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

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




Grtz, bart

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...

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 !

Life on a (very) Hot Set!

Me, Maarten and Andreas dressing the set.

Shadow of a girl

That's it...for now.

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!

The first shot is in the can!

Here it is:

Lots more are about to come where that came from!

Rgrds

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!

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!

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!