Her Morning Elegance - Oren Lavie

Her Morning Elegance from Kenneth Chua on Vimeo.

This is an extremely successful example of a music video made using stop motion. It has over 10 million views on YouTube and a Grammy nomination. It is composed of 2096 still images that have been arranged to give the impression of a moving image.

As a music video it follows the common theme of following a daily routine. Towards the start you watch the light moving across the room giving some impression of the passage of time. You watch as the model completes some fairly mundane tasks; walking, riding the train, sleeping, spending time with a friend. Through the use of sleep-related items in the mise-en-scene (running over pillows, some pajamas flying past) these fairly typical actions take on a fair more interesting form. Mise-en-scene is key in establishing the actions themselves. The flashing lights imply the subway train. The models hair implies motion. The socks representing fish imply some fantastic underwater world.

As I have noticed in many of the films I have watched, stop-motion commonly features the idea of a whole world existing within our own. What I mean by this is that the entire action of the story takes place in a world that is contained in a bedroom. This is established by the use of floorboards beneath the bed and the props (books, shoes, papers) sitting beside it.

The editing is obviously key, as it is in any stop-motion. The shots are edited at a specific frame rate to imply a realistic motion in the its finished form. The fact that the shots at times are synchronised with the music, such as when the cello floats past as it is mentioned in the song and plays, also shows some conscious decisions which link the two media together.

I really like the video. The way it is contained in one room with objects that are seen every day makes it an interesting watch. Its inspiring also, to think that I could have a go at creating something like that myself. You can view the individual frames at http://www.hmegallery.com/, and from that you can see the kind of movements made between each frame. Stop-motion like this might just be the answer for me.