I’m not much of a guitar player. Truth be told … I suck. I never practiced enough to be any good but I knew right from the beginning that FILTH was going to need a score heavy on guitar and percussion. For the past year I’ve been trying to improve and have become (at my most generous) marginally better but a long long way from proficient. But here I go, diving head first into unknown waters.
Just like that … it ends. Animation on FILTH is complete. Total days in front of the camera: 345. I’m having mixed feelings about this moment which is not often the case at the end of shooting. It’s usually pure joy and relief that it’s over but FILTH was different. I don’t remember laughing as much at what I was putting my puppets through while animating on my previous films. I’m going to miss them. It’s like saying goodbye to an old friend. There is still a significant amount of work ahead and as I move through post production that feeling will pass but for the last year, animating FILTH was a part of my life, my routine, my thought process … and now it’s over. It’s strange the things we get sentimental about.
There are moments in every production when I freak out a little bit. It usually has to do with destruction. Tearing down a set, making radical changes to a puppet, these would qualify, but this week I’ve been agonizing over my shot selections. Camera placement, how long you hold a shot, the order you edit those shots together etc … all these choices make a huge difference in how an audience reacts to a scene. I know, obvious stuff but as I work through the shots that will appear at the end of the film these choices become even more crucial because I only have one chance to get it right and … well … this has to be the best ending ever.
This is my workbench. It’s been seen in dozens of posts with me working away, making a mess and generally having a time of it. It’s not very big, it’s badly scuffed, a little cluttered, it’s covered in paint, plaster and old foam rubber, there are small pieces of metal embedded in it from all the armatures I’ve built, the battered table top constantly gives me splinters and at night, I swear someone is stealing my 4-40 screws because I’m constantly having to buy new ones. But in spite of all that … actually because of all that … I love this dingy, damp, spider haven, monster centipedes from hell, too hot in the summer and way too cold in the winter corner of my world. Everybody needs a special place.
a film by ADAM CIOLFI 