Preparation - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 159

of lenses, framing and compositions the director is likely to want, and exactly what the characters
will be doing. There's no point in building a glorious set if it doesn't work for a particular camera
lens or aspect ratio. Not only is animator access a bane to the designer, but cameras have to get
in and the sets need to be lit. Access is obviously essential, not just on the sets but below, as the
animators need to reach underneath for whatever securing device they are using. Usually an
animator will be holding the leg of a puppet with one hand while trying to reach underneath
with the other. This means that a set must be constructed around the length of an animator's
arm. For larger sets, various trapdoors or swinging walls need to be built. On the sets, particularly
the interior sets, for The Wind in the Willows and Hamilton Mattress , we tried to shoot completely
round the rooms. Some of the sets where small, such as the bar in Hamilton Mattress , but every
wall was removable. This takes some ingenuity, as sets can sag when various walls are taken
away. In general, a wall is removed for the whole shot, but walls in shot can be taken away every
frame to allow the animator access. This only works if the walls are precisely replaced, otherwise
there will be all manner of juddering. Magnets can be used to secure the walls, or they can swing
out or lift out, and then be secured by something reliable such as gravity or clips.
I have tried to be clever with removable walls that cannot be detected, and in one scene in
Hamilton Mattress the bulky 35 mm camera travels from an outside alleyway down a corridor
and into a ballroom seamlessly. In one of those cheap tricks I love so much, the corridor was
dismantled section by section as the camera moved, the joins of the sections confused by
various design elements. This is complex to plan and shoot, not least for the lighting guys who
hope that the lighting does not change as a section is removed. Considerably smaller digital
cameras now let the camera into dii cult places, allowing more design freedom.
Antonio's The Passenger has a simply remarkable i nal shot where the camera starts tight
on a character in bed, withdraws through a barred window, then wanders round the piazza
outside, before i nding the room once more, all in one take. This involved cleverly removing and
replacing parts of the wall as the camera passed. Hitchcock, too, was adept at deconstructing
sets to let his enormous cameras pass. Another shot, from The Wizard of Oz , probably one of
the most signii cant shots in i lm history, is still impressive in its deceptive simplicity. This is the
transition from monochrome to colour as Dorothy steps into Oz. I recall a i lm professor wal ing
on about the use of a clever matte sequence, but it seems no more than sleight of hand. A body
double for Judy Garland, with her back to us, and wearing a monochrome costume and wig,
approaches a real monochrome door. As she opens the door, revealing the colour of Oz, she
steps back out of shot. The camera eases forward, losing the sepia set. Almost instantly, Judy
Garland, in full colour costume, steps in front of the camera and into Oz. The camera follows
in a sustained tracking shot, revealing the entire Munchkin town. It is clearly shot in one take,
moving from the sepia close midshot of the door to the wide shot of the colourful town, but
then a close midshot of Dorothy's reaction as she steps out is inserted. It is a beautifully acted
shot with Judy Garland looking awestruck, but the continuity is all over the place and the l ow
of that amazing shot is interrupted. Maybe Dorothy's reaction needed to be seen sooner, or the
close-up covers a technical hitch, preventing a costly reshoot. I admire the audacity
of doing such a complex, important shot, showing the transition between the
real and fantasy, all in one l uid take and with no ef ects at all, just simple lateral
thinking. Quite breathtaking.
Screen Play had a shot linking the two dif erent of worlds of animation and
live action. In the i nal sequence the camera pulls back to show the discarded