I'm back, after taking an extended break from the land of bloggin'.
Facebook, through its ability to post info and links so quickly, has been the place I've been posting stuff lately. But a blog allows for a more in-depth look into topics, and I've started to miss that a bit.
And, when I look back at all my entries- gosh darn it, I've got quite a bit of information here, including interviews and profiles of all kinds of things, so I want to continue to nurture that.
And what better way is there to come back to this blog then by showcasing a brand new book that is sure to appeal to ANY fan of puppets, monsters, and generally cool stuff:
MAD MONSTER PARTY, by Rick Goldschmidt. It's a great tribute to the memorable Rankin-Bass stop motion feature from 1967. Rick has filled the book with lots of great photos and press images, the script from the film, music and lyrics from the songs, and all kinds of neat stuff that I'd never seen before. It's a must for fans.
You can order the book directly from Rick Goldschmidt here.
Tim Burton has a major show (of his art in general) opening in Toronto. He was in town to promote it.
Kevin Parry graduated from Sheridan's Animation program last year, with his short film The Arctic Circle.
Kevin and his film were selected (along with other student films from around the Toronto area) to show his film to Burton and have a conversation around it.
Burton honestly digs his film, it's really nice to see.
Today I did a lecture on "medium hard puppet making".
"Easy puppet making" is taking a bit of epoxy and mixing it with armature wire.
"Medium hard puppet making" is still pretty easy (with practice), doesn't require any power tools, and gives you quite nice results.
"Hard"- cutting your own aluminum armatures (need a few power tools, and quite a bit of precision)
"Silly Hard"- making stainless steel ball-and-socket armatures (good ones). Why bother unless you're planning to be a pro puppet maker? Or are just really into metal work. If you need a ball and socket armature, buy it.
Anyway, here's a few pics of a semi-finished puppet:
And here's two images of the how-to: drawing him to scale, then on another piece of paper "light box" him around his edges, and then use that to draw in your armature of wire and epoxy, and make that armature (always working to scale)...
Super pleased that world-renowned horror magazine Fangoria did a flattering piece on my stop motion zombie film. This magazine (in case you don't know) has been around for years, has been a huge inspiration for countless filmmakers, and is known around the globe.
I hadn't posted it online at first, so that it retained a bit of an "exclusive" nature for traditional (terrestrial?) film festivals. Now that the film has played around a bit, AND since it's Halloween, I've decided to make it public.
I hope you enjoy it, it sure was fun to make. Zombie puppets are WAY too much fun to make.
Please spread it around via all those social network thingies...
Happy to report I just got word that my zombie film "Rise of The Living Corpse" has just been accepted to another festival. This one is the Maelstrom International Fantastic Festival, in Seattle.
I'm now 5 for 6 on festivals I've heard back from... it's the best average I've ever had on a short film, to be honest. Funny how you learn as you go (and keep learning). From this high percentage of acceptances at horror festivals (as opposed to animation festivals) it makes me think of the age-old saying: "Give 'em what they want."
It seems that what "they" want is my horror films (not that this short is truly a horror film in any graphic sense, it's actually totally G-rated). And if "they" are wanting that, perhaps that is what I should keep giving them.
It's an interesting approach for an indie animator to consider- create genre or niche films that appeal to a specific audience, but do it in animation.
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".
TAIS (Toronto Animated Image Society) is having an exciting event. If you're in the Toronto area, and want to see what is hot/fresh/new in indie animation, check this out. Pals (and fellow stop motion filmmakers) Mike Weiss and Marc Beurteaux have works in the showing (although I don't think either films are exclusively stop mo!), and recent Sheridan grad Kevin Parry will be showing his stop motion graduation film Arctic Circle (a superb film, student or otherwise). I'm planning to be there, you should too.
I will past the details below:
You are cordially invited to join TAIS for an evening celebrating the best new animations from Toronto and beyond! Short animated films of all styles and genres will be screened, along with entries from our animated jam session, the Aqua Jam. We’ll also screen the cameraless animations created over the year at our monthly Incubator sessions. Awards and reception will follow screening. An event not to be missed! Come out and support your local animation scene.
TAIS ANIMATION SHOWCASE THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 2010 7:30 PM; doors open at 7:00 PM At the TRANZAC CLUB (292 Brunswick Avenue – off Bloor St. near Bathurst St.) $8 general admission; $6 for TAIS members
Program includes: "The Orange" by Nick Fox-Gieg "Everybody" by Steve Reinke & Jessie Mott “Weenie Wagon Woe” by Willy Ashworth "I Need an Escape Plan" by Julie Doucet & Anne-Françoise Jacques "Beneath the Eye of Time" by Madi Piller "Recipe" by Martha Griffith "Birth" by Signe Baumane "Amoeba" by Patrick Jenkins "The Animator" by Marc Beurteaux "The Arctic Circle" by Kevin Parry "Heavenly Bodies" by Mike Weiss "Nukie Goes Bonkers" by Jonathan Amitay "William's Creatures" by Pasquale La Montagna ... And so much more!
Great news, Eric Goulet is heading up year 2 of his festival in beautiful Montreal. This is an important festival for the community of stop motion, so it really needs support (and entries)... Here's what Eric is saying:
The 2010 Montreal Stop-Motion Film Festival: Call for entries!
Montreal, 8th of June 2010: We are back!
Hot on the heels of the hugely successful first edition of the Montreal Stop Motion Film Festival, we are officially opening the Call for Entries for 2010.
www.StopMotionMontreal.com
To enter your film in the festival, download a submission form, fill it out, and send it, along with your film.
Deadline for film submissions is: September 10, 2010.
Please refer to the entries section on our website for answers to any questions you might have concerning eligibility, dates, accepted formats, and new rules.
This year, the professional segment has been updated with a new category for films-commercials less than 1 minute in running time and we will have more guest appearance during this week-end long event that promises to be super cool!
The festival will be held in Montreal, from the 29th to the 31st of October 2010
Help us spread the word and tell all your Stop Motion friends to participate and join us for the coolest festival around!
Cinematographically yours,
Erik H. Goulet Director info@stopmotionmontreal.com
It was done using Dragon software, and the Canon Rebel T1. The result certainly is interesting, and implies a lot of creative uses in stop motion. Frame blurring or motion blur is typically lacking in stop motion. That's because one moves the puppet... takes an exposure. Then you move the puppet again... take an exposure. So the puppet is in a static position when each frame is taken. There is simply no movement to blur.
In live action, there are actual frames of film that are blurs of movement, when something moves quickly. And in traditional animation, the animator actually draws blurred frames. This lends the work a real sense of life, that can be realistic, or wildly stylized. But in stop motion, it tends to not exist.
But if you have a camera that can do a timed exposure (such as the Rebel can do, when working via Dragon), you can actually move the puppet while the exposure is being taken, giving blur.
In this test, the blurring is wild and extreme. If I did further tests, I'd use the technique more sparingly to see how it looks. What's curious (for camera nerds) is that for the first few frames of the test, there is very little depth of field. That's cause I was using a rather quick exposure time, to just get the held frames shot- around 1/8th of a second, at f5.6 (ISO 200). But just as the blurring frames start, you'll notice the depth of field greatly increases (most evident in the bg train). That's cause I had switched the camera setting to a 4 second exposure, and had to stop down to approx. f22 (still at ISO 200) to maintain consistent exposure.
This massive stopping down (from 5.6 to 22) greatly increased the depth of field. So it's neat to see a principle of lenses and optics (in this case: a smaller aperature increases the depth of field)so clearly at work.
Then, once the blurring frames were done, I switched BACK to 1/8th shutter and f5.6 (so as to quickly grab the frames, since they were just held frames) and you see the depth of field go back to how shallow it was in the first frames.
There's ways to reduce this visible shift in depth of field, namely I could have shot at a much higher ISO, which would have let my timed exposures be much shorter, and my f stop change be not nearly as dramatic. Or- I could have shot ALL the frames at the one timing exposure setting (in other words, set it and forget it, instead of shifting things on the fly). But hey- it's just test 01 of potentially dozens...
I'm very much enjoying the combo of Dragon and the fully manual DSLR for stop motion. I love being able to control all these attributes, something that was very difficult if not impossible in earlier "camera/software" stop mo setups.
Dragon really makes it simple, and easy. If you know your principles of lenses and optics, you can get to work making fabu stuff... fast.
NERD NOTE: As much as this is nice to do some fancy motion blurs here in 2010, check the video below. It's from The Mascot, by Ladislas Starevich. Shot in 1934.
Watch towards the end of this clip, as the animals jump around within the box. There's blurring there (and more in later clips, if you watch). And some wonderfully convincing rear-projection live action footage, as well!
Yet another reason why for my money Starevich is pretty much the tops in terms of stop motion historical figures. He did most of his stuff on his own, essentially at the same calibre as what was happening in Hollywood at the time (can say King Kong?), and did it all on a much smaller budget. And with far more charm (in my opinion).
I'm currently in production (on a co-production), with none other than Mr. Kaj Pindal, world famous animator. It's a film that features toy trains, brought to life through stop motion animation.
The concept is Kaj's, the trains are Kaj's... I'm providing some further creative insights, and my stop motion skills.
It's also a chance for us to test drive the studio's new HD set up that is running the Canon Rebel and Dragon.
The finished film will be about 3 minutes long, will be set to a lovely piece of music (a popular Danish tune from the mid 1800s), and will entertain both young and old. That's all I will say for now.
When will it be done? When it's done (I like Kaj's style towards release dates!)
I'll post updates on occasion. Here's a clip to get started:
I'll update the project occasionally, but here's a video to get it started. It was a great first day. We had recent grad (and super talented artist) Carla Veldman, Kaj himself, and our studio's technology guru Aldines Zapparoli, all grooving away.
It's a rare thing when you can get together a core group of talented and awesome people, of all ages (!) to make something exciting. And if you can listen to vintage jazz music at the same time, well... I think you've died and gone to heaven.
Stop motion people tend to enjoy messing and modifying and remixing things, sometimes just for fun. Other times it's to achieve something for a project. Often it's for BOTH reasons- it's fun, and it gets the job done.
Here's a very simple and elegant little thing- a way to amplify (and then distort if you want) just about any sound you can tape the unit on to.
For some reason youtube is being difficult when it comes to embedding, and is cropping clips off. Is that a way to make people have to go to the actual youtube site to watch clips properly, as a way of getting more eyes on to youtube ads, so as to generate more $ for youtube.
Or maybe I'm just cynical about giant money-making entities. Anyway:
You can see the original stop motion blog this clip comes from, by clicking here.
So I received a delightful surprise in the mail today. An advanced copy (I think that's what you call it when it's not on the stands yet) of Barry Purves new book, simply called "Stop Motion".
It's a beautifully designed book, laid out wonderfully, with great care. Super nice to simply hold in your hands. And as expected the content is fantastic. Purves has such a great writing style. It's passionate, assumes an intelligent reader, and never hesitates to take the metaphysical aspects of the medium seriously. I'm also very proud to say I have a total of three images from my own films in the book. I'm super excited to be amongst so many legends of the medium, and thanks to Barry who supports indie productions as much as (if not more than) big studio stuff.
Anyone who has breathed life into a puppet through stop motion can attest- something magical happens, something mysterious and deeply rooted in what it means to be human, the moment one lays hands on the object to be animated. Purves feels this deeply, and explores it. No other author's stop mo "how to" books do this, and it's vital to understanding the medium deeply.
From the creators of Madame Tutli- Putli comes this adaptation of the Maurice Sendak book. It's available on the Blue-Ray of Where The Wild Things Are (but not the dvd, so us poor schmucks are out of luck).
It features some wonderful puppet work (from what I've seen from these clips), and good on the NFB for working with a major studio (Warner) to create something artistically distinctive, but at the same time commercially oriented.
It was created in part through Concordia University in Montreal, through an Intern project. It's an exciting thing to see an educational institute strive to work with industry to create significant work. I'm personally a very big fan of schools reaching out to industry to forge stronger ties. It really helps industry, the school, and most importantly students.
Here's the link to a very informative piece on Don Sahlin, an American puppet maker and stop motion animator. Thanks to Mark Mayerson for the link (and Michael Sporn for continually posting such fascinating and diverse stuff).
As promised, here's the second and concluding part of the interview. Much thanks to Payton for taking the extensive time to answer so many questions, in such detail.
And again, Payton's answers are in italics...
Part 2 The relationship between a stop motion animator and his or her animation director is typically a very important one. Can you describe what in your opinion makes for a great feature film stop motion animator director?
That one is simple, going to bat for you. You've got enough on your plate to deal with from day to day set, prepping and shooting. So a good animation director will oversee anything to do with the animation side of things. Sets, puppets, wardrobe, you name it, can cause problems in animation. Although these people are truly brilliant artists, they are not by trade animators. A good animation director will float between all departments making certain that everything being made is "animator friendly".
Another relationship that’s key is between a stop motion animator and the puppet department. The puppet department is responsible for helping you perform to your greatest potential. Can you describe how that relationship flows on a feature?
Very important! A poorly tensioned puppet or an unfastened piece of fabric for instance can be hell once launched on a shot. The animator/puppet maker relationship is crucial. As an animator it is your job to give defined demands and reasonable explanations for anything and everything you request. Once a puppet is in a shot it must perform well, otherwise your performance will suffer. And as I've learned, do it exactly right the first time! Once it's done, it's done. After that you will be forced to look at your mistakes every time you watch the piece. Patience and preparation are paramount.
What are some of the biggest challenges in being a feature film stop motion animator?
The biggest challenge is keeping your chops up! Unlike most television series(which are quite forgiving), feature work generally speaking demands the utmost attention to detail and quality of performance. In a 50-60 hour work week, spanning two years, you are required to stay sharp and give it your best from shot to shot. That’s a very difficult thing to do. If you have an off day, everybody notices it and it'll be there on display for the world to see!
Biggest rewards? (beers with Bill Murray could definitely count).
Definitely the best rewards are the people you work with. Yup, meeting a childhood hero like Bill Murray (a true gentleman) and downing a few was pretty cool. Working with Henry Selick was a treat, I was a huge fan of “Slow Bob In The Lower Dimensions” in high school.
But the absolute best is working with the best artist in the business! Painters, sculptors, cameramen, animators, designers, effects wizards, wardrobe, riggers, set builders... These people are the reason you give it your best day to day. That immense wealth of talent keeps you on your toes! You don't want to disappoint all these brilliant people by shooting a poor performance. You want to make them proud of their efforts by doing the best you can.
Looking back at your successes thus far as an animator, was there a moment that has proven to be pivotal, or key, in terms of your development? Even a childhood thing, perhaps, that “makes sense” in some way today?
Not to be grim, but losing my Mum as a boy was tough. I grew up fast and learned, arguably the greatest lesson a kid can learn- take nothing for granted. Work hard, stay true to yourself and expect in return only what you put into your efforts.
Other pivotal, professional moments that stand out that you’d like to share?
A few, but the standout moments professionally were working along side people that had an impact on me and whom I admired through the developing years. Henry Selick of course and Trey Thomas for instance.
Trey has worked on nearly everything stop-motion over the years and I split an “Other Mother” sequence with him on Coraline once I had proven myself to be relatively competent. Trey is a great supporter of other animator's work and has no ego. Seeing my work along with his was a kick. He was the "Godfather" of animation on Coraline. Trying to mimic the masters and make seamless cuts from one animators work to another was a great challenge.
AND...of course professionally and personally, meeting Julianna. An amazing animator who worked on Coraline. We were pals throughout the two years on the film and were recently married! That's pretty pivotal I'd say!
What is it with stop motion in recent years? It’s only growing bigger. My thinking is that in an increasingly digital age, it’s hugely reassuring to see something so human and physical on screen. It has a warmth that we, as humans, deeply crave. What are your thoughts on the medium’s continued rise in popularity? You pretty much nailed it! Computer animation has the look of something that's been "over-polished"(in my opinion). Stop-motion on the other hand has a unique look that cannot be mimicked. Slight imperfections whether it be a misplaced frame, a 'boiling' piece of clothing (flutter from being handled by the animator), a slight set shift, or a prop being nudged... All of these "imperfections" is what makes the craft so unique. Every frame has been manipulated by hand.
For the premiere of Coraline, they had work stations from the studio set up in the theatres. This gave the public an insider, behind the curtain look of just how complex, detailed, and hand-made the process is. From the design, to build, to animation people were mesmerized by what they saw. They then went into the theatres to see how all of these inanimate works of art could be coaxed and manipulated into a lifelike performance! Great fun! Beat that CG!
This tactile presentation taps into anyone who played with toys as a boy or girl (that’s everybody I assume). Luckily I get to do this for a living! Bringing beautiful "toys" to life for others to enjoy.
If someone reading wants to be where you are professional down the road, but is just starting out in formally learning about stop motion, what insights could you share to help him or her in that effort?
Practice. Whether it's music, sports, academics or animation, you must focus and improve your skills constantly. Now more than ever before, anyone can take up stop-motion in their own homes with as little as a computer and a cheap digital camera. So get cracking! We are all students for life.
I've been animating professionally for about a decade, and am now working on my fourth feature film and I still pick up new tricks and gags constantly. You just have to keep your eyes open and leave the ol' ego in a box somewhere where you’re not likely to find it. You can learn something from everybody if you keep your mind open to learning and criticism.
I know you have some of your own projects in development. Would you like to tell us about that? I just finished producing and directing (and animating of course) Wes Anderson's acceptance speech for the National Board of Revue in NY. I guess I did a good enough job on Fantastic Mr. Fox to have them give a ring here in Canada and ask if I'd like the job. It was fun! I shot it in my studio at home over the holidays. This is the first high profile gig that my company, Darkfarm, has produced! Hooray!
I have also optioned a television series I created called "Super Robot Fight Planet!" to a company here in Toronto called Copperheart. They are a great bunch and with any luck in the next year we'll be making a stop-motion giant robot series for the kids! (and big kids).
