Month: October 2017

HALLOWEEN

frame 13

As we approach All Hallows’ Eve I’m reminded of something. HIVE is a year old & BROKEN is now three. I like the fact that I posted my films on Halloween. I didn’t think about it for BROKEN, and for HIVE it was just dumb luck that it happened again. Now it’s in my head and I want to do the same thing with FILTH … but I have serious doubts as to whether that’s possible. I’ve been shooting for 4 weeks and I’ve complete one minute of animation. That’s a very good pace. But FILTH is 15 minutes long which would put the completion of filming sometime around Christmas 2018 … and that’s if nothing goes wrong, and something always goes wrong. I’m not ready to make any predictions but I will say this, Halloween 2018 is a long shot.

FAST MOTIONS IN TIME LAPSE

animating

It’s nice to be animating again. Ask me how I feel about it in 10 months and I’ll probably give you a different answer but for now it’s nice to be in front of the camera. There was a time back when I finished THE LADY OF NAMES (2011) that I thought I’d never animate again. 10 straight years of animating can really mess you up. Today I find myself relieved to have finished all the building (for now) and getting down to the filming and best of all, I’m encouraged by what I’m seeing. It’s a little unfair of me to make these claims especially since it will be a year before I show any of this but … hey that’s the perks of being the one in charge. You’ll just have to trust me.

A LITTLE ABOUT THE SET

I wanted to create a long tunnel but because I don’t have unlimited space the set was built using a forced perspective. The front is 4 feet wide by 2 feet high and over its 7 foot length it tappers down to 1 foot wide by 6 inches high. The photos hopefully make it clear. All the detailing gets progressively smaller as well to give the illusion of distance. Everything at the front of the set is 75% larger than everything at the end of the set. That includes the scale of the graffiti and the props. It’s very effective but … the trade off is that you can only shoot the set from a limited number of angles. However, I think I’ve constructed the scene in such a way that none of that will matter.

Set 1Set 2

INTO THE VOID

Day 1

The first day of filming is unique in the life of a film. I always get a little anxious on that day for what are probably obvious reasons. Is the set ready? Is the lighting ready? Are the puppets as good as I can make them? Is the script any good? Do I really want to make this film? What am I doing? You get the idea. Even though I’ve spent close to year working on FILTH the start of animation is a different animal altogether. Up until now it’s all felt like theory. Not anymore.