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2. Finding Myself - Short Film
1 year ago
This is my first short film written to explain the story behind an illustration. It is about finding yourself, your purpose, and who you are meant to be in life. Shot in stop motion, from about Seven Thousand separate Photographs. (This is the finished version of the film. I made a few adjustments to the editing, colour grading, sound, and effects)

Please leave a comment. Id love some feedback

Written, Directed and Shot by Joshua Stocker
Starring Jimmy Kirk as Joshua Stocker
Music by The Album Leaf - Over the Pond

Credits

86 Likes

  • doctordurden 1 year ago
    Bravo!
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  • Jonathan Moreno 1 year ago
    Wonderful work, it made me turn my attention to the only thing I have: myself. Thank you.
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  • Seán Bray plus 1 year ago
    Outstanding work! Well done!
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  • DaLa 1 year ago
    wow ... incredible video, your choice of music works well. pls keep that marriage with your future work.
    ah ... simplicity ... you have found it's magic.
    what a great first piece and you should be very pleased with yourself. i look forward to your future videos.
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  • Ken Hirama 1 year ago
    WOW!! Amazing...
    Just breathtaking. I wish i can make somthing like this haha
    Keep up the good work and hoping to see more from you!
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  • Mario Cavalli plus 1 year ago
    Nice work, Joshua. Clear, elegant, poetic concept, very nicely realised. You obviously have an eye for a good composition. Nice use of DoF, good choice of track and sound effects, too.

    If I might make a suggestion, it would be to vary the change rate of the stills a little. The regular 'beat' imposed by the pace of the stills is sometimes at odds with the content or mood of the scene.

    You might also consider using very short dissolves between stills in some sequences, for a softer, dreamier feel. I've used dissolves as short as two or three frames myself in animation and for similar reasons in photo-live action like this. They can be subtle but very effective.
  • Joshua Stocker 1 year ago
    Thankyou very much for the comment
    I think what you said about using dissolves is very true, the biggest problem I had with some cuts was that, as most pictures in the video last for about 3 frames, if the last picture of a scene lasted for just one frame it would seem like the cut was too sudden, so using dissolves would have worked. The only problem is that we didn't really shoot the footage with much space before or after each clip so I might have had some problems with other scenes being visible in the dissolve.
    Thanks for the advice though, its hard to find people who can give good constructive ideas on how to improve.
  • Mario Cavalli plus 1 year ago
    I'm not familiar with the camera you are using but I suspect that it must be capable of shooting 8 stills per second, which at film frame rate is the equivalent of each still lasting 3 frames (@ 24/25 fps).

    You might want to try a little experiment. Select a short sequence that you think would be improved by the use of short dissolves. Rearrange the stills into two filmstrips as follows: first filmstrip, use stills 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 etc.. from your original camera material; second filmstrip use stills 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 etc.. Each still should be held for say 4 film frames each, both filmstrips, thereby slowing the action down by about 25%. Now superimpose the second filmstrip over the first so that you are seeing effectively 50% of each filmstrip, with the start of the second filmstrip 2 frames delayed over the first, thereby keeping the stills in the correct order.

    Another version of this technique for creating very short dissolves between frames, would be to make a duplicate filmstrip of all stills: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc, holding each still for two film frames each, then offset the duplicate filmstrip by one frame. This will not change the overall speed of the action but might smooth it out to dreamy effect; each still being effectively exposed thus: 50%, 100%, 50%, etc.

    You can try different permutations of this approach, for instance, making up sets of longer dissolves between alternate frames, always using even numbers of frame length dissolves and even numbers of offset frames between filmstrips.
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  • Jimmy Kirk 1 year ago
    Overall I thought it was a really well planned film.
    Its very well edited. Favorite scene is the handing over of the paper and least favorite is probably the scene of me in the glass, I look too shuddery. My fault though, sorry about that.
    Use me for anything else you have planned, would be fun to do that again. We'll have to rough out a script and some characters.

    Jimmy,
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  • Efehan 1 year ago
    Wow, very very pretty.

    In brief counter-point to a comment earlier up the page, I don't think you should employ the use of any fading between the frames. I think the pacing created by the changing of pictures is really important to the look you are going for, and you're using a style which I've noticed very few people ever do: a beautiful, lower frame-rate. My eyes and brain adjusted to it (my guess is about 3 or 4 frames a second?) in the first 5 seconds, and after that, I don't need any more information

    (fading is, to me, a completely over-used thing, especially in stop-motion with "too few" frames.)

    Your pulling and pushing of focus: seriously lovely. I think you could probably have a little more message and content in the piece for the 4 minute length, but the really wonderful photography more-than-kept my interest.

    I could write lots and lots more, but I'll not spam your wall at the moment. This is really beautiful. I can't wait to see what you come up with next!
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  • Tiffany Diamond 1 year ago
    Wow. AMAZING. Very beautiful piece. Very well done!
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  • Siamese Glass 11 months ago
    I love the stop motion, and where ever it was that you shot this, it seems to be a beautiful place, or at least through your lenses it does.

    I wanted to know what the note said though, all I got was "Josh Stocker 18 locked -something-something-"
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  • Patrick Eggert plus 11 months ago
    Absolutely amazing film. I loved it. I loved the first draft as well. Great job.
    -Patrick
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  • Musa 11 months ago
    Loved it ,, i bet you worked hard to do that ,,,
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  • Dario Piccirillo 9 months ago
    what camera?
  • Joshua Stocker 9 months ago
    I used a Nikon D80
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  • Joseph Lomas 9 months ago
    fantastic
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  • heathereve 5 months ago
    beautiful! And the album leaf! Glad to know there are others who also love them.

    The visuals go perfectly.

    :)
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  • Danijel Šivinjski 5 months ago
    great great great great great ...
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  • Angelo 4 months ago
    This was great. I am inspired to continue in my film like this.........

    What camcorder was used for this?
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  • Amila Galappatthi 1 month ago
    Hard work! Enjoyed it very much!
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