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!