Animation Short Film
Deadline: Apr 30, 2009
Views: 14,539
Ratings: 60
Overall Rating
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EdwinvanderVeldt
This is a true masterpiece. Superb stop motion animation, and fantastic realistic characters. The whole atmosphere is breathtaking. I love it.
Ron Cole
Masterpiece? Really? I gotta get a screen grab of THAT comment, print it out and hang it on my wall! Thanks Mucho!
emqciiua
WOW! I know they are puppets but they are so alive with character and soul. Really holds your attention. Deep subject but very understandable and thought provoking.
Ron Cole
Thanks Emqciiua, what you said was actually my whole reason for making this film in the first place. I had this concept for making this kind of puppet that nobody has ever tried before and make a film in which they just have a casual conversation. For puppets of this kind is quite a challenge, just making them seem natural in quiet scenes. It's difficult to make rubber puppets that speak without them looking really weird, so that's exactly the challenge I gave myself.
The puppets have faces that are controlled via a cable system that has only been used for live action puppets like Yoda or E.T. that I've adapted for stop motion. That was difficult because all the controls and mechanisms had to be miniaturized... and I had no budget.
The philosophy in the film is just the kind of nonsense that goes on in my head so, I'll take the blame for that too. :)
The puppets have faces that are controlled via a cable system that has only been used for live action puppets like Yoda or E.T. that I've adapted for stop motion. That was difficult because all the controls and mechanisms had to be miniaturized... and I had no budget.
The philosophy in the film is just the kind of nonsense that goes on in my head so, I'll take the blame for that too. :)
workingrhino
Love the feel of real life movement. And I can almost feel the breeze!
Ron Cole
Thanks Workingrhino! Sometimes I felt like I should have never started blowing the breeze through those leaves, it to so much more time to animate the shots where you can see so much of the vines. In some cases, I spent far more time animating leaves than I did on the characters. But, I'm glad I did it because I felt it was better to have the whole environment around the characters alive instead of it being just a static set. Thanks for noticing!
workingrhino
What one does for love! (And details are so crucial!!)
Josh Le Good
I'm very impressed,
This piece screams 'hard work, planning and artistry'
I can really appreciate your skill with the animation, the characters and setting are beautiful, especially the puppet, he was my favourite :)
Also the content was obviously very deep and i imagine it would reveal itself fully over several viewings, which is always a good thing
I find it pretty hard to give any sort of crits with this, except maybe the vocal recording could have been a little less tinny,
But the vast majority of this piece is astounding, well done! :)
How long did it take you to complete, and did you have much help? I imagine quite a long time!
Also, i think this competition may have just found it's winner :)
This piece screams 'hard work, planning and artistry'
I can really appreciate your skill with the animation, the characters and setting are beautiful, especially the puppet, he was my favourite :)
Also the content was obviously very deep and i imagine it would reveal itself fully over several viewings, which is always a good thing
I find it pretty hard to give any sort of crits with this, except maybe the vocal recording could have been a little less tinny,
But the vast majority of this piece is astounding, well done! :)
How long did it take you to complete, and did you have much help? I imagine quite a long time!
Also, i think this competition may have just found it's winner :)
Ron Cole
Thanks Deathbypigeons, I think your film is extremely well made also! I didn't have any help in creating the visuals at all. The shots needed to be color matched because I started shooting this on chemical film and later switched to digital photography. Those two types of images were a mismatch but I got help from a talented guy named Joe Scarpulla who reworked all of the colors and added the aged film look which I wanted but was unable to do myself.
Another talented guy (a machinist) created the ball & socket joints in the wizard puppet's body - making him a dream to animate.
And then there's Richard Brooner, a musical composer/conductor whom I met by happenstance and was gracious enough to score and perform the beautiful musical backdrop for the film. If not for him, I would have done the music myself and probably would have ruined the film in doing so!
The marionette - just like so many other things about this film - was something that I thought was going to play a very small part in the film. But after I started shooting him, I actually needed to write more dialog because his 'bit part' grew into a major roll.
As for the 'tinny voice recording' well... this film had a budget of exactly zero dollars, so all I could afford was a cheap mic and make due with it as best I could. This entire production was made by the cheapest mean possible and the only things I could afford to purchase were rubber, paint and whatever odds and ends that I couldn't do without or recycle out of something else.
Your view that you will perhaps 'get' the meaning after a few viewings is entirely up to the viewer... I wrote the script in a way where I intentionally avoided an exact meaning explained to the audience. I decided to treat it as poetry that could be interpreted in a number of different ways, I didn't want to 'ram a message down anyone's throat'. Of course I know what the wizard means, but I felt it was best to keep it an ambiguous oddity that people with differing beliefs could see their own way.
This contest has a LONG way to go, I don't see any clear winner here but, am happy for anyone who thinks I deserve it. Thanks!
Another talented guy (a machinist) created the ball & socket joints in the wizard puppet's body - making him a dream to animate.
And then there's Richard Brooner, a musical composer/conductor whom I met by happenstance and was gracious enough to score and perform the beautiful musical backdrop for the film. If not for him, I would have done the music myself and probably would have ruined the film in doing so!
The marionette - just like so many other things about this film - was something that I thought was going to play a very small part in the film. But after I started shooting him, I actually needed to write more dialog because his 'bit part' grew into a major roll.
As for the 'tinny voice recording' well... this film had a budget of exactly zero dollars, so all I could afford was a cheap mic and make due with it as best I could. This entire production was made by the cheapest mean possible and the only things I could afford to purchase were rubber, paint and whatever odds and ends that I couldn't do without or recycle out of something else.
Your view that you will perhaps 'get' the meaning after a few viewings is entirely up to the viewer... I wrote the script in a way where I intentionally avoided an exact meaning explained to the audience. I decided to treat it as poetry that could be interpreted in a number of different ways, I didn't want to 'ram a message down anyone's throat'. Of course I know what the wizard means, but I felt it was best to keep it an ambiguous oddity that people with differing beliefs could see their own way.
This contest has a LONG way to go, I don't see any clear winner here but, am happy for anyone who thinks I deserve it. Thanks!
Dan Mason
Fantsastic from start to finish, as expected of course.
I love the look of the waterfall, looks like the sparks which are made when metal grinding.
I love the look of the waterfall, looks like the sparks which are made when metal grinding.
Ron Cole
Thanks Dm_die, the waterfall was a tough decision on exactly how to do it, I wanted to have something that actually existed on set because at the time, I wasn't able to do ANYTHING digitally. I ended up doing it directly on my background painting with many replacement strips of painted water magnetized onto the painting. I added the extra drips and spray by hand painting them into each frame after it was shot. Thanks for noticing!
c00lestcuban
This was an amazing piece of work. Absolutely brilliant.
Josh Le Good
so did you win?
have they contacted you? :D
have they contacted you? :D
Ron Cole
I don't have a clue, nobody contacted me about it, the only change that I see is that apparently they did take my suggestion an next month there is a stop motion contest listed! That's very exciting for us in the stop motion world because there are virtually NEVER any stop motion contests or festivals. Even though stop motion is a very popular form of animation, it tends to get ignored in favor of 2D and CG films. So I wrote an email to the people here at BigStar.tv and they liked the idea.... YAY!!
Ron Cole
OK it's May 14th and it's 11:00pm where I live and still there is no verdict on the winner of this contest... I want to WIN!! I can't take the pressure, I've bitten off all my fingernails while trembling uncontrollably. The grave news that I LOST will surely be a horrible blow but, I'd rather hear it sooner than later. I'll politely congratulate the real winner and sulk away to my quiet space to cry... Hit me with it now!
Ron Cole
What a surprising honor, My film won!! I'd really like to Thank everybody who took the time to watch and rate this film. I was fairly certain that it wouldn't win so it was a real surprise when I got the email letting me know that this film came out on top! That would not have been possible without the audience and friends who thought it worthy. Thank You All Very Much and Thank You BigStar for the opportunity!
BIGSTAR
It actually was a very close competition and lots of great shorts were submitted. Unfortunately there can only be one winner. This can make it really tough sometimes. We are pleased to announce that our contests area will be expanding and we will go from 5 to 10 active contests soon (maybe more). A new animation contest will be back very shortly and we want everyone back for more! Stop Motion animators are highly encouraged to submit their films to the new Stop Motion contest that was recently opened as well. Please remember that is important for participants to share their film, get it rated and commented on because all of this goes into the winning formula!
Robbie Robertson
congratulations wobbly tripod! great job on the film, that was some very impressive stop motion work.
davidiber78
Congratulations!! :D
Robbie Robertson
Hey wobblytripod - thanks a lot for the comment on my film. I was very impressed with the stop motion animation on your film - I still cannot figure out how you were able to achieve such realistic lip sync with your characters. Great stuff!
I made a claymation film a while back, it's a bit simplistic but here's the link if you want to check it out-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpjcrtYuQrc
I made a claymation film a while back, it's a bit simplistic but here's the link if you want to check it out-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpjcrtYuQrc
