First of all, I wanted to say, that the blog is one month old today, and has had 500 visits in the first 30 days of live, which makes me very happy!! To that, you have to sum that the Sun has being shining today in Farnham.
I started the day doing some juggling in the main street to make some extra money. After that, I went to the fields with some friends to enjoy the sun, and I don't know why but I thought of Andy Goldsworthy, one of my favourite artists (I strongly recommend his documentary: Rivers and Tides) and we came up with a piece of Land Art I wanted to share with you: The Dizzy Daisy
When I got home, I started making what I think will be the final design of the head armature, as well as some ultra resistant hand armatures (I hope this ones don't snap so fast because I've covered the wire with protective plastic tubing)
Tomorrow I am doing some foam latex, so we should have some interesting stuff going on, also, I've already sent a foam latex head and some hand for the make up artists to start making paint tests...hopefully it wont be to long before I have a completely finished puppet!!
Let's hope the week starts well
What a busy week, as I've come back from Spain. My room was invaded by all the house's furniture because they are shooting Dear Ana... (the film) in the house. On Thursday they shot in a basement, and I helped the production department to cook food for the whole crew. The highlight of that day though, was that I started chatting with the two make up artists involved in the film, and the conversation derived to foam latex. Guess what, they are amazing foam latex painters for prosthetics!!! So I got myself a deal!!
On Friday my idea was to continue helping my housemate with her film, but I had to go to uni to book a kiln for baking my latex next week. Funny enough, I had forgotten about the lecture we had in uni, but I arrived just in time to be reminded.
Merlin Crossingham (Aardman's creative director) came to Uni to share his knowledge with us :
Here he is, with all the puppet he took with him (I hope you can appreciate the scale) And now a close up video of the characters!!
I am sorry for the quality, but this is what my phone gets up to.... Anyway, I notices straight away, that the were-rabbit was made out of foam, and I couldn't resist to ask how the head was animated. He answered me with images and videos:
This was part of the character development of the Curse of the Were Rabbit, I think it is quite helpful!!
During the lecture, Merlin explained to us how he became what he is today: he has being working in Aardman for 16 years and started as a temporary runner for some projects. After that he was trained to became a senior animator and some time after, he was creative director.
Yes, that is Wallace's armature, created in Aardman studios. Normally they make their own armatures, but sometime thy order them to Taiwan, I can't remember the name of the man that makes them, sorry. Very surprising was to hear that unless there is a camera move on the shot, the shoot at two's (that is two frames for each pose of the puppet). A camera move doesn't work with two's so the shoot those in one's.
He explained to us how to make the motion blur on the persecution scenes, and is a very interesting strategy:
The make high exposure pictures (lets say 2 sec) and they maintain the puppet in his pose for the first second, and move it backwards on the second second (that sound weird) but what you achive is a clear image of your character followed by a blur that gives a great sensation of speed.
He also commented on how to prove your animation skills, and that is, if you are still thinking in how much you have to move the puppet to get the next interval right, you are not ready for character animation. It is when you think only about the performance of the puppet and not the animation principles to make it move that you really understand character animation.
He told me he hardly looks at previous frames while animating, maybe the previous one, but he already knows where everything is got to be for the animation to go fluid.
He also made a lot of emphasis in the importance of the poses. Everyone can learn the technique of animation, but to find the expressive poses of the character to transmit all his personality, that is another story.
Also interesting is that an animator is expected to make ONE second of animation a day (while shooting feature films). Shooting at two's, that is only twelve pictures a day!! I thought it was very slow, but then he explained all the modeling involved between frame and frame, and I had to shut up.
Merlin also mentioned the importance of minimal animation, this is, trying to express the most, with the least animation possible.Subtle movements of the eyes, or the eyebrows. A slight tilt of the head can express much more than a lot of overcharged animations.
After the lecture, he was cool enough to concede tutorials for whoever was interested. I was certainly.
So I asked him the questions I have being looking to be answered for some time :
How do I fit my head armature in the mould for my foam latex puppet?
He looked at me and said : I am sorry but I don't have the answer to that: foam latex is a craft itself and if I were you I would try to make the puppet in clay!! I almost started crying!! Then he said ,you have to take into account, that in Aardman, our foam latex technicians get one batch right out of five!! (I am two out of two...hehehe) and finally he recommended to shoot my film in white screen
I think I am going on for a bit too long now, so if you have any further questions please just comment the post and I'll answer shortly. That will be all for today.
Hi!!
Sorry I´ve been absent for a few days...those are side effects of visitting Madrid. I haven´t being working too much on my film, only putting together the animatic, with the pictures I took last week. This helps me with a reference of how long the shots are going to be, and also, if the puppet is able to make the posses I require from him. This is an example of a shot (I didn´t pay any atencion to the lighting, sorry about that)
I can judge how the shots fit together and is all around a very usefull thing to have. When I finish it some time next week I´ll post it , so you´ll be getting an idea of the film. Apart from that, Madrid has being to bussy for me to work on the handcrafted side of the film. On Sunday, I went with Repaté to the shooting of a Coca Cola advert for a competition. I had lot´s of fun, and I think there´s going to be a great end product!
The other good news, is that and interview about my film has being published in a very interesting blog about stop motion animation: Interview . Hopefully this will help me meet some new people in the proffesion.
Not much more to say,I hope I´ll be able to post some behind the scenes footage of the coca cola advert soon, and I arrive to England on Wednesday, so prepare for battle!!
Today has being one of those long, long days, with a lot of things done.....so prepare for a long and boring post!
Before getting the puppet to stage, I had to cut the edges. I don't have the necessary elements to make the Pro-Paste, so the middle line across the puppet is quite visible.
After getting the puppet clean and isolated, I had to dress him up. I had plan to cut the hands off, as the are replaceable, but I found it also made the job of dressing the puppet much, much easier.
After suiting him up, it was time for his hair style. I divided the hair in three parts, making one of them animatable. :
After the hair was ready, the was nothing left to do before shooting. Here are some Studio Pics:
Yes, he hates me. But I think he looks fairly good. I have to work on the hands A LOT, because I snapped 6 of them today. But the body armature responded great!. I placed the puppet in all the possible posses I am needing in the film, and it survived them all! But I still need to work on the final head (of which a have o make about six replicas ) and make as many hands as I can.
Tomorrow I am going to Madrid, so for the next week, I'll be working in Orli Ivanov's porcelaine sculpture animation, and the animatic of my film. I didn't have time to shoot the face closeups of the character...so I'll also be doing that. I hope to be able to upload the animatic soon!!
So just a few hours from now, I'll be Home!!!! Speak to you from there!
I finally have a foam latex puppet ready to go on set (I haven't painted it yet), with internal armature, tie downs and replaceable hands!! And it feels really good! The extra pair of hands look resistant and have casted really well.
The Bad :
The foam latex could have cured better, there are some rough surfaces in the shoes and neck of the puppet, one of my moulds had to be destroyed in order to rescue the puppet inside, and the main mould suffered serious injuries...This will teach me not to forget rubbing vaseline on the mould ever again.
The Ugly:
My new head mould, made of a harder plaster, looks just fine, but the head that has came out of it is one of the ugliest I've ever seen... The foam latex was not cured, and was stack to the walls of the mould. There can only be one reason as to why this one hasn't worked. It was the only mould that hadn't been "prekilned" to take all the water molecules out. That water has reacted with the foam latex and has done a hell of a job with it! (Another head armature to the bin)
But just as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was a great film, so has being my day. I am getting closer and closer to a fine, resistant, light puppet. I'll be cutting off Mr. Marshal's edges, hair dressing him and dressing him up for the occasion. Tomorrow is his first day at the studio, lets see if he can put an animatic together without snapping the armature!
Wish me luck!!
Today, I am not a happy man..... After spending all week making a new mould, making head and hand armatures and getting it all ready for the foam latex run, bad luck has come to me in the most important of all process.
After repeating the exact instructions as last week for the mixing of the latex, setting the kiln at the same temperature and cooking it for half an hour longer(as the moulds were thicker), the foam latex has turned out to be undercooked...
The only reason I can think of, is that the kiln was under-fireing today, or over-fireing last week. Either way, it was already 16 :45 and with the studio closing at five, there was not much I could no. I've decided to cook the latex for another hour and a half at a slightly higher temperature, but I wont know the result until Monday.
What this means is, as I've being thinking about ever since I came out of the studio, that I will probably have a lot of difficulty in opening the mould on Monday. Specially when I just remembered a few hours ago, that I didn't rub the mould with vasseline...... The worst that can happen then, is that I have to start ALL the process again...and the best is that the puppets are fully cooked, and the moulds are as good as new. Between those two possibilities, there are a huge range of things that can go wrong, so I am very pessimistic towards Monday's encounter with the kiln.
The suspense continues once again....
Ohh! I just wanted to show a little piece of ...whatever this is I made with the remains of the latex during the everlasting two and a half hours of the foam cooking :
Without a doubt, the most tricky, precise and difficult I have come across in this project, but today, I think I finally made a decent one. (After 5 attempts it was about time) . I must say it took me all day, with a little frustrational break, so I hope it works when the moment comes on Friday. Here are the pieces I had to fit very precisely into the 3 cm head.
And here is the ugly result ...finished but not dried, so I'll cut off all the remaining wire tomorrow:
Before deciding what wire to use and where to put it, I made some test with the first foam latex head that had the armature in the slightly wrong place:
I found a couple of things, first of all, the cheek bones don't really give any extra expression to the character, so there is no need to waste space with them. The upper lip is to thin to place wire in it, so I fixed that in yesterday's mould. Also, I have an upper and lower lip, but if I want him to smile, there is nowhere to pull from, so I've put to wires in the sides of the mouth for this purpose. The eyebrows worked pretty well, but I am making a slight adjustment: in stead of one wire for both eyebrows, I've given each eyebrow it's independent wire.
I want a completely functional puppet this Friday, so I need to have everything ready by tomorrow night. Until then !!
