Look Close... But Not Too Close!

When you (God Willing) watch scenes from the finished film series Halfland one day...

Please look closely—but not too closely.

I wasn't trying to re-create this world, but another.

Sense of life... my private bedroom, the Bunny Burrow, is remote and dark. Perfect for sleep, but it could feel confined if I didn't take proper, artful measures.

I had spent a few hours installing actual windblown Deodar Cedar branch tips from our large tree out front (living just on the other side of the sloped ceiling rafters) into the Burrow's low, unusable corner. I took special care to attach them with elastic straps from dead face masks so as not to mar the 110-year-old craftsman's hand-milled wood structure with nails. I wanted it to feel like the tree branches outside were organically growing into the attic. It worked, but could I add nearly-true-to-nature cedar needles to them? I had made loads of half-oak type leaves to Halfland's Answer Tree set piece, over 4,000 of them actually, but needles? C'mon, that's crazy.

I wouldn't have included a cedar needle branch as part of the Halfland film sets because it wouldn't be necessary from the story's perspective and would be overly time-consuming to create. Rich, coming from a maker of a 32-year-long project so far, but this is the reason I'm writing this...

All of Halfland is made for a specific reason: to convey a feeling of sentient presence in nature. It's meant to be a sketch that hopes to accomplish that for the viewer. Using enough carefully hand-crafted settings, props, and characters living their lives in it to make a Halfland reality feel like the viewer's reality.

In a sense, I'm going for an impression, rendered in a rough, naive, folk-style world, with just enough detail to trompe l'oeil your emotions.

So, my bringing needles into my bijou Sotto Bosco sleeping space was also just enough for me to fool my emotions into thinking the branches were alive. No longer dead, the whole place feels more wonderful to crawl into to rest.

To see detailed captions on how the needles were created from a straw broom, click here...