches in it that - when you poke the wool repeatedly - felt the wool together. It is hard to explain the process, but you shape the wool almost like you would clay, or Plasticine.
This shows me making the final adjustments to the rabbit:
I didn't shoot a video of me making the rabbit. But if you are interested the video below shows me making a dragon (it is a few years old):
This is a picture of me with my rabbit:
Once I made the rabbit I decided to write a story based on the rabbit. I write all my stories in google docs. A fifty word story sounds easy (after all it is ONLY fifty words, how long can it take, right?) but it's more tricky than it sounds. It takes me between 15 minutes and 2 hours to get a 50 word story right, depending on lots of factors. This story probably took around 20 minutes to write.
I wanted to make the rabbit look as if he is telling the story. So I took lots of photos, of him in slightly different positions. I then uploaded these photos into an online gif maker. (I was going to have him hopping on to screen and off again but this proved too difficult in the time I had, so I selected just 13 of the 50 or so photos I took). I made three different gifs - at different speeds.
I then recorded myself reading the story (I used a basic sound recording app on my phone). After that I recorded myself introducing the story and saying goodbye (two separate recordings).
Using PowerDirector (a video producing/editing app) on my phone. I loaded up the gifs many times and loaded up the recordings of my voice. I then made a record of what I had said for the intro and the goodbye (so I could make subtitles)
I then made individual subtitles to go along with the recording of my voice
And then put it all together as a video using the PowerDirector app on my phone.
Not sure how long the whole process took, but it was fun to do.