Festivals!

Panthalassa recently screened at its first festival, the ASIFA East Animation Festival on March 1st, 2016, at the School of Visual Arts in New York, New York. It was so cool to finally be in the audience for a festival one of my films has been in!

What's the next festival on deck? 

Flick: The Fledgling Filmmakers' Festival on April 23, 2016, at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Film Stills

Set Dressing

Shooting this week! I'll be getting through the first part of the film—everything above water. I'm excited to finally get a chance do some set dressing too. 

#GiantStatus

Costuming for Underwater

Still a ways to go on costuming this marionette, but she's headed in the right direction.

Scenics and Puppet Progress

Style shift!! I'll be making the environments more painterly and planar, and less sculptural from here on out. This change is both aesthetically driven and time saving, so it’s a win-win. Huzzah! 

It’s all in the details

Jellyfish progress. The body collapses and should allow for a little bit of squash and stretch once in the tank. 

Two down, one to go. I'm changing the goddess puppet from last semester. The marionette will be more pose-able and have white costuming instead of red. 

Casting a Face!

This is how you know who your true friends are. Andrea spent about 25 minutes under the mask—10 minutes  under the alganate and another 15 waiting for the plaster mother mold to cure. 

Plaster and burlap mother mold... and pink straws, because breathing

Fabulous!

De-molding complete. From here, I'll be modifying the sculpt to create the character's face. I'll be adding eyes & brows in clay for animation next week.

Compositing Test

I'm super excited about the way this comp test turned out. This is a great guide for future shots and gives me a few ideas for changes I can make.

Pangaea Compositing Test from Casey Follen on Vimeo.

Foam Sculpting

First off, sculpting foam with a hot wire produces very dangerous fumes and should be done using extreme caution. 

In a well ventilated (and sadly very cold) area, I roughed in the shapes of the coral reef. 

Spring Break Studio: Dye Tests

I spent my first evening of Spring Break in my apartment doing a batch of dye tests while catching up on Brooklyn Nine-Nine on Hulu (btw, great show, check it out). I have two main fabrics to work with—a textured white cotton material and a more complex woven upholstery fabric. The cotton took the dye really well. The upholstery worked better than I expected, but it did come out a bit darker than I would like. 

So far so good. The process of using iDye packets is pretty simple and worked as expected (no surprises... which was a surprise). The dye is a powder that you add to water, then add fabric, bring to a boil, and simmer for about 30 minutes. The tests took all evening because I did 4 batches. 

A little goes a long way with iDye—a dusting of dye powder did the trick. 

Huzzah! I didn't burn anything. 

Scarlet, pumpkin, and pink iDye pigments compared to the original fabrics above.
 Far left: upholstery fabric treated with pink iDye.

Testing 1, 2, 3...

First off, I’d like to say that the teachers at CCS are ridiculously awesome. They will do whatever they can to help their students. They have great ideas and are constantly popping into my studio with advice or just to check in. CCS instructors rock!

One of my instructors lent me a large tank to do some key/materials tests. I whipped up puppets (in literally 30 minutes—gotta stick to that production schedule), and spent the evening filming in the studio.

A few quick keys later, and now have some pretty solid test footage to work with. I feel like I’m in a good place (production schedule wise) going into spring break.  

Senior Thesis: Aquatic Puppetry Test 1 (4 sub-tests) from Casey Follen on Vimeo.

Runner Diaries: Munro Crafts

An instructor turned me onto Monro Crafts in Berkley. The have all of the usual craft store items (particularly related to jewelry), but they also have some really specific things that you can’t find anywhere else. I was super impressed by their selection of polymer clays and sculpting tools.

Munro Crafts Bead & Jewelry Supply

3954 12 Mile Rd, Berkley, MI 48072

(248) 544-1590

So. Many. Beads. 

I'm a sucker for good adhesives. I officially love this shop. 

Runner Diaries: Thrifting

 My hometown has recently upgraded to a super thrift store. This place is huge— back in the day it was our grocery store. I popped in to see what I could find, and ended up staying way too long. I found loads of great stuff for my sets and puppets.

Uhhh, who knew there would be crazy long line? Guess I'm not the only one on a budget. 

Walled Lake Thrift Store

730 N. Pontiac Trail, Walled Lake, MI 48390

Near W. Maple & Pontiac Trail

1.248.669.1443

Killer fabrics! I'm hoping to use the blouse on the far left as a coral texture. 

Runner Diaries: Research Trip to Tropicorium

One of my instructors turned me onto a place called Tropicorium in Romulus to do some research. They breed coral there and really know their stuff. I spoke with the owner—he absolutely loves what he does and is overflowing with information on salt water creatures. I learned a lot from that trip. 

I took the video below to study the way that UV light interacts with various corals and creatures. The video isn't great, but it gets the job done. I can also look back on how the sea life moves with the current, which will be helpful later on when I'm ready to animate. 

Tropicorium

20080 Inkster Rd, Romulus, MI 48174
(734) 782-2622

Lion Fish

I think I found a tank! Bad news... it's at least 200 lbs.  

Japanese Dragon Moral Eel 

Research

I'm really enjoying this book. Not exactly a light read, but I'm learning a lot about goddess worship throughout history in contrast patriarchal systems of worship.