Stop Motion Pendulums

I have been familiar with stop motion for a few years, as when I was younger I would set up my Playmobil vehicles and attempt stop motion. However, at that time I had no knowledge of lighting, camera angles, actually focusing the camera, and timing so of course the animation was terrible. I actually found the original file! (to add to it's low quality it was also edited on iMovie)

'Terrible Car and Caravan Animation' - by Tabby Caton-Rose, 2007
It's of it's era.

My first task in stop motion class: animating a free pendulum and a mechanical pendulum

I have to admit, in class I was very confident and thought 'this is so easy!' but once I got into the stop motion room I knew I was completely wrong. There are so many elements to think about: lighting, set up, camera settings, computer settings, timing, correct movement, distance between fairings, saving the large files. Despite all this I was very excited to do this task.

My final mechanical pendulum (above) turned out well, as most of my attempts looked more mechanical than free even when I was attempting a free pendulum. It was a constant struggle, and I came to about 6 attempts all together. (still with room to improve) A mechanical pendulum is quite simple to animate because the fairings are very equal as there's not much momentum, and it doesn't get faster. Rather it stays at a constant speed throughout most of it's swing.

On the other hand, animating a free pendulum was a pain. It's fairings aren't equal as the speed isn't constant. The pendulum needs to swing slower as it gets to the top points, and faster in the middle where it picks up speed. Getting the correct fairings was a challenge and took a few attempts. My final animation (above) turned out ok in the swings, but I think it needs to get even slower at the top points for it to be more accurate.