

Stop motion video shot over 2 years with 288,000 jelly beans - swombat
http://www.petapixel.com/2011/11/03/stop-motion-music-video-shot-over-two-years-with-288000-jelly-beans/

======
thom
As a cautionary tale about the waxing and waining relevance of various online
properties, remember that Kina Grannis was more or less launched on Digg:

[http://indigitalmarketing.wordpress.com/2008/02/05/digg-
help...](http://indigitalmarketing.wordpress.com/2008/02/05/digg-helps-kina-
grannis-get-on-the-super-bowl/)

~~~
xpose2000
Holy shit, I remember that video. Man, I'm a nerd.

------
hmigneron
The fact that they _had_ to finish shooting the whole thing to have something
worth showing makes this even more impressive. They couldn't just stop halfway
through and say good enough.

For nearly two years they kept working on it and she couldn't really put on
any weight, couldn't really age too much, etc. It really is dedication!

~~~
dasil003
Of course if she did visibly age or gain weight it would be a cool effect.

~~~
MichaelApproved
Might be a cool concept for another video. Record a video over several years
with the point being to show yourself growing up.

~~~
wotsrovert
This has already been done with photograghs: one photo per year.

[http://www.zonezero.com/zz/index.php?option=com_content&...](http://www.zonezero.com/zz/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1292%3Athe-
arrow-of-time&catid=8%3Aessays&lang=en)

------
invisiblefunnel
The behind the scenes video shows details of the process. I found it
fascinating: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIH4MJAC2Tg>

~~~
rorrr
I can think of many ways how to make this whole process much much easier. The
amount of unnecessary work they did is just insane.

~~~
folkster
Agree. But that's what Art is about...

~~~
tlrobinson
Wasting time?

~~~
gaustin
Being authentic.

------
kpozin
Very impressive video.

The grammar nerd in me is also impressed how, for two years, no one managed to
notice that the repeated phrase "we'll lay," although it rhymes in context,
uses completely the wrong verb. (It should be "we'll lie.")

~~~
mhartl
I noticed exactly the same thing. I've become increasingly alarmed at the
decline of the lay/lie distinction in English, even in educated speech. In
this case, though, I consoled myself that at least it created a rhyme.
Contrast this to the chorus of "Truly Madly Deeply" by Australian pop-rock
group Savage Garden:

    
    
      I want to stand with you on a mountain.
      I want to bathe with you in the sea.
      I want to lay like this forever,
      Until the sky falls down on me...
    

They missed an opportunity. Here the grammatically correct _lie_ gives a
lovely rhyme between the middles of lines 3 and 4:

    
    
      I want to stand with you on a mountain.
      I want to bathe with you in the sea.
      I want to lie like this forever,
      Until the sky falls down on me...

~~~
npc
However, 'lay' does (half) rhyme with 'bathe', which provides a much needed
connection between the 2nd and 3rd lines, I feel.

------
dholowiski
No MVP here - they went all the way the first time. Be sure to switch to 1080p
and go full screen, it's breathtaking. But it makes me wonder, what is the ROI
on this? Will they really make back the wages of 30 people for 22 months, and
how long will it take?

~~~
alexwolfe
The ROI is creating something incredible that you can be proud of forever.
This is art! I hope people will always have the courage to create amazing
things without worrying about the financials.

~~~
TheHegemon
Well really they said it "only" took 1,357 hours.

Which is roughly 62 hours a month.

Even if the people were being paid $50/hour, which is unlikely considering I
assume most of them will be volunteers, that comes out to about $50,000.

They said they used 288,000 jelly beans. There is roughly 400 jelly beans per
pound. You can buy bulk jelly beans for $85 for 10lbs.

Which comes out to $61,200 for the jelly beans. I'm sure they could get a non-
name brand or bulk discount so it could be much less.

So definitely less $100,000 for the music video.

They can make that money back pretty quickly if they become a YouTube partner
and the video goes viral. They would only need about 50million views to pay
back the costs of making the video.

Plus, how can you put a price on art?

~~~
ghshephard
Your math is off on the Jelly beans. 288,000 / 400 = 720 Pounds. JellyBelly
Jelly Beans Retail on Amazon.com ([http://www.amazon.com/Jelly-Belly-Assorted-
Flavors-3-Pound/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Jelly-Belly-Assorted-
Flavors-3-Pound/dp/B000XK0FFW)) for $9/pound. So, even if they didn't buy them
wholesale (hard to believe) - it's still only $6480 worth of jelly beans.

------
grusk
See also:

Coldplay - Strawberry Swing (shot on sidewalk chalk)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb9X5jMofEo>

Maxmaber Orkestar - Malinkovec Valzer (500 People in 100 Seconds - stop-motion
video is a movie within a movie)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eqSZSO_sSE>

Clarika - Bien Mérité (French stop-motion video with photographs)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SF9pMjfrpI>

~~~
Tloewald
How about "missionary man" by the eurythmics back in the 80s?

[http://www.metacafe.com/watch/sy-25142343/eurythmics_mission...](http://www.metacafe.com/watch/sy-25142343/eurythmics_missionary_man_official_music_video/)
( doesn't play on is devices)

------
queensnake
This is what we'll be reduced to doing, post-Singularity.

~~~
pyre
Producing art? Isn't that seen as a goal to aspire to? To create a society
where nobody wants for anything, so that people are freed up to spend all of
their time in the pursuit of art?

This is the plot line of several Star Trek episodes as well as many SciFi
short stories/novels.

------
joshfraser
I think the beauty comes from the simplicity of it. To a casual viewer, it's
just a cute music video. It's when you realize the amount of work and
attention to detail that went into it, that you have the emotional reaction
that says "wow, they really cared about this". It's the same reaction I have
with many of Apple's products. They look simple from a distance, but when you
zoom in, you see a team of 30 people hand placing jelly beans to make
something beautiful.

------
MichaelApproved
_"22 months, 1,357 hours, 30 people"_

If you consider that big budget music videos can have ~100 people working on
it (casting, production crew and post crew) each putting in at least 12-16
hours, this falls right in line with the amount of _people hours_ that's
typical for a music label.

~~~
henryprecheur
If you just look at the number of hours, it's "just" a full time job for a
year:

8 hours a day * 200 working days = 1600 hours

With 30 people working just a week (5 days), we're already at 1200 hours.

Maybe they got their hours wrong? Or it's not that impressive (I'm a grumpy
old man).

~~~
cbabraham
They didn't say the 1300 figure was people hours, they just said hours. So for
each of those hours you probably much more people hours.

~~~
wlievens
Excellent point. I bet we (many of us professional software developers) are so
used to the concept of man-hours that we may be grossly misinterpreting the
1300 hours figure. It could well be up to 1300 _times 30 people_.

Spreading 1300 manhours for 30 people over 22 months seems a bit thinly spread
as well, if you ask me.

------
jwcacces
I would have gotten a robotic pick and place machine and sped that up a bit.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5eR0eHknZk&t=0m18s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5eR0eHknZk&t=0m18s)

~~~
ralfd
YT comment: "Give it a﻿ knife and a hand!"

------
jquery
Came for the jelly beans, stayed for the song.

------
antirez
It does not look better to what an algorithm or alike could have done with a
lot less efforts.

------
pitdesi
This is the type of thing that you wouldn't have done 10 years ago because
noone would have found out about it.

Reminds me of the Amazing Honda Accord commercial - the Cog... Rube Goldberg
machine all done without CGI (5 months of pre-work, then 605 takes until they
got to one that didn't screw up somewhere)
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ve4M4UsJQo> They did a lot of work that they
could've avoided with CGI, but where would the fun be? Making of video:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh4zWeUDW-E>

Another good one that is similar in the sense that they went through a whole
lot of trouble is the Sony Bravia commercial
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NymcQJjPCs> They did a lot of work that they
could've avoided with CGI, but where would the fun be?

BTW, it seems Jelly Belly was in on the fun a little bit...
<http://www.jellybelly-uk.com/bean-world/page/?id=47> At the very least, I'd
imagine that she didn't pay for the jelly beans

~~~
route66
All these are predated by the 1987 video "Der Lauf der Dinge" (The way things
go) by Fischli and Weiss. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgGhVsMmkAM> . I
think that also before youtube these type of things were done and people found
out about it.

~~~
gbog
Thanks for the link, I saw this maybe 20 years ago on TV, it was stuck in me
for very long but I could never find it again. No it is there, fresh and
delicate. Of-topic however: Der Lauf der Dinge is memorable, it has a strong
personal flavor while it can be understood by anyone on earth, it has no
polish or sex-appeal but it catching one's eyes, it leaves by itself, it has
an autonomous existence, bref it is art. The OP is nothing of the sort.

------
georgieporgie
Wow.

Not to detract from it, but is the 1,357 hours combined man-hours, or start-
to-finish hours?

------
suivix
Two years of hard work to get about the equivalent page views of nudity. It
must have felt rewarding for them though.

------
freemarketteddy
See this post is a testament to Hacker News's decline.Not because I think that
post doesnt have something interesting or intellectually arousing to say.It
absolutely does.I create things too and I understand the importance of
creation especially when it takes two years to make something.

The reason is because of how this post got on the front page of Hacker News.In
normal circumstances I can bet that this post maybe would get like three votes
in five hours.But in this case the poster is "swombat" who has a huge
following on twitter and a lot of them are hnusers.I noticed an instant
upsurge in votes after he posted this on his twitter page.

Another reason is because "swombat" himself is also one of the top Hacker News
users and when people see his name there chances of upvoting increases
significantly.This I think is actually fair and he probably deserves a little
more attention than the average hnuser.But what I vehemently object to is the
use of twitter to gain traction.

Here are some possible solutions that I can think of.

1) If a post gets a lot of traffic from twitter and other such social media
websites ,it should work against it in the rank calculation algorithm.

2) Users be advised to not use their twitter or facebook following to gain
traction on HackerNews.

~~~
freemarketteddy
If you wish to disagree please do so but write down the reason for your
disagreement.Also how is this against HN Comment guidelines?

EDIT: Okay I get it.

From HN Guidelines

"If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying
that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)"

Sorry I was not aware of that.

~~~
DougBTX
It's OK, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect>

~~~
freemarketteddy
So that means that my incompetence made me blind from the greatness of this
post!

Well its possible but I am not buying that right now.

What I would buy is that maybe I have not reached a sufficient level of karma
to comment on Hacker News administration.

------
jaequery
2 years ... for this? and people are complaining about the economy?

~~~
jluan
Non-sequitur.

------
ScottBurson
Technically, of course, this is time-lapse video, not stop-motion. Stop-motion
slows things down (hence the name); time-lapse speeds them up, which is
clearly what's happened here.

Terminological pickiness aside, this is very cool. I wasn't aware of Kina
Grannis before, and probably would have stayed that way but for this video, so
it seems to be accomplishing its purpose.

Edited to add: the song is pretty, too.

~~~
robterrell
That's just wrong. Overcraking (running the film through the camera faster
than normal) slows motion down. Undercranking speeds it up.

Stop-motion doesn't slow things down; it's a technique where you expose one
frame of film, move something (usually a model) slightly, and expose the next
frame.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_motion>

Stop-motion animation examples include the original King Kong, Sinbad and all
those other Ray Harryhausen films, the AT-ATs in Empire Strikes Back. (And
there was also a technique called "Go motion" animation where the puppet was
moved during the frame exposure, thus causing motion blur, and making for a
much more realistic animation, which was used for the dragon in DragonSlayer
and I think some of Return of the Jedi.)

If you want to get really pedantic, probably the best term for this jellybean
video is "pixilation". I know we use that word differently nowadays, but
before computer graphics were common, "pixilation" was the term for stop-
motion animated real-world objects.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixilation>

Thank you for letting my nearly pointless film degree not go entirely to
waste.

~~~
ScottBurson
You're welcome.

That's what I get for posting when tired... gotta get some sleep.

