GO AWAY … I’M NOT SHOWING YOU THIS

I’ve been spending the last few weeks building maquettes and test painting the puppets. When everything is going well, like it did for the first 3 puppets you might start to think, “…why am I wasting so much time on this? I could be foaming up and painting the real puppets.” And just when you’re getting a little cocky and believe you can do no wrong, you paint something and think … WOW … THAT’S AWFUL. So it went with the forth puppet. Thank god it’s just a maquette. I’m on my second go on a paint scheme for said puppet, which I’m sure will be an improvement. I’ve shown a lot of work in progress so far … this test … I take to the grave.

UNCLE GHASTLY LIVES IN A WELL

It’s easy to get crazed by the little things. I’ve gotten better at avoiding that over the years, mostly because I don’t find anything that precious anymore … especially when it comes to my films. If something’s not perfectly symmetrical, if the edge is a little off, if that little thing in the background is not just so, it’s okay, I’m not going to lose sleep over it. Perfection is neither attainable nor desirable. Don’t mistake this for indifference. I’m quite serious when it comes to my films but I think what I have is a healthy perspective. I just happen to believe that sometimes, it’s the rough edges that give things character.

REMEMBER HIVE?

You know … the film I made before diving headlong into FILTH (and I mean that exactly as it sounds) You may have noticed I haven’t talked about it much. HIVE has received a lot of rejection notices from festivals over the past 6 months. It’s not something one talks about since it can be disheartening. I’ve by no means written the film off but I’m well aware that HIVE didn’t engage people the way I’d hoped. But that’s okay. It may not be a great film but I still like it and I don’t regret making it. That’s why it came as a pleasant surprise this week when I received word that it has been accepted to 2 festivals. The Montreal International Animation Film Festival and the World Con 75 Film Festival in Helsinki, Finland. I’ll be damned.

SHADES OF GREY

The set is ready. The lighting needs some minor tweaks but if I had to I could start shooting today. That is … if the puppets where ready.  I’m back at the work bench building the final skeleton so that I can foam up the puppets. I’ve also been creating basic liquid latex mock ups of each of the characters so I can finalize their individual paint schemes before committing to their final appearance. Because FILTH will be in black and white and I am aiming for a high contrast look, there will be some trial and error when it comes to the puppets colour scheme. After all, there is a wide spectrum between black and white and the final puppets are not where I want to be experimenting. All in all things are progressing nicely and I’m fairly certain I will begin shooting by September. Less than a year since the last shot for HIVE was animated. Not bad.