Stop-motion: Pendulums

Our first task which we were given was to animate two pendulum swings, one of them had to be a free falling pendulum with a heavy weight at the bottom, and the other a mechanical clock hand. To understand the movement and timings of both pendulums I had to observe them in real life. I did this by tying a conker on a string and swinging it, to see how the free falling one would act. I then went to a clock shop and looked at videos online to see how the mechanical clock one would act.

For both tasks I started by pencilling in an arc which the pendulums would follow. I then marked out the spacings where I would take each frame. The free-falling pendulum is fastest in the centre of the arc where it gathers its speed, but then slows right down at each side of the arc. To represent this movement, I used smaller spacings at the top of each side of the arc which then gradually got bigger toward the middle of the arc, showing the increase in speed.            

Free-falling, weighted pendulum

   

After I was happy with my free-falling pendulum, I moved on to the mechanical clock. This more or less had the same principles, speeding up in the centre and slowing down at each side of the arc. However there were subtle differences I needed to make clear when animating. I noticed the clock pendulum didn't gather the same kind of speed as the free falling one, so I didn't make the spacing in the centre as big. I also noticed its change in direction was much quicker as opposed to the free falling one which virtually stops in the air before swinging back. I therefore made the spacing at each end a little bigger. 

Overall I enjoyed doing this task! I found the free falling pendulum easiest to understand and I was able to get it virtually in one go! I found the mechanical pendulum slightly harder, but looking at a grand father clock I real life really helped me to understand the movement, and I was able to get it after a few attempts.