Merry Christmas!

Well I was right! Blogging didn't last. I had 3 videos to do in 1 week, so I took all of my spare time to make those last videos. I finished shooting Auld Lang Syne on the night of Dec. 20th. Then on the 21st I spent 3 hours cleaning out the dining room (where I work). As I said in the last post, we were having christmas dinner, so my mom wanted all my supplies out! It didn't help that the night before I filmed a video with all of my 2010 characters (Well over 120 characters). I had to put them all in there boxes and clean out everything! But I got all the videos done as planned. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Upcoming Videos:
Many of you know that I will be taking a break form stop-motion. I have done it non-stop for 2 years and I think it's time to take a break. Over the summer, making Hercules, I thought the movie was too long and it just dragged on using the same characters and I wanted it to end so I could work on something new. When I watched it back I thought that it didn't have the same "magic" as my Lion King movie. At that point I thought I would take a break. But I kept going and made Sesame Street and The Addams Family, which I thought were pretty good videos, but didn't get a lot of views. So I decided to cancel the plans on making another 1 hour movie of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in January. It was time for something new to do. Something that would make people gain interest instead of just another stop-motion video. I figured something out. I have been working on it since September and I am hoping to have it out by late March or April. I don't want to say to much about the video, but it is going to be a good one! (There is a reason I have been working on it since August and I am not even half way done yet!) There will be no new videos from me though April or late March! On March 16th I will release a trailer video telling everyone what the video will be! Can't wait for you all to see it!

This blog is now closed.

P.S. Obviously there will be no blog on the Surprise video. It would give away the surprise!

Blogging May Be In Short Supply!

So, I am a little behind in my christmas videos. I shouldn't have taken last week off because I was in a mad rush to do the Grinch. My mom is having Christmas at our house this year, and all my supplies and characters are in the dining room. (thats were I work and filmed the videos.) And obviously, we are gonna need the dining room for Christmas dinner. And she is working the day before Christmas. So, she wants everything cleared out by the 21st. So I have like 5 days to do 3 videos. I rushed to do the Grinch, and got it all done by today! It was done very quickly, but I think it's one of the best videos of Season 5!!!

I thought about just doing Santa Claus is Coming to Town, then clean out for Christmas, then setup later that week and do Auld Lang Syne. But, my family and I are going to New York City from the 27-30th. If I clean out on the 21st, and then set up on the 26th. But by the time I set up and get everything ready, and get packed and ready for the trip, there just won't be enough time. And we will get home late at night on the 30th, so there won't be enough time there either. I have to do it before the 21st!

I really don't have time for blogging, because it takes me a long time to type and upload pictures, so I decided to pretty much cut out the blog. I may post a few more things, but not as detailed as usual!

A Week Off

I will be taking a week off of stop-motion. I am done with 3 of the videos and the next one I need to do is the grinch, which isn't out til Dec. 21st. So I will be taking a week off to do other Christmas things like shopping, and decorating and all that fun stuff! On Saturday I will go shopping for the Grinch supplies.

Blue Christmas- Post #2

On Saturday Night I finished up all the things for the video. I finished Santa and the little girl and all the props.

Then on Sunday, I filmed the video. It was pretty simple. It's mostly just the crayon pictures, and the little girl drawing. It took 986 pictures. When I was done filming, I exported the movie to iMovie and added the intro and transitions. Then it was done!

Sorry I didn't have any pictures for this video, but I basically did it over the coarse of 3 days. So it wasn't like a big video. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y24aWEjHTMA

Hope you Enjoy it! Merry Christmas! Only 19 Days!

Upcoming Videos:

Silver and Gold- Dec. 16th
You're A Mean One Mr. Grinch- Dec. 21st
Santa Claus is Coming To Town- Dec. 25
Auld Lang Syne- Dec. 31

Blue Christmas- Post #1

I am still trying for Dec. 6th for this video!

Over the past few days I have been trying to do as much as possible with the supplies I have left over from other videos. Of course I had the model magic, so I made the little girl and Santa's body of the white clay. I let them dry for a few days but in the mean time I did some other work. In the video there are 4 pictures that the little girl sends to Santa. I used crayons and white paper to draw the pictures. When I did my "rough shopping" in the beginning of November, I bought some supplies for this video. (For those who didn't read the previous posts, my "rough shopping" was when I went to JoAnn's to buy a few things for each video I knew I needed without really researching the video.) So I got a desk and painted it turquoise. In Santa's parts, he stands in front of his castle in the North Pole. So I found some gray paper and made part of the castle with big brown doors.

I only made Santa's body out of clay because I already have his wooden head from 2009's videos. I started making the little girl. I painted her head and hands flesh colored and covered her body with shiny red fabric and that made a dress! Then I painted on her facial features with a toothpick and sharpies. In my bad of string, I found some light yellow (blonde) string and glued it on her head as hair. I started with a big glob of hot glue and then I stuck all the hair on really quickly before it dried. Then I painted a thin layer of Elmer's glue on top. The hot glue is not clear, and looks like a mess, so I make sure it can't be seen. But Elmer's dries clear, but it takes a long time to dry. Then I made a bow out of ribbon I found and glued on top of her head. I made her arms out of wire and wrapped them in the red fabric. Then I put her body all together. Then i used some of my mom's blush to give her rosy cheeks. All I need for her was some kind of doily fabric for the collar of her dress and end of sleeves.

Finally, the night of Dec. 4th, we went shopping! I got the light blue paper for the background, the girls doily fabric, salmon color fabric for Santa, Red fabric, and a few other things for the next videos. That's where I am now! More will come tomorrow and the video will be out Monday which is St. Nicks Day, for all who celebrate that! (I do!)

Christmas News and Updates

I wanted to make a post of what is going on right now. Just some updates and future plans.

First off, "Blue Christmas" is STILL set to be released on Dec. 6th. But it may have to be delayed. Unfortunately my family and I have been very busy recently and we never got a chance to get the supplies for the video. So we were gonna go to Joann's sometime this week, but things changed. On Wednesday, around 7 am, (I was in school) it started to snow. And it snowed, and snowed and snowed until about 6pm.  We got about 2 feet of snow and a few of our small trees broke because of the wind and weight of the snow. My mom had a work meeting, and it was about a half an hour away. She was a little nervous about going out but they said there was no snow where she was going. Once she got past our area, it was fine. But the way back from the meeting was bad. She got on the thruway and got stuck in traffic. Really bad traffic. At 9pm she called and said she had been sitting in the same spot for an hour. So we looked it up online and there has been numerous accidents on the thruway. Trucks were blocking the road, cars slid off, etc. So then she called at 10:30 and said the same thing, she hadn't moved an inch. I went to bed and hoped she'd be all right. I woke up around 5:30am and checked the closings on my iPod. We had a snow day!!!! I went to go tell my parents and my dad was on the phone with my mom, who was STILL stuck in the same spot. Only now her car battery died. No heat, no power.  We called the NY State troopers and they said that they are trying to get people out, but it is gonna be a long process. They had a ton of tow trucks, and atv's trying to get people out. They said they are starting at both ends of traffic and pulling and jump starting cars. Well, my mom was in the direct center. So now it is 10:00, it has been 14 hours and she is still in the same spot. So yeah, I don't think Blue Christmas is looking good right now.

In other news, today "Trim Up The Tree" was released under Mariah Carey's new hit holiday song "Oh Santa!". The video was originally released on Dec. 25, 2009. It was a very short video with ALL of my characters in it. But because of copyright restrictions of the song "Trim Up the Tree" from the Grinch Cartoon,  it was removed 2 days later and my account was suspended. So I knew that if I uploaded it again, the same thing would happen. I decided to re-release it under a new song. So here is "Trim Up the Tree" re-released under "Oh Santa!". 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22mbEt62tsM

Also, my Christmas and Halloween room 2010 videos will be released on Dec. 23rd.

Calendar:

Dec. 6- Blue Christmas
Dec. 16- Silver and Gold
Dec. 21- You're A Mean One Mr. Grinch
Dec. 23- Christmas and Halloween Room Videos Released
Dec. 25- Santa Claus is Coming To Town
Dec. 31 - Auld Lang Syne

Silver and Gold- Post #3

Filming The Video:

So on Saturday Nov. 27th, I filmed "Silver and Gold". I had a couple challenges, one was "How you get a stop-motion character to hold a banjo?". I figured it out by gluing on of his hands to the top part of the banjo and sticking one end of a wire in the banjo and the other end on his bottom snowball.

I basically just followed the original video, frame by frame, but I added my own little twist. At one part, I zoomed out so you could see the whole set and then I decorated everything with silver and gold decorations. In the video just the one tree gets decorated, but in mine the whole Forrest gets decorated! I used the ripple effect on iMovie to make the scene transition smoothly. The whole video is 1:37  and took 975 pictures. But with my Christmas 2010 intro and ending, it comes to be 2:31. The video is set to be released on Dec. 16th. 

Thanks for reading the Silver and Gold segment of the blog!! 

Silver and Gold- Post #2

I started off the video by making Sam the Snowman (Burl Ives). I already had the clay dried out because I made his body the same time I made Hermey and Rudolph. He has a pretty basic body because he is a snowman, of course. So that's 3 snowballs getting larger as they go down. Then I mad a tiny sphere for his nose and I made his hands. Since the Model Magic is already white, no painting was needed. I started off with is vest. Sam wheres a green vest with golden cross lines. I looked a ton of fabrics at Joann's, but they had nothing that would work. So I got a sparkly, festive green fabric and took a small paint brush and painted on the lines with gold paint. His clothes were done!

Another thing I did was make his umbrella and hat out of Model Magic. I painted them green. I painted the handle of the umbrella black and on the hat, I painted a gold stripe and a piece of holly. I glued the hat and his had and started the face. The face was pretty easy. I used paper for his mustache, beard and eyebrows. Then I used a sharpie to color his eyes, and mouth. His face was done and all he needed was arms! I cut 2 equal pieces or wire, wrapped them in white fabric and added the hands. Then I stuck them through the fabric and into the clay. Sam was pretty much done. I dug out my original Sam from 2008 (he was the 3rd character I ever made) Original Sam was supposed to open Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer the Song (which was my 2nd video ever). I shot the scene, but Sam's part never made it on youtube. But in 2009, I used Original Sam for "Holly Jolly Christmas". Here is a picture of both Sams:



Sam Through the Years: Left to Right:
2008-2009: Used in "Rudolph the Song" and "Holly Jolly Christmas"
2010 Sam (before arms): "Silver and Gold"

 Then I started making the little animals in the video. I made 2 squirrels, a seal, and 2 birds. They were all very simple. Once they were dry, I painted them. Then I made Sam's Banjo and painted it brown.

Animals before painting

So that is basically it for today! SIlver and Gold will be out December 15th.

Silver and Gold- Post #1

Some of you may be a little confused as to why I am making "Silver and Gold" instead of "Blue Christmas". In my first post, it says "Blue Christmas" will be out December 6th and Silver and Gold will come after that. That IS still true. Silver and Gold will be my 3rd video in the Christmas line-up and Blue Christmas will be the 2nd video. Silver and Gold has the same set as my first video "We're A Couple of Misfits". So, I decided to just leave that scenery all set up and I will just shoot Silver and Gold. There is no moving sets and setting them back up or any of that. Many of you who read the "We're A Couple of Misfit" posts saw that in the first post it said I made Sam the Snowman out of clay along with Hermey and Rudolph. Well, he is dry now and I am going to start working on him soon.

Here is some info on the video:

Song: Silver and Gold
Singer: Burl Ives
Movie: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Characters: Sam the Snowman, Seal, 2 Squirrels, 2 Birds
Set: Christmas Tree Forrest (Same as We're A Couple of Misfits)

There is all the information! Production for this video will start tomorrow!

We're A Couple of Misfits Post #3

To start off, I finished all the little things that needed to be done to make the video. The owls, the log, the fish, the lake, the tree branch, etc. All of those things were preety simple and most were made out of paper.

Then I started shooting the movie on Friday, Nov. 19. I started around 8:00pm finished around 11:00pm. It is a fairly simple video with just 2 characters and 1 set. So I used my iMac Computer, iStop-Motion and iMovie to film and edit the movie! First Christmas movie of 2010 done! Only 5 more + New Years video left! The movie is set for release the day after Thanksgiving (November 26, 2010)!

Here some pictures of the video:



Hermey Through the Years: Left to Right:
 2008 Hermey; 4th character ever made, never used in a video
2009 Hermey; Made for "Island of Miifit Toys"
2010 Hermey: The Newest, and I think best Hermey! :D

The Set for "We're a Couple of Misfits" and "Silver and Gold"

Rudolph Through The Years: From Left to Right
Rudolph 2008: The first character I ever made
Rudolph 2009-2010: Rudolph for Island of Misfit Toys and We're A Couple of Misfits



We're A Couple of Misfts! Post #2

Over the past few days I have done a lot of work for "We're A Couple of Misfits."

For starters, I finished Hermey! I painted his face and hands skin colored. Then I made his elf hat out of foam and painted a pink stripe on it. I painted his hair a golden yellow and his bottom and lets pink. Then I cut out dark blue fabric for his clothes and wrapped the fabric around his body and the wire for his arms. Then I used a black strip of fabric for his belt. Finally, I painted his shoes black and put him all together. I will upload a picture of the previous Hermeys compared to the new Hermey very soon.

We're a Couple of Misfits is pretty much done except for a few small animals. I will post 2 more posts on this blog regarding We're a Couple of Misfits. One will be finishing up the animals and set and the other will be filming the video. So thats it for now!

We're A Couple of Misfts! Post #1

Hi Guys! My first video of this season will be "We're A Couple of Misfits" from the 1964 classic "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer". I announced my Christmas videos on Dec. 27th last year and they are finally here. One thing that my Christmas videos have is the side by side videos. For the Christmas videos, I do the exact scene from the movie. Frame by Frame. For my regular videos, like The Addams Family, Sesame Street and the Disney Series I don't do this. I just make the characters and I design the scenery and plan out the choreography. But for the Rankin/Bass videos, I do them frame by frame. So on the 13th I did my shopping for all of the Christmas videos. All Christmas items at JoAnn's were 40%-60% off. So I bought supplies for 5 videos for $65! That is pretty good because usually one video cost that much.

SETS- So I started by making the set. The video takes place in a snowy field of Christmas trees.  I cut out green paper and wrapped in around a stick and made it look like Christmas trees! I made about 7 of these. The floor of the set is a long piece of Styrofoam to make it look like sparkling snow. I stuck the trees in the Styrofoam board and that part was done. The background is just a plain blue sky with snowy hills and Christmas trees on the hills. I used a blue piece of paper for the sky and cut out white hills and glued then on the bottom of the paper. Then i cut of different sized Christmas trees and put the bigger ones towards the  front on the hills and the smaller ones towards the back. (to look like they were off in the distance.) Finally I put white clouds in the sky. The set was done. This was not only the set for "We're a Couple of Misfits", but it is also the set for "Silver and Gold".

CHARACTERS:
The characters in this video were very simple. There is only 2 in the video and I had already made both of them last year! So I went in my boxes and found Rudolph and Hermey and got them out. Now, last year when I pulled out 2008 Rudolph, I decided to make a new Rudolph. The original Rudolph was the first character I ever made and he wasn't the write color and couldn't stand very well and I knew I could do a better job. So for "The Island of Misfit Toys" I made another, more accurate Rudolph. So all I did for this video was some touch ups. Darkened some spots with brown paint, outlined his eyes with a black sharpie, made cleaner paint lines with the white spots and made his nose brighter. As I was looking at Hermey, I realized that I didn't like him. His face wasn't great, he was too fat, his clothes were not right. When I made Hermey last year, he wasn't barley ever on camera and I made him quickly and sloppily. So I decided to remake him this year.

Today I made him out of white clay, along with Sam the Snowman and some small animals.

Thats all for now! More to come soon!

"We're A Couple of Misfits" will be out NOVEMBER 26TH!

Staring Christmas Videos 2O1O!

Hello everyone! Many of you know me or have seen my stop-motion videos on Youtube. (http://www.youtube.com/cheerio753) I have had a few blogs before for my Sesame Street and Addams Family videos. Christmas time is one of my favorite times of the year and that is how stop-motion started for me. I started by making Christmas video from the holiday classics like Rudolph, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and The Year Without a Santa Claus. Not only are my Christmas videos my first videos, but as a majority, they are my most popular videos. Especially my video "Put One Foot in Front of the Other" is very popular. Which is funny because I almost didn't do it. Back in 2008, I made a few christmas videos in december. Then i made one in January, then February, then April, and it started to become too far away from christmas to make videos any more. The videos weren't getting any views because who watches Christmas videos in April? So I started to look at other things to do. Things like The Corpse Bride, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Coraline. (Back then it never occurred to me that I could do videos that are originally non- stop-motion such as Disney animated movies, the Muppets and the Addams Family.) When I couldn't find anything I really wanted to do, I just decided to do one last Christmas video. Just so I could have time to think of a non-christmas video. So I did "Put One Foot in Front of the Other" thinking that it wouldn't be popular and I was just doing it as something to do. To this day it is still one of my most popular videos. I have had lots of problems with the copyright claims on the music though. I have had the video removed several times but overall the video has had over 140,000 views.  So I have made Christmas videos a tradition. Last year I decided I would make the videos throughout November and December. Usually it takes a month for one of my videos but I couldn't decide on 2 videos to make so I did 5. 5 is a lot. But I did it. I worked really hard and fast and I put out 5 great videos! So I am doing that again this year! My 5 videos will be:


** We're A Couple of Misfits
** Blue Christmas
** Silver and Gold
** You're A Mean One Mr. Grinch
** Santa Claus is Coming to Town- All Christmas Characters


Then I will put out a New Years Video on Dec. 31. The song will be "Auld Lang Syne" by Mariah Carey and the video will have all my 2010 characters.


This is how the blog will work: Every couple of days I will post a update on where I am and what I am doing. The blog will include pictures and videos of the making of a stop-motion video. I really wanted people to see the work and effort put into these videos in a new way. This Blog will open November 14, 2010 and will go through the Making of my 5 stop-motion videos. Then once the video is finished, it will be posted here as well as youtube. Then I will start a new blog on the next video. The next video is a surprise! It will be out May 2011.  Can't wait for this to open and hope you enjoy reading it! See ya November 14th!