Making Flickering Light / Peeli Batti

As we start making the rounds of the film festival circuit, here’s a look back at our process and the journey of making Flickering Light / Peeli Batti.

Before we start a film, we always create a storyboard from the script. Here’s a look at our handwritten storyboard, highlighting what each scene might look like, the words that could go with a particular scene, and how the scene would take the story forward. 

Then we went about creating the sound track, for which we layered Jahnavi’s vocals with our friend Ajit Ranganath’s brilliant sitar piece, and other sounds and samples. 

The next step was to assemble the sets and try out different techniques and materials to bring the ideas to life.

When we started the film, we wanted to use sand extensively, like in this picture where you can see the bed through a screen of black sand. And although we did use sand in a lot of our scenes, we also used other materials to mimic the look of black sand, like black cloth and paper, this was simply because the stiffness of cloth and paper made them a little easier to work with.  

We also thought of using clay figures for the characters as seen in the pictures here, but we abandoned that approach in favour of the technique of pixilation (using real people as stop motion figures). This was exciting (and also a little scary), not only because we had never used this technique before, but also because we had decided to put ourselves in front of the camera as actors for the first time.

The sets were constructed using miniatures, plexiglass and dimmable lights layered with sand and butter paper. Finally, it was simply a matter of taking endless pictures – 24 for each second, with multiple takes for each scene. 

After all the shooting was completed, the pictures (shot with a canon camera, using Dragonframe) were strung together in using DaVinci Resolve, with editing and compositing taking up most of our remaining time. 

The entire process took us over two years, with long breaks in between. It was a rocky ride with major roadblocks along the way. Now the film is over and out of our hands; it feels like saying goodbye to a friend we have seen grow and come into their own, ready to move on to the next adventure.

StickyUncategorised, ,

Jhakki Ramdeen – 8 months on

It has been nearly 8 months since we started working on our latest short, Jhakki Ramdeen, a story set in an Indian prison. After all these months, and thousands of still photographs later, we are happy that we are now halfway through the film. A month in animation time is very little time indeed, so reaching halfway point was cause for celebration; and celebrate we did, with some strong Islay scotch.

x-sheet to map the scene
x-sheet to map the scene

A silhouette shot
A silhouette shot

Six hours of shooting, one pint of beer. Doesn't seem very fair.
Six hours of shooting, one pint of beer. Doesn’t seem very fair.

Our approach this time is a little different from The Sweetmeat Boy. The animation style is still stop-motion and everything is still completely handmade – but this time we have replaced upright sets with multiplane, layered backgrounds, and walking armature puppets with armature-less wet terracotta figures laid onto glass sheets over the backgrounds.

Sculpting

.
.
.
.

.
.
While the multiplane downshooter approach has made things somewhat easier when it comes to creating sets, moving and animating figures on each plane has become far more complicated thanks to the terracotta clay, which is brittle when dry, and goopy when wet.

Terracotta sculpting, needs to be used in the shot immediately before it dries
Terracotta sculpting, needs to be used in the shot immediately before it dries

Down-shooting
Down-shooting

We are ready to begin shooting the second part of the film, where we will employ more traditional paper cut techniques. Pleased to be saying goodbye to the troublesome terracotta, we are looking forward to the less exasperating paper. Although the material (paper) is less of a challenge in this second part, hand-drawing sets and figures is a daunting prospect, considering neither of us has any training or experience in drawing. We estimate that it would take about 4 more months to complete primary filming, with music and post-production to follow. In the meantime, we will keep updating the blog to document the process.

StickyUncategorised

Multiplane Downshooter Animation Stand

Over the last few months, Jahnavi and I have been busy with the script and design of our next couple of films, and things are now finally at the stage where filming can begin. One of the key decisions we’ve made when designing the look of our next film(s) is to use a multiplane stand with a camera pointing downwards, instead of using the set on a table & camera on a tripod method we used for The Sweetmeat Boy. The decision itself was easy – shooting downwards onto several surfaces stacked on top of each other provides a bit more control, and is also a tad easier than manipulating puppets on a full set on a table. The hard part was actually designing the stand and gathering the tools and materials to put it together; but now, after some elbow grease, we have the stand ready for filming.

Glass Stand
Glass Stand

Downshooter design
Downshooter design

We found that the easiest design would be to separate out the camera section from the stand holding the glass.
Here’s what we used to make the stand:
Wooden offcuts – 4 pieces of 3 feet height, 8 pieces of about 50 cm length and 2 pieces of 65 cm length. The lengths were chosen based on the fact that we’d decided to use 3 A2 size glass  for our ‘planes’.
Screws to hold the frame together
A hand drill
Black spray paint (to reduce reflections when filming)

Putting together the pieces
Putting together the pieces

Completed Stand
Completed Stand

Each side of the stand has four 50 cm pieces drilled with suitable holes and screwed on to the pieces of 3 ft height (like a ladder), then the two sides are connected using the 65 cm pieces. We then spray painted the whole frame black in our backyard. The little handles on the sides are basically little leftover cuts used to cover the sharp screw heads poking out.

Manfrotto Camera Clamp
Manfrotto Camera Clamp

 

Camera piece with tripod attachment
Camera piece with tripod attachment

For the camera stand, the idea is to create a wooden stand that can be held up by two tripods, with the camera attached to the wood using a clamp. For this we used:
A long wooden offcut approx. 6 ft long
4 Threaded inserts (1/4 – 20)
Two HAMA tripods
Hand drill with 9mm head
A manfrotto super photo clamp to hold our Canon camera
Black spray paint
Four holes are drilled onto the wooden piece using a 9mm drill head, and the inserts are pasted into the holes using super glue. We then spray painted it and mounted it between two tripods. The manfrotto clamp is clamped onto the piece with the camera pointing downwards.

The overall downshooter with the camera, complete with an OYPLA studio lighting system and three unopened A2 acetate glass planes is assembled. Finally, ready to start filming!

Stand with lights and camera
Stand with lights and camera

StickyProjects

From Film Festivals to ‘I am Ramdeen’

For independent animators like Jahnavi and I, getting screened in film festivals is the best way to get our work seen. Getting selected for a film festival can be a difficult prospect, where you compete for a very limited number of available screening spots with thousands of other filmmakers. The anxiety doesn’t end there, once you are selected, it suddenly dawns upon you that your work will now be open to a live audience, and you have to cope with the prospect of watching your film alongside other people.

It was a year ago that we finished work on “The Sweetmeat Boy”, and in that time, we have been screened in seven festivals across the US, Europe and India. Our first screening was in the ‘The Cardiff Mini Film Festival’ held in the capital of Wales just a couple of weeks after the Brexit vote. ‘The Sweetmeat Boy’ was nominated and screened in the Fiction category, alongside some very interesting live-action and animated films by both established filmmakers and newcomers from Europe and the US. We had the opportunity to get to know other filmmakers here, like Barrie Willacott and Ian Lapworth.  One of the filmmakers we met was Robert Brown,  who had started his career working on one of our very favourite animated films, ‘When the Wind Blows’. His hand-drawn animated short, ‘The Tooth Fairy’ was screened alongside ours.

When the wind blows
When the wind blows

Rawhead Rex
Rawhead Rex

One of the most fun moments was a brief geek-out with George Pavlou, who directed ‘Rawhead Rex’. It is a 1980s Irish-English horror film about a monster who terrorises the Irish countryside. This is an adaptation of one of Clive Barker’s stories from his Books of Blood series, and while the film is not totally faithful to the original story, it remains a bit of a guilty pleasure watch with its bizarre plot and stupidly fun creature effects.

 

Not Elvira
Not Elvira

Our second screening was in Los Angeles, in the ScareLA film festival, as part of the annual ScareLA HorrorCon. We were screened here in the “Wicked Witches” category. My brother, Nipun, and his friend, Anirudh, attended the festival in Los Angeles on our behalf. Here’s a picture of them with an Elvira impersonator (apparently there was a two hour long queue to the real Elvira, and they hoped we wouldn’t notice that the impersonator looked rather different. Yeah, not bloody likely).

 

 

 

We were next selected for the Cyprus Comic Con, which we missed attending by a whisker, as the festival was held about a week after our holiday in Cyprus. Our friends, Melina, Thomas and Christina attended the festival in Nicosia on our behalf.

'The Sweetmeat Boy' Screening
‘The Sweetmeat Boy’ Screening

Purge Cosplay
Purge Cosplay

'The Sweetmeat Boy' Screening
‘The Sweetmeat Boy’ Screening

Apart from these three, we also got screened in the AxWound Women in Horror film festival in Vermont, the Fright Night Film Fest in Kentucky, the Broken Knuckle Film Festival and the Chennai International Short Film Festival.

And now, after a year of patting our own backs, we have decided to focus on the next few projects. We have a few ideas lined up and some are at a more concrete stage than others, but one of the more fun things we did recently was to experiment with live-action film making. Some members of our family volunteered to act, and be laughed at, in a very short horror-comedy that we filmed on our last trip to India. The film is called ‘The Jinn’. One of the most important things we learned while making this film was that working with actors, instead of puppets, presents unpredictable challenges. Patience becomes a very difficult virtue when an actor (or indeed one of the directors) breaks into a fit of giggles even as the all-important sunlight is fading, or when an actor, with otherwise great diction, bungles a dialogue just when everything else is perfect. No matter how many behind-the-scenes blooper reels one might have seen, the challenges of live-action film making need to be experienced to be truly appreciated. Although stop-motion animation is extremely hard, we now humbly admit that live-action film making is no stroll in the park either. We are currently in the post-production stages of this film and hope to have this out sometime soon.

Moving on to the most important project that we’re working on at the moment. It is another stop-motion animation short film on the death penalty in India. Jahnavi’s brilliant script is in Hindi, encapsulating the experiences of prisoners on death row. The tentative title of the film is ‘Jhakki Kisaan’ in Hindi and ‘I am Ramdeen’ in English. Making sure that the film is as effective in both Hindi and English has already presented us with unique and frustrating challenges, which are likely to only increase in the next few months. We are very excited to start filming, and are currently  in the process of story-boarding the script.  Next, we will move on to the music and the fabrication of the sets and characters and will keep clicking pictures of anything exciting to share on the blog. My upcoming few pieces will be about the process of making ‘Jhakki Kisaan’/‘I am Ramdeen’, from puppets to set-design to filming, so watch this space!

StickyAnimation Artists, Film Festivals, Projects

The Sweetmeat Boy – Trailer

Presenting – the trailer for our first film, The Sweetmeat Boy!

After a final push over the last few months, with a fair few sleepless nights and about 400 hours of work, the film is finally complete. It clocks in at 5 minutes and 38 seconds, and features folk-music sounds from India, including a piece by an excellent Yakshagana troupe. The film can’t be shared just yet, as we dive into the murky waters of the film festival circuit. For more pictures and production stills, head over to the Gallery.

Showreel #1

Here’s KhelaFilm’s first showreel, showcasing scenes from our papercut shorts and our upcoming claymation short “The Sweetmeat Boy”. We used our field recordings of South Indian temples for the music in this video.

 

StickyAnimation Artists, Showreel, Sweetmeat Boy, , , , , , , ,

Imperfection

We have been working on a short animated film, called ‘The Sweetmeat Boy’, for the last couple of years. The film will be approximately 2 to 3 minutes long, but has already taken a few thousand hours of learning, conception and execution! From the time we started, we have reshot the same scenes at least ten times; and now that the film is halfway there, we feel ready to share our experiences with those who are interested in this kind of film making, or those who are simply entertained by a good story.

The film is based on a Kannada folk tale that many a grandmother has repeated to her grandchild. It features an Indian version of the classic Eastern European ‘Baba Yaga’ legend, with a sinister hell hag (“Rakshasi ajji” in the Tulu language) terrifying an ‘innocent’, sweetmeat eating boy. It is a story with a strong visual element, and seemed an apt subject for a film. After playing around with a few ideas on how to bring this to life, we made up our minds to experiment with stop motion animation.

The first decision we had to make was around the materials that we were going to use, and the kind of stop motion that this was going to be – hand drawn, clay, silhouette or paper cutout. We zeroed in on clay animation almost immediately, since using real and tactile materials requires a much greater level of interaction with the physical world, providing the story that much more depth.

We decided early on to not use CGI or doctor the pictures we took in any way – all the animation would happen in camera, without anything being removed, added or enhanced. We had to be very careful with our sets and lighting, and figure out ways of hiding supporting harnesses, to avoid changing anything artificially on the computer.

First AppaDaMani Second IterationOn the left is the first iteration of the set and the puppet. The background here was watercolour on thick paper, with a painted tree and a very unformed puppet. The foliage was real lichen.

The subsequent puppet, on the right, had more articulation and features. The tree was now a combination of a watercolour painting and a clay front. The problem with this puppet was that it had no skeleton to support its extremities. The clay fingers would keep drying and breaking off in our hands.

Then we created a more advanced puppet with modular and movable parts built on a wire skeleton. Hello The arms, fingers, eyes, head and body were all separately baked and put together on an armature that we built with aluminium wire. There was also some fiddling about with cloth and thread to cover the puppet’s modesty. This puppet, while a lot more advanced than the clay one before it, could not move as smoothly as we wanted.
Animating puppets is anything but easy. Every second of filming requires a careful maneuvering of models, and a single faulty movement or a seemingly imperceptible shift in the set, teeming with tiny props, can break the flow completely, negating all the time and effort spent. We got our hands dirty with paints, coloured clay and polymers, picked lichen off of neighbours’ walls, and had countless this-is-the-end type arguments. We created and tore down background after background, stage after stage and remade our models over and over again. Let us not even begin to count the many hours spent brooding over yet another failed attempt. But finally, we had our very first scene. All our hair-tearing and hand-wringing was forgotten when we saw our puppet walking for the very first time – our own mad and tearful “It’s Alive!” moment.

Here is one of the scenes that we later rejected, using the baked puppet and a full clay tree. The sequence comprises of more than a hundred separate photographs, with minute movements between one photo and the next. It is an example of how the tiniest of lapses can lead to the whole scene falling apart. The tree just couldn’t support the moving puppet and began to sag, though that was not apparent while filming. The puppet itself, while much sturdier, had a few problems with its fingers. The tiny baked polymer fingers lacked pliability and the all-important fleshy feel; besides, it didn’t help that they kept slipping off the hair-thin copper wire!

Boy on Tree

And finally, after about eight iterations, here is our latest tree and puppet. This little guy definitely has it in him to be a star! Although they look similar to the previous version, the tree this time is sturdier and is made of wires and papier-mache instead of clay, and the puppet is a combination of modular polymer and soft clay parts, mounted on an aluminium and metal thread armature. The clothes have also been changed subtly to enable smoother movement.AppaDaMani_currentIt was interesting for us to review the unavoidable cock-ups of the first few attempts, they showed us not only where we went wrong, but also that in its rawness and honesty, the imperfect thing is sometimes the most perfect. Now when we look at our unformed first puppet, what we see embodied is our initial urge to tell a story, even if that involved a back-breaking process of learning to work with clay. We both agree that in its unabashed authenticity, our first and most flawed puppet is the best one that we have ever made.