Meet The Intern

I am so blessed to have Sophie as the First Halfland Intern! She and her sister, Tash, have been coming to the shop for a few years when they could fit a visit in to make some art. When they were here a few weeks ago helping me file some papers, I "casually" (Ha! More like laid in wait like a tiger) mentioned that "If she *might* be interested... I would be open to having her intern on the project in exchange for learning some techniques involved in making a stop motion film. Things like character design, sculpting, mold-making, casting, sets, animation, etc." I was surprised that she said yes, only learning today that her favorite movie of all time is Nightmare Before Christmas!

We had great conversation while machéing today. Between the rips of thick brown paper we talked about her various options for doing this type of thing for a living in the future (LAIKA's 70 stages filled with artists vs. doing your own thing, etc. Hi Internet!), ways of figuring out what story she'd like to tell through stop mo ("Make it a story you want to tell passionately so you won't mind the work it takes to make it"), scale ("Don't do it as large as Halfland whatever you do!").

"Hey, I know.. how about making your first short a music video?!" Which got this snowboarding, surfing, skiing, rock climbing, soccer playing, gymnast sweetheart to make the unmistakable sound of a young artist being forever hooked into this racket, "OOOoooooooooooooooooooo! YES!!!!!" (Look out--we got another one!)

Every other Monday. I couldn't ask for a better apprentice. I'm thrilled to have her.