Getting Into Motion

by Draxonos135

Rating: everyone
Tags: Equestria Girls, Slice of Life, Human, Juniper Montage
Length: 1519

Juniper Montage practices an arcane form of filmmaking.

Juniper Montage, once a gofer but now just a theater usher, bemoans how her time in the movie world is over.

However, a little dream of her past reminds her of a somewhat archaic form of filmmaking.

One that might just allow her to be part of the movie world after all, if only for short videos.

Published 2019-05-29 16:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-05-29 16:00:01 UTC

Stop Motion

Another day has gone by at the theater where Juniper Montage worked at, and like every other day, it was... okay.

She initially felt like torture working at the place, mostly because one way or another, she was reminded of the movie that kickstarted her descent to being nothing more than an usher.

And then, a few months later, the movie was taken out and people stopped talking about it as extremelu as before.

They still mentioned it once in a while, but it wasn't the glowing, in-your-face praise from before.

So now, Juniper rested on her bed, ready to hit the sack.

"Well, at least tomorrow's a Saturday where I don't have a shift, so I can just take it easy and not worry about it."

Juniper sighed.

"If only things had been different, maybe I wouldn't have to be an usher that has to deal with the most annoying customers."

Juniper stood up, and imitated a young girl.

"Excuse me, miss, do you know where's room 4?"

Then she turned back to herself.

"Why yes, you cute girl, it's the freaking room behind me, I mean, can't you see the big red number above?!"

Juniper fell on her bed.

"I wish I was allowed to say that and not just "It's right behind me" as if people not seeing the numbers was common."

Juniper rolled around and clasped her hands.

"I really wish there was some way for me to go back to the movie world."

And so, she went to sleep...

A younger Juniper played with some Daring Do toys when she heard an interesting sound.

*click*

The girl looked around until she heard it again.

*click*

Gaining a smile, Juniper dropped the toys and followed the clicking noise, giggling all the way.

Eventually, she found the source of the sound on her uncle Canter Zoom's room, where the man was taking pictures of a figure on a desk.

*click*

Juniper laughed and clapped, getting her uncle's attention.

"Juniper!" Canter chirped as he raised the child. "What are you doing here, you little sweetheart?"

"I heard a neat sound and I wanted to find it!" Juniper chirped back. "What are you doing, uncle Canter Zoom?"

"I'm making a stop-motion flick: It involves figures shaped from plastiline, which are manipulated, and then taken a picture to later put it all together as a movie."

Canter Zoom got an idea.

"Would you like to give it a shot?"

Juniper excitedly nodded.

Canter promptly adjusted the figure's leg, then leaned Juniper closer to the camera.

The girl blinked, and pushed the button...

*click*

Juniper woke up, and got off her bed, getting an idea.

"Maybe, just maybe, that might be the trick..."

Juniper ran up to a toy chest near the door, and opened it to find, among other things, plastiline of multiple colors, and a miniature desk.

She put the objects on the table, and separated them before she began working on molding the figure.

First, she took some black and grey plastiline to create a hat for later use.

While easier to make than she expected, the shape didn't come out looking like a fedora hat as she hoped, but a witch's hat.

Well, now wasn't the time to be picky, she's have to work with what she's got.

Then she made the actual figure that would serve as the main character, using orange plastiline for the body and an array of colors for the clothing and hair.

Once finished, the figure resembled a stylized, raven-haired human female, wearing a dark green dress with white buttons, and black shoes.

Now went the final part for the setup: Juniper put the plastiline human on top of the desk, and adjusted her limbs to make it look like she was sitting on it.

In fact, she kinda looked bored as well.

"Okay, this definitely looks ready to be shot."

Juniper moved the figure's legs, confirming they were flexible enough, before she searched some info about stop motion on her phone.

"And it does seem I'll be able to make the basic motions, which is more than enough."

Once she got the page with the Info, Juniper opened it as she reached for the camera on her toy chest.

Because she obviously had a camera on her toy chest.

"I got some free time before I go to sleep, so maybe I could-"

And then she read something upsetting.

"24 frames per second!? That's like 2880 frames just for two minutes!"

Juniper threw her arms in the air and leaned back.

"It'll take me forever to make a decent animation, let alone a movie!"

Realizing what she threw, Juniper quickly caught her phone and the camera, letting out a sigh of relief as she went back to the scene.

"Well, there's nothing I can do but work with what I got. I just hope I can make something decent with this."

Once she put the stuff down, however, she got an idea.

"Then again, I could go for the two frames per shot tactic. It wouldn't be as fluid as one frame per shot, but..."

Juniper hummed and scratched her chin.

"Okay, let's do that."

Juniper grabbed the camera and set it straight in front of the sitting figure.

*click*

"Okay, now, to make the variations..."

Juniper slightly moved the figure's leg up.

*click*

She lifted it some more.

*click*

She lifted it again, this time crossing the legs as well.

*click*

"Geez, this is so slow. I can't believe there were people with enough patience to make movies with this method."

Juniper shrugged.

"Then again, they also had an entire production team behind it, so what do I know?"

*click*

After the long, slow, grueling process of getting the pictures, Juniper sat in front of the computer, editing and putting together the pictures she took into a short video.

And judging by her tired eye bags, and just how bright the moon looked outside her window, she had been doing this for a while.

"And that's it! With several hours spend in molding, phorography, and editing, mostly the last two, I managed to make a video! I wonder what it's length is?"

Juniper quickly checked the time bar.

"Thirty seconds! Woohoo!"

Juniper stood motionless for a second, then promptly collapsed, somehow missing the computer's keyboard.

The birds were singing, flowers were blooming, and Juniper Montage was still fast asleep on the computer.

That is until she woke up screaming like a banshee.

"Touching it with your hand-tail doesn't make it okay!"

A second later, she saw the sun rose high, bringing forth a new day.

But what caught her attention the most was that, not only was her camera gone, but the computer had been turned off.

"Oh no... nonononono! Don't tell me I just lost all the footage! Not the footage that took all night to get!"

But as she reached to try turn on the device, Juniper noticed a sleeve covering her arm.

She grabbed it, took it off, and found out it was the sleeve of a long-sleeved jacket.

"I don't remember wearing one of these while working on the video. I mean, uncle Canter Zoom would've-"

Juniper quickly connected the dots, and bolted straight to her uncle's bedroom, where the man himself sat on his bed while checking his laptop.

"Oh, Juniper, I see you woke up," Canter remarked with a friendly tone. "Good morning!"

Juniper scanned the room and slowly approached the man.

"Good, morning, uncle..."

Once next to him, Juniper showed him the jacket.

"I think someone put one of your jackets on me last night."

Then, she saw the laptop.

"You don't usually use your laptop so early in the morning, is something up?"

Canter flipped the laptop, revealing Juniper's video playing on a site.

The video depicted the figure looking bored for a while, until the witch hat fell down. Curious, the figure grabbed the hat, looked at it, then put it on before she got on top of the desk and jumped away, the video ending just as a cat was heard.

"Uncle Canter, what did you do?!"

"I saw the video, thought it had potential, and put it on the site," Canter scrolled down. "And most who saw it seem to like it as well."

Juniper sat next to her uncle and looked at the comments.

"It's been so long since I saw something in stop-motion! I'm glad the first time I see it again is with something good like this!"

"Silence is golden, that's how the saying goes. And I think this video captures it perfectly."

"I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, but I feel like that adds a charm to it."

And the more comments she read, the more Juniper's smile widened, ending with the girl leaning her head against her uncle's shoulder as he brushed her hair.

"If you ever post a video of mine without asking me first again, I'm selling your jacket."

"You wouldn't!"

The duo exchanged looks, laughed, and shared a hug.