Monday Film Stuff — Planet of the Apes and gear

Happy monday! Today again I am working on my puppets and set for the NASA School project, which, when finished I can shoot the rest of the shots I need pretty quickly. Later today I am going to see both Lucy and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes with my friend since he works at the theater and has free passes whenever he wants. Super sweet.

Anyways, getting to some gear talk. Currently I have a Canon 70D with two 50mm lenses and a 75-200 kit lens. Also with my recent purchase of the Canon AE-1 classical goodie, I have a 28-55mm FD lens that I still need an adaptor ring to convert it to EF mount. So I have a fairly decent range for focal lengths but need something better.

I am already formulating a plan for a movie project in the fall when I'm back at school which will be like many of the classic horror films. I mean the ones that couldn't scare you if they tried. Those awesome and funny B-rate movies.

For this project I will be buy my first serious lens and that is the Canon 24-105 f4 L lens. There are many places that sell this lens for $1,100 and there are also some that sell it for half that. So I will of course be going with the cheaper price and this lens will be my go to for all my video and photography needs.

Now with the Canon 70D's crop factor of 1.6 this lens won't go completely out to 24mm but it gets relatively close. If calculated out it becomes a 38mm lens.

Also for recording Audio I am going to go with the Rode NTG2 microphone. After hearing some examples of comparisons between this mic and a couple other Rode mics, I loved the clearness and quality audio of this mic. This I will be using into the Zoom H4n.

This is a pretty solid setup for shooting this kind of film and should be a fun experience. I've already told some of my friends the concept and they really like the idea.

I will be posting more about this project and other gear information every Monday. Support me and follow my blog.

Making a Stop Motion Puppet Pt 1

What you'll need

Wire:

I use 18mm aluminum wire that my dad was able to find at work since it wouldn't cost me anything.  You can find the industry standard and recommended armature wire online. Or if you don't want to wait for the wire to ship, you can try and find wire at the hardware store. 

(I wasn't able to find wire at Lowes and I'm not sure if Ace Hardware, HomeDepot or Harbor Freight carries it but it could be worth a look)

I wouldn't use steel wire. I made my first wire armature with steel wire but it was not as easy to move as aluminum wire making it a bit tough to animate. 

Epoxy Putty:

This will hold together your armature. It's not as cheap as I was hoping but for $7 you can get the cheapest one and that should work. I used this:

I don't know if you have to worry about different putties acting differently or not since really we just want it to get hard. So you should have to worry about wether it says metal weld or plastic weld. I say cheapest is best. 

Step 1 planning: 

I is best to draw out a plan for your characters body so you can make sure that everything will work in the end. Also this will allow you to play with the scale of your character before spending the time to make the armature. 

For my second character I didn't have to make a plan when I redid the body because I went off of the space suite size that I had made so the armature fit properly. 

Step 2 Shaping:

This step is relatively easy. When you have your plan take the wire and start with one foot and then shape the hips and then going into the spine and neck then down for the other side. In the end you will have something like what is pictured above. 

For this armature I repeated this two times giving me three main Body wires. This will help the armature hold itself up when you have it tied down on the stage. 

Next:

We have to renforce the legs by adding additional wire. I make essentially an upside down U shape with a couple more pieces and then wrap that with the legs. 

In this armature I used two extra pieces with the legs making a total of five wires for the legs. 

I do nearly the same thing for the arms. With a drawn plan you can cut a couple of wires to the desired length. When you go to attach them you will want to have them bent where the shoulder width will be for your puppet. 

Attach the arms by twisting the spine wires together and putting the arms at the desired height in the twist. 

Step 3 Epoxy:

With the epoxy putty it is good to mix sections of the putty at a time so that you can spend time to shape what you need to. If it looks like this picture, keep mixing it!!

To start mix a portion of the epoxy until the marbling is gone. Then shape the hips and then the chest. It is a little easier if you do the chest second because the arms like to move around if you do it first and then the hips second. 

Next, take pieces of putty and make the bones on the arms and legs. Make sure to leave a gap for the shoulder, elbow, hip, knee, hands and feet. I leave about 1/4 inch of space for these spots. Although you can really just eyeball a fair distance.

The epoxy that I used sets in 25 minutes and fully cures in three hours.

Follow my blog! Part two to be posted soon. 

Stop Motion Character building

I hope that everyone is having a good Saturday. Today I am rebuilding one puppet and making my last puppet for the NASA short film. I will document the build of my final puppet a little more so I can post a nice how to on what I'm doing for my puppets.

So today I'm designing Dr. Which I'm not exactly sure how I want him to look. The idea is that he is supposed to be kind of a smart idiot. Also I've envisioned him in a Tim Burton kind of way but that doesn't work with my other characters. In the end I think that even if I draw a couple of super rough character sketches I will most likely free hand it anyways.

I'll be posting again. Subscribe to my blog and keep up with what's happening here at Magnet Films. You won't want to miss NASA School when it's finished.

Here is my movie suggestion for the week. Since I've been working on stop motion animation I decided to give you a good story and here are two titles that I think are great.

NASA School Update

Well today is another day of set building as I am finishing all the centrifuge shots with Rookie. So I am working on the control room where Dr. will be for the film. This set will be interesting in its design since I have a small area to work with so I have a really drastic forced perspective.

My main focus is on the control desk which will be essentially the main set piece for Dr.'s scenes. I made it out of the two halves of a shoe box, some hot glue and some silver and brown paint.

NASA School Stop Motion Short Film

I have started an ambitious project for this summer. In three weeks I am trying to have a completed short film called NASA School, a stop motion film about two not so astronauts and a scientist that I wouldn't trust with a bunsen burner.

It is week two and I have a lot of cool stuff that I have been working on:

This was the what I started with. The character's name is Rookie and I think he really is just an extension of myself in clay because we really look a lot alike.

I started with making the wire armature and then sculpted the head.

Then I made the eyes out of white clay and poked a whole in them. I put the eyes in the toaster oven for 15 minutes to harden so then I can paint it.

With a piece of wire I was able get a nice pupil by putting a bunch of black paint on the end of the wire and then putting the wire in the whole. Since the whole is just big enough for the wire, the paint comes off in a fairly even circular way.

Early concept art for Rookie. The end product changed in the end. I am by no means a good drawer.

If only I had the film for this camera... Its my new love.

 Adding some meat on the bones....

 Finished padding added to the skeleton so that his clothes fit well.
















On to the costume...

Glued on pockets. It was interesting to look at flight suites of astronauts and look at where the pockets are. Which the are on the front of the pants rather than the side of them like we are use to when we wear jeans.

Every astronaut has to have his patches....

...And a helmet.

 Character 2: Rocket

This is when I put the Tee Nuts in his feet so that he can connect to the floor.

Making the Rocket's patches. Not shown but I have to redo his name patch because I forgot the "C" in Rocket when I wrote it the first time.

 Creating the set for the scenes with Rookie. Mostly just cardboard and hot glue.

The Centrifuge cockpit set