I went on a two week vacation in December, leaving my plants to fend for themselves. Most of them didn’t even notice I was gone, but my Alocasia Frydek suffered from lack of water and subsequently a spider mite infestation. All the leaves had withered away and yellowed, but at different rates so that they created a beautiful gradient of green to yellow. I decided to make lemonade out of lemons and attempt a stopmotion video!

I am a self-taught amateur in stopmotion, which means I watch free YouTube videos and tinker around with my iPhone. I have a tripod, stopmotion app, and a light source – which is really all you need to create a basic video. More details about what I use is at the end of this post.

For this stopmotion, I knew that I wanted to create an effect of a green leaf fading into yellow. I ended up with several versions. In one version, I cut all the leaves into 5 pieces and then changed each piece out to make it look like it’s fading from top to bottom. At one point, I mixed up the pieces and it took me forever to organize them again; it felt like an endless puzzle, lol. But I really loved playing around with all the different effects! My favorite part of stopmotion is seeing something imaginary come to life.

For this video, I focused on learning a new skill – creating consistent lighting. In the past, I used window lighting or natural sunlight for stopmotion, but I learned from my (free) YouTube instructors that that is a big “no no” because it creates flickering (unless you edit post production). This time, I shut off all the lights, pulled down the shades, and turned on a consistent light source nearby (an old lamp).

Lighting was a struggle!! To be honest, I’m not happy with the quality of the final product. It was harder than expected to create nice lighting. I was frustrated and wondered if I’m ever going to get this right (so dramatic, lol). But I gently reminded myself that this is my very first try in getting consistent lighting. I may not be 100% satisfied with the final result, but I’m 100% grateful for the experience of creating it! I definitely learned a thing or two about lighting and will be trying new angles next time with my trusty lamp.

Here is the final result with a list of materials used. Feel free to reach out (via the ‘Contact’ link or Instagram DMs) if you ever want to chat!

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