Introduction:
For the last project of our Exploration unit, we were challenged to create any piece of art we wanted to explore, so essentially we could do anything we desired, as long as it is something and something we haven’t done yet. So what you need to know is we needed to take a skill we learned and improve upon it and make something new!
Since I am an Animation student, I wanted to create a piece of media related to what I have learned this year. What I decided to do was stop-motion, but not just stop-motion, I wanted to experiment with Set-Building and camera cuts. Basically, I never made a set before when I make my short stop-motions, but this time I wanted to try and learn how to do that! Also with camera cuts, my movies always just focus on one area and the scenery doesn’t change, so I wanted to experiment with that as well so it would feel like you are actually exploring the environment in my film!
What I wanted to create was a stop-motion music video! I wanted to have one of the custom characters I made named Gyro, and my favorite video game character Bendy from “Bendy and the Ink Machine,” to meet each other and have a little dance session! I wanted to do this because I thought it would be cool if my two favorite characters met and had fun together!
The Process:
The first step was creating the set, since I didn’t have any money and I didn’t have all the time in the world to create an amazing looking set, I decided to just use some cardboard my dad let me use. I looked at a bunch of tutorials on Youtube to try and find a good Set-Building videos, after a little while I found a really great video from Michael Parks, he explained great tactics on how to easily make a proper set, I highly recommend watching the video before you dive into set building. Once I got to school I took the cardboard and started making a few walls; once that was done I started drawing on the cardboard with a sharpie, I used rulers to make the flooring look good and straight, I then drew the text on the wall with the sharpie and make the doors. I then used black paint to make the ink splats and painted over the text I already made to make it look more creepy.
The next step was creating the puppet. I first made a drawing of Bendy in order to get the height I wanted for the puppet. Next I used aluminum wire to make the shape of the skeleton for the puppet. I then heated up some thermoplastic beads and molded it over the loose joints so it wouldn’t move around too much. Next was to break up some chopsticks and tape them on the bare wire to make it move like proper joints. After that I used tinfoil and manipulated it to make the shape of the body and head. Once I did that I used more thermoplastic beads and made the shoes, I put nuts in the feat so I could screw in a bolt on the bottom of the feat so the puppet wouldn’t fall over during production. I then made the hands, I wanted to make the fingers move on the hands so I thought of a great solution, I just made the hands out of tinfoil and tape, it works better than you might think, I will post a tutorial video on how to make the hands in case your interested. Finally I started painting the puppet, I drew the outline of the face and used a sharpie to draw it on, I used a piece of cloth for the bowtie. The puppet is now finished!
Then it was time to start shooting! I used an app on my phone called Stop-Motion studio to take the pictures of my characters. It took a lot of screwing, taping, placing, lighting, and patience in order to finish this project. In total I had over 1,200 frames, that’s a whole lot of pictures! Once I exported it to my computer I imported the project into After Effects. Once I did that, I downloaded the music I wanted to use and put it into my film, I added the intro and that was it, I finished it! I exported the project and submitted it.
Reflection:
Overall, I really enjoyed this project, it was so much fun creating the set, playing around with the lighting and camera movement, and above all, just taking pictures of my characters interacting and seeing it come to life!