Shooting on "ones" vs. "twos" in stop motion animation | MISSING LINK | TIFF 2019

Director Chris Butler (Paranorman, Missing Link) discusses the difference between shooting on "ones" and shooting on "twos" in stop motion animation.
Chris Butler is a writer, director, and head of story for Laika, where he worked on Coraline (09) and Kubo and the Two Strings (16). Prior to working for Laika, Butler amassed a decade’s worth of experience designing and storyboarding on numerous high-profile animated projects, including Corpse Bride (05). His work has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA, several Annie Awards, and a GLAAD Media Award. He made his directorial debut with ParaNorman (12), which he also wrote. Missing Link (19) is his latest film.
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[@alanaflynn8878]

Wow! I never imagined a studio would animate stop motion on ones. That's amazing skill and control (and time).

[@amixofgeekcontent]

Seeing how stop animation is made looks like a LOT of work. This is mind blowing! You probably gotta love this stuff in order to put in that much work.

[@lukebradley574]

The videos put out on this channel are consistently fascinating

[@radio7353]

For those who want to see the difference between Ones and Twos better, you can use the , and . keys to move through singular frames at a time.

[@Lumibear.]

A strangeness I’m noticing lately, as we move towards smoother and clearer visuals since cinema went digital, is the amount of people who say it feels ‘wrong’ if cinematic entertainment approaches the look of reality. Can’t help but notice that hand animation done in 24fps often attracts the same critique, it gets ‘too real’. How do these people cope with theatre? Odd.

[@DeathnoteBB]

Google the uncanny valley

[@nathansvlog]

I realize your comment is two years old, but I thought I'd chime in with my two cents. I have no issue with animation on ones, but I do feel there's a certain charm to the more flickered look of twos and even threes (often seen in anime). It might be the absence of that charm that people dislike. Then you have movies shot in 60 FPS. This can feel very uncanny to people because of consumer conditioning over the years. For the entire history of colour film, we've seen 24 FPS and associated it with the 'film look'. The only place we were used to seeing high FPS content - aside from the internet - was camcorder footage, live shows, TV soaps, and sitcoms. When The Hobbit was released in 60 FPS, people felt that it had a tacky, cheap quality to it - likely for this reason. People just associated that blurry, less-clear motion with a grand cinematic experience. Of course it's just a matter of adapting. I went to see The Hobbit and, while I had some complaints about that movie, the framerate was long forgotten by around 20 minutes in.

[@matheus5230]

Theatre is a very different artform from cinema, with a different set of expectations

[@calebclendenin7073]

The hand animation thing is interesting. Cause lots of Disney feature animation was done on 1s or contains lots of work on 1s. I have Richard Williams animation book and he states 1s always look better. I wonder if the surplus of hand animation done on 2s has cemented a certain look for people in what they expect. In a somewhat similar vein, though born in the 90s, I grew up with a lot of 80s and 90s movies and 2000s movies were still primarily shot on film, and so to a degree, that is just how a movie looks to me. Digital photography is by no means wrong but I think it‘s still not the look I primarily associate with cinema.

[@catapultato1733]

​@@DeathnoteBBholy discomfort

[@debodatta7398]

Amazing video this channel is so underrated!

[@armaniherrera6584]

Holy I was so confused what animating on 1s and 2s meant but he just summed it up really well

[@s.z.x.01]

When I watched this I thought it was animation, but damn that is one smooth piece of stop motion

[@LittyLuke]

Stop Motion is animation. 🙄

[@Kohtix]

I think he’s referring to CGi

[@deadpixelanimation1411]

amazing video thank you

[@DafterThings]

Very informative. I shoot at 12 FPS on 1s (just because of the time I have available) but was considering moving to 24 fps on 2s for action scenes and 24 FPS on 1s for slower actions. Would that make sense?

[@oluisera]

I think its better shooting action scenes on ones (24fps)

[@DafterThings]

@@oluisera Hmm. I always assumed slower moving objects would need more shots for them to look smoother but faster moving less. I might be wrong though. Just looked it up and I have misunderstood all this time. Still need to understand it a bit better.

[@oluisera]

Dafter Things its hard to understand at the beginning. I advise you to read “THE ANIMATOR’S SURVIVAL KIT” , it is a great book :)

[@oluisera]

I think you’re confusing FPS with spacing

[@DafterThings]

@@oluisera Yeah. I have that. haven't read it for a long time but will check again. Yeah. I just (wrongly) assumed that slow movements would need more granularity of movement while faster movements could skip frames. TBH : This is something I should be trying out for myself to understand it better. there is only so far theory takes you 😊👍

[@mordekaihorowitz]

In my opinion, if you're doing a comedy animation, 2's work better unless you do a lot of easing between movements, in which case 1's _might_ work better. 2's make the animation more "gentle" in my opinion, because working in 1's make the movements look more "electric" or excited. Again, my opinion.

[@DeathnoteBB]

Eh. In my opinion 2’s look fake and jittery, at least in stop motion. Wallace and Gromit, for example. But stuff like Coraline is smooth as butter.

[@MrShark-zr2bk]

@@DeathnoteBB hey random question, if someone would animate at 60fps what would it be called?

[@DeathnoteBB]

@@MrShark-zr2bk I mean, 1s I assume? Is this sarcasm?

[@MrShark-zr2bk]

@@DeathnoteBB no I'm just curious, I thought 24fps were called 1's and anything above that was something entirely diffrent.

[@DeathnoteBB]

@@MrShark-zr2bk Oh, well I assume 24 fps is 2s, and 60 fps is 1s. I forget why but it’s late and my memory needs refreshing.

[@animatedaj7208]

I know People might disagree with me on this and that's alright, but I personally think not only Laika does smooth movements, but also Aardman animations. I did research the FPS on Aardman and it said they run on 24FPS on 1's and 2's

[@Micropoint.]

A bit late but well *...* Aardman shoot at 24 but they will shoot on 1 and *2* even more if need and *when* needed.

[@Kuhoochandra]

Omg wow

[@YuutaShinjou113]

I notice the lack of motion blur on scenes that are shot on ones.

[@FriedFrogLegsAnimations]

Animation rules

[@swamycomp]

Hi i am swamy i have one doubt 1s and 2s animation in 3d how work out maya vector blur in compositing stage

[@fauxwarpentertainment5781]

What about mix of 1s and 2s in the same shot 😏

[@psi_rockin]

god I fucking love Laika

[@bobrew461]

1:29 why use software on the characters then? Anomolisa did it right.

[@sedecoste]

"0:06-0:09 If you shoot on twos, then you take a picture for every two frames, so it's 12 frames a second." Well that's a bit misleading. It's still 24 FRAMES ps but 12 pictures.

[@sloppyjoecomedy]

I feel more comfortable animating on “ones” gonna be honest. That opinion might change in the future.

[@OmarHesham]

He says stop motion is unique because of the hand made tactility of it and that it's real light on real objects, then he says we are not chasing photorealisim like CG is and takes pride in that. Both sentiments seem at odds.

[@worldofandrew8685]

It's a shame that this movie was a major box office failure

[@RADLadio]

To me is pretty perturbating a stop motion on ones, because this is illusion of life is way to real.

[@DavidWorley94]

Laika post-Coraline looks too much like CGI in my opinion

[@chrislondo2683]

They use CG for extension and background actors.

[@DavidWorley94]

@@chrislondo2683 I think the puppets are too pristine, it doesn't have the Aardman-esque cinematic quality that I like in other stop motion films

[@chrislondo2683]

@@DavidWorley94, because it’s 3D printed.

[@bobrew461]

@@chrislondo2683 AND...to smooth out animation of the characters. a big mistake IMHO.

[@johnscreamorclaus4656]

Stop Motion and Hand Drawn animation are the sort of thing that is better off not released in theaters, because their animation is alot less smooth then CGI. Pixar and Laika has great animation, but Aardman and Disney misses plenty of marks that it is noticeably jerky