global mechanic blog » stop-motion http://blog.globalmechanic.com Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:32:08 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 PAINT IT GRASS http://blog.globalmechanic.com/design/paint-it-grass/ http://blog.globalmechanic.com/design/paint-it-grass/#comments Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:27:03 +0000 Justin http://blog.globalmechanic.com/?p=999 Recently, Chris Mckinlay (the other half of 1998) moved into a soon-to-be-destroyed house on Knight Street. He and his roommate James have fixed the place up quite nicely since they moved in, but you should have seen the place when they first got it. This should give you some perspective: I believe the only rule that his landlord gave them was, “No growing or selling drugs. Other than that, I don’t care what you do”. So Chris took that very seriously and we went to town thinking of some fun things we could do in his house. The first idea we had was to paint all over the walls. We thought it’d be fun to do a big mural in his kitchen. So I designed a mural idea (giant blades of grass and their root systems) and Chris and I just kind of went for it. I drew on the [...]]]> Recently, Chris Mckinlay (the other half of 1998) moved into a soon-to-be-destroyed house on Knight Street. He and his roommate James have fixed the place up quite nicely since they moved in, but you should have seen the place when they first got it. This should give you some perspective: I believe the only rule that his landlord gave them was, “No growing or selling drugs. Other than that, I don’t care what you do”. So Chris took that very seriously and we went to town thinking of some fun things we could do in his house. The first idea we had was to paint all over the walls. We thought it’d be fun to do a big mural in his kitchen. So I designed a mural idea (giant blades of grass and their root systems) and Chris and I just kind of went for it. I drew on the wall in pencil and then we painted it. We also thought it’d be fun if we did a time-lapse of us making the mural. Over the course of 4 days we planned and executed the project for your viewing pleasure:

and once the mural was finished, we had a party:

Stick around to see what else we do to Chris’ house in the near future.

-Justin

]]> http://blog.globalmechanic.com/design/paint-it-grass/feed/ 2 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS: No. 7 – THOU SHALT NOT STEAL http://blog.globalmechanic.com/animation/the-ten-commandments-no-7-thou-shalt-not-steal/ http://blog.globalmechanic.com/animation/the-ten-commandments-no-7-thou-shalt-not-steal/#comments Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:57:09 +0000 Justin http://blog.globalmechanic.com/?p=894 Today we’ have the third short in The Ten Commandments series, number 7: Thou Shalt Not Steal. This one was a bit of a challenge. Banana’s aren’t exactly easy to animate. They don’t stand up. Who knew? But the sets were a lot of fun to make and we had a great time shooting this one. We hope you enjoy it:

More commandments shorts are in the works. We’re 3 down with 7 more to go!

-Justin

]]> Today we’ have the third short in The Ten Commandments series, number 7: Thou Shalt Not Steal. This one was a bit of a challenge. Banana’s aren’t exactly easy to animate. They don’t stand up. Who knew? But the sets were a lot of fun to make and we had a great time shooting this one. We hope you enjoy it:

More commandments shorts are in the works. We’re 3 down with 7 more to go!

-Justin

]]> http://blog.globalmechanic.com/animation/the-ten-commandments-no-7-thou-shalt-not-steal/feed/ 1 KEEPING IT HOLY: BEHIND THE SCENES http://blog.globalmechanic.com/design/keeping-it-holy-behind-the-scenes-2/ http://blog.globalmechanic.com/design/keeping-it-holy-behind-the-scenes-2/#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:26:08 +0000 Justin http://blog.globalmechanic.com/?p=734 How dee, Today we’re going to be showing you some production stills from the last 10 commandments short. It was a hairy shoot. We thought we would try and get the video out before the super bowl (because of the football theme) so we only had a week to finalize the idea, make props, test shoot, shoot and then do the editing and foley. It was a challenge to say the least, but we got it done and we’re proud of what came out the other side. Take a look at some of our photos (the quality isn’t exactly fantastic. We were using the nice camera to make the film so i just used my iphone for these stills):

So there you have the basic layout of the set and some of the art room. The two are [...]]]> How dee,
Today we’re going to be showing you some production stills from the last 10 commandments short. It was a hairy shoot. We thought we would try and get the video out before the super bowl (because of the football theme) so we only had a week to finalize the idea, make props, test shoot, shoot and then do the editing and foley. It was a challenge to say the least, but we got it done and we’re proud of what came out the other side. Take a look at some of our photos (the quality isn’t exactly fantastic. We were using the nice camera to make the film so i just used my iphone for these stills):

So there you have the basic layout of the set and some of the art room. The two are very close together in the studio which is great because you can come up with an idea for a prop/set dec, walk 20 feet, make it and then have it back in the set pretty quickly. I thought it might also be fun to show you guys some close ups of the details in the short (like the photos and the beer can design). Take a look:

Okay, that’s all for now. Check back soon and we’ll have another 10 commandments short with some more production stills and maybe some more design images as well.

-Justin

]]> http://blog.globalmechanic.com/design/keeping-it-holy-behind-the-scenes-2/feed/ 0 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS: No. 3 – KEEP HOLY THE SABBATH DAY http://blog.globalmechanic.com/design/the-ten-commandments-no-3-keep-holy-the-sabbath-day/ http://blog.globalmechanic.com/design/the-ten-commandments-no-3-keep-holy-the-sabbath-day/#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:15:26 +0000 Justin http://blog.globalmechanic.com/?p=680 Today we have the second short in a series of films we’re calling The Ten Commandments. This short illustrates commandment number 3: Keep Holy the Sabbath Day. We’ve managed to cram in a little bit of a topical theme this time. Can you figure out what it is? Duuuuh… Hope you enjoy it:

Keep Holy the Sabbath Day was made by 1998 creative and was produced in studio by Global Mechanic. 1998 creative is: Chris Mckinlay, Justin Longoz and Patrick Beechinor.

Stick around, we have more commandment videos on the way.

-Justin

]]> Today we have the second short in a series of films we’re calling The Ten Commandments. This short illustrates commandment number 3: Keep Holy the Sabbath Day. We’ve managed to cram in a little bit of a topical theme this time. Can you figure out what it is? Duuuuh… Hope you enjoy it:

Keep Holy the Sabbath Day was made by 1998 creative and was produced in studio by Global Mechanic. 1998 creative is: Chris Mckinlay, Justin Longoz and Patrick Beechinor.

Stick around, we have more commandment videos on the way.

-Justin

]]> http://blog.globalmechanic.com/design/the-ten-commandments-no-3-keep-holy-the-sabbath-day/feed/ 2 Outdoor Stop-motion Sketches 01: The Wild Labrador http://blog.globalmechanic.com/animation/outdoor-stop-motion-sketches-01-the-wild-labrador/ http://blog.globalmechanic.com/animation/outdoor-stop-motion-sketches-01-the-wild-labrador/#comments Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:59:20 +0000 Bruce http://blog.globalmechanic.com/?p=659 I love fly fishing for Atlantic Salmon, which I sometimes do in Labrador. Woods, rocks, flies: this stop-motion sketch shows the 3 iconic elements of the place. Should be more flies really.

Outdoor Stop-motion Sketch 01: Labrador from Bruce Alcock on Vimeo.

]]> I love fly fishing for Atlantic Salmon, which I sometimes do in Labrador. Woods, rocks, flies: this stop-motion sketch shows the 3 iconic elements of the place. Should be more flies really.

]]> http://blog.globalmechanic.com/animation/outdoor-stop-motion-sketches-01-the-wild-labrador/feed/ 0 The Ten Commandments: Production Stills, Updates http://blog.globalmechanic.com/animation/the-ten-commandments-production-stills-updates/ http://blog.globalmechanic.com/animation/the-ten-commandments-production-stills-updates/#comments Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:40:08 +0000 Justin http://blog.globalmechanic.com/?p=574 We thought that since the first Commandment short has been getting a lot of play, we’d take a moment to talk a little bit about the process we went through while making the short and show you guys a few production stills as well. This is like the extra features or Bonus Disc of the first short without all of the mess of a DVD… because DVDs are super messy.

(here is the short again so you can watch it while you read and look)

Anyways, the concept for this series came from a few ideas we’d had about doing some sort of religious/vegetable and fruit stop-motion animation. In the past we’d begun work on the stations of the cross using potatoes but it didn’t feel like this was hitting the mark as well as some of the other possibilities we came up with. We ended up choosing the 10 commandments for [...]]]> We thought that since the first Commandment short has been getting a lot of play, we’d take a moment to talk a little bit about the process we went through while making the short and show you guys a few production stills as well. This is like the extra features or Bonus Disc of the first short without all of the mess of a DVD… because DVDs are super messy.

(here is the short again so you can watch it while you read and look)

Anyways, the concept for this series came from a few ideas we’d had about doing some sort of religious/vegetable and fruit stop-motion animation. In the past we’d begun work on the stations of the cross using potatoes but it didn’t feel like this was hitting the mark as well as some of the other possibilities we came up with. We ended up choosing the 10 commandments for a number of reasons. First of all, most of them are fairly easy to illustrate without the need for dialogue. Second, those that aren’t as easy to communicate without words, require us to use our creative thinking to express human emotion in inanimate objects which is always a gas to work out. Third, we can make the films fairly quickly and have the length of each one be around a minute long, which is perfect because we’re all used to working within 15/30/60 second time frames having worked in the advertising industry. But the most important reason for doing these films is because we thought it’d be funny. We’re not being blasphemous, just ridiculous. We enjoy nonsense.

However, we also decided that it’d be a good idea to do this series of 10 so that we could challenge ourselves and get better at stop-motion animation. We’re fairly confident in our skills now but we thought it’d be nice to challenge ourselves a little bit more each time we made a film. We wanted to up the ante if you will. We originally wanted to make a bunch of films we could write, shoot and edit within a week. So far we’ve been on the mark and i think that with the list of ideas we have (save for maybe one or two) this goal is achievable.

The first film took us 4 days to make. 3 days of testing and one final day of shooting. The set was pretty bare bones as you can tell from the video so most of the work went into the subtle nuances of the different characters and fluidity of movement of the objects as well. We did it as a one-shot as well. That means that, in order to keep up the continuity from frame to frame, we couldn’t screw up. Anytime we screwed up, we started over again. On the 4th day, we nailed it.

Take a look at some of the production stills (click to enlarge):

We also worked out a lot of bugs in the process of shooting this first film which should help to make the rest of the films stronger. I think that as the other films are released, you’ll start to see an increase in quality across the board, simply because we aren’t letting the idea go stale. As soon as we finish one film we’re working on the next one, and so on, until all of the films are finished.

I know a few of you are probably thinking, “what are they going to do next?” and, “is Justin single cuz he’s a total beefcake!” Well, i can’t answer those questions right now without giving too much away, but i will show you a sneak peek at the pre-production process that we are trying to wrap today so that we can shoot the second film this weekend:

ooohhh! supplies and cut out paper! what are they doing?

STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT KIDDIES!

-justin

]]> http://blog.globalmechanic.com/animation/the-ten-commandments-production-stills-updates/feed/ 0 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SERIES http://blog.globalmechanic.com/animation/the-ten-commandments-series/ http://blog.globalmechanic.com/animation/the-ten-commandments-series/#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:48:48 +0000 Justin http://blog.globalmechanic.com/?p=561 I bring you the first short in a series of films simply titled The Ten Commandments. Today, we have commandment number 5: Thou Shalt Not Kill. The idea for these films is fairly straight forward. Fruits and vegetables come together to tell the story of the 10 commandments as are found in the King James version of the Bible. With this film specifically, we really just wanted to work with potatoes, tomatoes and mini mallets. “Yeah but why start with 5?” you may be asking yourself. Well, I have no idea why. We just did. This commandment seemed to be a logical beginning to the series for some reason, so we just sort of went with it. If this is any indication of the order that these films will be released, then… there is no order! Hurray! Hope you enjoy it:

Thou Shalt Not Kill was made over the 2009-2010 Christmas [...]]]> I bring you the first short in a series of films simply titled The Ten Commandments. Today, we have commandment number 5: Thou Shalt Not Kill. The idea for these films is fairly straight forward. Fruits and vegetables come together to tell the story of the 10 commandments as are found in the King James version of the Bible. With this film specifically, we really just wanted to work with potatoes, tomatoes and mini mallets. “Yeah but why start with 5?” you may be asking yourself. Well, I have no idea why. We just did. This commandment seemed to be a logical beginning to the series for some reason, so we just sort of went with it. If this is any indication of the order that these films will be released, then… there is no order! Hurray! Hope you enjoy it:

Thou Shalt Not Kill was made over the 2009-2010 Christmas holiday break by 1998 and was produced in studio by Global Mechanic. 1998 is: Chris Mckinlay, Justin Longoz and Patrick Beechinor. Music composed by Richard Pinto and Patrick Beechinor.

-Justin

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