1000 Towns. 1000 Frames. 1000 Scratches. Work In Progress Animation.

Hey Everyone!

Just a little update on what's been happening over here in the workshop and studio!  The wonderful animators at SeeCreature Animation are preparing to shoot the animated lyric video for "1000 Towns" one of the songs from the forthcoming Creatures of the Late Afternoon album.

Just FYI these are behind the scenes pics without finalized lighting/painting etc. We are just testing the set up!

We wanted to make a fun stop motion animated lyric video. The concept was that it would be a side-scrolling lyric video. Each letter would animate and skip across the windows to assemble the words of each lyric rhythmically.  All the while your point of view is changing like you're walking through 1000 thousand towns on tour.  Remember touring?? LOL.

The first step was to create the buildings.  I drew ten buildings and then Corinne built some mock ups out of corrugated cardboard. 

Then SeeCreature created an animatic to test the timing of scrolling through the city blocks, punctuating different lyrics with lighting changes to create different moods, shadows ad times of day dawn, dusk, night time etc. 

I proceeded to cut out all the letters required for each lyric out of hand painted bristol board.

We're keeping the letters for each line of lyrics separated for easy access once the animation begins. 

Next we had to figure out the best way to create the side scrolling effect.  At first we thought we could shoot the video "table top style" (so the camera is set up above shooting down and the buildings are lying flat on the table.  But we found that the camera would have to be very high.  

Then we thought about shooting with the camera in one locked position and sliding the building's across a rail. But moving the entire block of buildings a tiny bit for each frame was kind of precarious. If one of the buildings fell over it would be near impossible to get everything accurately back into position.

So SeeCreature have decided to use a camera slider which has a motorized belt that is controlled from the DragonFrame animation program on the computer.  So after every frame is shot the camera will move a tiny bit horizontally, giving the impression that the buildings are moving or your POV is changing.

Another benefit of setting it up this way, is that we are able to backlight the windows.  So if it's night time, it can look like the lights are on etc.

But when all the windows were lit they looked a lot more like office buildings and less like apartments.  So I decided it would be fun to create some creatures to inhabit those spaces calling back to the original concept of Creatures which was an apartment full of musical creatures all living in one building together. 

I used gifting tissue paper of various colors. I used a punching machine to make the eyes.  I tried to cut them vaguely into the shapes of some of apt creatures I've been painting or those from the Creature Corners videos.  

Here they are in the window...

We're liking how they look and they add a little life to the windows.  But the real amazingness begins when SeeCreature start bringing the letters to life!  Can't wait for you all to see this video once it's done!