Way Up High

Here are some stills from the shot I did on Thursday, the closing shot of the music video. This ended up being not only the hardest shot to set up, but also the hardest to animate. And I thought it would be one of the easiest.



Building the set took quite a lot of hard work and ingenuity. My mom spent the day down at the studio helping me, I couldn’t have done it without her. I stole some giant stones from some people in the neighborhood to create this cliff-side view, overlooking the forest beneath (can you tell by the foggy atmosphere that I was inspired by my trips to the Marin Headlands as a kid?). When you only have a little bit of space, it is very hard to create such a forced depth of field, especially without casting shadows on the “sky.” Most of the trees in the very background are chunks of clay on a table edge and paint strokes on the construction paper sky, and there are some fake plants coming a little closer to the camera.



Because the whole set is elevated, I didn’t have lots of “elevation tables” to fit heavy rocks on, so I made a couple fake rocks. I just crumpled up some gray construction paper and painted them a little. I think they look great, and I don’t think you can tell in the shot.



The biggest issue with this setup was the big line running down the middle of the shot where the two pieces of paper that make the sky meet, so we threw a tree right up front in the middle and you don’t even know it’s there. It’s interesting that a decision like that is made from necessity, but it ended up making the shot look even better. I love when that happens.
The other problem with the shot was figuring out how to get the standing character to stay standing on the giant stone, since it’s not a very good support for a clay character. Then my mom came to the rescue and made a little contraption out of clay and shish kabob sticks that go up the characters butt and allow him to stand. The sticks are actually in the shot but I painted them black to blend with the background and you can't see them. Perfect.



Overall this ended up being a beautiful shot that I’m really proud of. Due to the lay out of the set, I did not have the easiest access to the characters, which made animating them difficult. I had to walk all around the set every frame to move each figure. But in the end, it all worked out and now I can’t wait for the next one.

My New Character Is Super Cool

I made a new character today. He seems to be the same species as the character I made yesterday. He started getting soft when I was sculpting him, so I had to throw him into the refridgerator to cool off and harden up. I also stole a giant stone from my neighbor's yard for the next set. I hope they don't realize it before I return it to them next week!

The New Guy

Today I designed a new character for the closing shot of my film. Above you’ll see the almost finished version. Also, below is the initial sculpt which I abandoned right away. I thought it would be humorous to include it. The characters definitely look awful before they are fleshed out.

Hangin’ Around

Yesterday I sculpted this possum-like character while visiting my parents in Lucerne (my mom helped me mix the yellow color). Today I built the set and set it up so that I could shoot it tomorrow. But when it was all finished, I figured I might as well animate the shot tonight, so I did, and it turned out really nice. I’ve never animated an upside-down character before, that was interesting. If I made him frown too much it looked like he was smiling. He has a wire attatched to the branch that goes through his whole body to support him. I now officially have a minute and 17 seconds animated, with 40 seconds more to shoot. At this point i need to create the characters for the next shots (I’ve animated 12 characters for this piece so far, and will probably do 12 more). I hope to be completely done with this in less than 2 weeks. Here’s hoping

Who Knew He Could Sing?

Here's a shot from the scene I animated on Thursday.

Papa Frog Makes Cameo Appearance

Here's what I was up to today.

Here's A Cute Character

I spent a good chunk of Sunday digitally fixing up about 100 frames. It was tedious but in the end I have some really cool shots. The birds no longer have anything suspending them in air and the ferret's stretch looks great.
Today I animated a shot of this long-eared squirrel character. After the last three shots, this one was very easy to do, it was nice to do some fun, easy animation. It doesn't always have to be stressful. This character has a sweet, meekness about him, I like him. I used the same set as the ferret to save time. I just put some moss and grass down over the dirt, changed the angle, and you can't tell.

I Am Exhausted

Hello, hello, hello!!! Well it has been a VERY productive three days since I last posted and I am feeling very positive about the progress I’ve made. Sometimes when you go so long in preproduction (over a month for this film) and you haven’t gotten a chance to animate anything, you start to feel like you’re going nowhere. But once you start to push the clay, it makes all the work worth while. I’ve had the chance to animate three separate shots since Wednesday, all of which were very challenging. But when you pull off a challenging shot and it looks good, there is no better feeling. First off on Wednesday, I shot these characters above. I REALLY enjoyed animating the orange fella, he was very cooperative and the final product was very rewarding. The turtles were a blast to animate too, I used the replacement heads for them to pop out of their shells, and their mouth movement is kind of comical.



On Thursday I animated these two birds. My dad came by the studio and built me a great rig out of some old television antenna to help the bird fly. It was great having him help animate. It reminded me of the old days when we would animate in the garage together. He also built a fantastic set out of some crazy branches he found with all this moss stuff on it and he suspended them from wires on the ceiling. It’s super cool. Below you can see the rabbit-ear rig for the bird. On Sunday I get to digitally remove the rod from the bird’s butt in about a hundred frames. FUN!


And finally below are the pictures of yesterday’s shoot. It’s a small weasel character who moves around really fast. I made a replacement body for him that stretches when he moves. This was the most difficult of the three shots, but it’s pretty cool.




It’s good to be moving the characters again.

Finally Ready To Animate

Hello everybody! I’m back from yet another long break of no posts. I actually was in Florida discussing the future of my animated shorts. More on that soon! Anyway, today I set up my first shot for this next piece. Tomorrow will be my first day animating, and it will be a fun, grueling day. If all goes according to plan, I will shoot a single 20 second shot with four characters lip-syncing to music. Keep me in your prayers.