This was much more my bag than clay. I am far more used to building than I am sculpting and I was able to work with tools/materials I was much more familiar with. This immediately gave me confidence and a platform to work from.
I enjoyed working with a subject that I didn’t have to destroy to make move, something I could experiment with without the worry of damaging it irreparably. I liked the challenge of creating something that had to be manipulatable within certain material limitations and having a full day to create without the pressure of shooting and editing made this a far more enjoyable experience.
The found object character was not necessarily a character I would have made otherwise, but I am very glad I did make him! Whilst not being the most movable/manipulatable character, it was a really good exercise in expression and performance. Having just what was essentially a head and torso to play with, it really made me consider what would be enough with just those aspects to play with. Going in knowing I wasn’t intending to create a full body puppet also made me think about methods of construction that would allow me to have the most amount of stability possible, including the use of a base plate and metal body structure.
The final film I made was not timed or edited, but I wanted to use it as an opportunity to explore with expression and also eventually a nod to the inclusion of live performance aspects, which initially stemmed from me accidentally capturing myself in frame and deciding to embrace this to create something new.
Creating the wooden puppet from scratch was possibly one of my favourite things on the course so far. Having the opportunity to make something from scratch with time to design and create it with care was so rewarding. Learning specific creation techniques, methods and necessary inclusions was also really important for considering what made a good stop motion puppet.
Things like stability, rigging, maintenance and adaptability are not things I really would have considered before. As long as a puppet was manoeuvrable, I thought that was enough, I didn’t stop to think what would happen if something broke and a part needed replacing or how to think about padding and dressing characters.
While I wouldn’t ‘t necessarily take my current puppet further in terms of dressing and design as I think the paired back aesthetic works for it, I definitely want to explore this type of puppet a lot more in the future and would absolutely consider using this as a medium for further projects.