Update: A Time For New Sets

We've been busy here in the I Have Your Heart studios! Everything is powering along and it's a wonderful to see so much progress. We've completed animation on a lot of shots now, including some of the trickiest scenes in the film.

But now shooting has stopped for a few days while we turn over to new setups. It feels a bit sad to be packing down our first sets, but it's very exciting to be building new ones. We've finished with the mansion, the street, the surgery... and now it's onward to the docks and the garden.

 


- THE TEAM - 

One of the main reasons we have been able to ramp up the production is the new team of amazingly dedicated people who have joined us on the project.

Murray Lorden is our project manager, lending his formidable skills and good humor to the logistical challenge of keeping the film on track.

It's business time.

  
Lauren Beck and Claire James have been helping with the endless amounts of cutting and construction that are required to build this paper world of ours.

Lauren lending her crafty assistance to the shipyards.

Brendan Barnett is the talented animator who worked with me on Monkey & Sardine, and we're lucky enough to have him helping out with some of the more complex shots.

As you can see, Brendan is a method animator, acting out the action.

Joe Muecke has put a huge amount of time and enthusiasm into the production, and given that he dresses like a sailor and drinks rum on the job, it's no accident that he's been in charge of the shipyards, building paper boats.

Ben Batt is a master of the miniature structural engineering required to make our puppets, and has been very busy constructing our characters.

An example of Ben's precision handiwork.

Joel Loxton is a fellow filmmaker who has been lending a hand with lighting & camera setups, and even got roped into constructing a few buildings for the docks. He has a great eye, and his technical know-how has been a great help.

Joel and I prepping for the first shot.

I'll finish this post the same way many of my long nights animating end, with a beautiful sunrise above the studio.

 

Update: Animation In Progress!

It's been a while between updates, but that's just because we've been working hard on making amazing things!

Based on extremely helpful advice from Morgan Hay (who worked Coraline), the characters have all been reconstructed and now have much stronger articulation for better posing. We've even devised a clever method for animating faces, so the puppets can better express themselves with frowns, winks, and the fluttering of eyelashes.

Cutting out the innumerable baroque curlicues of Molly's art has been known to drive people to madness, but the results are easily worth a little insanity. When it's all assembled, that fine detail is just amazing. Our initial tests showed how wonderful the paper world looks with more layers, so I've been really enhancing this three-dimensional feel by adding a lot more depth to the sets. As you can see from these pictures, the results speak for themselves.

The animating has begun, and it's a wonderful feeling to see our world come to life. There really is a special magic unique to stopmotion, and as these inanimate objects begin to move on their own it's impossible not too smile. It's so exciting to see it all coming together, our script and storyboards turning into reality.

Up to now I've been the only one in the studio, which has worked fine to get us to this point. But now that shooting has begun we need to pick up the pace, so a team of talented individuals has been assembled to help with the big push toward the finish. There are now around six other people working with me, including a project manager to keep everything on track, another skilled animator to help with especially tricky sequences, and numerous crafty assistants to continue building the next set while I'm shooting.

As we pick up speed moving forward, I promise to do a better job posting regular updates, and be sure to keep an eye on www.ihaveyourheart.com for photos from the studio of works in progress.

Thanks again to everyone involved, this is a huge team effort, and we are extremely grateful to everyone who pitched in and supported the kickstarter, making it possible for us to create this animation. Stopmotion is an art that requires a lot of patience, and we thank you for yours, but things are speeding up now!

Face Time

Helping the puppets express themselves.

Making Friends

Currently hard at work constructing new and improved puppets, with stiffer joints, stronger skeletons, and magnetic heads!

Fish Windows

The longer Molly draws, the more surreal her architectural designs become.

 

Curly Cutting

What's that? Another diabolically curly piece of Molly art to cut out? Why not... sanity is overrated anyway.

Architecture Is Expanding

Attic Windows Under Construction

Porcine Doorknockers

Little pig, little pig, let me come in...

Romantic Architecture

Adding more depth to the architecture, as bay windows have been shown to provide up to 53% more romantic tension...

Paper Cutting Parties

Work on the animation progresses, slowly but steadily. Currently the biggest task is the seemingly endless amounts of intricate cutting out that needs to be done. The solution - throw a party!

In order to speed up the process and have a good time while doing so, we've started having weekly Cutting Parties where numerous Crafty Assistants join us for an evening of red wine and razor blades. So far the possibly deadly mix of alcohol and sharp knives hasn't resulted in anything more serious than good times and an increase in productivity.

A huge thank-you for the ongoing assistance of Esther, Kylee, Jasmine, Ray, Claire, and others...