Me in Black

So, I've finished shooting...

I know, comes out of the blue, doesn't it?  I was going to say a lot more about the set construction but, rather abruptly, I found it was all finished and the evenings were dark enough to start shooting. So I did, then I kind of got carried away and fourteen months later, here we are.

A secret source in the Greensmanry trade supplied me with a terminal quantity of artificial leaves and flowers and a few intimate hours with a hot glue gun left the stage encircled by rich foliage which, while a little out of scale, is very satisfying on the eye.  Especially while nature has been going the other way into a long, dark winter.

Ta Dah!

Lessons this time include: Plastacine dries out!  I deliberately preserved Kelvin in the state I had last used him so that the make up effect of mud splattered on his face would work in continuity as he returns to the house covered in mud (this is already shot)  My aim was to shoot the last scenes first so he gets muddy then we go back and take the shots where he's still clean - he has a whole set of clean clothes for this, don't worry, there's no dry cleaning to do.

You'd have the shirt off my back!

However, trying to make his face move is a bit more of a trial than I expected.  Two years on, there is no moisture left in his skin, it has more or less set solid and his performance in the first couple of takes is a little wooden.

Not to worry, though.  It is probably about time that I did a bit of care work on the armature anyway.  Some of the foam padding has worked its way around bits it shouldn't and his joints are all loose.

HEAVE!

I worked with wire armatures on Firebird and although I did it for reasons of economy - I said before it was not meant to be a big deal, whoops! - I have to say I found the pliability and hold of the twisted wire technique really satisfying to work with. 

I believe I'll go that way in future, after all, they're cheap to make, pretty light weight and yet very solid and although some subtlety is lost in the precision of movement, it only takes a little more care to achieve the same results.  The main thing is that they hold so well, you can leave them for days without the risk of the armature settling under it's own weight.

Also rigging for flying, jumping, walking etc.  The puppets are so light, they can be rigged off a pipe cleaner!



Such things I wish I could say about Kelvin.  It's to do with the workmanship on the puppet itself - I freely admit, some parts are below standard and in his defense I had no experience of making ball and socket armatures when I started on his skeleton - it is a constant source of amazement that something so small could be so heavy!  I've had to rig him for jumps and falls and I'm astonished how tight the bolts need to be to keep him upright.  Not only that, but on several occasions I have had to bring in a little assistant (Lego, believe it or not. Who Knew?) to hold him in place while I get some sleep. 

Once upon a time before video assist systems, surface gauges were used in between each frame to hold the puppet and point to where it had been in the last frame so that the next move could be visualised in three dimensions on the set.  Must have been a nightmare! lol.