On the Set - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 230

What is in your toolkit next to your workstation?
Answers included:
Surface gauges and tacky wax, plus a few sculpting tools and clay (for blinks, etc.); a ruler or tape
measure for plotting camera moves; some clay for refi lling drilled out tie-down holes; a hand drill for
tie-downs; lots of water; a bathroom comes in pretty handy; everything but the kitchen sink; all sorts,
glue, tape, tools, nylon string, light meter, stopwatch; white editing gloves to keep the puppet clean; an
exacto knife; paint for touch-ups; replaceable mouth or head sets, X sheets; extra tie-downs; tools like
a dentist's kit, some from pottery and sculpture, some actually from dentistry; babywipes to keep my
hands clean; previous bits of favourite Plasticine mouth shapes and eyelids; tweezers, Allen keys, wooden
paddles, pens, pins, wedges; cocktail sticks (which have multiple purposes); Vaseline (useful lubricant
for eye pupils); cotton buds; lighter fuel/water to keep puppet clean; pencils; chinagraphs (useful to mark
on monitor); highlighter pen (useful for dope sheet notation); Perspex blocks (helpful to discreetly steady
a puppet mid-walk); scalpel and blades, fi shing line; safety cows (small foam cows placed on the end of
Climpex rods or other sharp objects around the set); A 'Mid Shot' sign; talcum powder (to remove the
shine from latex puppets and as a barrier between Plasticine heads and mouths, easier to remove and
replace); lighter fuel as a 'de-bonder' for some glue; KY Jelly (useful lubricant for tears), glycerine (makes
great raindrops or tears); chocolate.
Drawing away at a lightbox or hunched over a keyboard may bring its own physical problems,
but not usually the heat of a stop motion studio. In a big set-up, there are usually half a dozen
or so animators enclosed in small areas by heavy drapes, with dozens of hot lights inches from
them. It's a killer but is part of the job. It makes for sweaty working conditions, but the heat
also causes problems for the puppets. It can disastrously tighten or loosen joints (both human
and puppet!), and the sweaty animators' hands ultimately make the puppets dirty and tacky.
A quick brush of talcum powder can help, but can dull the colour. The heat causes problems
for the sets, expanding and shrinking them in the cold overnight. This makes the l oors buckle,
with cracks appearing. This is mostly i ne, but if you have a lengthy shot that has to be left
overnight, be prepared for some movement of the set. A director can anticipate this in the
staging by allowing for the insertion of a suitable close-up if necessary. The trick is to make
something interesting happen in the close-up. Directors cannot structure a i lm around shots
that can be completed in a day, otherwise the pacing of a i lm would be frantic, but they do
need to be aware of the physical problems of shooting … and there are many. I love the
challenge of a long shot, not just sustaining it in technical terms, but also sustaining the
interest in the puppet. The nine-and-a-half minute shot in Screen Play was done without
moving the camera, but we did unload the super 16 mm rolls every week. The i lm was
structured so that any changes in colour temperature or slight camera knocks
would be absorbed by visual distractions. I needed to choreograph the action so
that the Recitor could come of the set, to be straightened out and cleaned. After
particularly long complex scenes shrinks as his joints fold in on themselves or
become twisted. His white mask got grubby in the process, so with a valid excuse
to disappear behind a screen, he was taken of set for maintenance and emerged a
few frames later as good as new, ready for a new scene.