Stunt Puppet Pictures - LEGIT -

Hey guys,
Big Big Big things have been going on in our Stop mo universe lately and the Biggest STEP yet Toward our DREAM has been had............. HUGE STEP.......

We were contacted about a month ago by a Fan of our Film who had seen it on DELTA Airlines. This fan then was interested in our Next Short film in which we -SHEL - presented a Full package to him with all aspects of the NEW films Production. From Budget to Schedule......with pretty pictures ta boot.

This was enough to convince him to Invest in Us and our Film. .....so freakin Cool!!!!

IF ANYONE OUT THERE DID'NT HEAR our SCREAMS of EXCITEMENT when he said YES!!!!!!!!!...... you must have had your happiness mufflers on.....cause we were STOKED!!!! You have to understand the HUGENESS of this event......H U G E N E S S !!!
Getting Funding for a Film is HARD....Getting funding for a short film is Damm near IMPOSSIBLE!!!

just a few short months ago Me and Shel were at the Sonoma Film fest and we went to our first Panel on getting investors for you projects. We were walking in the park after the panel ....our minds turning towards making it a goal not just for the feature but for our Next Short Film first.

We would get our feet wet and try to make it happen now on a smaller scale before going Big League.

Well just a few short weeks after we put it into the Collective World Energy-Consiousness. It happened........... WOW! Hard Work, Positivity and GoodLUCK!! is the recipe for sucess.If you Buid it they will Come!! We are now official - Stunt Puppet Pictures - is on a RocketShip to our Dreams! So........we are looking to finish this film in May of 2011......and its looking like its gona be another AMAZING Ride!!

In other NEWS.........Diving into the 3D filming universe......we were looking at many options and trying to figure out if it would be worth it.....-finding equipment- experts in the Stereography....

complication of shooting a Garage -Indie -3d Film of Quality?

so....we went to a 3D club last week thinking there would only be a few guys there and were suprised to see MANY.....very passionate and very friendly lovers of the 3D process....They all offered us Advice and pointed us toward people who could advise us in our 3D Adventure.

After meeting with our 3D advisor {Jason Goodman , 21rst Century 3D} Who also contacted us via DELTA Airlines........we decided it all comes down to the Slider equipment we will need to aquire.......if this piece is affordable and precise enough?? we will go for the Massive undertakeing of learning to film in 3D.

after all........ it will give us Much More marketability in selling the film in a couple of years as the need for content will be higher as 3D becomes home entertainment. It will also be Incredible experiance for us as Directors and another reason for HighRolling Investors to believe in us.

Well.....we found the piece we needed with some help from Dick Kaneshiro....{thanks!} and its on its way to our home for some animation tests I am scheduled to do in the next months.

Another BIG News and step toward our Feature is personally .........Letting go of some of the aspects of production. This is somthing that has in my past been challenging....But I am at a point now where I am going to embrace it in certain areas with open armsStop motion is such a Laborous and slow process.....having help will just allow us as storytellers to get to the storytelling that much faster. Its also helps us practicing for when we are directing many people on our FEATURE.

Our first move in opening myself to help was getting INTERNS to help us meet our deadlines.

Luckily we have been contacted by many eager artists who would love to learn some of the stopmo process and are willing to exchange work for that Knowledge. AWESOME! ......

Our very First Intern is - Cam Leeburg - I first met him Interning at {Shadow Machine-Robot chicken}.....and he said he was interested in helping out. After we got going on this project we asked him if he was still interested......YES...... Shel is totally Running the shop {Art Direction-Construction-Organization} and cam is learning to work with new materials {blue foam} and is doing a GREAT job!!!
Starting Tuesday Cam Will meet our 2nd Intern {Dick Kaneshiro}.......he and Cam will be learning - Armature - Foam Latex Puppet Construction- painting {Creating Backup Flea Pilots and Dober's}

....and if they wish to work on their own art....we can advise......at our facility -GARAGE

I also will be supplying them with some animation education as part of our payment for their help. I hope to do some videos with some ideas and basics on the fundamentals of animation occasonally....and will always provide Critiqs for any work they would like.

I am not there during the day when most of the garage work is happening so the videos hopefully will work. Plus they can keep them to look at anytime they wish.

Ships progress Week 5 - Shel started Mystery ship 3??Secret?? - Todd { my brother}.....has been brought in as a metal expert/helper and is working on the Ship Windows { Vacuform technology }....for our Transparent Cockpit Windows - He used to work in the FX industry years ago but has always been more on the Mechanical side of things . Animatronic puppets.....and Industrial Design.

We both went to Art School together and started in the same Program- Industrial Design FX- I switched to CG -Animation while he remained in FX. He has alot of experiance and tons of ART mechanical Gifts. He will also be makeing the Landing Gear for the flea Ship out of metal for us.Jeff is around less lately and is takeing on more of a consultant roll.......

All together this tuesday we will have 4-5 people in the garage working on our Film....WOW!!

All of this is so exciteing and fills me with energy while I'm at work....I imagine shel running a small scale shop like she will one day do on our feature.....makeing artistic decisions and organizeing tasks for all involved.

I have to stop myself from picking up the phone every hour to ask what happened ??? I wana be there too!!!! bottom Line- is I'm super proud of my lady and really excited about Life!

In GLD News- We were accepted to a few more fests- and we were denied by a couple too - ....Ill fill you in on those soon...

ohh yeah....Go see UP.It was a perfect Film!! I LOVED It!!

jriggity

SHIPS week 4 - Flea Ship

Shel here with Flea Ship progress:

made some big jumps this week and am super excited.

THIS IS A PRETTY TECHNICAL POST so just scroll thru the pic if you're not interested in what kind of glue i used!

and TAKE NOTE: i've been at this for 4 weeks and Set Master Jeff has been around alot less the past two weeks as other work calls him, so i'm BY NO MEANS an expert at this......none the less here's my process this week.

BASE STRUCTURE

For Flea Ship I started last week with a 1/2" PLYWOOD base structure for foundation. I used ELMERS GLUE with HOT GLUE reinforcement to put together the base box and then glued (Elmers again) 1" BLUE FOAM to the box and shaped the main engine compartment which will support the rest of the ship

and then i made a smaller 1/4" wood frame for the top of the fusilage, and glued 2" BLUE FOAM onto it for shaping (shown drying above). [warning: i made my box a bit too tall though and am now having to sand through wood to get the curved shape i want--not ideal.]

then i shaped the top of the fusilage into general roundness and built a 1/2 " WOOD frame for the ships "jaw" and started attaching 2" FOAM for the bottom of the fusilage.


SHAPING

after my first pass of shaping i wasn't so happy with how "boxy" the ship was looking so i started rounding more agressively......blue foam is very much fun to sculpt cuz it's so flexible in it's response to the SCRAPER.......i scrape and it seems to say "did you mean sort of like this?" it doesn't matter that there's not much room for going back, because it takes it's form so gently, it's pretty intuitive. until i get impatient and start in with the BOX CUTTER (razor blade) and even the JIG SAW......then i have to be careful! but as long as i peel little tiny bits at a time (not much my style i must admit) it goes great.

below, left side still boxy, right side getting rounder.....

CANNED FORCED AIR is very useful for getting the blue foam dust off my face, mask and glasses (when i forget to wear the glasses, the foam dust irritates my eyes)
Starting to work on the ship's Brow......and using my beloved DREMEL (a rotary tool with tons of attachments for carving, sanding, sawing, buffing, and many things i don't know about yet.....very useful for miniature work!). here i'm using it to carve out an indent in the foam for my box structure (takes a steady hand cuz it carves through foam like a hot knife on butter).
making the 1/4" PLY box for the Brow (the wood extends further back than the foam so i can HOT GLUE it to the top of the fusilage frame). jeff continues to stress the point that in STOP MO you want EVERYTHING SECURELY ATTACHED to the main frame and the main frame able to be securely attachable to the ground. (so a foam brow without a wood frame attachment would not be secure enough....and i need the ships to be extra strong because justin is not a light handed animator! he works the puppets and sets HARD for all that beautiful squash and stretch!)

GLUE

this time i used LIQUID NAILS instead of ELMERS GLUE to attach the box because the foam surface is so uneven and the Elmers is too thin to connect, whereas the thick pasty Liquid Nails substance can fill in the holes......it' not so good for attaching foam to foam if you want to sand though (as it turns out) cuz Liquid Nails dries rubbery and doesn't sand well.

eventually we will glue/with hot glue the top of the fusilage to the foundation wood structure--but for now we are keeping them seperate for ease of shaping.

ATTACHING THE WINGS

it was pretty scarey carving into my fusilage (it's been fun, but i'm SO not interested in making a new one!)......Jeff keeps saying it's the Z axis that gets you!! but with his encouragement i dug in bit by bit and was really pleased with how well it worked out.

ATTACHING THE AFTER BURNER THINGYS (these are made from 2"BLUE FOAM glued together and shaped down)

imaging the cut......taking the plunge..... it fits!!!

Flea Pilot Gets FIRST Animation TEST.

Hey Guys,

Well this test is a long time coming.....I've been trying to get my paws on this puppet since he first was painted.......

BUSY!!!

So after not animating for a good few months and shel's going camping with Aedon and some of her friends.....I took the opporotunity to shake the rust off the hands and give this puppet a work out.

I found out.......... I can still animate....Phhfffffeeew. Funny how quickly I doubt my stopmo animation skills. It really is like rideing a bike.....you dont forget the craft.also......NEVER shoot with a tripod that is broken.....your just asking for Heart ache. I had more to this animation than I'm shareing but my tripod Dropped horribly in the last leg of the creation of this.....

I had to quit....and will have to finish the last bit of this piece on a later occasion....consider this the first 2/3 of the piece.

hope ya likes it....its been way too long since I got to post some animation on our blog.

jriggity

Sips Week#3 and GLD grabs 2 More WINS!!!

Hey Guys,

We are steady workin.....choppin away on the new film and runnin full steam towards our Giant DREAMS.

I am so close to finishing these Storyboards.....I can feel my drawings getting weaker though {pencil fatigue} so I need to tighten the belt and Knuckle up for the finish.....So close!!

Flea Ship starting to take shape.......the core Shape will be there next week for sure...

Aedon Getting her first experiance with POWER tools. Sandwiches of Blue foam glueing together for eventual shapeing of ship parts...Jeff cutting a part for the dober Ship.... Shel has been makeing Huge Progress on the Flear ship and she is Completly Flying on her own now ...she got the knowledge she needed from Our Ship expert Jeff and has been Applying and expanding upon regularly.Its so amazeing to come home from work and see such regular progress on the ships. Its truly like a little christmas present waiting as I pull my truck up to the House. The garage door has been open with Shel covered in Blue foam....a kiss and Hug and I'm blue foamed and in heaven looking at these bueaty's shes creating.Smoothe Caboose....its all fitting together.... We also built a cool claymation set for one of our many side projects last weekend.....we and many friends gathered around the kitchen table for hours and just made a clay world with many clay critters...these are all the pics I have....but it looks REALLY cool !I also had Lunch with fellow stopmotion Artist this week {Michael Granberry} as we do every now and then to catch up on things.

It was awesome to hear how awesome things are going for him and we came to the conclusion that when your doing the right thing in life.........Doors go FLYING open....... COSMIC -MaGIC- Karma....? who knows....but we are DEFINATELY on the right paths.

In Gerald's Last Day NEWS - GLD picks up 2 more WINS this brings our total to 9.....

We got the SOUTH BEACH ANIMATION FEST {HONORABLE MENTION} -

as well as the {Best Animated Film} BRIDGE FEST (Sarajevo) .....super cool!....we were in the same category as ....MADAGASCAR 2 and Kung Fu Panda!! .....POWERFULL! ha!!GLD was also accepted to a BUNCH of new fests which Ill write on later....

over and out guys....We are havin FUN!

jriggity