I've started work on my second ever stop motion project. The first, an adaptation of the Day Of The Triffids, was made at the age of about 10 with some good friends, a VHS camcorder the size of a bungalow or small house, and seven or eight houseplants. I have no idea what happened to the VHS cassette afterwards, although a recent BBC production did seem strangely familiar...*
This new project does not feature either houseplants or VHS. As usual I'm learning as I go: many of the difficulties of live action filmmaking apply to stop motion too. On the other hand, if you're struggling to find that perfect camera angle on a confined set, you can always demolish a wall. For some reason this is frowned upon on location in the real world.
*this comment flagged for irony moderation.
The stop motion experiments continue - I'm enjoying the chance to try out angles, shot types, compositions, depth of field shenanigans and so on, all on a miniature scale. I'm also really impressed with the performance of my 550D on it's close-up settings. However Stop Motion Lesson #2 is: ten minutes spent ensuring your camera is stable saves hours and hours of tedious frame adjustment in post. 
I'm also preparing to screen the music video for Tenderstar's song "2007" at the Rotoreliefs film night, tomorrow 30th January at Rich Mix. I'll be joining in a Q&A session after the screening, along with other filmmakers. Full details of the event are here. I'm very much looking forward to this event, and the line-up for the night looks great, including a chance to see Anton Short's comedy "Suicide Tuesday" which I've mentioned before.
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