I took a film making class at
West Valley College this most recent fall, and the second project
was completely open-ended - any story, any medium. It had to
be 3 to 15 minutes. So I made a claymation. It's only 2:32,
but the instructor didn't seem to mind. 
I took my time and wrote a neat script,
but after reading it over, I realized it was too ambitious
for the time I had left to film, so I made Primary Concerns
as a test, to see if I could handle; 1. Animating at 24 fps
2. Using clay as a medium for animation rather than Lego
It was a LOT of work, and the animating
got pretty intense sometimes, even with my simple characters
and actions. You can see my progress over the course of the
film - the bird's-eye-view of all three characters throwing
things at each other is markedly better than the opening shot.
It was a lot of fun, and I was encouraged to find that I wasn't
just a Lego animator.
I imported my shots at 30 fps and
then slowed down the clips to the proper speed in Final Cut
Express with "frame blending" enabled to circumvent the 24
to 30 fps conversion. It isn't perfect, but it's better than
nothing.
Production Stills
My small-but-sturdy desk. It's a little
too low to be ideal, but it doesn't jiggle - I could jump
up and down on it between frames and you probably wouldn't
notice. My webcam is on the lower right, in its Lego stand.
The river is taped to the background for display. Some other
clay characters and bits are on the right, and my masking
props are on the left. I'll talk about them a little later.
The bridge. Dad cut the foamcore with
a razorblade. I glued the popsicle sticks. Look at all the
stains the clay left - I was surprised at how inky the clay
was.
Pencils, tape, and some jars. I bet
you didn't see these in the movie! Actually, you would've,
if I hadn't erased them frame by frame. Those little pieces
of clay don't actually hover, you know.
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