Day 1 – Woollen Stop motion animation shoot!!

Hi Steemit!

I am currently surrounded by mountains of wool!

We have been asked by Children's Film Festival Seattle to produce an animated ident for their upcoming film festival in January 2017.

This ident will be used to introduce the festival.

We are using Steemit to document our progress. Our deadline for this project is the 15th November in time for the festival to be able to use it for their promotion. I shall be posting on Steemit regularly with our progress including pictures and test shots. I want to deliver a truthful and educational account of the ups and downs that go into making a stop motion animation on a small budget and a tight deadline.

All proceeds from this blog will be going back into the film.

Here is a little about what we intend to do:

We are using our first film 'The Little Red Plane' as inspiration for the ident. In 'The Little Red Plane' there is a little boy and his cat who travel all over the world dropping off parcels in their little red plane. This stop motion film was made using knitted/ crocheted sets and characters. Here is a link to the original film:

The Story:

In this ident our characters fly all over the world in their plane picking up film reels from various different countries to take them to the festival. Our aim is to create an film that will engage all age groups and focus on the diversity and inclusion of different cultures and how people from all over the world want to share their stories with us through the medium of film.

The Process

All of our sets are going to be handmade. We are currently compiling a shot list together of every scene and shot that is needed. From that we compile a list of every character and set piece that needs to be made and storyboard out all of our actions so that we can see what would be best to film first. This is what is called the pre production stage. Because of the time constraints we will be making as we go, using our days to make the props and evenings to film.

Studio Set Up

We are also currently clearing out one of the rooms in the office to start work in. At the moment it's stacked up with boxes of wool and various pieces of equipment. Over the next couple of days this room will be transformed into a fully functional animation studio.

We first became acquainted with Children's Film Festival Seattle when we were asked to enter our graduate film 'The Little Red Plane' into The Festival back in 2012. We have since been over to visit Liz Shepherd and her team at the festival and to run a series of workshops with the children as well as a few sessions at Seattle Children's Hospital for the young patients.

As I mentioned before all proceeds from this blog will be going back into the film. I shall be posting our progress regularly on Steemit so please look out for us and see how we are getting on.

Many thanks!

Charlotte :)