Making of the Raven Rap music video.

Over 7 days in October 2024, I created my very first stop-motion project, based on a rap version of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", recorded by my son, Nicholas Hancock, as part of a high-school English class, some years ago. We've been wanting to make a video with it for sometime, and the inspiration came last year when we got a collection of seasonal winter squash and a decorative black bird model. With my decision to do more experimental projects and Halloween coming up, this seemed like a good choice for a small project!

Although this video includes digital work in 60X timelapse, it also includes some still photos and live video:

00:00 Titlecard 00:16 Locating and converting the audio track from my archives. 00:30 Constructing a stop-motion animation stage from some scrap plywood 00:41 Backdrop rug and door mat dressing of stage. 00:51 Trying out layouts of the squash, books, and other elements 01:04 Used a desk in our spare room for the animation setup. 01:37 Video of animation process, using the same smartphone-camera that I use for my logs. 02:19 Continuity shots to document the layout of the stage. 02:45 Lighting tests with colored "sunset lamp".

(This is a $10 LED spotlight I purchased on Amazon).

03:25 Original stop motion camera images (straight-ahead animation). 03:44 Acquired the original words for the poem (and transcribed the rap introduction at the beginning).

(Some of the original timing of the animation was not logged).

03:46 Added on-screen text. 05:21 Collecting source files. 05:25 Selecting and adding backing-track music. 05:35 Iterative tweaking of timing and close-ups. 05:59 Revising on-screen credits and title. 06:24 Experimented with adding a vector-graphic face (decided against it). 06:47 Review 07:01 Another editing pass on the on-screen text. 07:08 Corrective volume-shaping of the audio tracks. 07:40 Checking the RMS volume of the overall audio track. 07:54 Titlecard with music credit and support URLs.

The music for this video is the isolated backing-track used in the "Raven Rap" video.

The artist didn't really name the tracks on this album -- the name field has "0000000001", but this is the 10th track on "The First Chaos" album by the artist "Alone in the Chaos". Jamendo #18561 / Creative Commons Attribution-Only, v2.5/BE.