Camellia’s story is adventurous enough that it demanded movement – not of Camellia, who is animated even when still, but of her surroundings. She needs a world where the sea churns, and the trees sway.

My first foray into video was very simplistic. I found some videos online, and I added still images to them. I suspect I’m not going to evolve much past that for awhile, although I may try to capture my own videos or to try to animate a small part of the environment.

One switch I want to make is in the prominence of still over video. Because it was simpler, I add a photo to a video – so that it became all part of a video. What I really want is to add moving elements to photos. That sounds like semantics, but it’s not really. I’m not trying to make a film – I really just want to put together a series of photos to tell a story. So, I’ll have to figure out how to change the prominence so that the photos become the main thing and the movement becomes just a piece of them.

For the tools, I got Cyberlink Power Director, which was simple enough that I could approximate what I wanted without bursting into tears. Actually, it seemed pretty simple to do a fledgling job. I suspect making a polished video is more difficult. The videos came off of video sharing sites – Pexels and Pixabay. The storm at sea came complete with the pounding background music, and then I added the ocean sound to the beach clips.

I didn’t end up finding the video I really wanted for the last piece. I wanted something that continued to pan right so that you slowly saw her feet, knees, and then the raven appear. But, what I found stopped panning at the beach, so I had to make do with more static images.

I had fun doing the video, I hope you enjoyed it too.

As an aside, each of the dolls seems to require a different kind of medium. Daisy is straightforward – she’ll take any mix of real and photoshop (although she favors the real). Lily doesn’t take to photoshop at all – she needs all of the final elements present in the actual shot, and she happily coexists with bits of paper and cut out photos. Camellia requires motion. And, as you’ll see next week, Rosie doesn’t need to be photographed in anything resembling the real world.