Forgetting Oneself and Reflection

Yes! My first stop motion film is up! If you don't understand what is going on, please comment! I would really appreciate any feedback.




Forgetting Oneself from Kim Berens on Vimeo.




Reflection:
I really wanted to use Photoshop for this project, so I came up with this idea where a person is invisible. Of course I needed a story around that, and our assignment was about an everyday moment. What I came up with was a person forgetting herself. I didn't think it would be that hard, but when I shot test photos, I realized how wrong I was. However, when I shot the actual photos and actually went into Photoshop, it really wasn't that bad. It helped that all the shots where she is invisible have the same exact background, so I could just use a shot sans person and just cut her skin out, add a little gray to the inside of her sleeves and collar, and voila: invisible person. It was a lot of fun, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
But the person is not the only thing I photoshopped. I also photoshopped the lamp. Either the light was (of course) too overexposed or the surrounding area was (of course) too underexposed. So I just shot the lamp underexposed and photoshopped that light into the normal images, so that you could see the detail.
What I found difficult was keeping focus when the camera and subject both moved. That's why the feet go out of focus, and even though I don't mind the blurriness because it actually looks kind of cool and if I were a cinematographer I might use that for something again, I do wish there were a way to keep the shots all in focus as the camera moves. I suppose I could just not use continuous exposure and record the pictures the old fashion way: one at a time.
I recorded my own audio, but my version of Audacity is not compatible with the campus computer's version, and although Audacity is free, I didn't think the computer would let me install something on it, so I just went with freesounds.org, which has many many useful soundbites. I had to add the new audio in only a couple of hours, so hopefully I chose well.
I really loved using Final Cut. I want more reasons to play around with it. My credits are so simple, and yet I got so excited about them!