Making of… : Part 1

The Hollow City Chronicles exhibition has opened and the web site is officially launched. The sets and other forensic evidence will be showing at Midland Polytechnic until March 4, 2011.
I thought I’d take my short film “The Bystander Effect” apart and show how it was made. It’s all low budget (no budget!), learn-as-you-go stuff. I make no claims to be an expert, just curious and crazy.

The opening scene shows the city from above.

Animating from above
Animating from above

The city isn’t real, of course, it’s a sculpture and it was too big to just lean over the ladder and snap the pic. The lamps are ordinary desk lamps on stands (hope no one in the house wants to read…). The green curtains weren’t needed for this shot – they were there from other filming – we’ll get to that.

Animation set from above
Animation set from above

The camera used for the film is a Canon 450D which comes with software that allows it to be controlled from a PC (including seeing what could be seen through the viewfinder). It made it possible to clamp the camera to a roof beam above the set and still be able to use it! Just add an extra long USB cable… It’s not a dedicated “animation camera” (is there such a thing?) it’s the one the family has – four of us share it (unless one of us is hogging it to make a film… in which case it’s probably bolted to the ceiling!)

Animating with the camera clamped to the roof beam
Animating with the camera clamped to the roof beam

Tomorrow I’ll introduce the puppet and show how she got into the picture.

 

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