Finished Film

Chroma from Maxwell Racz on Vimeo. Chroma is finished & it's bittersweet. On the one hand I'm glad to be done and very excited to be moving onto other projects, but on the other I wish I could have done things differently. The whole year was a huge learning experience- I can honestly say that I know so much more about fabrication than when I started back in September.

Poster

The finish line is in sight! Here's the poster for the film:

A Test Scene

Been rushing through every obstacle to get this film done- almost at the finish line!
Here's a test scene that shows some of the animation techniques used in Chroma. It's not technically a "finished" scene, but it's pretty close.

Sets & Props: Charlie's Bedroom

Here's the completed set of Charlie's bedroom. Mostly made of polystyrene, some sculpted bits, wood & other bits and bobs. There's another wall that goes up to complete the entire room (with an exterior side for outside the window), but it's only used for two shots.

Test Shot

Just quickly playing around today- Charlie is finished. Now I just need to clean up my workspace & do some real lighting. Stop motion animation starts this week!

A Little Bit of Everything II

My little space in the corner of Sheridan's stop motion studio.

 It's been a really busy past few weeks- But things are progressing. This is just going to be a quick picture post- gotta get to bed so I can get up early tomorrow!

My Ultracal molds failed-
I made some mistakes with this, so I
lost the mold & the master sculpt!

I was familiar with using resin, so
I decided to make a quick switch and
do my molds this way. Was a lot faster
& it turned out pretty good

First cast of hands & feet in silicone

Completed homemade ball & socket armature-
This was my dad & my first attempt at this.
We ended up having a family friend machine the
plates in steel to get a more secure joint.

In order to have Charlie's eyes as light as possible, I decided make them resin. They were sculpted in Apoxie sculpt, then a silicone mold was made (left). The casts were then cleaned up and glossed several times to give a nice shine. The vase (right) was made as a duplicate of a small vase I found in my basement. Since I'm assuming it belonged to my grandmother, I decided to make a mold of it rather than destroy the original.

Charlie's head was also another long process. I knew that I wanted to have the head hollow (to keep it light)- this turned out to be a lot more complicated than anticipated. In my last post I showed the numerous heads I had dismissed for flaws. Below is a the first cast I did (lots of bubbles) beside the master sculpt, the the first bit of blushing & paint on the face, final details & whole head attached, finally the completed head with wig & digital features!

Charlie's bed assembled-
I'm really proud of the quilt I
made, the pillow cases/little
pillows & knitted throw!

Charlie's sketchbook & pencil, the plant,
fire wood & the bookcase

Drafting Charlie's pajama patterns. After
several tests in broadcloth, this was the
final pattern.

Charlie's pajamas finished. There's a quarter
beside for reference (looks like a penny
because of lighting- whoops).

The set progressing along

Charlie's almost finished- needs his hair done,
body padded & hands painted.