Guignol #2

Here’s an advance look at my next Grant Guignol Stop Motion Project. This year is all about doing art that matters to me and developing my StopMo chops. #diyordie

I’ve been very fortunate with my recent stop motion film,  “Gloomy Sunday” has already been accepted into a major international film festival (more details once I can release them) so I am continuing to develop my body of work (which was always in the plan) this semester. Here you can see my main character, a poor government worker relegated to an isolated military outpost who passes the time listening to music and watching TV while pining ‘for the fields’, as Monty Python used to say. Like GS, the idea here is to open myself to free form association and find the story as it develops. I am debating going full color on this one – as I shall be integrating full 3d backgrounds and CGI digital composites throughout. My hero rides a moped – see photo below – that allows me to get my green screens out and get all ‘rear screen projection’ on this piece.

As you can see, this is another dirty, drab and handmade world (all by me, naturally) although I am indebted to CCC alumnus Cassie Grawes who left me the shell of her set from her thesis film to use as I may. So, I adapt, add-to, manipulate and paint splatter to find my world. I know that this film is also about love – or more specifically about love lost – and it shall not use dialogue. I do believe that visual storytelling is the key to my successful cinema and I shall continue to adopt that position here.

Music will figure prominently and, as I am currently on a retro Big Band Swing kick, can only imagine it shall be something forlorn (and possibly reed-based) once I find my metier. I’m learning to hold the reins lightly in this process so I’m not counting anything out.

I’m figuring the work will take me more than GS due to the complexity and the style of work I shall be doing. With CG integration, driving sequences, real walk cycles and other detailed work, this will be a much harder stop motion endeavor. If GS was my formal introduction to the stop motion world, this film will be more of a thesis event for me to consider. I shall post more as I go.