 | Welcome |
News |
Calendar |
Upload |
Help |
Contact |
Links |
Gallery |
Matinee |
This is semi-recreation
of StopMoShorts
(about
2005)
| 'Forbidden
Planet'
ID Monster in Stop
Motion / Fan tribute created by Dan Anderson
|
 |
| Attack
of the ID
Monster in Stop Motion by Dan
Anderson |
First
I'd like to thank Eric
for contacting me and asking
if I
would be willing to share some of my animation. Thanks Eric!
The
Id monster started as an idea to build a puppet that
was more
realistic - something akin to the Harryhausen style. I also wanted a
puppet that would only have two appendages - easier to animate. Then
one night I was watching Forbidden Planet and found my inspiration. I
took frame captures from my Forbidden Planet video and printed them out
to study what the monster looked like. I wanted mine to resemble the
Josh Meador version but also wanted it to have a 1950's monster style
to it.
Armature:
I
had some old armature parts lying around, which I
recycled - head,
neck joints and back. I made new legs and the tail. The armature is
made of 2024 aluminum and steel. The steel being the rods and of course
the ball bearings. It's made of 1/2", 3/8" and 1/4" bearings. There is
a small rod at the end of the tail. I used 8/32, 6/32 and 4/40 screws.
The hole on the top hip area is drilled and tapped for a 1/4" threaded
rod which can be used to support the puppet in running scenes.
Sculpting:
The sculpture was done in about six sittings using
oil-based clay. I
wrapped the armature in plastic wrap and scotch tape to protect it from
the clay. A four piece mold was made using Ultracal. The big tusks are
made of epoxy putty and screwed into the jaw of the armature. I
sculpted around them but removed them for casting. After it's cast in
foam, I cut a slit at the jaw and attach them again to the armature,
then glue the foam back together. After awhile, my puppets have quite a
few slits in them at the joints where I tighten or loosen the screws
while animating but you never see them.
Finishing:
The puppet was cast in foam latex, which came out excellent - no air
pockets etc. I painted it with water based acrylics mixed with
Pros-Aide. I thinned it down to a very watery consistency and basically
painted the puppet in a series of washes.
Animation:
I started doing some animation experiments with the puppet
and
composting it against backgrounds shot on video. Then a member of the
online forum at Stop
Motion forum suggested that I
composite it into footage from 'Forbidden
Planet'.
Sounded like a good idea!
Click
on
the images above to view test footage
FP
footage
was brought into my computer and
I timed out
each scene. Animation was shot blue screen and composted into the FP
video footage. The puppet was shot as large as possible in the frame
and later during compositing was reduced to match the background. I did
this to have as many pixels as possible to work with when compositing.
More
time was spent on the computer eliminating as much as
I
could of the drawn Id monster than animating. To accomplish this I used
AfterEffects and PhotoShop. The backgrounds had to be basically
rebuilt. I learned as I progressed and the differences can be seen. The
most difficult scene to do was when the Id monster picks up a person.
PhotoShop was used to silo the person, and then each frame was brought
into AfterEffects as a separate layer and animated to match the
movements of the Id monster. The final scene is far from perfect but I
settled. ReelSmart Motion Blur was used to add blur to the animation.
Resources
used:
Adobe
Photoshop
Adobe After Effects
Primatte Keyer
Composite
Wizard
BTV
Pro
Frame
Thief
Canon XL1
14x Zoom Lens
Video
Lunchbox
ReelSmart
Motion Blur
A
Canon XL-1
with a mechanical zoom lens was
used. The
frames were saved as uncompressed tiff files using BTV Pro and
FrameThief for capturing. FrameThief allowed me to use its rotoscope
feature to see through to the original footage and match up movements,
as in the scene where the monster pushes a person from left to right. I
also used a Video Lunchbox.
The AfterEffects
plug-ins Primatte Keyer and Composite
Wizard
were used. Composite Wizard is a wonderful tool and really brings
composites to a professional level. I added glows and strobing effects
to the monsters using Wizard. Some people that have seen my Id monster
experiment have asked how I got the laser blasts to show up over the
monster. It was real easy. The monster was keep at about 60% opacity.
This allowed the lasers to be seen and over the dark background the
monster remained opaque enough.
End
Result: This project was a good
learning experience
and enjoyable to do. I guess the best praise I've received is when I've
shown it to someone not familiar with the original and they don't know
what I've done. They just think that's how it was originally. - D
©Dan
Anderson 2004-05 / Website Animation
Daddy Studios
©Forbidden Planet (1956)
Copyright Warner Studios -
All Rights
Reserved
"Thank
you for allowing
us to host
your work, Dan. This is very inspirational for me since I have similar
plans for my own animation. I can only hope to come to close to your
level of expertise! Great sculpt for the Id Monster, very detailed. I
think the animation fit perfectly when composited." - Eric Scott
"Awesome!
I love all of the old Sci-Fi movies. Too bad they
couldn't release your version of the ID Monster on the DVD." - Josh
[add
your comment here]
|
You
can see some archived old StopMoShorts
pages at Archive.org
but
pages loads very SLOW
or they sometimes have server problems |
|
| 
