Friday 9 November 2007

The Woods

TODAY'S TALE TAKES US INTO THE WOODS where things are not quite what they seem, where children get lost and maybe never found again and where the trees alone are witness ...
I have always loved the combination of music and strange imagery which has sparked my long interest in animation and all things puppety.
Stop frame animation holds a particular charm for me in its wonky darkness, its dark wonkyness; especially the masterful works by animators from Eastern Europe like Yuriy Norsteyn and Jan Svankmajer.
Thus inspired I took up the challenge of making a cut-out stop motion animated video for Polly Paulusma's single "The Woods" released earlier this year on One Little Indian records from her latest album, "Fingers & Thumbs".



Below is the result .. a five-and-a-half minute extravaganza of cardboard legs, wire butterflies and many painted backgrounds; each piece moved tiny bit by tiny bit ... at 24 frames-per-second ... which actually means that I made between 8000 and 9000 single captured images for the whole video.
It was a labour of love and I learned a lot as I went along .. It is filmed with a fairly high res webcam and the characters and sets are laid on layers of glass ( a trick I learned from reading about how Mr Norsteyn works )
Polly's lyrics inspired the forest-as-witness-to-a-dark-happening story ... which calls to mind a rather less than sugary Hansel & Gretel tale and conjures imagined fears of the archetypal forest as well as a real horror of a terrifying bogeyman, in more tangible guises. It speaks too of the turning of the year ...
I am pleased to say that it was received with smiles and kind words and even got played on MTV in Italy! And I must add that I would never have made it to the end if it weren't for the patience and brain of my kind brother.
It was my first ever animation .. but not my last!
I will be making a new and quite different and gentle-beautiful animation for the new Orla Wren album due out next year ...






Click here to see the video if you are having trouble viewing it.

Move-click-move-click-move-click-move-click ...

9 comments:

Gretel said...

I watched that a few months ago, it is utterly brilliant, (if a little disturbing).

Midori said...

Wow Rima, this is gorgeous! I just posted about it in both Into the Labyrinth and Endicott's News & Reviews -- breaking my own rule about not double posting. Thank you so much for adding me to your links, and I have very enthusiastically added you to mine. Lovely work!

June said...

I really enjoyed this. I appreciate the love that goes into making stop frame animation.
Your first attempt!!! Well done.
I look forward to seeing more :o)

tlchang said...

Gorgeous stuff! I'm so pleased to see you have a blog (and an intriguing one to boot!) since I have been enamoured of your website.

Happy posting!

tamás said...

Let me congratulate for this one! May I ask how have you done those small differences in light? Did you use different positions of lamps for photographing?

Rima Staines said...

Thanks all for your kind compliments :) Tamas .. yes I just moved various lamps around the room! Not particularly high tech! Trial and error to get something not too jumpy frame to frame. Have you got a blog? :)

tamás said...

Thank you very much for your quick response :)
Yes, I have a photoblog here:
www.tamaskatai.wordpress.com

And I'm trying to do something a little bit similar to your work for my own band. Unfortunately in a level much lower.

Liana said...

Rima, you, your blog and your homepage are gorgeous!
I am a brasilian woman and don't speak english well, but i can't resist to tell it for you. In my dreams i will do things like yours, without one specific reason, only because my heart ask me to do.
Be happy!
Liana
lianaventura@hotmail.com

keiron said...

This is very lovely indeed !
I especially liked the final sequences.
Fine work.