Motion capture video - Can this be done with a camera

[harvey 73]

I was thinking of making a motion caption video but don't have this feature on my camcorder or camera (hope I got the term right. Basically a film where you take a picture, move your object slightly, take another picture, and so on - bit like how Wallace & Grommit was created).

I was thinking if I took loads of still images is there a bit of software I could use to merge them together to create a video and add audio to it?

Any help appreciated

[glesgaguyav]

You can do this with a normal digital camera, I've done it before with plastacine models it's very easy to do but you'll need a lot of pictures.

Any video editor should import the pictures into the time line and then all you need to do is render it as an AVI or Mpeg

[harvey 73]

thanks.

can you recommend a free of charge video editor that's easy to use for a newbie to this field?

[glesgaguyav]

There's no "Free" ones Iam afraid, but plenty of Free Trials, Ulead Video Studio or Pinnacle Studio are aimed at the ametuer user, you'll usually get 30days trial period, so if you have a project then get your camera out take the pictures (just remember that the camera has got to be Rock Solid and ideally should have a remote shutter control, so the camera dosen't move when you press the shutter) Then download your free trial and start film making

[senu]

There is also Sony Vegas Movie studio which is newbee friendly after a little learning curve but depending on your ultimate aim, remember that PAL DV is 25 frames per second... that is a lot of frames to take
What happens in real life is that after constructing the "video", you then time stretch it to make it longer. The software ten synthesises more frames but the motion effect ( jerky or dead slow) will be determined by how well the time stretching is accomplished
Certainly worth a try
Im sure the pioneers of the technique did a lot of trial and error to get the right "formula"

[harvey 73]

Thanks for the replies.

The video would be for youtube. My son and his friend want to do a project with lego bricks and have asked me to help out.

I imagine it will be a one off and they'll quickly get bored once they relise how much work is involved (hence why I wanted some freeware that's easy to use). Will probably get a trial version of one of the above.