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Group · The classroom

Motion Slopwright

Graduates of “Slop that moves”: animation and video, checked frame by frame.

The Motion Slopwright badge
Slop that moves, on the Slop Curriculum

A branch of the Slop Curriculum for people who finished its first two pathways: one shot built in layers and measured frame by frame by the workshop’s motion bench, ending in two shots cut on action, a loop with no join, and a label on every frame.

The Slopwright teaches it with his own teapot: “Ask a machine to move my teapot and by the end of the shot it’s a slightly different teapot.” His notes on a shot name a frame, not a feeling.

The facts

Kind
Group
World
The classroom
Appears in
The Slop Curriculum
Pathway
5: Slop that moves
In one line
Animation and video: direction that has to hold still for twenty-four frames a second.
Modules
9
Start the curriculum ↗

What the sources say

  1. Ask a machine to move my teapot and by the end of the shot it’s a slightly different teapot. I’ve had that teapot for years. I notice.The Slopwright, Generic motion slop, The Slop Curriculum
  2. Either the tin moves or the camera does. Leave it to chance and both do, a bit, and everyone in the room feels slightly seasick.The Slopwright, Who moves?, The Slop Curriculum
  3. A dolly moves the camera. A zoom moves the glass. They look alike for about a second, and then the background gives you away.The Slopwright, Camera moves, The Slop Curriculum
  4. I draw the poses that matter and let the bench do the rest. The bench draws in straight lines unless I tell it otherwise, which is most of my job.The Slopwright, Keys and in-betweens, The Slop Curriculum
  5. Nothing in my workshop starts at full speed. Not the tin, not the kettle, and certainly not me.The Slopwright, Timing and spacing, The Slop Curriculum
  6. A loop is a circle you can’t see the join in. Most people’s have a join. You can hear them clunk.The Slopwright, Loops that don’t pop, The Slop Curriculum
  7. Cut away from the tin and back, and it had better be the same tin, in the same place, going the same way. Audiences count. They don’t say they’re counting.The Slopwright, Continuity, The Slop Curriculum
  8. I don’t say a shot “feels off”. I say “frame 31”. Then I say what to do about it, which is the part people skip.The Slopwright, Check the frames, The Slop Curriculum
  9. Here is the bench’s little projector. It plays whatever you describe and says so on every frame, which is only polite.The Slopwright, Ship a shot, labelled, The Slop Curriculum

Connections