Tuesday, January 24, 2012

My First Stop-Motion Puppet! (1999-2000)


Here's the guy who started it all.
Found him packed away in a long forgotten box.
This was my first attempt at a stop-motion puppet, a zombie named Eli Daun.
Made this guy for a college film project at OCAD in 1999 or 2000.


He stands about 10½".
Sculpey with acrylic paint for the head and feet with a wire jointed jaw.
Wire and Sculpey for the hands.
The clothes are painted terrycloth, hot-glued together. Didn't want to bother with a needle and thread, I guess.
This puppet held up through the shoot but just barely. No idea where the film went.


I shot the film on a Bolex in a very small loft studio apartment I was living in at the time.
The set measured about 8' x 10'. Basically the size of the entire main floor of the apartment.
I was literally living in a mini-graveyard for about 2 weeks.
I can remember having to make a removable hatch in the set so I had somewhere to eat. Just poked my head up and used the set as a table.

Here's the original head sculpt.


Streamlined it and added the animatable jaw for the final one.
Looking back at it now, I like this head much better.

1 comment:

helen brown said...

I remember your dad visiting that address and saying that a very small but very menacing guy had taken over Graham's apartment. How menacing, I asked. Doesn't speak but has really intense gaze, he said. Yeah. You need to make a film about this - hilarious, you coming up through the set to eat.