The software I used to animate was Dragon Frame. I first connected my DSLR camera to my laptop via USB cable so I could see the footage live immediately after a took a shot.
Before I began animating I adjusted the settings a lot to make sure everything was perfect and wouldn't end up corrupting by the end.
Exporting:
I took a few test shots how the setup was, then exported them to see how they would look. This was a very good thing to do as everything was pretty much black at that point and was completely unusable. From previous experience with Dragon Frame, I've learnt that what you see on the screen is not necessarily what is going to show up once it has been exported. This is why I did several export tests to get the settings right before spending hours animating.
Test Shots:
Similar to the exporting tests I did, I took a lot more test shots to get the visuals just how I wanted. There were many factors to this as I had to consider the camera's settings, the lighting that I set up and the Dragon Frame settings as well as any other variables in the room. The first thing I did was make sure that my camera was set to manual mode. This allows me to control the settings and keep them at the levels I decided; the numbers won't change or go up and down which would make each shot look very inconsistent.
I did this until I got the appearance and lighting levels etc how I wanted them and I did this for each new scene that I set up for.
Exposure Mode Settings:
In this software there are set exposures and customisable exposures. The default option, 'X1', didn't use the settings I needed so I made my own specific version. All of the camera adjustments and setting changes I made went onto an exposure that I named 'LB' so I could tell which my version was. This allowed me to select this option before animating and then everything would adjust to the way I needed. Once I began animating I would lock this layer to prevent any unwanted changes or mistakes being made.
April 2022
These are the settings I used to export my footage as a video.
Source: High Resolution JPG/TIFF
Exposure: LB
Frame Rate: 12 and 24
Crop: 16:9 Aspect Ratio
Quality: High
_edited.jpg)
This is how my screen looked whilst animating every shot. To start each take I would set the camera up then ensure all the settings are correct before pressing the capture button. I managed to animate a couple shot out of focus which meant I had to redo a shot or two because it is impossible to focus something when it is blurry. This highlights the extra care I had to take throughout the process otherwise it would end up effecting the quality of my animation.
The yellow sections indicate where I copied some of the frames to hold a shot for a bit longer. I did this when I felt the timing wasn't quite right but didn't a full reshoot. I additionally annotated each new shot with a brief description of its contents and making notes of which actions were happening. This helped later on when organising and exporting footage.
