Screenshots from the film

Since we don't have time to publish any longer posts this week, 

here are three screenshots from the film!

We built this City

Here is a miniature city we built in cardboard.

Some pics and text explaining the process:

For building the houses we just used different cardboard that we could find and gluegun. 

The houses has only three walls - we won't see the fourth 

and it is also easier to light them from inside then.

The houses where built in differnt sizes to create 

an illusion of perspective/fake perspective.

Some of the houses where covered in putty and lightly sandpapered.

Then painted in different grayish desaturated colours.

 

( Sometimes we also clean up)

Here is the houses putted up for shooting. 

The background is the same as in the train exterior shots, 

but without the orange light behind (since its still night here).

The mountains is made by styrofoam.

This is how the set looks from behind.
We covered some of the windows and then had lamps behind every row of houses.
The aluminium foil is to cover cracks where the light slipped through.

 

For this shot we made a miniature animatable version of the character. Challenging and fun to animate!

And some photos with the finished lighting.

Nature and Train Set!

So this is our expensive train-in-the-nature shot. Many days of work for only 3 seconds! To not waste that much work for only 3 seconds, we figured to use the same set from another angle in another scene. Here is some pictures and text about making the set and the train:

We started by shaping the landscape in foam, and covered it with towels and other textiles:

Then we painted it with acrylic colours:
(photos by Julija)

The small trees is plastic trees coated in wooden glue and spices (oregano, chili and seafood mix, yum yum)
We were originally planning to use greenscreen background, but since the set is green we made another solution: we painted a fabric as a sky and then later lighted it from behind with a yellow/orange ligt (sunrise), since its "real" background it also affected the set and the resloult looks really atmospheric!

 The train was made in wood, the roof of architecture paper, the pipes sculpted from super sculpey and then we coated the train in putty :

We also lighted it with lamos inside and led lights for the front:

 The scene is now animated but will stay unpulished until we release the teaser!

Emergency in the basement!!

The other day we had a not so happy surprice in the basement: After spending almost a day on lighting and camera settings we were finally ready to animate the scene (friday evening) when we suddenly discovered a stain of water in the middle of the set! It was waterdrops that came from the ceiling, dripping down on the set. And after a moment it was dropping from two spots in the roof.. We where terrifyed that we have to remove everything and do the lighting all over again, but problemsolvers as we are, we found a meanwhile solution: tape and toiletpaper, sticked on the roof with a broom:

Evidence

of the waterstain.

Plastic cups to save
the set from water.

Genius solution.

And then we could animate the scene
witout any water dripping from the roof!

Hallway with Postboxes Set finished

Only the plant is missing!

  Making of Stop Motion Sets:

The postboxes was cut out in styrofoam. Black was painted inside th boxs to make it the holes we cut to look deeper. Then the postboxes was painted with acrylic and drybrushed.

 

Directors in discussion.  

 

The floor just a thin mdf board that we carved and then painted.

 Testing.

 The miniatur cablels is aluminium wire painted with acrylic.

A small detail is that all the people that helped or is involved in the project have their names on the postboxes. Details on how we made the walls is comming soon!