Thread: Darkmatters' Puppet Theatre

Thanks Indie! I'm glad you saw it too!

Heh - I want to animate your sig pic!!

hell yes, that would be rad!

Here's the source, knock yourself out.

File:Swordfish skeleton.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Heh cool - grabbed it. I started to make a whale skeleton once - just a few ribs. I'd like to finish it one day. Did you see the animal skeleton animation on the last page? Not by me - it's by a guy named Svankmajer that I wish I could be.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Heh cool - grabbed it. I started to make a whale skeleton once - just a few ribs. I'd like to finish it one day. Did you see the animal skeleton animation on the last page? Not by me - it's by a guy named Svankmajer that I wish I could be.

I'm still reading/watching through all of it...

Oh my god, HOW did I not notice this before? Yay, another animator on DV!! I myself am trying to get into the industry as a CG character animator (but I really want to be an auteur filmmaker, kind of like what you're doing). From what I've seen on this thread, you are seriously talented, as well as skilled, which makes it even better.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

But for me personally, I was already hooked on stopmo before CGI even existed, and it's largely due to the same reasons I love dreams. There's a certain intense surrealism just in the way the puppets move... even in the shows I loved as a kid like Gumby (very surreal actually!) and Davey and Goliath. Just something about the sculptural/textural qualities, and the stylized movement, that when I got a bit older drew me to the amazing creature films of Ray Harryhausen, and to King Kong etc. Those movies are like some bizarre dream creatures emerging into the normal human world and wreaking havoc.

That's interesting. I was also very into stop motion animation, mainly when I was a kid, and was at one point convinced that the stop motion medium would be my future career (around the time when Chicken Run came out)... until I tried a CG program, and instantly fell head over heels in love with the CG world, and it's infinite mathematical possibilities. I feel like CGI aptly represents my dreams, even my weirdest childhood dreams from as far back as I can remember. Even if CG wasn't the big kid on the playground that it is today, I think I'd still be crazy about it. So don't let me near your hater friends, because that stuff makes me livid, like I'm defending a boyfriend, haha.

Granted, I still love stop motion a great deal and want to try it again, but I want the movements to be smooth, 24 frames a second, which is obviously harder, but the results to me are mind blowing.

Anyway, good luck with your project. Do you have any animation up yet to see?

For some reason, I really want to see you create some stop-motion porn.

Don't judge me.

Thank you!! That means a lot coming form an artist and someone who's interested in animation herself.

I really dig some kinds of CG - especially when it's not trying to be realistic. I really loved Horton Hears a Who because it took place in a stylized cartoon world and the characters actually used squash and stretch quite well. And from your caricatures it looks like you have some cartooning skills. Also judging from your sig pic it looks like you have great taste in animation art!!

Granted, I still love stop motion a great deal and want to try it again, but I want the movements to be smooth, 24 frames a second, which is obviously harder, but the results to me are mind blowing.

The funny thing about that is - people always say "Wow, stop motion must take so much PATIENCE!!" .. .and in a way it does, but in a way it's not like that at all. It's more like once you get in the zone and find the right rhythm for it time ceases to have any meaning while you're working, and you find you can finesse the tiniest movements over and over if you have to to get them perfect (if perfection is your thing - I actually lean more toward slightly imperfect but appealing movement though I did go though a super-smooth phase along the learning curve). But of course, once you're done with a shot and you come out of that zone you find most of a day has gone by in what felt like an hour or so, and you're exhausted, which you didn't realize a minute ago. But when you jit that playback button and watch your creations spring to life it's completely worth it! In fact I'll sometimes sit and watch a clip over and over far too many times after finishing it.

I don't have any animation done for this project yet. Due to the nature of the film, it's all going to take place in either one long shot ot (more likely, in fact almost certainly) few shots that have to be shot one after the other in order because I'll have many puppets running around in the one set and there's no way I'd be able to predict beforehand exactly where each puppet will be at the end of a shot (a necessity if you're shooting out of order of course). And since it all takes place in one bar that you can pretty much see in its entirety the whole time I have to finish all the puppets and set dressing and get my lighting tweaked perfectly and try to figure out the very complex staging and blocking for it a little bit in advance before even shooting the first frame. Most of that is done now, but I must admit I'm a little scared to go ahead with it because I really set myself up for a doozy of a film. If you notice, in the past I usually only animated one puppet in a shot. There was a test shot with 2 puppets so I could start to work out how to make them interact with each other... but that's as complex as I've got yet. And for this film I'll jave - let's see 8 (human - er semi-human) puppets plus one very complex creature/thingy plus at one point I was considering a moving camera!!

So I really have to work up my courage and take a deep breath before I plunge in!! This is gonna be exhilarating/scary-as-hell all at once!! And I fully expect to crew up a few attempts before I get it figured out. Ill probably make a couple of total crap starts and learn some of the many ways to mess something like this up, and then figure out a way to organize it all. And yes, I do know about exposure sheets and storyboards, but I refuse to work that way! Well, unless forced by necessity to do it. See, it would go against my romantic notions of the artist working spur-of-the-moment and seat-of-the-pants in an entirely hand-crafted little world and thus keeping some small spark of old-world craftsmanship and artistry alive in this day and age (nothing against computer animation or any other computer craft - it's a tool after all and can be used to create art just as pleasing as I can cobble together with my hands).

In fact, next time I pop in here I'll write up a lil supm bout how this project came to be and how it got so blasted complicated!! Stay tuned...

Originally Posted by GavinGill

For some reason, I really want to see you create some stop-motion porn.

Don't judge me.

Gavin, I just might have to do it....

Just for you.

DARKMATTERS, YOU ARE THE MAN.

Love all of it

Haha! Awesome! Thanks!!

And for the record - I'm a huge Spaghetti fan!!

That's great
I want a character in there!!

Just now seeing this, it's great! Keep it up...

Beautiful and Inspirational! What a vast imagination for creation!

Big thanks to all of you!

I vote for Passing Strange related stop-motion work.

It had to be said.

I think not - therefore I aint.

Wow....wow.. this was like mind blowing good. I so want to work on some project with you.

Thank you!

I just realized I have a more recent clip that needs to be added here:


Just testing animated camera movement and focus pulls for my upcoming flick.

** Edit
Wow - this is what they're calling Centered these days??!! Good grief!
Anyway, here's also a still image I took some time after that last test:

WindowBokeh 06 - wiiide open ND_ by Darkmatters, on Flickr
This is much more the way the film itself is going to look.

Very impressive, and ...
...personal.

I finally got around to checking this thread out. I'm not sure how anyone here calls this creepy. Doesn't lucid dreaming require a certain amount of fearlessness or am I the only one with disturbing dreams? Anyway, I think of Tim Burton when I see your work and I absolutely love it!

Where's my clay porn, you old coot?

Oh - here ya go:


Cranked it out today just for you Gavin!

Pretty awesome stuff you got there! And just because of your reply in that other thread, my curiosity led me here, lol. I would love to follow your development, please do more?