The results played back at a stunning 4-5 frames per second, and there wasn’t any sound. But our movies looked awesome, and we were hooked.

One memorable birthday, we were given a capture card. This let us plug the camera’s video cable – the yellow one that plugs into the VCR – into the computer. Finally we had a way to animate with live video using framegrabber software!

This was before digital camcorders were common. Nowadays, most camcorders plug into your computer using a Firewire cable, and record to the MiniDV format instead of VHS tapes. Firewire cables look like this:

This cable sends a video signal to your computer. The image quality from a typical digital camcorder is usually very good. With a resolution of 720×480, and the camera’s high(er) quality optics, you’ll get great pictures.

Some adjustments will be required before using a camcorder to animate. If you encounter a term here, like “manual focus”, look it up in your camcorder’s manual.

• Plug the camcorder into the wall. Animating on battery power will last just long enough to frustrate you.
• Take the tape out of the camcorder. You won’t be using it.
• The camera must have manual focus. Flip the “manual focus” switch, or dig through the camera’s menus and turn it on.
• Turn off auto-exposure. Again, flip the switch, or dig through the menus.
• Finally, use a tripod, adjusted to the height of your table. Or come up with a creative way to fasten the camera to your animating surface.

All set? Now you’ll need a driver for the computer so the animation software recognizes your camera. If you are animating with our kit, use this driver

Panasonic VFW DV Codec (75 KB)

Unzip this file on your computer, right-click “PANADV.INF” and select “Install”. Done!

Now connect the camcorder to your computer with a firewire cable. Sometimes you’ll need a 4-to-6 pin cable. Sometimes a 4-to-4 pin cable. It depends on your camera and computer ports. We have a little 4-to-6 pin adapter, so we can convert cables in a pinch.

Start your animation program. You should see a live image from the camera. If not, check to make sure the DV camera is selected as the camera “source”.

From here, you’re free to animate using the camcorder like any normal camera. Since you’re using manual focus, adjust the focus with the camera’s focus ring, or through the camera menus. You should also be able to zoom in and out using the camera’s zoom buttons, and adjust the exposure – again using the menus. All other actions, changing framerate, grabbing frames, and such can be done in the animating software.

Several free screenwriting programs are also available.

Celtx is a downloadable program that works much like Microsoft Word. It’s a good option if you’re going to be working without internet access.

Plotbot and Zhuara are free online screenwrting services similar to Celtx and Final Draft. They allow several people to colloborate on a script, and the script can be accessed from anywhere you have internet access.