Her Hair

2007-08-21T21:37:00.000+02:00

Hello Hello!

Here it is; the last post for this blog. Her Hair is now finally finished and wraped. Adam and Alta are put in their boxes and the various setpieces and props are stocked away on the attic. From now on all the new stuff will be put on www.millfield.be . I hope to be able to start up a productionblog like this one again because it's been fun. All I need will be another production...

All of you who gave comments and followed the production of Her Hair; many thanks!

Hope to see you soon, Bart

2007-07-23T21:52:00.000+02:00

Hello,

It's been a long time now. That's because I'm enjoying my holiday! I'm putting all of my making of pics on Flickr now: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9927571@N04/ .That's part of my Portfolio.

I'm also making an entirely new website of millfield.be

So, just hang on, within a month or so everything will come to you in a sweet package!

Cheers, Bart

2007-06-13T14:13:00.000+02:00

Hi Everyone!

I'm glad to announce that Her Hair is now finished!!! The film has been put onto Betacam SP a few minutes ago and that means it's ready for the jury on Monday.

The final days of production (last week) I was hoping production would finally come to an end, and now that it's done I'm feeling bad it's over. I've been living, dreaming and thinking about Her Hair the past year and it's weird that that's over now...

Next week I'll put the film on the web so you can see the finished result, of wich I'm pretty proud now.

Now I'm finally going to enjoy the fine weather and go outdoors after a year of sitting either in a dark studio or behind my computer.

"Because Her Hair is worth it."

2007-05-31T10:49:00.000+02:00

Hi everyone,

First of all, I'm sorry it's been so long since I've posted something. I'm now moving towards the end of production and there's so little time left to post stuff...

Her Hair has to be finished within the next two weeks. The images are almost finished (post-production that is), the final editing is done, the music has had it's downmix and now the greatest task left will be sound-editing...

Everything goes well, apart from a chrashed computer (last week, It works again) and troubles with the external hard drive that has the entire film on it (it does the trick again, for now...). So you can see it's been an exciting time the last few weeks! But as they say: "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger" ;)

However, the sets are broken down now, all the equipment back into storage. After a year it's all almost over. Her Hair has given me a pretty turbulent year and it feels good to finally have some results...

When it's finished I'll try to put the film on youtube, altough I don't really like their compression-methods (as you already know).

See ya soon! B.

2007-04-26T11:05:00.000+02:00

Hi there!

This will need some explination...

This is an animationTEST. This way I want to gen a clear view on how the final animation will look together with the music. The music is a TEST version also. Don't mind Adam, he was lying on his bed during the testshoot, he will be sitting at his desk during the final shot.
While he is drawing, his work will pop onto the walls of his room, while an entire day will pass by...

Hope you understand my roughness... :)

By the way, I'm VERY PISSED! I see Youtube has compressed the film this way, the animation is already worthless.... Enjoy anyway. :/ (the drawings have to pop up one at the time)

Bye

2007-04-10T09:12:00.000+02:00

Some Pics!

Some Rigs 'n Rain for the interested. The puppets need support during animation ( specially for walks).

Animating the rain gave me a nostalgic feel, all the frustration and seeming endless animation process came back to me. I'll post another piece of film soon, the rain is now being run trough the Post Production.

Bye!

2007-04-03T11:15:00.000+02:00

Hi Everybody!

Yesterday It started raining on the set. Because I animated raindrops before, (Watch "Rain" @ the previous posts) and was pretty happy with the result, I wrote a scene with heavy rain into Her Hair. Many thanx by the way to Barry Purves and his crew on Hamilton Mattress, because it's their technique I've borrowed :)

Music is also written as we speak, the first tests sounded pretty damn good! I'll post some of it when it's finished.

In the meanwhile here's something I'm pretty proud of; Alta.

ps; a question to my co-Bloggers. Do you also find the lay-out options on Blogger a bit limited? The published version of the post always differs from the created one...weird.

See ya soon!

2007-03-22T10:25:00.000+01:00

Busy Busy Busy...

The shoot of the first scene is now finished. Up to scene 3!

See ya!

2007-03-14T16:07:00.000+01:00

Alta gives a glimpse of herself...

Greetz from the "Hot Set" ;)

2007-03-13T10:30:00.000+01:00

Alta has arrived! Her first shots look good, she's bringing a whole new feel to the picture.

More soon!

2007-03-08T11:41:00.000+01:00

Boys and Girls,

Her Hair is no longer a silent project! Sounds will be delivered by Northern Sounds, a production company based in West Yorkshire. Adrien Walkinshaw has offered his sounds and talents to Her Hair.

Northern Sounds can be found at: http://northernsounds.co.uk/

In the meanwhile filming and animating goes as planned. Alta is now in her final stage of birth, I'm detailing her at home now, preparing her for her fist day of shooting on Monday.
Stuff will be posted soon.

Bart

2007-03-01T13:21:00.000+01:00

Here's the first shot I've animated. It's also the first shot that has Alta in it...sort of. ;)

Grtz, bart

2007-02-28T16:08:00.000+01:00

Just finished my second shot today, I'll start animating the third after this little post is done.

The thing I just finished was a 6sec. walk by Adam. It was the first time I laughed when I saw the finished Quicktime, I think that's a good sign.

You'll see on the pics below how I let Adam walk, took of his legs and added a piece of thin card for every frame. So it looks as if he's going up and down during his first steps...

2007-02-26T17:06:00.000+01:00

Just finished a shot that lasts 45 (!) seconds! It's the titleshot and the pressure to make it work was high, but it looks fine. As from this moment on I'm able to create smooth and convincing camera movements using my Travel-Device. After a lot of Trial-and-Error. The system is as simple as it can get. A small piece of Betonplex wooden plate (It has a very smooth surface) wich has the head of the tripod screwed on it just slides over a long section of Betonplex (in this case 2m.). No wheels involved, "less is more" is my advise! ;)

I'll post some finished shots soon, so you can judge for your self.

See Ya !

2007-02-25T13:44:00.000+01:00

Life on a (very) Hot Set!

Me, Maarten and Andreas dressing the set.

Shadow of a girl

That's it...for now.

2007-02-22T09:49:00.000+01:00

Yesterday the third shot was finished. And quite a shot it was; a camera travel showing the whole playground, duration: 16 seconds. It took a day-and-a-half to get there, and multiple takes too. But I finally got a result that's pretty smooth.

That's all for now!

2007-02-19T15:13:00.000+01:00

The first shot is in the can!

Here it is:

Lots more are about to come where that came from!

Rgrds

2007-02-14T10:57:00.000+01:00

Busy Busy Busy!

Yesterday the lighting-cameramen have been lighting the set for the second day, and the work is beginning to pay of!

We now have two lighting setups; the first for the start of the film, the second when Adam falls in love...

Here Maarten (one of the animators) is finishing the playgroundfloor with cardboard tiles. The whole floor had to get some texture to it and I chose to cutout tiles and create a patern.

If everything goes well, I'll be animating Adam next week...

Ill keep you posted!

2007-02-07T19:55:00.000+01:00

While the Dragon-Skin bodyparts are curing (6 hours is a lot, but well worth the waiting), the eyeballs are drying and the little masks waiting, here's another post.

Next week, I'll start filming...finally!
At this moment I'm finishing up the puppets and what a work that is! It's easy to watch making-of documentary's and read making-of books on the famous Stop-Motion films and getting inspired by the featured methods. As soon as you start to use the professionals' methods it all gets very very slow and expencive. The result -in my case- are ambitious puppets that arent able of doing a whole lot. Thats' the difference between professional puppets and would-be puppets. The limit of their movements... But ah well, they look good anyway!

The heads, two weeks ago.

Adam's room as it looked last week. I'm very excited to see how my Lighting-Cameramen will light it. I'd like the film to have a generally greenisch look to it, but that's subject to change when Post-Production arrives. That's distant future for me now.

Greetz!

2007-01-25T09:50:00.000+01:00

Time is moving too fast!

Everything involving an animated film goes slow, very slow... The puppets' heads are almost finished, facial masks included. But the bodies are not what they have to be, yet. The Dragon Skin silicone is, as they promised me, a magical product. You really can't compare it with regular silicones. But moulding is one of the most difficult parts of production, I've made 20 or so for this film, and every mould is different. As you can see below my moulds aren't very good looking, but hey, they work! Time is just constantly working against me...

Here I was painting the inside of the moulds with Psycho-Paint, the product to colour the Dragon skin. When the complete "skin" of the bodypart is cured I fill it up with Dragon Skin (and include the armature) and the mould is being pressed close for six hours.

Adam's room prior to adding the wallpaper.

This Bambi-like figure will be placed on a big spring on the floor of the playground. It's based on a picture with my girlfriend sitting on it when she was a little girl.

On Adam's little bed lies... a little Ugly Doll. It's details like that that make Stop Motion look nice.

So, today I'm going to make the animatic for the film. I'm going to photograph the puppets on the sets, posing them to get a clear view of what the film will look like. Tomorrow I'll have the first version of the film that way. The production is moving faster then ever now.

See Ya!

2007-01-22T19:26:00.000+01:00

Hello!

It's been a long time now and that's because I'm busy like hell! The puppets are curing right now and that gives me some time to post this. It's the first time I'm using Dragon Skin, the silicone that was used on Corpse Bride, and that makes everything a bit more exciting. I used to use regular silicone for the bodyparts, but it wasn't very strong and broke up in no time. So, I thought: "Let's use professional material this time and it will have to work!". We'll see.
One thing I can recommend everyone who makes moulds is: Crystacast. This resin-plaster is:-Very Fine (takes all the details), Very Hard and the best of all; the airbubbles all escape from themselves! No more knokking on the moulds, no more thrilling plates, no more vacuum devices. As far as I know that's a unique quality for plaster. :)

These are the book-shelves that will go up the wall in Adam's room.

Here are a few of the drawings that will fill the walls in Adam's room. I'll only need some 100 more. (they are the size of stamps)

Here are Alta and Adam, ready for their rebirth. At the moment the heads are finished and have replacement-faces. The heads got a Styrofoam core (to be light) and an Epoxy skin (to be hard). I'll soon post some pics .

Experience has learned me one very important thing: "If you want to make it a professional way, the costs will be professional too!". And if you start the production on a certain level, you 've got to continue on that level. There's almost no way back...

See You Soon!

2007-01-02T20:23:00.000+01:00

It's time I introduce you to the Animators of Her Hair: Andreas and Maarten. Altough I'm going to animate some parts on Her Hair myself, directing will be my number one task. Two second year students at RITS are specializing in Stop-Motion Animation and they were happy to be able to work on my graduation film. Last year they made two short films, a group effort ("Eduard") and a duo project ("Na Achten" or "After Eight"). It's these two films that convinced me to hand the larger part of my animation to them, here they are:

If their work on Her Hair will be that good, I'll be a very happy director!

See Ya!

2006-12-21T20:30:00.000+01:00

Hello Hello!

First of all "a Very Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year to you all!"

Time does not stand still and another year is almost finished. 2007 will bring me a film (I hope) and , as it is the habit this time of year, I'll look back with you to a short film I made two years ago called: "Rain".

2006-12-09T20:08:00.000+01:00

Hi,

The other day I had a first meeting with the composer for Her Hair, Sebastian Bradt. He works for the Logos Foundation in Gent, a group of people who experiment with sounds and instruments. Sebastian is going to create the futuristic sound for Her Hair, using Musicrobots...

Here is their studio with some of the robots playing a concert.

This is an Automated Piano playing on its own, quite an amazing sight and sound! Take a look at the Logos site here: http://www.logosfoundation.org/ it's well worth a visit!

Cheers, Bart

2006-11-17T21:10:00.000+01:00

Hills have skeletons too...

The fence
Adam checkin' his room

2006-11-05T13:34:00.000+01:00

Technorati Profile

2006-11-04T14:55:00.000+01:00

Creating an animated film goes slow, very slow. Every day I'm working on my sets and puppets and those things take time to make. I'm happy to say that the Mastermodel of Adam is now in his final stage, he just needs some finishing up. When this Epoxy puppet is done, I will make theMastermoulds and the Silicone versions will be moulded...

Here he is! In the back, Altaria is still being modeled in plasticine, with an early mask (for Adam) next to it on the ground.

The workshop at school has finished the tables that will form the base of the playground-set and here they are. Two of the three built are already in place, they have perforated steel plates on top to animate upon.
This is one of the hills, under construction.

I also made a ground plan of the playground scale 1:1 to have a clear overview on the set construction. The garbage can takes the place of a (very) big tree...

See ya!

2006-10-21T21:06:00.000+02:00

Hello!

It's been a very busy week, no lessons to follow and that means: workin' like hell! ; ) I finally repaired my camera and here are some pics on the results of this weeks work:

Here's the little merry-go-round, currently in grey primer.

This is Adam's room, everything's ready (appart from the wallpaper but that will be the final touch). The bed will get a mattress and his little desk isn't painted on this side because the fourth wall will be in front of it. I've hung a drawing of Adam to show the scale of the set (Adam = 30 cm/11.8 In). The set itself is 1.20 m/4 ft high, plus the base it's standing on...I'ts a big set. The four walls are attached to the base with bolts and all walls can be removed so the camera can go anywere! The tree is the first one of the entire forest that has to follow (it's there for scale purpose)...

Here's the evolution from inspiration to creation. The elephant is now painted in a red primer, he will get a dark colour later on. My neighbour and I welded this steel structure in two days and I'm happy with the result. It stands 50 cm/20 In tall and has two small benches the puppets will sit on during the film; one in the belly and one on the back.
Today I've added the slide, the glue on the MDF piece is now drying...

This is Adam's head, waiting to be moulded in plaster. I've created the mould in Lego; the ScaryCat approach!
The rest of the body will be moulded soon.

See Ya!

2006-10-07T12:49:00.000+02:00

Hi there!

And now for something completely different! A French-Belgian short has been shown recently on ARTE (French television). "Le Cid" brings the story of the classic Spanish legend, played by insects.

It was animated by the Rock&Rollers at Beast Animation! Click the link on the right of the page!
I had the opportunity to do an internship during the holiday, helping to construct the (pretty huge) sets. If you want to see a "different" kind of beautiful Stop-Motion Animation; wacht it here in RealPlayer:

http://www.arte.tv/fr/cinema-fiction/court-metrage/1341874.html

Enjoy!

2006-10-04T20:36:00.000+02:00

hello hello,

Currently I'm working on some setpieces and the puppets. There are no pictures yet because my camera is f*****-up! But I did make some rough artwork of the playground.

These are only early suggestions and the final set will look different. The trees look a bit too realistic to me and the elephant will have smooth shapes.

I'll post pictures of the first trees and furniture that are drying as I'm writing this down! So much left to do, and so little time to do it in! The deadline (Xmas) is getting closer and closer...

Greetz, Bart ;)

2006-09-22T16:07:00.000+02:00

inbetween

The reason it's so quiet on the blog, is because I'm so busy building the sets and puppets. I'll post pictures of this stuff ASAP. There are two sets for the film; the main setting is a playground (in a forest) and the other is Adam's room. The construction of the boy's room is now finished, its a big wooden box with all the walls being removable.
The puppet's armatures are almost finished, I chose for wire-armatures; Simple&Strong. I've been trying to make Ball&Socket armatures, but I didn't have the right equipment to do it right...

Seen you soon! ;)

(School starts on Monday and I'm wondering what the teachers will think of my progress...)

2006-07-26T15:35:00.000+02:00

Adam is now reaching his final stages of design...

He is loosely based on the Leslie Nielsen character from Forbidden Planet.

2006-07-06T21:58:00.000+02:00

In search of Adam...

Concept Art by : Kim Verlinden

2006-06-26T17:14:00.000+02:00

I think I've found the right kind of shape for the girl's hair...

Concept Art by: Bart Van de Plas

2006-06-16T14:31:00.000+02:00

New artwork has arrived!
The lines are going to be a lot sharper and the shapes tronger and more stylized.

Concept Art : Kim Verlinden

2006-06-13T11:53:00.000+02:00

This is early Artwork, giving away some of the style the finished film will look like.I'm going for the Retro-Futuristic style. Putting on some Grain and stuff, to give it some texture.

2006-06-13T11:38:00.000+02:00

I've put a friend of mine to work and asked him if he could create some Character-Design for me. Designing interesting figures is not really my cup of tea and after a year of modifying my first scetches, I needed a new perspective on things.

Concept Art by: Kim Verlinden

2006-06-07T14:36:00.000+02:00

Day One at the Blog... and there's nothing yet to present...
I'll start posting stuff soon, but first I'm finishing up production on a previous film.

Maybe some words on what "Her Hair" is supposed to mean?
It's the title for a 5-minute graduation short I'm going to create for school. The story is almost ready, after a year-or-so in the making, and I'll post it ASAP.

Her Hair will tell the story of how a boy falls in love with a girl ... 's hair.

See u arround!