Part4 — Mônica Moura

Strata Cut

Part 4: Cutting and shooting

Knifes

The choice of knife can change a lot the look of your slices. I believe there’s no right knife for strata cut, just the one that meets your desires. Usually, it’s recommended to use a knife with a thin blade and almost no thickness difference between the edge and the spine (for example, a meat slicer type of knife), otherwise the slices will be blurred. However, if blurriness is an interesting effect for you, then a regular kitchen knife will do it. In addition, a knife with serrations can make an interesting striped effect on the slices.

Another useful tool for cutting strata is a clay scraper (also called rib or blade), usually made of aluminum. However, because of its size, it is not ideal for cutting bigger logs.

Slice Thickness

Deciding the thickness of the slice to be cut is an important part of the process. Thinner slices equal more frames and a slower and smoother motion. Thicker slices give you less frames and a faster motion. Figuring out how thin you’re able to cut helps you to have a better notion of how long your animation is going to be. For example, I know that 0.5cm slices are a nice width for me, so I know that in every 6 cm of clay I’ll have a second of animation (at 12fps).

Ways of shooting

There are some different ways of shooting when it comes to strata cut. Tabletop with the camera on a tripod gives us perhaps the most unique look. We can see the next frames coming and we can also see the sculptural aspect of the log. There are some possibilities in this way of shooting: 1) moving the log towards the camera a bit every frame, so that the front of it is always in the same position and the remaining part keeps getting shorter, 2) not moving the piece at all, and the animations are moving away from you as it’s being sliced (for this method remember to adjust the focus as you go), 3) moving the camera closer to the piece every frame.

Down shooting the whole log is also an option and gives you the same possibilities as a tabletop shoot, but this time with the camera facing down.

And finally, there’s down shooting only the slices of the log. Which can be done by previously slicing everything and then replacing the slices under the camera (as if they were sheets of paper in hand drawn animation).