Beginning to Shoot Solos

Patron Paul shot this photo today of my shooting setup. Ms. Honeypot Ant

has been performing her bit of business for Halfland's Bug Party scene.

Several things are happening at once here:

1. Trying a radical new method of animating frames as the traditional means was making me too intimidated to get going.

2. Trying to get brief clips of each bug on a homemade green screen in hopes of compositing them into the Bug Party set rather than trying to have all 60 bug puppets on the set animating at once.

3. Getting the equipment workflow figured out for solo close-ups like this.

On the first test so far, I've found that my special effects camera won't be right for this, as the DOF is so shallow that the puppet's edges are too soft to composite. Next, I will try the old animation camera here, the FZ50, to see if that gets it right. Failing that, I'm willing to try my new iPad Air (the only equipment purchased for Halfland that didn't seem useful five minutes ago) to get the shots.

My radical new method of animating Halfland frames is a stunning, out-of-the-box concept that is so recursively Meta that I'm excited by the prospect it presents.

It would be right only for this specific film if it works. Well, maybe for other films, too, if you want a freakishly dreamlike movement that looks nothing like familiar stop-motion films.