Saturday, May 17, 2008

TAKE A SHOT!

Shel here:

last week when justin was crunching on all his freelance jobs, progress on our film was starting to feel too slow (especially this close to the end when all we want to do is go full throttle)..... so he asked me to take a few shots.

who? me?!? um, YEEEAAH!!

so that was very much fun. here's a couple of them, they're very simple reaction shots.


EDWARDO CONSIDERS GERALD




EDWARDO SERIOUSLY CONSIDERS GERALD

and now justin is free of his freelance jobs, so FULL THROTTLE it is.

FOUR more shots and we are done shooting this film!

if all goes smooth, we'll be done shooting in two weeks.


Possible hitch: we were down to our last little girl puppet and she's not holding up so well.....she might not have made it through her big 8 second acting shot ("Daddy, Daddy, can I have this one?")...so i made another one just in case....the cool thing is i made her, from the armature to the eyeballs, in 28 hours. that is the fastest i've ever popped one out so i'm walking around feeling pretty cocky about it (the hot weather helped to dry her quick between pastes and paints).








QUICK NEW GIRL
(Justin and Nicky sculpting in the background....ya'll are going to FREAK when you seen Nicky's new sculpture--oh, sorry, i mean POWERFUL DIARAMA!!)


NOW ONTO MY SET PUZZLE: i'm still working out how i'm going to build a grassy hill top for the pups to walk up.....long tie downs over a styrofoam hill sounds easiest to me.....(to construct anyway, but tying down sounds awkward consdering the angle and the length).....and i'd rather not use styrofoam for ecological reasons.....paper mache? also i want to make it so the tie down holes don't show, i haven't had to puzzle that out yet since i just made the pound set holey all over, so that will be interesting. since the puppets will be walking up a dirt path, i think i can predrill holes and fill them with clay....or maybe have justin drill as he goes.....hmmm that could solve the wierd angle problem too, but again a hassle while animating.....if any of you all have experience with hill sets, (the camera is at their backs as they walk up a hill) i'd love to hear about it. i would bend thin plywood over a frame, but the trick is that we want the hill to not only arch forward to back, we also want to see the line of the hill arching left to right (so the puppets are really up on the tip top of a hill). DOES ANYBODY KNOW....can i make paper mache steady enough to not WIGGLE between shots? justin's not easy on a set and this is a tricky shot--6tie downs/frame. i gotta go hold a puppet while think about it, i'm not going to figure it out sitting here! in any case, i'm happy to say it's coming up quick so i'll have figured it all out soon!

IT'S GETTING VERY BUZZY AROUND HERE!

we'll keep you posted.

4 comments:

Shelley Noble said...

Fantastic film debut, Shel! And a eye-to-paint pupp in a day!? wow. way to rock it.

Nick H. describes his hill technique over at the board if you haven't seen it? http://www.stopmotionanimation.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=21&topic_id=1238&mesg_id=1238&page=

Shel Wagner Rasch said...

thanks shelley,

nick's hills look awsome.....definitely going to go track down some fiberfill....

shel

Ryan McCulloch said...

Great shots Shel!

Anonymous said...

Hi Shel,

There's this stuff that comes on mesh sheets of cotton or a material like that which is basically like instant papier mache'. Michaels has it, and it might be made of fiberglass, I can't find it online. Great stuff, though. I've always had it in the back of my mind in the event that I need a hill set. Until then, I'll just make them stagecraft-style, staggered like the chairs in a theater and in relief.