Get back to making tea for your builders, Bill! LOL
I have already given some advice on taking pictures of yourself whilst getting messy in my Blog post - go to
www.splosh.co.uk/2009/09/06/hayleys-slime-time. I use the timer for individual shots and then the interval button for 'sequences' like pouring something over my head. These work fine out of doors but you may find (as I have) that the flash can't cope with intervals under about five seconds and fails to go off ruining your stop-frame animated sequence.
You will have a lot of wasted shots anyway. Things go wrong or you catch yourself looking like a freak staring vacantly into space. I also have a slightly droopy eye which looks like I'm demented when I get something in it (or I'm very pissed). I am vain enough to take all these out!
The other problems I have found are
a) Moving out of shot during close-ups without realising
b) Moving too much so the picture is blurry - you have to do things sloooowwwly
c) Getting disorientated when my face is covered and pointing the wrong way!
d) Enjoying it too much and getting annoyed I have to stop to reset the camera!
Of course you could just set the camera up and never change it, but I think that looks rubbish! Shot after shot of a cock being slowly covered in custard doesn't work for me. I want to see your face, how you are reacting etc, so a combo of close-ups and long shots works so much better even if it means doing it twice (and why not!). I move the camera and do close-ups, almost everything a separate photographer would (even though I'm dripping in gunge or custard) which is why my pictures take such a long time.
However, I like doing pictures on my own. I admit I am a bit of a control freak and prefer it to being told what to do so this way feels a lot more natural for me, and I hope the results are too. But there is also something wonderfully naughty about behaving badly on your own. It feels so much more daring somehow, especially when the doorbell could ring any minute!
So give it a go.
Hayley x