Studio and green screen

Since last post, I've been working on setting up the studio space and the green screen backdrop. This was after running into problems building the puppet's head - 2mm steel doesn't sound that thick, but it's been making a mess of my cheap tools, so I decided to put it down for a bit.

I am pleased with how the srusio space has come on - from being a room with clutter cleared to make space for uni work, it now feels like very functional space with a purpose. I'm still working on the green screen stuff, but I've got it in place with flourescent lighting solidly in place that doesn't spill onto the rest of the set.

Here are some pics...

In the process of setting up and testing the green screen stuff when this was taken:

Black out blind material has worked great on the windows - I can't see a thing in the day when the lights are off! Consistent lighting is essential for stop-motion animation if you want to avoid shifting light or a 'flickering' effect when the images are run together as a video sequence, and from what I've read, it's one of the more difficult issues to fix in post-production:

Technological bits - the laptop will be controlling the Canon 550D camera via USB with Dragon Stop Motion software, the second screen will be used to show the camera view and for setting up the shots with onion skinning n stuff while I'm animating.
The dials below the monitor are dimmers for the lights - I'm not sure yet whether this will feed stable enough power to the lights to avoid any noticeable flicker when animating - if it does, or the variation in colour temperature is problematic, I may have to fall back on using neutral density gels to dim the output of the lights where I need to instead.
And the little pad to the right is a wireless bluetooth keypad - I can use this to control all the main software/camera functions without having to to and fro to the laptop. Just have to be remember where I've put it down:

Everything needs to be as solid as possible - a tiny jog to the camera or set or just stuff 'settling' a millimeter or so could be a huge pain in the erse to get back exactly as it was. My tripod is a decent, heavy old thing, but not ideal, so hanging something heavy to help stabilise it is a good idea:

...and drilling into the floor and screwing some wood to it to keep the legs in place can't do any harm, either...

 I built a criss-cross of wooden supports to suspend lights and other stuff, like the camera for some shots and the lights and board to flag off the top light for the green so it doesn't spill onto the rest of the set. It's not very pretty, but it's nice and solid.
The less that's in the way or on stands and at risk of being knocked, the better...

You can see the 2 fluorescent tubes that light the green here. Although they can be prone to subtle flickering than could be noticeable in stop-motion animation, they're good for this purpose, as the chroma green paper that they're lighting will be matted out of the shots afterwards.
I'm still not sure if I'm going to get away with the green on the table, but, as you can hopefully see, the wooden board/flag provides a pretty sharp line between the green and the rest of the table and there was no visible light spill/green reflection onto white objects placed next to it on the dark/wooden side when I tested this.

 The table. Originally a fresh, pale pine jobby from Ikea, I'm satisfied that it looks sufficiently old and dirty to match the backdrop after staining and distressing.
I'm also relieved that the numerous holes I've drilled into it for 'tie down' points, where the puppet's feet are screwed down, don't look too out of place, especially from the POV of the camera on the tripod, which is where it'll be for most of the animation. I'll probably give it it a last bit of 'treatment' so it looks just so...

...and testing the tie-downs and the tension of the armature - the puppet had been in the same position on one foot for a couple of days without shifting, so I'm confident that the armature is solid enough to handle the weight of the extra arms and tail and the extra leverage that the width of the 'hips' and 'shoulders' places on the leg joints. this was something I hadn't really considered and only became apparent as a potential issue when I'd first built the armature and been playing with it.