filmmaking process

(click to see bigger)

oh my blob

okie, so basically the things i've tried to solve this blob fabrication problem with.....have failed, haha.

first i tried clay on aluminum wire, slathered with baby oil to get the shininess i wanted. but the oil just made everything melty, and it was difficult to make the movements smooth, frame by frame.

then i thought maybe if i waxed a surface, ink could bubble up and i could have an easier time manipulating it. but it still leaves an obvious trail. it looks too flat, too....

next i'm going to try a water balloon shot live action under water. if i tie a stick to it, the movements could turn out okay...bobbing motion.

and then if THAT doesn't work, maybe ink/paint in oil.

and if THAT doesn't work, i'll be out of time and won't be able to do this concept at all by the end of the semester, HAHA. but i'm really hoping the water balloons will work. i must have da blobs! they encase trapped souls.....then who will Bertie interact with??? 

since it's winter, i couldn't find water balloons at nearby stores. off to amazon....i've basically been throwing my money at amazon this semester. nooo. 

three weeks left this semester. ho mai gaht.

also, isn't this piece of animation crazy??

genius party from barbuza on Vimeo.

Wong Kar Wai

here's an interview of Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai, from 2000 in France, about his film "In The Mood For Love." i think he is my favorite director.

Bertie 1.0

I have to say that I learned a shit-ton while completing this puppet. So when I do the ball and socket version of him in a few weeks, he will look a bit different. I want to position his head as it relates to the neck better, and fill him out a little, exaggerate the proportions a bit.

Not bad for a first time go, I think, but there is a lloootttt more to test/think about for the background. I have no idea if I'm behind or not, but this is the best pace I can go without sacrificing the quality of my idea too much.

eeeeee. Somehow I need to create floating black blobs in his environment. What to do....

also I need to make him a tiny camera ^^

*click*

test-version Bertie, almost there

this is how i can move Bertie's eyes~

added a mouth, ears, and his horns. my friends are telling me it looks like he's doing the duck lips, haha.  maybe on the final version i will soften them. what do you think?

I painted the balsa white so i could paint on an evenly colored surface

 and painted face! tada~

the wool is tricky, especially since it's my first time. I tried felting a thin layer on a mat, then gluing on the head. it worked! but trying to felt some more wool while it's attached as it's shown below was too difficult, so i had to rip it off. I think what i'll have to do is to make thin layers in sections, then glue them on.

 i'm away from school for the next two days, but i've been felting his body in the meanwhile.

this is Bertie on the train ^^ it was great because i was in the quiet car HAHA.

yay. after the felting, all that's left is his hands and feet. he's going to have black nails, to match his horns.
oh, also his eyelids. that'll be tricky...

i've been thinking what i'll need to do differently in the final version, and i'll have to move his horns up a little to make room for his eyebrows, perhaps change his mouth, and remember that the wood texture will show through the paint if i don't smooth magic-sculpt over it, too.

although, i don't mind the texture coming through. hm.

also i'm learning that you have to felt the wool very lightly when you're building up the general shape, because you can't undo it if it's stiff.

but he's coming out ok, no? ^^ it's actually been fun, spending time with him :)

some miro and tanguy

I've posted about Miro's Bleu tryptic before, and over the past two weeks I've been looking at his work more and more...studying his compositions and color choices. My teachers suggested I look up his process.
He was associated with the Surrealists, of course...somehow everything comes back to the Surrealists for me hahaha. Although I don't think he was "officially" a Surrealist, and I don't think he ever tried/wanted to be? But he was definitely influenced by their ideas/process. The whole unleashing the subconscious thing, haha.

ANYHOW, I've started to look at Yves Tanguy's landscapes, too, because they help me think about how I can visually represent abstract paintings as a concrete set.

These are some sketches I've done, thinking more about my senior film. I'm really set on having Bertie trying to take photos of these floating black blobs. I think he sees something in them through his camera.

he can see!

bertie is slowly coming to life!

i slathered vaseline all over the eyeballs so they wouldn't stick to the magic-sculpt (eyeballs are secured in the sculpey sockets with a chunk of wax)

spent some time sculpting his face shape with magic-sculpt. i've never really done this before, so i'm going to let this dry overnight and maybe sand some things down, 

i can move his eyes!!! ah! i'll have to make eyelids tomorrow 

his face reminds me of thomas the train HAHA. 

good thing this is my test-head. hopefully when i do the final version, it'll look better ^^

testing, testing, 123

ball and socket armature kit with my to-scale drawing of Bertie's skeleton! 

 i'm making a wire armature version of Bertie first so I can practice making his head with working eyes and practice felting wool. wasn't sure how to do the eyes at first, and the propoxy20 sockets+hand shaped eyeballs were a really, really bad idea.

 so i learned my lesson! and found what i hope are perfectly-sized wooden spheres~ 

below you can see them embedded in kleen klay, but i ended up using sculpey (to bake).

 eyeball painting~ stuck them in kleen klay for convenience

 below you can see what 2 coats of clear nail polish did to the dead-looking eyes from above. 

i made tiny needle-width holes in the eyes with a tiny hand drill so i can manipulate them with needles when animating.

tomorrow i'm going to try to sculpt his face with magic-sculpt around his eyeballs on a balsa head.

i'm hoping some vaseline will prevent magic-sculpt from locking the eyeballs into place....all fingers crossed. 

decided recently that i'm going to research some more Joan Miro. hooray~