CUT, PRINT & STRIKE THE SET

Last week it was a puppet. This week it’s the set. I just finished the last shot in this scene so it’s time to take a hammer to the set. Sometimes I feel like I’m rushing things. That maybe I should be spending more time on the sculpting, building and detailing of the sets, animating, what have you. But that kind of perfectionism can lead to paralysis and I’m not interested in spending the rest of my life on this thing. The amount of time spent on any given facet of production is completely irrelevant to the viewer. It matters to those of us behind the scenes because we love to say, “Oh my GOD, you can’t believe how much work went into that.” I’m as guilty of that as anyone. I mean come on … who doesn’t like a good war story. But in the end, what’s on the screen says it all.

WHAT CAN I SAY ABOUT MY FRIEND

I’m both a little happy and a little sad today. Scene 11 is done and it’s follow up, Scene 13, will be finished by the end of the month. Happy because I have my first complete scene which I am extremely pleased with but sad because I’ve finished working with one of the puppets. It’s strange to spend a year designing, building and creating a character, personality and all, only to say goodbye to him after only 6 weeks of animation. All that work and now he’ll be boxed up and stored next to all the others in my little puppet mausoleum. I’m going to miss him.