My New Animated Films

This past spring, I finished two stop motion shorts.

The first is called True Family Story, and I've blogged about it quite a bit since I started it nearly two years ago. I'm proud of it, especially the pacing and tone, both of which I feel are light and energetic.

I've only had the energy to send to exactly ONE festival, and that's Ottawa. They turned it down.

I will send it to more fests just as soon as I can gather the energy. It's my own fault- all this energy spent to create the film... then no energy left to send it out there. But it's a solid little film (despite what the Ottawa fest thinks), and I think it will have a pretty good shelf life, so I'll get it out there asap.

Here's a couple of pics of the DVD jacket. The jacket was largely designed by the every-talented Carla Veldman, who was a remarkable assistant through the entire production.






The second little film is called Rise of The Living Corpse. Who doesn't like zombies? Who doesn't like zombie stop motion films?

It's just 30 seconds long, and for THIS film I've actually sent it out to quite a few festivals. It's interesting- because it's a genre film (horror, obviously) that sort of "doubles" the number of fests I can reasonably send it to: horror fests, and animation fests.

And- since most horror fests get live action stuff, and "serious" stuff at that, a 30 second animated comedy stands out to programmers. As a result, I'm happy to say that of the 5 festivals I've heard back from so far, it's been accepted at 4 (with Toronto's After Dark Festival being the silly monkeys that turned it down).

The wise festivals so far include: Fantastic Fest in Austin, Oklahoma Horror Film Festival, Fright Night Festival in Kentucky, and the Chicago Horror Film Festival.

Oh, Ottawa also turned THIS film down as well.

Here's a few pics of the DVD (again, with design tackled by Carla Veldman).





I'm being pretty stingy on posting clips from either film. I kind of like the idea of being exclusive for a little while, with the films only going to fests. I'll post clips (and perhaps eventually the whole films) in the future.

I'll also probably look for some formal distribution, not to make money through, but in my experience it just adds to one's professional reputation to have a 3rd party handle the film.

Or- I'll keep them to myself for distribution and promote it myself exclusively so I can use the films to push my own "brand".

Time will tell...

TFS- Camera,Lighting and Puppets Video

Here's a little behind the scenes video from my film, dealing with cameras, camera moves, lighting, and puppets.

Puppet Making Part 5- Feet and Legs

One of the most important things you need to consider is, quite simply, how will your puppet stand up?! The battle against gravity is a huge factor in stop mo (a fact that becomes very apparent when you try to walk a puppet). You have to ensure that your creation will stay on its feet, while it performs.

The easier way to achieve this is tried and true. You embed a "rare earth" magnet in the foot of the puppet. Then you build a set that has a thin surface, which you can access from underneath. From underneath, you apply a second rare earth magnet, and shaboom- your puppet is standing up.

These rare earth magnets are not your typical fridge magnet. Go get them at specialty stores. In Canada, look to Lee Valley Tools.

Often, the magnet from underneath is dropped into a metal cup, which intensifies its powers, and is also secured on to a short piece of dowel. This is what's known as a "magnet wand" (in the biz), and it just makes it easier to manipulate the magnet from under the set.

To embed the magnet in puppet's foot, you first go from your trusty scale drawing. You create a loop of armature wire that is ever-so-slightly bigger than the magnet (they magnets come in different sizes, find the right one for the size of your puppet). Then you braid your wire upward, as you would with an arm. Make sure you've used lots of armature wire, so you can trim the excess to the length you need for the leg.

Then angle the foot's loop at 90 degrees. You now have the foot armature, and the leg armature. "But I want a toe, too!" you say? Go for it. But this method gets you a nice foot/leg combo, and you have a heel joint, and you can do great animation. If having a floppy toe is essential, then do it. But in general, if your audience is focused on the toe flapping in what should be an overall engaging animated story, you've got problems. The last thing Joe or Jane average will be paying attention to is whether you have an animated toe. But, if you NEED that toe, you can fabricate a foot that has a magnet in the rear and a toe that can be animated. Design it, test it, and build it, you'll be fine. But I recommend doing it this way, first.

You will use epoxy (see earlier postings) to embed the magnet into this loop. Be sure to keep the ankle part of the wire free and clear of epoxy, so it can move. Another tip- be sure to keep the base of the magnet that will rest on the set level and smooth, and free from epoxy "gunk". You want a perfect surface between set and bottom of foot, so the magnets can do their thing. If there's gunk on the sole of the foot, you'll get wibble-wobble in your puppet. Not good.

After you've embedded the magnet, you can continue to build up the foot into the shape of the shoe you want. Of course, this technique (of embedding a big magnet) leads to, you guessed it, BIG shoes. If that offends your design senses, there's other options.

But back to the leg/foot at hand. With the foot done, just use your scale drawing to figure out where the leg bones will go, and where the square brass stock will go.

As with the other parts that have brass at their ends, that can slide in and out of armature blocks (hips, torsos), the fit will be a bit loose. That means as you walk that puppet, a leg will want to actually fall out! Eeek. So use a thin layer of contact cement to bond the leg into the hip block. Not too much, or you'll never get it out if it breaks.




For legs that will have pants or long skirts, you just need to bulk it up with some foam. If you will actually see skin, you need to use the latex build up process, as discussed earlier. Again, costume means a great deal to puppet making. A long skirt means easy legs to make. A short skirt means a lot of skin that needs to be made (tricky). Below is an image of the Mom puppet's legs. She has a fairly long skirt, tha shows a bit of skin at the bottom. As you can see, there's latex skin built up to where the skirt will, but not much further.



So let's say you want dainty, "Tintin" style feet. Feet that are far too tiny to embed a big honking magnet. You can use tie-downs.

This entails embedding a tiny nut instead of a magnet in the foot. Then you put holes in your set where you need them, and feed a bolt of the right size up and into the nut. There you go, a sturdy puppet with tiny feet. The trick is that it's now tough to move that puppet around, as you must drill holes in the set for each step that puppet takes.

Good with the bad- magnet feet are pretty easy to make, and easy to move around on the set, but your design might suffer.

Tie-down feet look elegant and beautiful. But they are trickier to make (those tiny nuts are tricky to embed) and are trickier to move around on the set.

You get to choose, lucky puppet-maker.

As with all these approaches, you will have worked hard to create a part that just might break. So since legs/feet take time to make, I recommend a story that doesn't involve millions of shots of puppets walking. The less stress you put on the legs/feet, the less chance they will break.

If your story insists on lots of walking, so be it, but go into your production planning knowing you need to take time to make extra legs, cause odds are they will break.

Also, extreme animation in terms of lots of jumping, deep bending will stress your leg/feet wires a lot. So again, either create a story that doesn't require this (and you won't break your legs) or if it's essential to the story, make yourself extra legs.

It's much easier to make extra parts in advance of shooting so that during animation, if you break a part, you can just swap in a new one. If you have to stop everything, pull out all the puppet making materials, start working with epoxy, latex... it really slow things down. Have extra pieces made during the puppet making stage of things... you'll thank yourself during animation.

How many extra parts to make- spines, arms, legs, feet, necks?... it completely depends on your story, and on YOU as an animator. Some animators are tough on puppets, they stress the puppet a lot to get a performance, and thus break a lot of parts.

Other animators have a lighter touch, and puppet parts last longer for them.

I didn't break a single puppet part on TFS, but I had extras of parts standing by. The animation was fairly limited to some walking, running, (each puppet only have to do a bit of each), then facial animation, basic weight shifts... some throwing, general hand acting... so nothing MASSIVE in terms of stresses.

Plus, I made the parts well. And I am an experienced animator that can get a performance out of the puppet without snapping things. I also animated in what you'd generally call a "Good Enough For TV" style. It's pretty limited, abbreviated, conservative. It let me get lots of shots done quickly, got the point of the story across, but didn't take super long, since I didn't have much time scheduled to animate. All these factors worked together so that I didn't break any parts.

Only experience will really tell you how many extra parts you need. So get making puppets and puppet films... it's the only way to learn.

TFS- Studio Tour

Here's a vid that gives an overview of how I organized the shoot, in terms paperwork and studio space:

TFS-Finished Puppets

After all these puppet making entries, here's the finished deal. I will probably do a costume entry at some point (which is an obviously huge part of any visual appeal these puppets have). Arlen Gruszczynski makes my costumes, she's amazing.

Anyway, I thought I'd post these so you could get a sense of the whole deal.

TFS- Puppet Making Part 5- Arms and Hands

Some of these pics are big, sorry. Too lazy to resize...

Arms and hands are (like all the other parts) a world unto themselves. So here we go...



The above pic is based on that good ol' scale drawing you've created a while ago (see why it's so important to have that life-sized drawing?) You need to use that scale drawing to figure out the exactly size, shape, length, and overall look of the arm and hand for your character. As you might expect, it needs to be to scale, once again. To arrive at this drawing, I "light tabled" from the original scale drawing to get the arm and hand figured out... then from that drew in what the armature would look like.

You'll notice there's some square brass stock at the end of the arm. That's to slot into the chest armature. Further, you'll see the length of the arm is braided 1/16" armature wire, with some epoxy for the arm bones, and epoxy for the hand (into which is embedded pieces of thin floral wire for fingers). The skin over top is liquid latex (which I haven't talked much about yet, but will).

Floral wire is nice for fingers. It's strong, will stand up to the animation fingers need to do (detailed, precise movements) but is still easy to animate. You don't want really thick wire for fingers, as it will be hard to animate.

Since both of the characters arms were the same, this one scale drawing will serve. Just keep referring back to your scale drawing of the arm armature as you cut pieces and mix epoxy, so that you are making the arm JUST the right size. It's easy to drift, so use that drawing to check. After you make this basic arm and hand, you can simply bend the fingers which ever way you want, to craft it into a "right" arm/hand or a "left" arm/hand.



The above pic is the puppet arms in progress. It's darn handy to use clothes pegs to hold the arms up safely as each coat of latex dries. And another tip- don't apply the brass stock till the arm is 100% done. If you put it on earlier, it's quite tricky to figure out the exact arm length. Leave yourself extra wire at the end of the arm, make the arm, apply all the latex, then snip the wires to length, then glue on the brass stock.

Gluing tip for armature wire when attaching it to brass stock- use "gap filling glue". It's very strong, and will expand as it dries, hence the name. Regular Krazy Glue is super strong, but will only bond surface-to-surface through direct contact. Gap filling glue is the way to go (in this case).

The process for putting on the latex is TRICKY (notice all the caps. I must be SERIOUS). I've practiced a lot, on various projects, to get to a pretty good point. It takes lots of practice. You'll notice with these arms/hands they need to be smooth from the finger tips right up to the shoulders, (smooth, as in like real human arms/hands) since the whole arm would be exposed. If the puppet had long sleeves, you'd only have to make smooth hands and maybe wrists (and not worry about the arms).

Costume REALLY effects puppet making, in this sense.

It was also a challenge because of the visual style I wanted. The puppet heads were smooth and cleanly sculpted. So the arms and hands had to match. If I had made the heads "rough" in their finish, the arms/hands could have been "rough" as well. "Roughly" applied latex is much easier to achieve, and you can get some wonderful textures by using make-up sponges or bits of foam (thanks to Ted Heeley for that tip). You can get a really nice "smooth but pebbly" finish that looks great under camera. And it has a really warm "Muppet" vibe, like a very dense foam. Really appealing, great texture (and we all know stop mo is all about the textures). BUT my visual style was smooth, so the arms had to be smooth.

A HUGE tip I give students- create a visual style that allows your puppet to have a rough finish, and you will be MUCH happier. But- smooth is possible, if you are brave enough. Or stupid.




Here's the finished arms (pre-brass stock). Note their smoothness. Hard-earned, right Carla? And another tip- once you are 100% done applying latex, dump some baby powder on the arms. Rub it in, and it takes any unwanted stickiness away from the latex, and gives it a very pleasant matte finish (latex errs towards shiny- baby powder it away). And besides, you get a sweet-smelling puppet. Win-win.

Here's how I got them smooth. I used a small, cheap brush to get the first layers of latex on. A coat of latex... let it get pretty much dry... then another coat... it takes time. There's lots of tricks and tips for using liquid latex, you can find heaps at stopmotionanimation.com

I used this process to get the arms basically "on their way". By that, I mean at the joints (elbow, wrist) I used this process to add lots of layers of latex, so I had a nice smooth tube. In other words, if you ran your finger from the wrist all the way up the arm, it was flat- no dip inward at the joints. Now, with that basic "tube" of an arm, I switched techniques. I now started "dipping".

You can only get so smooth a finish by brushing. The bristles ALWAYS leave a path as you draw the brush up the arm, leaving grooves and streaks. But dipping means no brush is used, so there's nothing to leave a mark.

To dip, I found a bottle (baby food) that was deeper than the arms were long. I filled the jar with latex, tinted it with the skin colour (acrylic paint), held the arm by the end wire, and dunked it, fingers first, into the latex. Then I pulled it out, fast, being careful not to bang the arm or fingers on the jar mouth.

I quickly flipped the arms around so the fingers were point up, and used a small brush (and often a toothpick) to carefully "urge" the latex downward in the spaces betweens the fingers. Without doing this, you'd get really stubby, web-like fingers. A toothpick works well, cause right after you dip there is SO much latex it can be moved around without leaving streaks. And with the fingers pointing up, you let gravity help.

The next step (once you're sure you aren't going to get stubby fingers), is to rest the arms. This is when a pair of "helping hands" is, well, helpful. Because you want to be able to tweak the angle at which the arms are drying, as they dry. This way, if you see the latex is "sagging" to the underside, you can flip the arm to balance that out. Helping hands are fantastic for this. As the pic below illustrates:



And here's how the finished arm fits into the armature:



Finally, this is a REALLY important aspect of using latex for arms and hands. The brand makes a HUGE difference. I've used other types of mould maker's latex (which is what this material is usually called at the art store), and they suck. They are too thick, too "chunky". You CAN water latex down, with (duh) water, but still... The best brand is this:



Burma Brand latex. End of story. It's lovely and thin, paints on really easy, absorbs acrylic paint (for tinting) really easily, and is great for dipping. It's THIN, and that's how you get SMOOTH. Only use this brand.

Other brands are ok for rougher finishes. Only use this for smooth (or another brand that's equally thin, but I haven't found one).

After all this, here's my two cents of puppet making for those that are serious: come up with a design that is "rough"- a creature of some sort, an alien, a monster, it can be cute, scary, sad, silly, whatever, but let it rough in its design. You can then make some MARVELOUS puppets (I see students do it every year), if you keep it rough in it's finish. That way, you wind up with an awesome looking puppet, and learn about the materials (specifically latex) as you go... then attempt smooth with the next puppet.

On the other hand, now that you know about dipping (after this entry), maybe you'll be smooth right away.

Good for you! But you owe me 5 bucks now.

TFS- Puppet Making Part 3- Puppet Heads

As the previous Puppet Making posting says, it's now time to think of the puppet head as something distinct from the body.

All these examples are from TFS.

So to begin, I've resolved some important design issues already: most importantly, how is the facial animation is going to be created. This is essential to know BEFORE you make the head. The answer (for this project) is- sculpted heads that will have applied on to them animatable features (eyelids, pupils, eyebrows, and mouths). Again, I certainly didn't invent this approach, it's used all the time, mostly cause it WORKS.

The sculpted head will keep its form and volume perfectly (unlike a clay head, that would have to be resculpted constantly), but will still "be alive" cause of the features that will animate. Those features will be a mix of coloured Sculpy, mixed with a soft wax (which helps keep the features from smearing on to the puppet head, which makes a big mess and screws with the paint job on the head).

Next step is to figure out how to actually craft the head, from the core, outward. And that's what this image shows you:



At the core is BRASS STOCK. You can get it at hobby stores, call around. It comes in all sizes. For puppet heads, I use " square, 3/16" ". You can also buy it round, which is why I specify.

The purpose of this brass stock is that it gives a sleeve for the neck of the puppet to slide into. The neck (when you make it) will ALSO have brass stock on it, but a slightly smaller gauge- I use "square, 5/32" ". You want an easily removable head because at times (while animating) you will want to do some detailed work on the features, or you might need to retouch the paint job. Being able to actually take the head off the puppet makes this very easy (even in mid shot!)

Again, you need to be working at scale now, drawing the head out (based on the original scale drawing), and figuring out just how long you need to make the brass stock so that it embeds nicely, and won't be sticking out at its bottom. This takes practice, no two ways about it.

Cutting the brass stock is a bit tricky. It CAN be done with a hack saw and a vise, but it sort of sucks that way. Much easier and faster is with a rotary tool (often called a "Dremel" which is one brand), that you attach a cutting disk to. It cuts the brass like butter. Remember though- the brass will get VERY hot, so hold it with pliers, and wear safely goggles and a mask (there will be brass dust kicking around).

Often, I do this part for students, since it's a bit tricky and potentially dangerous if you're unsure of yourself. So be careful...

You CAN make the puppet with its head as part of the body. That's a faster, easier way. But this process (using brass stock) is a pretty pro way to go, and that's what we're aiming for, isn't it.


With your brass stock for your head cut, the next step is this:



I've molded plumber's epoxy (a two part compound, available at Home Depot in Canada) around the stock. Again, I've used the scale drawing to make sure I don't put too much on. This epoxy is so that the foil (which is the next step) has something to grab on to. You'll note all the weird pointy bits on the epoxy. If I had done it smooth, the foil would just spin on the epoxy, and your final head would ALSO just spin around loosely- driving you insane while animating (and ruining your film).

Plumber's epoxy is an amazing material. You can use it for anything hard in a puppet's armature- arm bones, leg bones, pelvis, chest... it dries very fast, and is very hard (giving you a really strong armature). There's lots of tips and tricks to using this material, but that's not for THIS posting. Just be sure to practice with it first to get a feel for the material (before putting it to REAL use), and wear tight rubber gloves (the epoxy will stick to your fingers over time, and it's not really healthy). It also doesn't hurt to have a fan and open window, as the fumes are stinky.

You'll ALSO note (this is vital), that I left a wee bit of space at the bottom of the epoxy. This is so that when I apply the Super Sculpy (which is the final layer of the head), there is brass stock for me to sculpt the Sculpy on to. This way, the final layer will be very strongly attached to the brass stock, AND the foil, and the epoxy. If the epoxy covered all the stock, the final layer of Sculpy would only be attached to the epoxy, and that increases your chance that the whole head will spin on the stock, again- driving your insane. This is a bit confusing, but practice is the only way to get it. Nothing about puppet making is "easy", or perfect on the first shot. It's very much a learned skill, and that comes through practice. C'est la vie!

Next comes the foil. Nothing fancy, just good ol' fashion tin foil. The purpose of the foil is to "bulk up" the head, while keeping it light. That's why the final layer of Sculpy is actually so thin- it keeps it light. And a LIGHT head is very important for a puppet. A heavy head will weigh the puppet down, and make balance an issue.

Pack the foil on tight, but not TOO tight, or it gets heavy. Refer always to your scale drawing to keep on size...




Finally, it's time to sculpt. I use Super Sculpy cause it's tough, and I use the grey kind cause it's easier on the eyes and (I'm convinced) sculpts more smoothly. It doesn't drag in the way the flesh-coloured (if your flesh is "white") Super Sculpy does.

A sculpting tip- use a length of 5/32" brass stock (if you used 3/16" in the head) to put your head on to while sculpting. It makes it easier to rotate and keeps your hands off the actual head.

Rotate the head all the time you're sculpting, checking all angles, making sure it's balanced and pleasant and looking "right" in all dimensions... it takes me ages to sculpt (well, hours- a puppet head probably takes me about 6 hours in total to sculpt). But I really enjoy it. I love the process of building the head up, trying things out, starting over... I listen to talk radio, zone out... I love finding the planes and angles that are right... letting the character rise up out of the clay... I'm self-taught, and whatever skills I have it's really just through practice. Take your time, get good. If you're already good, get better.

My basic tools. The weird little wire thing is just some stiff floral wire (covered in plastic) wrapped around into a sort of "mini-scooper" thing, for digging out small spaces..





Here's another tip, for when you're done sculpting for the day, and for when you actually bake this head. Use a wire curled like this:



It keeps your soft head up off the table, cause the wire is sitting inside the brass stock. And when you bake, you can just set the head on this wire base, and place the whole thing on a baking pan. Just make sure as you make the curly base, you keep it flat and level, not wobbly.

When you're ready, bake the head according to the instructions. Baking Sculpy is a bit of an art, keep an eye on it, don't let it burn... and practice.

A baking tip- when it's done baking, turn off the oven, open the oven door, and let it cool. Don't try to take the head out while it's hot. It's now VERY fragile, so leave it alone. I've wept tears of pain from taking a head out too soon... Once it's cool, it's rock hard. But let it cool!

Also- be sure to use the joke "I'm going to put my head in the oven" as much as possible at this stage. My wife tells me that one never gets old...

Now with a cool, hard head, you should have something like this (when viewed from the bottom):




Notice how the brass stock is flush with the base of the head. That's what you want (or even the brass stock up inside a bit). The main thing is that you don't want the stock sticking out (it will look terrible on camera), and you want the square of stock clean and free of Sculpy. If there's any gunking the stock up, you can easily pick it out.

Now it's time to paint. Painting Sculpy is easy, AND tricky. It's easy to apply the paint, but it's tricky to ensure the paint is strongly adhered to the Sculpy. You're going to be putting your hands (and pressure) on this head for every frame, and paint can easily scrape/chip/smear off, if you don't take precautions.

The best way to get a solid paint job is to use a primer on the head. I use automotive primer, grey. It's flat and thin. You just need a thin layer, on all of the head. It dries fast, and from THERE, you can paint on acrylic paint with a brush (or air brush).





Be careful when spraying the paint. Do it somewhere that a bit of mess is OK (like a garage). I use a cardboard box as a "spray booth" to catch the excess paint. And I use a base of wood with skewers glued in to hold the heads, for painting.



Well, now you've got a puppet head. Apply your paint job. Be sure to keep a little bottle of the skin tone paint, for touch ups!

When you're done painting the head, let it dry well, then SEAL the paint by using either a spray fixative (available at art stores), or a paint-on version. This just helps keep the paint on better, and prevents little things like a random fingernail from causing trouble. Be sure to use a flat (or matte) finish, not gloss. Unless you're making a puppet that's glossy (perhaps a fish man?)

The paint WILL chip off, or peel. Not a lot, but it's still likely to happen. Eyebrows are notorious, as they are animated across the head. They stick, they smear, they can pull paint right off. Just be very careful (no kidding), have touch up paint ready, and all will be well!

This process is tested and true, and although it's not perfect, it gives excellent results in a fairly straight- forward, DIY fashion...

TFS- Puppet Making Part 2- Full Sized Drawings

This and basically every puppet making entry will describe a process for making a HUMANOID puppet- two arms, two legs, standing upright, head on top. From this basic structure, you can modify your heart out...

Now that you know specifically what your puppet has to do, draw your whole character from the front, AT FULL SIZE.

Regular computer paper works just fine for drawing the character out (and you can putit on a light table or against a window to trace through, for designing armatures later on). Do rotational drawing if you want to, but a lot of the 3d aspect will come out in the actual sculpting/crafting of the puppet...I personally like to get the size right on paper, then let the character fill out as I sculpt/craft him/her/it.

An adult male is approximately 30 cm tall (this gives you an adult puppet that is big enough to easily animate, but small enough to keep your sets and props that will go with this puppet small enough to be manageable). This is basically working at 1/6th scale, if you are wondering. It's pretty standard.

The bigger your puppet, the bigger the sets and props have to be, and that can take up space and material very quickly!

Kid puppets are obviously smaller than the adults, but you need to actually keep kids bigger than they really would be in relation to a 30 cm adult. Think of making a kid puppet (compared to an adult) as making a very short adult. If you make a kid puppet too small, it will be almost impossible to animate, because its parts will be so tiny.

Draw out all of your characters (if you have more than one) like this, so you can check them all against each other for size relationships. Since you are now working at FULL SIZE, if your storyboard shows lots of shots featuring character A in a medium shot along side character B, both characters had better be approximately the same height for composing those shots, or your going to go mad trying to find a camera angle that allows you to get your shot! In other words, a giraffe and a mouse would have a hard time sharing the same frame. To get your shot, you could lie the giraffe down, or put the mouse on a ladder (both of which are possibly valid staging options), but you then need a giraffe puppet that can lie down, or you need to craft a ladder! And if so, do either of these options really WORK for your story? Or do they distract from the real intent of the scene?

As you can see, size relationships have a lot of impact on production. Drawing your characters at full size at this early stage will let you see these sorts of issues early, and let you redesign or reboard...


Now that you have a SCALE drawing (meaning you have a drawing the is the same size as the puppet is going to be), this scale drawing will also be used for creating the puppet's armature, and to help with framing, sets, props... but before that happens, you should make the puppet's head.

Yep, take it from me: get your puppet designed on paper, to scale. Then start with the head, not the body. At this point, you should be almost thinking of them as two separate (but connected) production issues: the head, and then the rest of the puppet.

TFS- Puppet Making Part 1- Designing Characters

Click on pic to make it big, although not much bigger, sorry.


So now that I've beaten to death the process of the story development, the next stage I thought I'd explore is Puppets. As with story, everyone has his or her own process of development. This is mine.

Also, I'm writing this for a reader that is eager, generally talented, but not very experienced in stop mo production (in short, my students!) At points I discourage approaching puppet-making in certain ways. That's based on the assumption that you (faithful reader) are not already practiced at this medium, and that you do not have a workshop full of power tools and mould-making materials and chemicals.

From teaching stop mo for a few years now, I've really come to approach the medium from the pov of "what can the average but very passionate person achieve?" So I don't tend to promote methods that require special machines (although sometimes there's no way around using a jigsaw, for some set building stuff), tricky chemicals, foam ovens, mould fabrication, metal lathing, and so on.

So please bear that in mind as you read all these puppet-making entries...I am always trying to get talented and passionate people excellent results, as opposed to miring them in financial debt to buy expensive stuff, so they can achieve poor results cause they weren't focusing on the important fundamentals.

As I now step down off my soapbox, ahem...


I first look at the finished boards, to confirm what the puppet in question has to do, specifically. This is an extremely important aspect of design. As a very basic example, imagine a scene in which the puppet has to reach up and grab an apple from a tree branch. But you've designed (and built!) a puppet with very short stubby arms. When you come to shoot that "grabbing the apple" shot, guess what? Your puppet simply cannot do the action.

So if your character has to (for example) balance on tip toes, then leap into the air, hover for 5 seconds, then suddenly stretch its neck out like a giraffe, you've got a lot of serious design issues to consider. Conversely, if your character has to basically stand in one place, make some facial expressions, be capable of solid but not particularly complex animation, move his arms around, and basically LOOK good, that's a far more straightforward issue. And that's the case with the puppet above. He's the Dad puppet for my film.

In the interest of moving along, I'll just say this about designing and constructing puppets: it's as much mechanical design as it is artistic design. This holds true especially when you are designing AND making the puppet yourself. Puppets take a VERY long time to design and build, even simple ones. All the puppets in my film are fairly straightforward, and the story was in part designed to allow for that fairly simple puppet making. Again, when you are doing it mostly yourself (even with a massively talented and helpful assistant like I had), all aspects of the production are really intertwined as you move forward.

And when they start getting tricky (puppets, that is), having to do very particular actions, it gets very complex and very NOT possible for a do-it-yourself-er. But the specifics of complex puppet making is not only for another posting, its for an entire lifetime of practice and craft...

As you are designing a character, here are a few very basic things to consider. You'll notice most of them concern how to get the puppet to stay still while you are animating he/she/it!!

RIGS
Does the puppet have to have all its feet off the ground at any point? If so, that means you will somehow have to "rig" that puppet with a wire (that is secured to something out of camera) for those frames of animation. Later, you will have to digitally "clean up" those frames, removing the wire. Rig shots can be very simple (a ball landing in a glove), or very complex (10 witch puppets, all floating on broomsticks while juggling jack-o-lanterns). If a puppet needs a rig, it has to have that rigging point (where the wire will go) incorporated into the design.


BUTT MAGNETS
In my story, there's a scene with two puppets sitting on a park bench. How to get them to stay still while they are being animated? My solution was to design very strong magnets (called "rare-earth" magnets) into their butts! So when the sit down, I can put another magnet under the bench, and they will stay put. But I only knew to install these magnets cause I carefully consulted the finished boards. Always refer to your boards before designing.

TIE DOWNS VERSUS MAGNETS
Here's a good example of functionality versus design. If you design a character with lovely, tiny feet, she will look beautiful. But she will be very tricky to stand up. And standing up is the one thing your puppet REALLY needs to do well. If a puppet won't stand up securely, you are going to go bonkers trying to animate this wibbly-wobbly creature. Since this puppet in question has tiny feet, you'll need to use little nuts in her feet, that you can screw a bolt into from under your set. This is the "tie down" method of puppet making. An easier solution is embedding a rare-earth magnet in her feet. Now she will stand very easily, just by placing another magnet under your set. But now, since the magnets are big, she has clunky clown feet. Which is more important, that she is easy to move, or that she looks lovely?


COSTUMES
A complex area of puppet making, this. Is your character a human? If you look at the Dad puppet, he has long pants, and a short sleeved shirt. Pretty "normal" attire. The long pants are good, cause they cover a lot of skin. Under the pants can just be armature, and foam (for bulk). But the short sleeve shirt is tricky, cause it leaves exposed a lot of arm flesh. And since I was making the puppet parts from building up with liquid latex, getting a "smooth" look over all that area was going to be tricky. If he had long sleeves, that would be much easier. I'd only have to worry about smooth hands (as his arms would be under fabric). But the story was very much set in the summer, so he HAD to have short sleeves. So I HAD to pick up the challenge of geting smooth arms. See how costume hugely effects puppet making?!

Further, what if instead of a human Dad, he was a cat Dad? Imagine he still had these cloths, but was also covered in fur. What is that fur made from? How do you apply it to the puppet? Will it stay still during animation?

How about if instead of a cat Dad, he was a lizard Dad? Now you have smooth shiny scales to create. How do you do that?

There's no way I can really go into detail on this here! But suffice it to say (for now) that just cause you can imagine it, and draw it, DOESN'T mean you can build it. Sure, SOMEONE could build it (for you). There are hugely talented pros out there. But it will cost you quite possibly thousands. What can YOU make?

Personally, I can't even make the simple costume depicted! I know my weak areas, and constructing costumes is one of them. I can design, if it's simple, but I can't make. I PAY to get my costumes made. And they are beautiful, and done quickly, and function properly. It's worth it to me, to get nice puppets. So I always budget for costume fabrication. Simple as that.



PUPPET HEADS AND FACIAL ANIMATION
I'll write more on the topic of puppet heads specifically, later. But in short, as you design, think about what your puppet head and face has to do. Let's say you have a tiger, and you design a character that will have a moving jaw. And he has lots of lip sync. You've just designed yourself into hell. The basic shape of that head (assuming it's fairly realistic) is enough of a challenge. Then a hinged jaw is very complex to design and fabricate (assuming you are working very indie). And all that lip sync will mean the very delicate structure of that jaw will be maxed out by all the detailed animation. The wires in there will break, and be very hard to replace. I always steer students away from this structural design for mouths. Again, it's about mechanical realities JUST as much as it about designing a pretty character.

In the example of the Dad puppet above, you can see he has a very simply little mouth. His character only has minor changes in mouth shapes, and in mouth positions. So for him, I designed a head that would be sculpted and hard (and stand up to frame-by-frame abuse by my hands), and that had NO mouth. Just a smooth space where the mouth would go. Then I used clay that was the right colour to match the head, that I simply pressed gently on to head. It could be moved and replaced and animated. This method of "hard head, soft mouth" puppet making is nothing new, it's used all over. It's slick and fast and effective in terms of conveying what you want, in a fairly simply technical way. It's the method I point most students towards.

Again, search your boards, see specifically what your puppet has to do, and go from there. If the Dad had tonnes of lip sync, using soft clay mouths that I whip up on set would not be practical. Instead, I'd make a "mouth kit" of mouth shapes that would be hard, and that could be tacked on with a tiny bit of wax. But still, it's the same basic concept- a hard hard, with external mouth pieces that get applied frame by frame.

Not saying this is the only way. Just saying it's a slick way that works.


Whew. I have a very strong feeling these puppet making postings are going to be rather technical, as opposed to philosophical. It's hard to resist falling into a "how to" approach, because with stop mo, there really IS a lot of practical stuff to learn.

Of course, in all aspects of the creation of art, there's room for philosophical considerations. It's just that production needs tend to take over (ie, deadlines) and now that story is locked in, it's usually a case now of "get it done".

TFS-Story Development Process, Part 5

So in Part 4, I provided a brief blurb as to the specific content of the story for TFS. Now I thought I'd share some more details regarding the specific process I used for developing the story.

It's a pretty tried and true process, I certainly didn't invent it. But there's a few personalized twists to the process, as you'll see.

You can click to make this bigger...




The above image was basically "Round 1" of the story development. I knew the story would feature a Narrator (me) who would introduce the story, and then pop back into the story, upon occasion. So I simply started writing the story out as if I was telling it to someone "live".

That's a method of storytelling I feel confident in (and in fact, everything I've made has a Narrator, in the first person). Different pieces I've made use that Narrator to a greater or lesser extent, but they all have a Narrator. I've always loved what a Narrator does to a story, the extra layer of character it offers. When every thing's being filtered through that character, there's a lot of tensions and juxtapositions that can happen. And there's an inherent intimacy that is created between the film and the audience, when someone speaks directly to YOU, the audience.

I know in part this is the result of my college training, that was very much influenced by Philip Hoffman.

His work is certainly more formal than mine, and operates within a more classical "Experimental" realm, and he's not an animator. So at first glance, you'd probably never see any connections between our work. After all, I make cute little puppet movies, that lightly touch on deeper things. He makes serious art house flicks that dig right into heavy, thought-provoking stuff.

But from him (and other faculty in the Media Arts Program at Sheridan, in the mid 1990s) I learned how powerful a personal, intimate approach to cinema can be, regardless of whether you're working in live action, documentary, interactive media, or animation. The film's content can be accessible, broadly appealing, easy on the eyes, traditionally narrative, and so on... but STILL be personally motivated and intimate in its approach.

I think I make stuff that grows out of the traditions honed by artists like Phil Hoffman, even though my stuff has rooted itself in a more commercial, broadly appealing form.

Anyway, moving on...

In an earlier posting, I said how lethal I thought doing all your story development via a word processor could be. If you check out the above scan, you'll see it's covered in very rough panels, arrows, scribbles, redirects, questions to myself, development notes, inserts... working this way was immediate and raw and real. And it always lets you see the process, how you got to where you are. When you see notes to yourself laid out right on the story, it points you to other parts of the story, it reminds you that perhaps there's motifs or story points that need picking up later in the story... and it all happens at a glance, right in front of you.

Even when you change your mind, and scribble something out, that remains on paper to remind you of the choice you made. And all this helps you grow the story. Well, it helps ME. It's a personal process that works for me, and I offer it here because seeing how others "do it" can help hone your OWN process.

I simply stapled all the papers together, and kept coming back to it as I developed it.

Then: below is "Round 2", which was a tightening of things from Round 1. It reads in columns, from top to bottom. At this stage, I guess it's basically the "Thumbnail" version of things. It takes into account the Voice Over, but more specifically depicts the visuals and how they will cut together. To start, I dash out a couple of columns, then start filling them in, with no mind to refining or keeping it clean. This is really about getting the visuals and audio to work together.

Click the pic to make it bigger...






And from this, it's a fairly boring step to "Round 3," which is tightening it up a lot, and putting it into formal storyboard panels.

Click the pic to make it bigger...



I call it fairly boring, because even though this stage is vital, the alchemy and the excitement of developing the story is essentially done. It reminds me of what an animator told me once of working with a director on project. The director would go over the shot with the animator, and together they'd build up great ways to stage the shot, dreaming up all the "goodness" that would go into the shot. This process would be filled with laughs, "what ifs," and real moments of creative storytelling excitment. Then the director would leave. And the animator would sigh, cause the FUN part was done. It was all dreamed up. Now, it was just about putting his head down and MAKING it. That's like this stage of boards. The fun is done, but not the work. And this stage of boards is work, for real.

With this final stage, it's about making it tight and clean and easy to reference when I'm shooting. It's these final boards that I put up on the studio wall, and use to reference when I shoot. These boards will have various production notes included, so that as I set up for the shot, the board reminds me of specifics. For example, a prop in this shot might appear in the board to be the same prop as in an earlier shot, but in fact, it needs to be altered somehow, for continuity.

So these boards have to be detailed, tight, easy to reference...but it's not creative. It's essential work, but not fun work. But in the end you've got a nice set of boards.

For me, Round 1 and 2 are so much fun, because they are so raw. Anything can happen at those stages, and there's an energy that lives in the rough panels that is inspiring. With Round 3's tight boards done, it's pretty locked in. But that's the way it goes. It's a necessary thing for story, it has to get tight. Effective production flow demands it.

With the tight boards done, I shot a still of each panel (I guess I could have scanned them instead, but it's easier for me to shoot stills with a video camera), and use those to create my leica reel, otherwise known as my animatic, or story reel (why they can't just call it one thing, I don't know, or care).

I refined the Voice Over on paper, then recorded it. This happened over several sessions, because I would cut some voice into the leica, sleep on it, and revise how I wanted it delivered. That's a luxury when you do your own voice work- re-recordes are easy to schedule!

Then I cut it all together with the storyboard drawing in Premiere (on my Mac), and thus concludes the story portion of the project. Of course, I spent quite a while editing the leica, getting the timing right, the flow of the whole thing... that's why you take the time at the stage, so that when you actually shoot you know exactly what you need from your shots.

So in the end, it followed a fairly traditional method of development for animation: rough story with sketches, leading to thumbnails, leading to tight boards, then animatic.

TFS-Story Development Process, Part 4

(Click the pic for a nice big image.)

So here's the story I went with. This is essentially how I "pitched" the project to Sheridan when I was applying for funding (more on that process later).



"The project I am proposing is a short (approximately 4 minute) animated film. More specifically, the animation will be in the form of puppet animation.

In terms of content, the film concerns itself with a real family event, that provides insight into how we help loved ones deal with pain.

In the summer of 1965, my oldest brother was bit by what my parents feared was a rabid squirrel. What followed were several weeks of painful curative needles for my brother, and painful worrying for my parents. The ending to this true family tale is a happy one, but the journey to that ending was difficult, to say the least.

How does a family come together during moments of sudden crisis? What lengths will parents go to in order to help their children through such times? What lessons can we learn from the inevitable pain that life brings our way?

In bigger terms, the story is about how we deal with loved ones as they suffer through physical pain.

The tone of the film will be lighthearted, but never frivolous. It will employ humourous visual storytelling (through puppet animation), and a narration that is written in a personal, heartfelt style."



So- why did I give this story the ultimate green light, when other story concepts didn't make the grade? For a whole number of reasons, and that is how I seem to proceed when developing projects. I have to weight a whole lot of factors. It's not just the story itself, it's finding a story that fits the process of production I envision following.

By that I mean, if I had a powerful Executive Producer who was officially standing by to handle getting funds together, I could start my job as writer by whipping up quite an epic tale. I could let my imagination run completely wild (and wouldn't that be fun). But the reality of my production process is that currently, I either fund these things myself, OR pull together a modest budget from external sources, somehow.

And so as I imagine a story, I have to also imagine HOW that story will get made. And keeping production schedules, sizes and budgets realistic is essential to me achieving my ultimate goal which is: see a short animated film on the big screen (or small screen, as the case may be). And it's not just imagining a story that can get made, in terms of production costs. It's a much bigger chain, that involves the use of facilities, equipment, TIME, assistants (if I can get any), other crew...

Maybe I shouldn't work this way, wearing all these different production hats at once. Maybe I should just be the writer when it's at the writing stage... then the producer when it's time to get money... then the director, animator...

But I personally can't work that way. Since I am doing so much if it myself, I see a project from all angles, at every stage of the project. And so it goes...

Experience thus far has proven that when you depend too much on outsiders (especially when money is involved), things get way too delicate, and can fall apart so easily. I just want to get a film on the screen, with my name on it (and that I controlled, creatively). And from that film on screen, I will become a better artist, who has a real VOICE. And then I can continue on, accordingly.

Anyway, back to why this story won the race to the finish line and went into production. Here's a short list of the "whys":

1. IT WOULD "WORK" IN THE EYES OF MY PRODUCER (IE, MY EMPLOYER!)
There is money available to profs to develop themselves professionally. You can use it for taking a course, to buy textbooks, materials that help you create art... The idea behind it is that through self-development, a teacher becomes a better teacher, and can pass that along to the students. I applied to this fund proposing to make a short film. I felt the content, tone, and overall message of this particular story would be well received by my "producers" (as opposed to a hardcore gore film with bloody entrails and naked girls on motorcycles. Although that would also be an exciting concept. Maybe my next film). And if Sheridan is playing a Producer role (although a very hands-off one, since profs have a lot of freedom in how they spend they development money), it's just common sense- KEEP YOUR PRODUCER HAPPY. If Sheridan's name is going to be on this (in some capacity), make it something that Sheridan will be happy to have its name on. A happy producer means an easier next project for ME.


2. STRONG POTENTIAL FOR INTENSIFICATION AND CLARIFCATION
I'm always on my students about "intensifying and clarifying"- that's the process of seizing a concept/story/situation and amping it up and making it VERY clear. Motion picture story telling is not "real life" (even when it's a documentary, docs are still framed and edited and staged to some extent). I knew immediately that this family story seemed ripe for this process. It was a basic story that was already pretty intense, that could be cranked up, made "cartoony," through the storytelling techniques at my disposal.


3 A STRONG BASIC STORY THAT COULD BE DELIVERED CONFIDENTLY
I realized that this story was always a hit when my family all got together- it had intense drama, action, suspense... and a certain amount of cruel (but ultimately well intentioned) humour. Also, since the story was personal (and true), it would naturally be delivered first person, which always makes writing easier for me. When I move into 3rd person storytelling, I have a tendency to lose my connection to the situation and characters. But 1st person keeps me rooted, emotionally. Maybe it's all the personal comic books I gravitate to, artists like Julie Doucet, Seth, Chester Brown...

4. IT HIT CLOSER TO HOME THAN EVER.
As a new parent, I now saw other facets to the story. I could image what it must have been like for my parents to struggle through the event, how scary it must have been. I knew these fresh insights would give me an angle into the story, as I crafted it.


5. ON THE TIP OF MY EYEBALLS
The story was visually "there" right away. Even as I began to imagine how I would convey the story, the shots were tumbling out of my head. The scenes presented themselves, and how they would cut together, what I would reveal and NOT reveal, and when I would do it... the whole story was right there. I had to work through a few scenes in terms of how to show the story, but a vast majority of the visual work was in my head. A very good sign.

6. REALISTIC IN TERMS OF PRODUCTION CONSTRAINTS
Based on how it was visually conveying itself right out of the gate, I knew it was "doable" in terms of production costs and ambitions. With the limited time I would have to build and shoot (basically 6 weeks), it could happen. (Time Machine ahead in production and: In the end I got 80% shot, and 100% of the sets/puppets built, and will finish shooting in the Fall, but that's fine by me, MOST of it got shot, without too much to finish). It also was "doable" in terms of production costs. I would be alloted $800 in development money, and I can do a LOT with $800.

There's other reasons why this one "worked" but those are the main ones...

So to sum up, it wasn't simply the story itself that had to "fit". The story had to "fit" with the larger production process I had in mind. It's a very delicate path through the process, to see something finished on the screen. A misstep can cause ruin. That's part of what it means to make indie films- there's no simple and clear way through- you have to find the right path for each project.

I always use the term "get your ducks lined up." I use that term because it conveys how if you take care with your production issues up front, they can be knocked down with one "shot" (ie, a production can FLOW effectively).

Also, I hate ducks, and love the thought of shooting them dead.

FURTHER NOTE ON PRODUCTION SCHEDULE: I would have 6 weeks to build the sets and props and puppets, and shoot the animation. But the story was already completely done by then, as was an animatic, and the puppet heads were all sculpted (I love sculpting, but I'm SLOW). So these crucial 6 weeks were started with quite a bit of key work done already (I had been working away over the winter).

TFS- Story Development Process, Part 3

You are to be rewarded, patient reader.

I now want to write about the specific story I ended up going with; the story that got the "green light," and wound up going into production. But the trick at this point in things (with the film still unfinished, until early 2010) is that I don't want to reveal the whole story.

One thing I constantly caution senior animation students against is guarding their ideas TOO closely, so let me expand on the "why" of my choice to hold the story a bit close (even though the story development part of the project is long done).

I firmly believe that if you don't get it (your story) on a table to get feedback at early stages, your story will have holes and problems and areas that lack clarity to the audience that you'll never catch. You need other eyes on it, right from the beginning. But WHOSE eyes? I think you need to be very careful about this. I'm in favour of a very selected few, to whom you return for further feedback, as the story develops. You need to share it, but in a controlled fashion, so as to preserve that raw, primal energy the story still has.

But my story is well past that early, embryonic stage, right? So why not dish?

I am certainly in favour of dishing out an entire tale to certain people during the development process. That includes the entire story, from beginning to end, and then rough storyboards, final storyboards, animatic... but beyond that, I am a firm believer that filmmakers are like magicians. The anticipation of that "ta-da!" moment when we unveil the finished piece to an audience is an undeniable part of the process. And so in a desire to have something special to reveal, I'm keeping a bit tight-lipped about the specifics of the story, at least on this blog. There are those that are in the know, and they've helped the story tremendously. They know who they are (and they know that soon I will have to collect them in a room and shoot them one by one, so they do not reveal my secrets).

A short aside on picking the "chosen ones" that will help with feedback on your story. I certainly do NOT think these eyes have to belong (necessarily) to MASTER STORYTELLERS. I think what's more important is that the eyes belong to people you trust, who will give you the straight scoop, and who have no sneaky motives, other than helping you develop a clear, awesome story. And so you could have as part of your story team a filmmaker, your Grandmother, and the mailman. In fact, I recommend someone who has no visual storytelling experience beyond what the average media viewer has (hence the mailman suggestion). That person will have the most honest eyes you can imagine, and will give you very straight and honest feedback regarding what is NOT clear or powerful.

Of course, having a powerful and experience storyboarding artist on hand to advise would also be a great idea, but not one that is always possible!

Anyway, without further ado- I say to you, dear reader, "Tune in for the next entry, if you REALLY want to know the specifics of the story idea I went with."

Look, I know I keep leading you on, but I can't help it that I have a lot to write about, and the last thing I want to do is post massive (more massive than what I'm already posting) entries that exhaust the reader and lose their impact, just cause they are novel-length. And it's my hope that even though I'm putting off getting specific, this stuff DOES all lead somewhere, and I'm pretty sure it has tidbits and thoughts that are helpful or thought- provoking in their own right. The innards of story development are so complex and multi-layered, and is of such interest to me, that's just the way it goes- I'm simply going to write a LOT, about something I am really passionate about.

Also- my little boy is soon to wake up from his nap. And since HE'S the real boss (and won't let me write on my blog when he's awake, cause he wants to play 24/7), and cause if I don't keep an eye on him he tends to destroy our home and/or his physical body, I have to wrap it up.

I hereby vow, the next Story Development entry will get down and dirty.

TFS- Story Development Process, Part 2

It's a tough fact that when you're working independently, on your own film, the only way to test a story's worth is to work away at it with all your heart and brain and guts, to believe in it, and push it... and see what happens.

With the concepts I wrote about in Part 1 (and many others concepts I developed during this time period), I did just that. I believed in them, I nurtured them... but through the process of development, they proved that they just didn't have what it takes. Maybe in the future, but not for now.

And of course, this leads us to economics (?!)

When you're working for money, for an external client, you develop something as best you can as per the deadline, then hand it over. But when it's your own "baby" and there's no real deadline breathing down your neck, you can REALLY test a story's worth.

This is a blessing and a curse, because although it allows you to develop confidence that your story is "worth" taking into production, it can also lead to literally years of tweaking and pulling and testing, without anything actually making it to screen.

I'll probably post more about this tricky balance, probably labeled under "story".


And so, as I continued to test various concepts, trying to find one that would be meaty enough (for whatever reason) to throw myself at for a year or two, the final concept that I actually went with almost literally "wrote itself".

Now- when I hear or read of someone else using the term "the story wrote itself," I usually want to commit homicide, because writing a story is so incredibly difficult, 99% of the time. And the thought of someone having such an easy time of it makes me grind my teeth. But the term also drives me nuts because I KNOW it can happen, and I wish it would more often, for me!

It really can be that easy, a story can feel like it literally assembles itself in front of you, piece by piece, until it's done, with no more effort on the writer's part than to simply play the role of note-taker, jotting the story down, easy-peasy. The process can feel like someone else is actually assembling it, or that it's been presented to your mind pre-built. It can tumble out of your head onto paper, done.

It's rare for it to happen (at least it certainly is for me), but it happens. For me, it's happened exactly once before, on a live-action film I made years ago). Now I can say it's happened twice, and I swear, it feels like winning the lottery.

But to win the lottery means LUCK was at work. I don't think that's actually the case with story. I think this final story that "fell out of my head" on to paper was only able to do that because I had been testing and refining and pushing the other ideas, as I searched for the "right" story to produce. At least I like to tell myself that, so it doesn't hurt the feelings of the "failed" stories too much ("story is a living thing," as Buchbinder writes).

Don't worry, the next story development posting with actually address the particular story I went with, specifically.

Hey, it's my blog, I can stretch things out as much as I want! And there's only two of your reading anyway- my Mom, and someone in in Kentucky who thinks my blog is about washing machine repairs.

Actually, my readership seems to steadily climb, which is quite a nice feeling.

TFS- Story Development Process, Part 1

As a reminder, I'm labeling all the entries for my new short film, if you want to place any entry into a context...

Personally, an initial story challenge isn't to come up with a story or a premise. The challenge is to come up with a story or a premise that means enough to me that I know I will stick with it through what might be a several year process. It has to be a story that is true to me.

Brand "Chris Walsh," if you will.


I'm at a point in life where I can fairly confidently state that I (hopefully) have time to keep making at least a few more films. But at the same time, I'm also at an age when I know I don't have as MUCH time as I used to have. Tick, tock, tick tock... a strong sense of one's own mortality is a wonderful motivator.

So, if I only have so much time left on this planet, what do I want to make with that precious time? I want to look back and be proud.

I gravitate to certain themes, it would seem. I get many ideas for "Twilight Zone" type tales, usually ones that have an aspect of a moral lesson attached, often about human mortality.

I seem pretty fixated on the struggle we all go through involving the fact that our physical bodies are so fragile, and prone to decay (hence the horror movie fixation? You tell me).

I generally aim to tackle hard-to-face topics, but served up in a tone and style that is attractive to an audience, (call it "charm") with some element of a "lesson" being conveyed through the story.

Here's some story ideas that have hit me over the last year or so (all to be staged in stop motion animation):

-a robot boy who struggles to bring his long-dead human creator back to life...

- an old woman facing what might be her last winter, when suddenly the devil appears. he offers to give her youth back but at a cost (of course).

- a man who cannot die, despite his best efforts, all the while his body is decaying (essentially a very dark comedy, zombie-style)...

And here's a few story development images from the "old woman" story, and the "man who wouldn't die" story. You can click to enlarge them.







As you can see, the process itself is a TOTAL mess, not fit for public viewing (except when being used for educational purposes!) Actually, speaking for myself, I LOVE seeing process, the work that goes on that leads to the finished work, so feast your eyes.

It's a personal process of connecting this to that in terms of story elements. It's a process of raising story questions on paper, crossing out and rewriting... it's a mess, but it's real, and it's on paper so as to refer back to.

In my opinion, few things are more harmful to early story development than to work it out on a word processor. It's just too easy to erase something utterly. It's too neat. When you do it on paper (or at least revise on paper, from a word processed document), you can see the whole thing laid out, forever (even if it's scribbled out). This informs the story as it develops, I feel. And it makes for a cool looking piece of post-modern storytelling, if you ask me.

So with no shortage of concepts in hand, it's simply a matter of starting to MAKE one, right?

Nope. As it turned out, finding the right story took about 6 months of developing various concepts and playing them out (story-wise), testing their strengths, testing whether the story had the substance to sustain me in what I knew was going to be a very long process of development, production, and post-production...

As an indie film maker, you HAVE to test your story for strength. It's the bedrock you'll build the whole thing upon. And you're going to sweat and bleed and cry so much for the thing, if it's story isn't perfect for you (as the primary artist creating the piece), you'll give up.

In several cases (including both concepts in the scans above), I would be completely enthralled with a story, and spend week teasing out plot points, imagining the staging, dashing out thumbnails sketches, convinced that THIS was the one, THIS was my next film!

But in each case, it was revealed that those concepts were NOT the real deal.I would develop and develop, only to find a roadblock in a story that wore me down as I tried to get around it. Or I'd find that my enthusiasm for the story would, sadly, simply dry up.

Thank goodness for "idea drawers", (or in my case, a journal) where all these half-formed concepts can dwell. By having a safe place to store them, it hurts a lot less to walk away from them, then if I had simply thrown them away. I can imagine the concepts "sleeping," "resting," or "waiting". But they're not "dead". Who wants to kill his own newborn ideas?!

And you never know what might be just the right idea, years down the road...


Anyway, these various story concepts depicted above couldn't hold up to the testing. With each one drying up on me, or road-blocking me in some serious way, the search continued. It's a process. You sleep, get up, think about new ideas, live your life... go to sleep, get up... you listen for a story to start talking to you... Working in an indie fashion, I can afford to take this much time on story. I set my own deadlines, so I'm patient. You CAN rush a story, but why do if you don't HAVE to?

I really respect stories, and their process of development. Letting a story reveal itself, in its own time, seems a respectful way to proceed.

And hey- it's my film, so I get to do it my own way!

TFS=FUN

Yes, my film True Family Story now goes by an acronym, "TFS". Deal with it.

Anyway, in the flavour of fun, here's a few more tasty stills. I must say, doing some "horror movie" scenes in this project was WAY too much fun (and has been going over pretty well with the selected victims I've been showing footage to). It might be hard to resist doing an all-out horror movie in the future...

Regarding the film, I'm about to end the first portion of shooting, before going on some nice holidays. The film is approximately 75% shot, with the remaining shots to be done either at the end of summer (when I'm back at school), or over the Fall semester (on evenings and weekends). Then the sound and score... I'm hoping to have it completely finished to show off, come Spring 2010.

I could probably rush and push and get it done sooner, but the school year makes it hard to move it forward (what with teaching those darn students), and I don't WANT to rush it. I want to take time, and make the process enjoyable. It's my own thing, for no external client, and so I need to enjoy that.

It's actually really nice to work at a modest, humane pace.

I have a whole heap of further posts, a lot of behind-the-scene stuff about story, puppet making, lighting and so on, that I'll start tossing up here in the coming weeks. It will be an awesome thing to tackle while on vacation.

Stay tuned.

True Family Story Update

This is a tempting little pic from what I'm currently working on.

If you follow the label for this entry, you'll see a bit of the background for the project, in terms of research. It's called True Family Story, and that's exactly what it is.

In brief- in the mid 1960s, my oldest brother was bit by a squirrel. My family had reason to believe said critter might have rabies. The events that unfolded around that incident have resulted in a "famous" family tale, filled with tears, laughs, weirdness, and a certain amount of semi-cruel humour.

That's my family, all right!

And It seemed like a likely candidate for a little animated film. Stop motion, of course.

I'm working on it during the coming months, in the stop motion studio at Sheridan College. I have a trusty assistant in the form of a co-op student. She is otherwise known as the very talented Carla Veldman. We're working away, building everything needed (puppets, sets, props), and aren't stopping till we're done (or until I go on vacation).

I really can't say when it will be completed. Working full-time, raising a little kid, helping out with elderly parents, and being a husband (and doing each at least reasonably well) leaves only so much time for "art". But it WILL get done, you'll see.

In time, I'll start posting more photos and videos of behind the scenes stuff. Along with that will be writings that explain what's going on, and I'll probably write a fair bit of "how to" stuff as well. I AM a teacher, after all.

But for now I'm really trying to focus on just getting as much stuff made (and shot) as possible, with the precious studio time alloted to me, so bear with me.

I will definitely be posting oodles of goodness.

More Beginnings

I haven't been updating this blog lately, and I have a semi-valid reason. With only so much free time on my hands (working full-time, and managing a six month old), I can only do so much. And rather than blogging, I've been working on a new stop motion film idea.

I have been extremely cautious about posting much about it, for a few reasons. The first is that, as with anything that is fledgling, one treats it with TLC. So to start blabbing about it through this blog would be, well, poor parenting (if one thinks of a film project as being a child, of sorts).

Another reason I've hesitated to write much about the film and its progress is that I didn't originally want this blog to become "merely" a production blog. It seems to me that a production blog (and I write this with great respect for the many, many students at school who use their blogs to show off their developing films) can do more harm than good to a project. One can get so busy updating the blog with new "behind the scenes" images, tests, etc for a project, that the production blog actually BECOMES the project. And the time spent on updating and polishing a blog to show off the work in progress could be better spent just working away on the project itself!

I am also torn by the idea of an artist revealing everything up his or her sleeve, before the "trick" (in this case, the film) is even done. Filmmakers (and I think storytellers in general) have an undeniable streak of showmanship in them even if, as animators, we are far from the actual spotlight, as we toil away at our desks or computers or stages. And what kind of showmanship is it to reveal your grand piece, bit by bit, to the world, before it's even done?

Hitting the audience with the unexpected is a very powerful tool for a filmmaker to employ. So much of the pleasure of watching a film can (should?) be in the active process of putting the pieces together, bit by bit, as those bits are revealed to the audience, shot by shot. If the audience has already seen every scrap of a film BEFORE it's on the screen as a whole, what a loss of possible impact this is. If the audience knows the whole film already, what fun is watching the film itself? And of course, animation is ripe for this, as the film is "done" in the form of an animatic long before the actual film is finished.

Talk about a "spoiler".

On the other hand (and it's a big other hand, size XXXL), allowing a blog to become a project development space is:

a) very educational for showing how a project is put together, stage by stage. And I am an educator, by profession and by nature.

b) potentially useful for gaining feedback from readers on posted items. I say potentially because I don't get many comments, and not all advice is good advice.

c) potentially useful as it allows the filmmaker to take a step back a bit from the project, and get some critical distance. By putting the pieces of the film "out there," it can offer new angles and facets that the filmmaker might never had seen had it not been made public.

d) gratifying to the inherently insecure lump inside my heart, in that it allows me to say "See? I'm really making something! I really am an artist, no foolin'!"

With all this in mind, here's a lip sync test I recently did. The character is me (see an earlier post that has a test puppet head, that is basically the same design). Here though, the drawing is to scale (in that the drawing size is 1:1 with the size the puppet will be), whereas the posted puppet head is smaller than it should be. As I said, that was a test head for materials, paints, and so on.




This scale drawing of the character, that includes not just the head, but the whole character, in costume, (which maybe I'll post another time) allows me to decide if it's big enough to get my hands on to easily animate, but also not TOO big so as to cause other production problems.

The mouth shapes are also to scale, and this test is to see how the shapes I've created will work once I sculpted them (along with the head). It's obviously much easier to refine the shapes while they are still on paper than after I've sculpted them.

The test turned out fine. As with any replacement mouth animation, there's no blending of the shapes, so it invariably feels rather "blunt," but that's stop motion. The "applied" feel is part of what I love about the tactile, hands-on quality of puppet animation.

A stop mo tip: always, always, always get your characters designed to scale with what the puppet will be, as soon as you possibly can.

From that stage you will already start to feel what it will be like to "lay hands" once it's three dimensional, AND from that drawing you can start envisioning your camera angles (just use a cut-out of the scale drawing in front of your lens to see how it will look) sets, props... that scale drawing means you now have an instant "stand in" for your actual puppet, and you can really start moving on other aspects of production.