New Teaser Around The Corner

Hi Folks,

Bear with us for the next couple days as we have been hard at work creating a teaser for the film. I gotta say, I love it. I think you will too.

...So, check back here often and stay tuned!

P.S. If you haven't signed up via email yet, go ahead and do it....you'll be glad you did, or at least content you did, ...at least you won't be sad you did. Read more!

Director's Journal #1

I've decided to write up a weekly journal here on the blog especially as there is more being done in the background that we won't post for a little while yet. Sure I can tell you about it but I won't show it to you... yet.

Make the jump for more



Lately we've been swamped. From storyboards and animatics to script changes and teasers. We are proud to say that our teaser should be out in less than a few weeks and we are all in agreement that it's going to be awesome. We were really proud of the shoot we did and aside from the arduous task of creating motion frame by frame, it was fun!

Most of a stop-motion animation or an animation in general is taken up in pre-production. As anyone can imagine, since production takes so much time and energy, it is extremely important to make sure that you really take the time in pre-production to lay out exactly how the film is going to look, feel, sound and animate. This is an interesting medium as the film almost essentially created in one form or another one maybe two times before you even animate it.

So my day mostly consists of looking at the script, thinking of the shots, drawing the shots, making animated storyboards, thinking of lighting for each scene, the animation and how characters and objects will move in each scene and how music can impact these scenes.

We look forward with high optimism as we are getting a GREAT response just on the little marketing we've done and we're expecting to push forward and really get out there and "wow" quite a few people so check back often as we slowly trickle out more and more behind the scenes photos, videos and more!

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Contest Entry

The contest entries keep rolling in!
This latest one is from Erin Miller in Phoenix, AZ. Great color scheme!

Remember to send all contest entries to contest@karmacreek.com
More pictures after the jump....








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Floorboards

Well it's been a while since I said anything, and I think everyone wants to know what is going on in the set department. At least I hope so, why else would you be here? Well, a small sample has managed to leak out of the dungeon that I work in for you to see.

These are the floorboards that I think I have settled on for the film. This particular piece will be used for the teaser, so unless there is a problem when filming it or Rusty throws a fit this will be the look of them.



For the teaser I needed one big rectangle of wood, and since I don't have one I made two equal(ish) sized pieces. Luckily a power saw makes short work of that.










Now doesn't that look pretty?










I needed a whole bunch of equal length(ish) "boards", so it's power saw to the rescue again! Now I have a whole pile of them.










By now I've got my rhythm down and my floor plan all laid out.










After I have glued them all down and let it dry, I apply a healthy coat of stain to it. I really want to make sure I get into every crack and crevice.










All done! I can't wait to see how it turns out for the teaser. Enjoy!

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Contest!

For all those lucky Phoenix Film Festival goers who were able to get your hands on one of those small chairs, it's time to show your creative side... Paint it! That's right, paint the chair and send us some snapshots. We'll shortly announce a winner of the best color scheme and that winning color scheme will be used in the very film itself.

If you have not had the chance to get one of these figurines, then contact us and we'll try our best to set something up for you to receive one! Contact us at contest@karmacreek.com.

Take a picture of your painted chair with its unique color scheme and email three pictures (front, side and back) to us at contest@karmacreek.com
Stay with us as the details emerge! Read more!

Teaser for "Moving Day" coming soon!

That's right, folks. We are going to have a teaser for "Moving Day" here on the blog real soon. It will be around Youtube and other selected sites and we're really excited about it.

With a little luck and a lot of work, it shouldn't take much longer than a week or two to hammer out the details and get this puppy on the Interwebs so be sure to come back and check it out! Read more!

2nd Lighting for Test Set

Okay, I thought it would be cool to post another one of the FX and lighting tests I did on the concept set Brian graciously made for me. I liked this one, had a little more flavor. It still would need a tremendous amount of work but it was a quick and dirty FX test and I learned a lot from it and the direction I would like to go with the film.

Set against a green screen, I hand held the cam, pulled back and moved to the left. I thought a shine through the clouds would be a cool effect but it's more for fun than anything else. I doubt it would be necessary for the film itself.

See the test vid after the jump.





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Chair Color Example

Hi Folks-

Here's a chair color example from one of my partners in crime over at Brothers' Ink, Adam Devaney.

Thanks, Adam, and we're looking forward to seeing more from all of you. Read more!

Chris Test Sculpt, Part 2

The test sculpt for Chris is nearly complete.




This test sculpt has been held up for quite a while because I had a hard time finding a suitable eyeball. I have found the best material to be white Delrin balls, but the size of Chris's noggin is simply gigantic, and the eyeballs are just the same. Where in the world do you get such huge Delrin eyeballs? According to the research I did online, the closest place is Australia. Wow... that could take a while. So seeing as this is just a test sculpt and all, I decided to make some of my own out of bakeable Super Sculpey and leave the official eyes for future research.

Viola.

Baked Super Sculpey, sanded it down to make it nice and round, then drilled out the holes, painted the whole thing, and filled the center holes with glue. Now remember, this is only for the test puppet. These eyes would not work on an actual puppet. Why? Mostly because they are very difficult to move around in their sockets, making animation almost impossible. But also because they are very prone to getting stained by the clay, the paint is very easy to chip off, and it's tough to get all the brush strokes out of the finished product from painting it - especially when you have to keep putting on a new coat every time it gets stained or chipped.

Let's see where we left off last time, and how Chris looks with his new set of eyes:

Perfect size! But he'll need some cleaning up, starting with a mouth.

I make a gaping hole, then bake some teeth to put in there (way easier than using soft clay), and add some eyebrows to give me a reference for his final expression.

Notice the paint on his eyes has already started to stain and chip off. We'll have to come back to that later.
Let's add some more detail and shape to the head...

And now, finally, the hair!

We have not settled on an official color for the hair yet, but I am going to take a stab at it. He seems like a blonde kinda guy, and being so skiddish, I imagine it will be closer to white than blonde.

It's great! Now I just need some finishing touches. We'll start by touching up those eyes with a fresh coat of white paint.

And here's where the story sadly must end for today. The only things left to do are put on his eyebrows and stubble, but his head is so enormous that the entire thing has started to teeter back and forth under the weight of it. It actually fell over, still bolted to the wood, and hung upside down for a second before I moved it back out to the shop and leaned it against a support. The lighting out there is very poor, so I don't have any pictures of the final touches yet. The final version of Chris is going to have a slush mold for the head (meaning essentially hollow) making it much, much lighter. He is also going to have fingers, eyebrows, and stubble, but I will have to post pictures of that at a different time.

Now the team gets to decide what we like about him and what we dislike about him and make adjustments. He may still be a long ways off from the official Chris of the film. Only time will tell!

-Duane

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Contest concept...

Here is a little something to get your motors running for painting your own figurine!

Click "Read More" to see more details...


Don't worry, we'll play fair... This one was made by Karma Creek so we are not going to consider it a contestant in the competition ;) (and yes, that is actually dark green but my cell phone camera seems to prefer black)


Remember, send your entry with at least three (3) pictures of the figurine to contest@karmacreek.com
Good luck, and be creative!!












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Freebies for the Phoenix crowd...

ATTENTION PHOENIX FILM FANS!

Seeing as we on the Moving Day crew are all from Phoenix, we decided to show a little "brotherly love" to all our friends here in Phoenix. How so, you might ask? Well, by giving you FREE genuine Moving Day memorabilia figurines!!!!!



Click "Read More" for more details!

We will be handing them out tonight and tomorrow at the Phoenix Film Festival so if you are going to be near, stop by! These are very limited and will likely be very desired after the film comes out.

A word of warning though, there are only a few dozen available and they are going to go FAST so make sure you look for us in the Red Shirts with the "Stop Motion" stop sign design. (see previous post for a picture of it so you can recognize us)

Here are some other angles of the figurines. Oh and by the way, there will be something sitting on some of the chairs, but you will have to come get one for yourself to see what it is (we wouldn't want to give it all away here now, would we?)

-Duane

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Basic FX test shot

I thought I would post this little ditty. It's a test shot I did with our test set in front of a green screen. I replaced the green with a moving cloud and the work table with a quick hill I grabbed off the internet. Not near the final look of the film but more of a lighting test and to make sure that the light on the set would match the background, etc. I'll be posting several of these short little video pieces as we progress.

See the video after the jump.

So what do you think everyone? Any suggestions on background for the next test shot? I think I might grab a quick image of a sky with fewer clouds.

Can't wait till we get some actual animation test footage to show off!



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STOP motion

Hey y'all. Thought it would be a good idea to show the image we used on the back of our t-shirts that we'll be wearing at the Phoenix Film Festival. So "stop" us if you see one of our guys! No pun intented... or was it... Read more!