make a short film

I’m sharing the art studio space I rented to start my short film project and now there’s no room for any film work. I’m not giving up on it though because right now I’m making great progress on a project that I abandoned before starting the short film. You never know.

This one didn’t take as long as the first and its progress was slowed by another life event that took up much of my time.

The first marionette is ready for stringing. It took over three months to get her this far. I’ll try to get the next one ready in half that time.

I picked up the first puppet from the costume designer today and it looks great. There’s still about a day’s work left to put into her – some painting, accessorizing and doing the hair.

I may take the puppets back to the puppeteer for stringing. There’s a little more to it than just making tiny knots.

I dragged my feet making the first marionette but it’s together enough so that I could take it to the woman who is sewing the costumes. I learned a lot in the process so hopefully the rest of them will go quicker.

I also moved all of my audio and video editing gear to my art space so that I can do everything there. Now I need to put in some more electrical outlets in a space that was already short on them.

I custom ordered some marionettes from the Czech Republic that arrived last week. They’re fantastic, with moving mouths and eyes. Now I’ll need to customize and dress them. So much work!

I created some quick character sketches and pulled together some reference scrap for the costumes. Now I know how the marionettes will look and the costume designer can see what I’m shooting for.

The puppeteer suggested that I might be able to find some of the marionettes that I need in the collection of the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre. I didn’t see any that I could use off the rack, but I saw some that could be modified for my purposes.

Yesterday was my first day shooting with a professional puppeteer and all went smoothly. I allowed a half day for shooting and we were done in about an hour. After that, Theresa and I had tea and talked about making puppets and the costumes that she’ll be sewing for me.

Marionettes aren’t good at holding things like hammers, lighters and cans of paint thinner, and that’s exactly what I need for one of the sequences. The solution was to shoot inserts of a life-sized “puppet”, my friend Maryanne wearing oversized hands.

When we were done, the video was a little overexposed and Maryanne, who is handy with Photoshop, helped me figure out how to correct the image in Final Cut. Maryanne is also good at crafts and making things. I’ll try to get her to help me with more puppeteering and building.