Brian R. McNair and Professor Kelly Loosli, Animation
It was supposed to be simple, a quick project, inexpensive, from the gut, a chance to experience a puppet production from beginning to end, learn from every step, and come away with an intricate knowledge of film, puppetry, green screen, and post production; a project meant to last six months: tops. But as other people became involved, idea leading to idea and way onto way it didn’t take long for my simple puppet show to turn into its namesake: a monster in the woods.
Instead of a off the cuff, slapped together adventure I found my mentor and the other faculty stretching me to the limit of my creative abilities. The script was rewritten near fifteen times. I brought on five other artists to re imagine and re board everything from the ground up. The simple monster puppet became a giant eight foot mascot with articulated eyes, ears and mouth movements. Before filming had even begun, I found two full months of my summer dedicated to ten hour days in the basement of the HFAC building sets, puppets, costumes and props, and understanding what it means to reach for something you didn’t know you were capable of.
Filming was a bit of a challenge. Even with an extra two weeks I still found myself making it on set with the puppets thirty minutes late and exhausted. Kelly came down that morning and provided some valuable finishing touches to the puppets, touches my brain was too tired to see. On set I was fortunate to have an incredible producer who allowed me to focus on performance while he took care of the camera team and setting up the shots. We were a small team of fewer than ten people. In spite of the extra pressure resulting from a small crew, everyone pitched in to perform multiple jobs, the atmosphere was relaxed and things progressed smoothly.
I can’t really express how valuable the past twelve months on this project have been to my professional development. I’ve felt myself grow as a performer, director, and artist. That being said, it’s my work involved in post production that is teaching me the most. Right now as I type this I’m exporting clips of the film over to a compositing program that will allow me to remove the green screen and place the monster inside his digital forest. I see my performance over and over through the editing process, what I did right, and especially what I did wrong. I’m learning about what it means to properly light and frame a shot, techniques for creating better, more lifelike performances from the puppets, and seeing the translation of what I thought was happing on set into the reality of the camera.
Here’s a quick list of things I’ve learned:
- Perform tight shots with the arm fully extended over ones head, anything else results in hunched over posture, and unrealistic body movement.
- Speed it up. Everything looks slow on camera. Be ready to be quick and exact on all gestures.
- Stay at least three feet away from the green screen at all times, anything closer gives you too much bounce back and makes keying near impossible.
- Have each scene memorized before trying to shoot, there are too many things going on to try and go off notes once its time to perform.
- Get good people, and LISTEN too them. Don’t tell the cameraman how to frame a shot, don’t tell the lighter how to light, make sure everyone is on the same page, and let the machine run it well-oiled course.
Finally I have to thank everyone for their hard work and acknowledge heaven’s help. There were several times when this project was at critical points without availability of resources or time. Every time prayers were answered and invisible doors opened wide. Thank you again for providing the funds to make this dream a reality.
If you would like to see more photos and artwork feel free to visit www.monsterinthewoods.blogspot.com