Company Research - Part 3 - Aardman

Well of course Aardman had to make an appearance in these research posts at some point. Its very likely that characters such as Morph and Wallace and Gromit were my first introduction to claymation and stop motion animation, though as a child I'd never had imagined I'd be a stop motion student today.

 

Aardman is probably best known for its amazing stop motion feature films like Pirates!In an adventure with scientists, Chicken Run, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-rabbit and TV series like Shaun the Sheep but what many people don't know is that Aardman works with a variety of media including 2D, 3D, CGI, live action and puppeteering. They are also responsible for creating the worlds largest stop motion film (Gulp) and smallest stop motion film (Dot) as a promotion for Nokia phones.  You can watch them both here

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD7eagLl5c4 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieN2vhslTTU

What I like about these short films is that they push the limits of what can be achieved with stop motion both in terms of the technology and materials.

What I like most about Aardman is that although they are now using new technology's and materials such as three dimensional printing and foam latex as well as the traditional plasticine to create their puppets, they have managed to keep the clay like appearance of the characters very consistent and true to the 'Aardman Style' that we all know and love.

Company Research - Part 2 - Makinnon and Saunders

Mackinnon & Saunders are one of the world’s leading puppet making companies specializing in the design and construction of characters for television shows, feature films and commercials.

What I like about Mackinnon and Saunders is that they are teaming up with company's such as Fantastic Flying Films and are helping to create fun new series like Calamity Island from the creator of Koala Brothers, David Johnson. I found the pilot for Calamity Island utterly adorable and couldn’t  look away for a second.  I immediately fell in love with the stylized appearance of the characters and the addition of mischievous penguin adds a lovely quirk to the plot.

You can watch the pilot episode here

https://vimeo.com/37950651 

They are also responsible for the puppets in TV series such as Bob the Builder, Postman Pat and the one I’m most excited about THE CLANGERS!  Its wonderful to see that these animations are being made and filmed in their original stop motion format and not horrifically recreated using CGI.

 

I first stumbled upon Mackinnon and Saunders when I found out that they made the puppets for one of my all-time favorite films ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’. The popular children’s book by Roald Dahl is a big happy memory from my childhood and I had to know more when I found it was being made into a stop motion feature film.

I'd be very interested in working for Mackinnon and Saunders because of the huge variety of projects and films they work on. I imagine each of which comes with its own unique set of problems to solve in innovative and interesting ways.

Company Research - Part 1 - Trampires Ltd

The first company I want to talk about is Trampires Ltd!

Trampires Ltd is a product of Immortal Pictures Ltd a BAFTA award winning stop motion animation company based in the UK, headed by Director & Producer Mike Mort. Having worked mainly in the world of commercials and TV series

 they are now working on something bigger and even more exciting!

The idea/charterer of Chuck Steel began well over twenty years ago in the imagination of Mike Mort and in 2013 ‘Chuck Steel: Raging Balls of Steel Justice’ a fifteen minute short film was released. Despite the fact it was part time project filmed in a basement the production values and overall quality of the film are brilliant. This short helped secure the funding for the feature film Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires due for release in 2017.

You can watch the trailer for the short film here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbASkmiagrI

I’m really excited about this film as it's not often that a 
medium which is usually associated with children's films will be combined with more adult humor and themes.

The reason I'm most excited about this company is that I was lucky enough to attend three weeks of work experience at the Trampires Ltd studio and will be returning later on this year after graduation! I can’t tell you what I got up to but I can tell you that I learned so many of new skills, and got to work with some really very talented, inspiring and friendly people.I cant wait to apply the skills I've learned to my next project.

Check out their production blog here

http://www.nightofthetrampires.com/blog/

Yorrick Clothes

 I'm sure Ive described the process of making puppet clothes patterns before so I wont go into detail here.

  Firstly I made a pattern by wrapping the puppet in masking tape then cutting it away in several section.

   

I then used these pattens to mark out the shapes on the fabric.

 I usually start with the largest sections of the piece of clothing. For the shirt this was the back and the two front sections.

 Here's the finished shirt! I usually just tuck the sleeves inside the main body of the shirt but this time I decided to sew them on. I'm not sure if this was the best idea as it will make dressing the puppet quite difficult.

I used the same process to make the trousers. Most of the clothing is sewn by hand as it's quite hard to control such a small amount of fabric using a sewing machine.

The trousers were a little bit big so I pinned them to the correct size on the puppet then sewed a new seam before cutting away the excess fabric.

The waistcoat was more problematic than I expected it to be. My first attempt on the left turned out really very lumpy and didn't fit the puppet at all well. For my second attempt I looked online for waistcoat pattens then altered the pattern I found to fit the puppet.

I couldn't use a sewing machine to assemble this item of clothing because it was incredibly slippery. I mostly used Wonder-web and did a small amount of hand sewing.

Hair (part 2)

 So this is the part where I start gluing all those strips of hair to pips head.

 I started at the base of the head and began gluing each layer of hair on one above the other. I used pins to hold the hair in place as the glue dried. 

As I got to the top of the head I started to work from the front to the back, then did my best to make the join line at the crown of the head look like a parting. 

At this point it all looks a bit crazy so I decided to try my hand at miniature hair dressing to make everything look tidy. I also used some Dax Wax to smooth the hair down a little.

Pips Shell (Silicon Slash Mold and Resin Casting)

 My main character Pip has a beetle shell as part of his costume. I made a shell from a mixture of balsa wood, Milliput and super sculpy firm which I had intended to paint and then glue directly to the puppet. I though that with constant touching and movement that it might break.

I eventually decided to make a resin copy of the shell which would be both stronger and lighter than the original sculpt.

 

 I began by gluing a pour spout (pen lid) to the sculpt with some hot glue and sticking everything to to a board. I then painted a layer of mold making silicon directly on to the sculpt and allowed it to dry. This layer of silicon will prevent air bubbles forming on the sculpt. 

 After allowing the silicon to dry I boxed up the sculpt ready for the next stage

Pouring the silicon from a height helps any air in the silicon to escape.

I allowed the silicon to set over night before removing the box and slashing open the mold. Cutting in a zig-zag pattern helps the mold key together when you re-seal it later on.

I then used elastic bands to hold the mold together before pouring in the Fast Cast Resin.

Pip and Yorick Shoulders

Last year I used foam to pad out the shoulders, although this looked okay it made animating the puppet every difficult because of how soft it was. This year I've decided to cast the upper torso in silicon.

The first thing I did was to paint a layer of silicon onto each of the shoulder molds and wrap PTFE tape around the armature joints.

Next I used some foam to pad out the neck and shoulder sections which will allow the armature to move after the silicon is added.

Its very important to seal the foam with a layer of silicon before placing it into the mold. The layer of silicon will stop the foam from absorbing all the silicon in your cast.

Here's what the shoulders looked like directly out of the mold.

I then cut into the silicon in order to reach the armature and re-attach the arms.