The Forest

"Slutspurt"

2009-06-03T08:16:00.005Z

Okay, we are approaching the end. I could start rambeling about, but instead I am going to show the paper given to me by Tobias. This paper is explaining what the next weeks have in store, sadly it is in danish. For those of you who do not read danish, you can enjoy the funny words our native northen language can produce.

Building and Creating

2009-04-15T09:57:00.007Z

These pictures are a mixture of the chairs being made in Tobias' basement, and when we were making the last mouths.

Yikes. Sorry for the slow update folks!

2009-04-03T16:29:00.008Z

Quick update, we have finally moved from the basement to an actual studio, and are now using our supervisor old space. There are still small adjustment with the puppets that needs to be made but overall they are done. These are some of the test animations. Enjoy.

Our dear supervisor Christophe Peladan made this one. We are going to copy this walk in our film, since it soo good!

This was the first run I did with our main character.

Farewell Tod

2009-02-27T12:37:00.005Z

With our preproduction almost over we had to say goodbye to our storyboard supervisor, Tod Polsen. All the groups made a "bling bling" photo to remember us by, and this is our addition.

Moving forward....

2009-02-11T21:38:00.013Z

Adding fur on the naked rabbits. A huge thanks to Maiken, who has a name which I'm probably is spelling wrong.

Follow up...

2009-02-02T10:37:00.021Z

The last week has been so hectic that I have not had the time to update. Which is (not counting the few people reading this blog) a good thing. We started making the puppets out of aluminium wire, balza wood and 10seconds-glue. There was a setback in the end of last week because the wire which is holding the spine is too unsteady. So Tobias is this very moment ordering some proper ball-and-socket-joints for the spines. A bit expensive, but worth it!
We had Hiromi Scintu, Jakob Kousholt helping with sculping. Tobias' dad working doing all the wood and metal cutting.

The Blueprints

2009-01-26T16:59:00.012Z

Back in the basement.

2009-01-19T17:15:00.000Z

We've begun building the clay versions of the final puppets. Most of the lower face will be cut out, so different expressions can be inserted. There is still a lot of testing to be done!

Rabbit and nature.

2009-01-07T13:59:00.000Z

Yesteday we were out location spotting for a small hill, where the ending is going to take place.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-05T09:11:00.000Z

To show we are back from the holidays, I am posting some of the animation test done in the basement. The rabbit was damaged under the shootings, one of his arms broke off. I guess making him jump and run like this took its toll. Still, it should give a rough idea of what we are doing. Enjoy!

Lineup

2008-12-12T15:48:00.000Z

After 5 weeks of preproduction we're off for the christmas holidays, giving the project a rest. The animatic is getting closer and closer to the finished thing, and the character designs are now almost set upon. While Katrine was testanimating in the basement (with the rats) I took the claydesigns, pushed around the shapes a bit making it more "edgy" and came up with a lineup:

Rabbit!

2008-12-10T17:22:00.000Z

The rabbit actually is pretty easy to animate, but also easy to breake. We got to make the finish puppet with changeable arms and legs or else it is going to be hell. Longer legs would be nice too!

I guess the litter box need explaining. Actually it's not a litter box, it's a box with soil! We are going to animate in the forest, which means our puppet is going to be fixed to the ground with plogs. It didn't work while testing, mainly because the soil were too loose.
The rig is great but after using it a bit, I found that a bit of adjusting would make it perfect. Still, it is really easy to use and exceeded my wildest expectations.

Creating a puppet.

2008-12-04T17:35:00.000Z

This week is going beyond fast! I am creating our main character for animation testing next week and Tobias is working on the storyboard.

The rabbit is the right size but it is only for testing. It's mainly to learn how to build a wire puppet, and test animate it with light and surroundings.
Tobias and I had the fortunate experience to meet with a puppet animator from Aardman. There were a lot of solutions, but most of them were expensive, and we don't have a whole lot of money. Still it was nice to hear what he had to say, those Aardman people know what they are doing. Another promising project is the rig, not a rig like the one standing beside our little clay puppet. But a rig build by Tobias' dad, which should be able to hold our little hero, while jumping and running.

Location spotting trips

2008-12-02T09:15:00.000Z

Here's a couple of ekstra pix from a couple of trips to the forests in Dollerup, looking for locations.

Our marvelous Cast

2008-12-01T09:33:00.001Z

These bad boys were created last week. Feel free to comment, any input is valuable.

We don't have any pictures of our process creating them, which is a horrible, horrible mistake. But we started play...eh...working on them and the characters were very eager to show them self, so if there are any blame, blame them!

Backgrounds

2008-11-27T21:57:00.001Z

These are concept photos shot during a location scouting in the forest of Dollerup.

And here are some concept backgrounds shot during the same trip (daylight) but then magically manipulated in Photoshop to seem nighttime. It's not the final look of the film however, just concepts.

More concept work

2008-11-27T21:45:00.001Z

A concept of a young rabbit looking too closely at the moon.

Here's some quick sketches of Victorian countryside animals.

Starting up the project

2008-11-27T21:11:00.000Z

So, finally the blog is up and running! A short introduction for it might be in order...

"The Forest" is the working title of a Bachelorfilm from The Animation Workshop, set to be finished summer 2009. I (Tobias) am directing it, and along with me are a bunch of talented students and supervisors from the animation industry.

The film is inspired by, and with music from The National, a band from New York. The short film is done with stop-motion, shot on-location in the forests surrounding the town of Viborg, in Denmark. There is no dialogue, only music. That might sound somewhat like a musicvideo, but narratively it's much closer to a shortfilm, and works on it's own premises.

However, the main inspiration for the project IS music. It all started last summer when my flatmate came home with The Nationals "Boxer" after having heard the band play at the danish Roskilde Festival. I heard it a couple of times, at first I thought it was good, then I though it was GREAT, and all through the winter last year the album was on repeat.

Then came summer, and I had to figure out some ideas for my bachelorproject. I worked on a number of them, but nothing really good came out, so I put on "boxer" and started doodling as I usually do, and all of a sudden I was drawing rabbits and forests and chandeliers and whatnot, and I thought that that was much more interesting as a potential movie than any of the other things I had been doing that day. I really wanted to try to make the pictures, or associations if you may, that I was getting from listening to this great music. Trying to do something that "resonated" with me. I know, it sounds artsy :)

Althought the school was reluctant at first, making a "non-dialogue stop motion movie in a night time forest", they're pretty hot on the idea now. We've had contact with the manager of the band, and I met briefly with some of their members when they were playing in Denmark, and it looks like they like the idea and are willing to borrow us their music. But let's not sell the skin before the bear is shot, as it goes in Danish.

Two weeks ago we started preproduction, and now finally we have a blog. So during the next year, those interested have the possibility of following the process. Enjoy!

Concept Art

2008-11-27T10:20:00.001Z

Little Big Forest

2008-11-26T15:15:00.000Z

Finally we got the blog up and running. This project is going to be legen - wait for it - dary. LEGENDARY! From now on you can keep yourself posted with our daily success and struggles through our production. Enjoy!

A long day with a lot of information, preparation, planning and a meeting with our supervisors. The sketches was part of our discussion of how we plan to build the puppets. It has to be realistic, time wise and financial, which is part of our many challenges.