When I built the puppets for this film, I decided to film the process of making one of them. I did forget to film some steps, but most of it is there:
I believe you can see the clips with a better quality at my YouTube channel.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
The King Who Sought Immortality: Crocodogs and Scorpion Men
It's pityfully dour to think about how little you get done on your personal projects while having a day job. It's equally depressing thinking about how little the money you make from your day job, but that's a separate discussion. Take this madcap project as an example, my film "the King Who Sought Immortality". I've been at it for two years now, and though I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, it's taken too long, or has it. The film's an experiment in what can be done creating a virtual world using only consumer market cameras and software, and no money at all. It can be done if you have the one vital currency: Time.
What I'm doing now is simply adding some icing on the cake; Extra details in backgrounds and extra monsters to spruce things up. The scene you can see a still from above is an example of this. The king of the story enters the Underworld to ask help from the queen of the dead. Two "scorpion men" are standing to attention on either side of her throne, and two crocodile/dog hybrids are loitering in front of her. There is nothing Ray Harryhausen about this -no monsters are fought or killed- except that the scene lives up to his idea about making characters out of your monsters. Rather it is inspired by the touches ILM made to the Star Wars and Ewok films they supplied the effects for. Life is visible everywhere in these films, be it strange desert creatures outside of Jabbas palace, or weird birds flying through some swamp or forest.It's all about making a world filled with wonders, a place different from ours.
A quick walk-through on how the crocodogs were made. The upper and lower jaws were sculpted separately and cast in latex, reinforced with hard thermo plastic.
The head pieces were attached to an armature made of braided aluminum wire and thermo plastic (most US puppet makers seem to favour plumber's epoxy putty).
The armature was covered with layers of soft polyurethane muscles, glued on with contact cement.
And on top of that layers of scaly latex skin, cast from a plaster skin mold, were added.
The finished crocodog (there's only one, but filmed twice) was painted with tinted latex, diluted with water. Acrylic airbrush paints added the final details. This was actually the first time I animated a walking four-legged creature. It took two attempts to get it right. The first time around, the animator part of my brain just didn't click.
I made the crocodogs simply because I liked the idea. They seemed like something that appears in ancient myths, although I haven't really found anything resembling them in ancient art. They might also fit nicely into a Conan sword & sorcery yarn. The scorpion men do exist in Sumerian myth and play quite an important role. The "king" film is a hodgepodge of ideas stolen from mainly the Sumerian myths, and I had to have some scorpion men.
In the actual myths, they are rather strange hybrids; Winged, bearded men with bird's feet and a scorpion's tale, brandishing bows and arrows. Among other things, they guard the gateway to the Underworld, a concept which I used for this film. Making a puppet of these strange creatures were tempting, but I had a different idea. While reading about the scorpion men I thought about comic book artist Basil Wolverton's strange and uncomfortable insect/human hybrids, which pop up in his sci-fi and horror tales. I thought that would be a great deal more disturbing to see.
I needed four different scorpion guys, but the only real difference between them would be the look on their faces. So I did something I've never tried before (but will do again): I made one carefully detailed puppet body, with four interchangeable heads. The heads were molded in latex and had aluminum wire mouth armatures. Their necks were simply sawed-off marker pens, with a cork fitted between the shoulders of the puppet body. This may seem like a terribly cheapskate arrangement, but it was, in fact, a very good solution. You know how a thick marker pen pops into its cork and stays there. I could still twist the heads around, and a small joint in the head allowed it to tilt forwards and backwards.
The body was made of two parts, a front and a back side shell. All the body parts were cast in latex, simply because plastic body parts put a greater deal of stress on the aluminum joints. I've made one puppet with rigid body parts, and the joints kept snapping repeatedly!
The armature was the usual mix of aluminum wire and thermo plastic. The latex body parts were glued together around the armature. I wanted the bald human heads to be bizarrely distinct from the rest of the body (Wolverton-style), but I still toned the rosy human hue down in editing to a paler one.
What I'm doing now is simply adding some icing on the cake; Extra details in backgrounds and extra monsters to spruce things up. The scene you can see a still from above is an example of this. The king of the story enters the Underworld to ask help from the queen of the dead. Two "scorpion men" are standing to attention on either side of her throne, and two crocodile/dog hybrids are loitering in front of her. There is nothing Ray Harryhausen about this -no monsters are fought or killed- except that the scene lives up to his idea about making characters out of your monsters. Rather it is inspired by the touches ILM made to the Star Wars and Ewok films they supplied the effects for. Life is visible everywhere in these films, be it strange desert creatures outside of Jabbas palace, or weird birds flying through some swamp or forest.It's all about making a world filled with wonders, a place different from ours.
A quick walk-through on how the crocodogs were made. The upper and lower jaws were sculpted separately and cast in latex, reinforced with hard thermo plastic.
The head pieces were attached to an armature made of braided aluminum wire and thermo plastic (most US puppet makers seem to favour plumber's epoxy putty).
The armature was covered with layers of soft polyurethane muscles, glued on with contact cement.
And on top of that layers of scaly latex skin, cast from a plaster skin mold, were added.
The finished crocodog (there's only one, but filmed twice) was painted with tinted latex, diluted with water. Acrylic airbrush paints added the final details. This was actually the first time I animated a walking four-legged creature. It took two attempts to get it right. The first time around, the animator part of my brain just didn't click.
I made the crocodogs simply because I liked the idea. They seemed like something that appears in ancient myths, although I haven't really found anything resembling them in ancient art. They might also fit nicely into a Conan sword & sorcery yarn. The scorpion men do exist in Sumerian myth and play quite an important role. The "king" film is a hodgepodge of ideas stolen from mainly the Sumerian myths, and I had to have some scorpion men.
In the actual myths, they are rather strange hybrids; Winged, bearded men with bird's feet and a scorpion's tale, brandishing bows and arrows. Among other things, they guard the gateway to the Underworld, a concept which I used for this film. Making a puppet of these strange creatures were tempting, but I had a different idea. While reading about the scorpion men I thought about comic book artist Basil Wolverton's strange and uncomfortable insect/human hybrids, which pop up in his sci-fi and horror tales. I thought that would be a great deal more disturbing to see.
I needed four different scorpion guys, but the only real difference between them would be the look on their faces. So I did something I've never tried before (but will do again): I made one carefully detailed puppet body, with four interchangeable heads. The heads were molded in latex and had aluminum wire mouth armatures. Their necks were simply sawed-off marker pens, with a cork fitted between the shoulders of the puppet body. This may seem like a terribly cheapskate arrangement, but it was, in fact, a very good solution. You know how a thick marker pen pops into its cork and stays there. I could still twist the heads around, and a small joint in the head allowed it to tilt forwards and backwards.
The body was made of two parts, a front and a back side shell. All the body parts were cast in latex, simply because plastic body parts put a greater deal of stress on the aluminum joints. I've made one puppet with rigid body parts, and the joints kept snapping repeatedly!
The armature was the usual mix of aluminum wire and thermo plastic. The latex body parts were glued together around the armature. I wanted the bald human heads to be bizarrely distinct from the rest of the body (Wolverton-style), but I still toned the rosy human hue down in editing to a paler one.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
What is Your Work Worth?
This summer I made quite a lot of stuff for Castle Kalmar, which is a stately 16th century fortress (begun in the 12th century). It's one of the big tourist attractions in the south of Sweden and all sorts of arrangements for kids are going on there. This summer they needed some new stuff, which they wanted me to produce for them. Here's some of the stuff I did:
They needed about ten fake rats to be handled by storytellers dressed up as "forgotten prisoners" in the castle's dungeons. As always, they were first sculpted in clay.
They were then cast in latex, filled with soft polyurethane foam and had jointed feet and black button eyes added. The tail was also made in latex. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of them with fur added, but they were actually quite effective when used. A costume-making lady at the castle did the fur-adding job.
I did eight fake bats in the same way, though I added the fur myself. The toes worked as small grappling hooks, so the bats could be hanged around the castle.
They also needed a bunch of fake herrings that could lie in a wooden barrel all summer without going smelly. The fake herrings were foam-filled latex fish.
I also made a latex character mask for one of the storytellers telling ghost tales about the castle.
The nicest thing I did was probably an oversized version of "Five in a Row", using only three pieces per player. Kids could challenge the black knight of the castle to a game of wits. The knight used the black pieces and the kids the smaller white ones. The game pieces were cast in plastic and reinforced with metal bars inside.
Apart from the aforementioned stuff I also made three decapitated heads, with hair, and a bunch of rubber swords. At the beginning of my dealings with the castle, I was only supposed to do the rats and the swords, but as summer went along the crew at the castle came up with more and more stuff. However, I soon realized they didn't have that much money to spend. The things I made for them eventually wound up costing $700, which is not much to begin with. I don't have a registered company, which means that when I do work for, say, a stage show I get paid by buying stuff for the amount I've quoted for doing the job. The stage people take care of the bills and everybody's happy. This time the castle wanted to pay me and needed a proper company to go through. I contacted a billing company to take care of the business. It's run by a friend's friend and they charge 6% of the payment for their services. But after all the taxes and fees that you have to pay in Sweden for running a company were finally paid, I only ended up with $240. This has deterred me forever from doing more of the same work. This is what it's like having your own business in Sweden, ladies and gents. I've never been very interested in politics, but the more work I get, the more I see how much a part of business-making politics is. For a few decades the Social Democratic Labour Party has been in power in Sweden, and they simply don't like small businesses. They rather have workers lined up inside factories and weighed the solitary business-owners down with loads of costly taxes. The last four years the Swedish government has consisted of a coalition of four centre-right, liberal conservative political parties, which have done whatever they can to lighten up things for the small-time business-maker. And things have brightened up a bit. It's actually election day today in Sweden, and I hope they get another four years. Maybe I'll get enough guts to start my own official business eventually.
They needed about ten fake rats to be handled by storytellers dressed up as "forgotten prisoners" in the castle's dungeons. As always, they were first sculpted in clay.
They were then cast in latex, filled with soft polyurethane foam and had jointed feet and black button eyes added. The tail was also made in latex. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of them with fur added, but they were actually quite effective when used. A costume-making lady at the castle did the fur-adding job.
I did eight fake bats in the same way, though I added the fur myself. The toes worked as small grappling hooks, so the bats could be hanged around the castle.
They also needed a bunch of fake herrings that could lie in a wooden barrel all summer without going smelly. The fake herrings were foam-filled latex fish.
I also made a latex character mask for one of the storytellers telling ghost tales about the castle.
The nicest thing I did was probably an oversized version of "Five in a Row", using only three pieces per player. Kids could challenge the black knight of the castle to a game of wits. The knight used the black pieces and the kids the smaller white ones. The game pieces were cast in plastic and reinforced with metal bars inside.
Apart from the aforementioned stuff I also made three decapitated heads, with hair, and a bunch of rubber swords. At the beginning of my dealings with the castle, I was only supposed to do the rats and the swords, but as summer went along the crew at the castle came up with more and more stuff. However, I soon realized they didn't have that much money to spend. The things I made for them eventually wound up costing $700, which is not much to begin with. I don't have a registered company, which means that when I do work for, say, a stage show I get paid by buying stuff for the amount I've quoted for doing the job. The stage people take care of the bills and everybody's happy. This time the castle wanted to pay me and needed a proper company to go through. I contacted a billing company to take care of the business. It's run by a friend's friend and they charge 6% of the payment for their services. But after all the taxes and fees that you have to pay in Sweden for running a company were finally paid, I only ended up with $240. This has deterred me forever from doing more of the same work. This is what it's like having your own business in Sweden, ladies and gents. I've never been very interested in politics, but the more work I get, the more I see how much a part of business-making politics is. For a few decades the Social Democratic Labour Party has been in power in Sweden, and they simply don't like small businesses. They rather have workers lined up inside factories and weighed the solitary business-owners down with loads of costly taxes. The last four years the Swedish government has consisted of a coalition of four centre-right, liberal conservative political parties, which have done whatever they can to lighten up things for the small-time business-maker. And things have brightened up a bit. It's actually election day today in Sweden, and I hope they get another four years. Maybe I'll get enough guts to start my own official business eventually.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
The Blunderblat Lands on YouTube
You might remember this project, which I blogged about sometime late in 2009; A short film based on Colin West's nonsense poem "The Blunderblat". I thought it would be an easy one to pull off, and completed quickly. But Amanda, the girl who first agreed to appear in the film, dropped out and then it turned out to be nigh impossible to find a replacement. Amanda was supposed to appear as two characters (shot against a green screen), so I actually needed two replacements.
I eventually found them in a local fantasy role-playing club, that I frequently collaborate with. Sarah and Olivia turned out to be just perfect, having no acting training, but going on instict. People like that are invariably the best ones for amateur film productions. We shot the whole thing in a room prepped for chroma key shooting, with the floor and one wall covered by green screen cloth.
I think the result turned out very well. I recently bought an HDV camera, to improve picture quality, especially when shooting against a green screen. However, I can't edit the footage in HD (yet), so the clips are transferred into standard DV, while retaining HD frame size. This allows me to do a bit more image trickery than I've been able to do before.
The background was a very simple silhuette of a city skyline at night. My idea was to evoke old children's TV shows in style, and I think I accomplished that.
As usual, animation was timed with the live-action, so the puppet and the people could interact. The Blunderblat monster puppet was animated against my small blue screen and then composited into the live action/background footage.
A bit more trickery than usual was sometimes needed. In order for Olivia to be carried off by the Blunderblat, she had to balance on a cloth covered stool with legs kicking.
Her footage was then linked to the animated Blunderblat in After Effects. A simple trick really, but it looks pretty good.
Just as I had finished all of the animation, one of my cats smacked the Blunderblat puppet to the floor, where one of its wings snapped.
The culprit himself. I think this is the third puppet he's messed up.
It's a pity this film took so long to finish, simply because I couldn't find any actors. I can't believe how difficult it was to find a pair of girls wanting to appear in this film. At last I met Sarah and Olivia, who are used to dressing up and acting out. They happily agreed to participate, and did a good job of it too. And we had fun doing it. It's likely they'll appear in something else I'll do eventually.
Since this film has a 16:9 format, Blogspot doesn't post it correctly. So I'll have to ask you to go directly to YouTube to watch the finished film: "The Blunderblat".
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Lovecraftian Horrors of Clay
I recently helped my filmmaking buddy Daniel Lenneer put together an animated Shoggoth for his non-epic version of H P Lovecraft's very epic "At the Mountains of Madness". You could say Danny's version is the ultimate example of the budget version of a mega-budget project. If you're going to make a condensed version of something too big to really pull off, this is probably the way to do it. From what I've seen, his "The Terror From the Abyss" is turning out to be a very entertaining short film, especially if you know your Lovecraft.
For those of you not that aquainted with Lovecraft's literary heritage, this is a quick sum-up of "At the Mountains of Madness": An expedition from Miskatonic University discovers the remains of an alien civilization in Antarctica and are eventually attacked by a sort of alien guarddog; a Shoggoth. Shoggoths are horrible masses of eyes, mouths and limbs, bred to fight for their masters, the Elder Things, but eventually rebelling against them. This is the dream project of filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who has been trying to get it made for years. I hope he eventually does make it. He'd do the book great justice, I think.
On to my version of the Shoggoth. I thought it would be fun to do some really quick claymation to represent the monster, and since I'm such a lazy bugger I figured out a pretty easy way of pulling it off.
Instead of animating a huge mass of clay, trying to keep check of what's moving where in what direction (I'll leave that to Harryhausen), I simply animated separate blobs of clay, morphing into different eyes, mouths and tentacles. These were then pieced together into a writhing mass in After Effects.
Danny had already shot himself and his frequent partner in artistic crimes, Christopher, against a green screen in his basement. We added some smoke to represent churning snow. The Shoggoth comes out of a very dark cave..
..And then procedes to chase our heroes until it overcomes them and they turn into a Shoggoth snack. This is what the finished film will probably look like. There's been a fad in recent years of amateur-made silent film versions of Lovecraft tales. There are basically three reasons for this: Many of his stories were written in the silent film age (though not "At the Mountains of Madness"), as an amateur you don't have to worry about the sound, and it just seems to work very well for his stories.
You can view more images from Danny's project HERE.
For those of you not that aquainted with Lovecraft's literary heritage, this is a quick sum-up of "At the Mountains of Madness": An expedition from Miskatonic University discovers the remains of an alien civilization in Antarctica and are eventually attacked by a sort of alien guarddog; a Shoggoth. Shoggoths are horrible masses of eyes, mouths and limbs, bred to fight for their masters, the Elder Things, but eventually rebelling against them. This is the dream project of filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who has been trying to get it made for years. I hope he eventually does make it. He'd do the book great justice, I think.
On to my version of the Shoggoth. I thought it would be fun to do some really quick claymation to represent the monster, and since I'm such a lazy bugger I figured out a pretty easy way of pulling it off.
Instead of animating a huge mass of clay, trying to keep check of what's moving where in what direction (I'll leave that to Harryhausen), I simply animated separate blobs of clay, morphing into different eyes, mouths and tentacles. These were then pieced together into a writhing mass in After Effects.
Danny had already shot himself and his frequent partner in artistic crimes, Christopher, against a green screen in his basement. We added some smoke to represent churning snow. The Shoggoth comes out of a very dark cave..
..And then procedes to chase our heroes until it overcomes them and they turn into a Shoggoth snack. This is what the finished film will probably look like. There's been a fad in recent years of amateur-made silent film versions of Lovecraft tales. There are basically three reasons for this: Many of his stories were written in the silent film age (though not "At the Mountains of Madness"), as an amateur you don't have to worry about the sound, and it just seems to work very well for his stories.
You can view more images from Danny's project HERE.
Monday, April 26, 2010
The King Who Sought Immortality: Still kicking...
After having worked on this confounded project for almost two years now, all because of crappy bluescreen work, I've come to the decision to get the film finished and move on to the next project. Some scenes have turned out great, others not-so-great. But that's the way of amateur filmmaking. I'm not kidding myself into thinking anything else -I make amateur films. My aim is to have them be entertaining enough, and better than most of the slapped-together stuff you find on YouTube.
All through this project I keep finding that I'm one puppet short. I refuse to cut anything from the fight choreography performed by Dag (the king), and so after thinking I've actually finished his demon-slaying romp, yet another sword slash in thin air is revealed to be supposed to hit a monster. While working in stop-motion mode and studying the live-action footage frame by frame I forget about the purpose of some of the moves filmed almost two years ago.
And I still have quite a few planned puppets left to animate. A bunch of dragons, some scorpion men and som dog/crocodile hybrids. And a snake that sprouts golden wings. All the backgrounds are finished, though. And I've got all the music I need. I probably have more music than I need.
If nothing else, I've learned lots from this project and that knowledge will go into the next film, and on and on it goes...
All through this project I keep finding that I'm one puppet short. I refuse to cut anything from the fight choreography performed by Dag (the king), and so after thinking I've actually finished his demon-slaying romp, yet another sword slash in thin air is revealed to be supposed to hit a monster. While working in stop-motion mode and studying the live-action footage frame by frame I forget about the purpose of some of the moves filmed almost two years ago.
And I still have quite a few planned puppets left to animate. A bunch of dragons, some scorpion men and som dog/crocodile hybrids. And a snake that sprouts golden wings. All the backgrounds are finished, though. And I've got all the music I need. I probably have more music than I need.
If nothing else, I've learned lots from this project and that knowledge will go into the next film, and on and on it goes...
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Busy, busy, busy...
Long time no see...
I thought I ought to post something on my blog to, at least, show some vital life signs. The truth is I've been incredibly busy making stuff for other people than myself. The past six months have raced by! Mostly, I've actually been making masks and props for Star Trek fans. I'm a Trekkie myself, and not the least ashamed to admit it, and very interested in the craft behind the shows and movies.
So the truth is I HAVE been blogging about my work, just not here for a while. In order not to repost any info I'll just redirect you to my Trekspace Blog Archive. There you can read detailed accounts about making Klingon skulls, Gorn babies and other weird, but fun, projects.
Also, I've been making (and still am making) fake rats, decapitated heads and latex swords for Castle Kalmar in Sweden. They're having lots of activities for kids this summer and they're gearing up with props and stuff. It's a fun project and they pay me well, so I'm happy to be a part of it. There will be images of this work shortly.
And my film projects are coming along slowly.. slowly..
I thought I ought to post something on my blog to, at least, show some vital life signs. The truth is I've been incredibly busy making stuff for other people than myself. The past six months have raced by! Mostly, I've actually been making masks and props for Star Trek fans. I'm a Trekkie myself, and not the least ashamed to admit it, and very interested in the craft behind the shows and movies.
So the truth is I HAVE been blogging about my work, just not here for a while. In order not to repost any info I'll just redirect you to my Trekspace Blog Archive. There you can read detailed accounts about making Klingon skulls, Gorn babies and other weird, but fun, projects.
Also, I've been making (and still am making) fake rats, decapitated heads and latex swords for Castle Kalmar in Sweden. They're having lots of activities for kids this summer and they're gearing up with props and stuff. It's a fun project and they pay me well, so I'm happy to be a part of it. There will be images of this work shortly.
And my film projects are coming along slowly.. slowly..
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