For the simulated work experience I was assigned to help the second year students: Mingzhu Jing, Zoe Wang, and Chris Lou, with their grad film project which is a puppet stop-motion short film.
I was really pleased to be assigned this group as the nature of their film, and the fact that they are doing puppet stop motion fits really well with my interests. Puppet stop motion is one of my favourite mediums to work in and the felted style of puppets that their group are using in particiular I find really interesting and fun to work in.
I firt met up with the group in the theatre back stage workshop where they were already well underway making puppets. The group gave me an introduction to their film and the concept for the project. The style of the film and puppets reminded me very much of Anna Mantzaris’ work, and she was clearly a big inspiration to the project. I was struck by the workload and it served as a reminder of what a big undertaking my grad film/project will be next year and how much focus I will need to put into organisation and planning ahead.
Design
The first task that my group of 2nd years asked me to complete for my simulated work experience was drawing a turnaround of one of the characters in the film. They gave me an original drawing of the character to work from and asked me to draw the rest of the turnaround based on this original drawing.
I found this process both easier and more challenging than I had expected in different ways. The process of drawing itself I didn’t find too difficult or arduous, once I was in the flow of drawing it wasn’t too complicated to figure out how to draw the character at different angles. The part that I found more challenging was having to draw someone else’s character and make decisions about how to draw them using my best judgement.
I tried my best to preserve the important aspects of the design they sent me and keep the character true to model and vibe, as well as the style, of the original.
Fabrication
Once I finished drawing the character turnaround, I was able to help with some some practical making.
I helped with the making of the puppets, making armatures, adding foam to the armatures, and wrapping the puppet bodies with foam tape. This was an enjoyable process and I was able to put to use some of the skills that I had practiced in the puppet-making workshop with Joseph Wallace earlier in the year.
I also mentioned to my group that I had some experience in making clothes for puppets, through sewing, crochet, and knitting. They then asked me to help with making clothes, including this small jumper that I crocheted, for the same character that I drew the turnaround of.
Overall my Take-Away from this project is a higher level of awareness when it comes to how much work can be required for the making of grad-films. I think I’m more aware, ahead of next year, that it is a very big undertaking and I need to be very prepared when it comes to plans and scheduling. Working with a group also helped me to realise that working in a group to create my grad film could be a really good idea as it creates a wider-spread of labour and allows you to share expertise.