How we made a movie in our kitchen and took it to Cannes

So, We made a stop-motion movie in my mate's kitchen and took it to Cannes. This hub takes you through some of the decisions we made, the mistakes, the learning curve and the fun we had.

Idea

Years ago I sketched a rather bizarre character during a university lecture. It was half man and half zebra. Later I planned to make a film with it but I didn't get around to it so Zebraman died before being born. Much later I was discussing content with Simon Harris a friend of mine who does CGI animation for various TV stations, just freelance, nothing glamorous, and the subject of Zebraman came up. He wanted something to animate an I had this rather bizarre character up my sleeve.

Again, nothing happened. I kept pestering him but we just didn't get the idea together. Looking for a way to ignite the project I went out of the office at work one day, bought a box of Plasticine and some black tape, built a rudimentary Zebraman (small enough for my boss not to notice it) and animated it, on my desk at work using a camera phone and an old copy of animation shop. Take a look at the this link: Zebraman gets heckled to see what I came up with. It's pretty basic but my Simon soon realised that I meant business and so we began putting the project together.

We were still miles away from a finished film. Working on a TV idea we came up with we set about animating the character. I built the first model using a cheap armature I bought from these guys: Animation Supplies Which I padded out with tissue and insulation tape and then finally covered with Plasticine and uncooked Fimo.

The set

It was a green screen set. The simplest we could make it, a long roll of good quality matt green paper, a table and a kitchen with blacked out windows (we hung a duvet and some blankets on the window). The only real layout was a set of lights we hired for about £140. Simon has had many bad experiences of poorly lit stop-motion that he has been asked to work with, he was adamant that we lit the set properly and it was a good decision. We setup a half decent DSLR camera on a tripod and took some raw shots which my friend then put through after effects to produce our first movie attempt. (He used quite a bit of looping to get extra animation time on screen and smoothen up the movement) It was slow, it was laborious and it was badly planned … but it was also a fun weekend. We got about twenty seconds of fairly jerky animation (I wanted to keep it jerky so it looks like stop-motion and not CGI). I don’t have a link to this particular film because it pertains to a project which is still in the pipeline but it turned out pretty well considering.

What we learned

1) Use a storyboard! (Doh!)

2) Plasticine deteriorates badly when animating...

3) Anchor your model to the floor well

4) Be patient. If a shot doesn’t work, go back and try it again.

The pitch

We tried pitching the idea to channel 5 but they didn't get it. So, back to the drawing board.

Plan B

During a pub break in the first film shoot Simon and I got to talking about where the Zebraman character came from. We decided that being half man and half animal the obvious scenario was something akin to 'The Fly' but instead of a fly, a full grown zebra just wanders into the pod and the mad professor (who we named Brian Salad) was so scatty he didn't even realise. Plan B was born! We decided to call this film 'An Unfortunate Oversight' using understatement as our hook (clever huh? okay... not really but anyway) and began to put it together.

Storyboarding

Having committed the cardinal sin of working without a storyboard first time around, I was determined to plan this film meticulously. I did some very basic sketches and put them back to back so we had an idea. Then I did some bits on MS paint (bear in mind that I have a family and a job, no money and very little spare time so I use whatever I can, whenever I get a minute) and turned them into a simple animatic so we knew how the film would go. By this point a third friend, Frazer Budd had come on board to help with the model building. He knocked up a lovely teleport pod and control panel with aerospace precision while I worked on the puppets.

Puppets

Because of the time constraints and the budget the plan was to keep the movement as simple as possible i.e. NO WALKING SHOTS! Walking shots are very time consuming in stop motion and the animators spend a lot of time walking around in slow motion while their colleagues make lude comments and take down sketches. The film was storyboarded to avoid this. I built one puppet for the professor using a desk lamp as my base (because it had a nice bendy bit) and I weighted it down with metal inside. I built a wire armature around this and then used the same techniques as before with tape and tissue to pad out the model, still keeping it light and flexible. The clothes were made from an old T-shirt and a pot of poster paint. I also had to make a Zebraman puppet who was super flexible but strong. Having re-designed him to be thin and gangly I hit on the idea of using white blue-tack instead of Plasticine. The benefit of this was that blue-tack doesn’t go too soft when it is warm, neither does it crack when it is cold, so it holds it’s shape pretty well, stretching without breaking. Having acquired some stretchy latex paint I simply painted the alternate pieces black to give me a black and white striped Zebraman. The Head was fairly rigid, and he wears shades so there was no need to create a moving mouth. Instead I used a big pink tongue to give it expression.  For both the professor and the Zebraman faces, I used a series of interchangeable mouths made from cooked Fimo (a little trick I learned from those wonderful Aardman guys. The face was soft Fimo so I could blend the mouth into it. It worked fairly well although I’d be more diligent next time I think. Finally the Zebra which would appear inside the pod was a simple bust. The only movement it would have was grass going up and down in its mouth and the eyes would be added later with CGI. The grass was made from insulated garden wire that I bought at the local garden centre.

Filming

Once again we setup the kitchen studio. This time, more care was taken with the lighting, the shots, and the animation. We knew exactly what we had to get and the planning really helped us out. It took us a weekend but we got all we needed. It was a lot of fun too. If you ever put an animation team together, make sure they all get along extremely well and like going out for a few beers in the break. This breaks the tedium. Another good tip is to keep looking back at what you’ve animated, when you see the models come to life it fills you with enthusiasm and excitement to push on and finish what you’ve started.

So here it is!

Please take a look at this link to see our finished film ‘An Unfortunate Oversight’. The movie has had much praise for its originality and simplicity. We took it to Cannes this summer where it raised a few laughs and a few eyebrows. We also managed to get the BBC interested enough to give us a radio interview, plus good coverage in the local press. Subsequently we have now setup our new company Sparetimefilms and will soon be working on a new film which is currently top secret.

Conclusion

This is just a little story of a group of friends who had an idea and made it happen. This is a tiny drop in the ocean of stop motion animation but it shows that you can make a film on a tiny budget, in your own house and take it to major film festivals. You may not make any money or sell your film, but I can guarantee you, it’s well worth it. We had a brilliant time doing this and can’t wait to do it again.

Give it a shot!

Also on this subject by this author: Why I love stop-motion animation