claymation help****

[somedude]

iam going to do a clay mation short 3-5 mins and i was wondering if any of you know how make things leave the ground(suspended in air) in a easy way, because at this point iam going to use wire stands under the clay and draw or matte it out later in editing, but the thing is is that iam on a pretty tight time schedule and painting frames takes a while so any adive or tricks you guy know that would be vary helpfull...thanks...oh ya and is there better clay to use other that modeling clay, because that stuff likes to mush,melt and crack...thank again...****

[tashunka]

I dunno about a better clay to use but as far as the suspension thing goes......i did an animation with action figures at to make a robot fly away at the end i just simply used white thread around the arms. I had a white background so it worked perfect. This may not work depending on the scale of your figures. Good luck and happy shooting.

tash.

[56films]

get a big sheet of plexi or glass. one that the edges won't be seen in the frame of the camera. build a sort of wooden window with just the sides. make a T out of the two pieces of wood and slide the glass in between them so that it stands up straight.
try splitting the figure or object in half and stick one half of it to the glass. angle the camera just right so you don't see that the other half is missing.
since the glass is clear it won't show up on film. i did this in a claymation film where i wanted the character to sort of "dribble" a ball. it worked quite well!

good luck!

will