Alright, tell me frankly, what would you do if you were confronted with the problem of creating an army of extras that serve the badguy? If I had to start completely from scratch I would probably flip out. Thankfully, I got lucky on iSundae II’s “The Norse.”

The concept of the Norse had been in the script since I don’t know when. Maybe it grew out of a scene in an earlier version, or maybe it got thrown in randomly. I can’t remember. But I do know that design concepts for their “look” are all over some pretty early sketches. There’s an axe with a symbolic icon right next to a costume sketch for Emcracy and a cloak clasp next to Cone armor. I got pretty fancy with some of the sketches and concepts, but one thing I didn’t think about: These were background characters. Extras. A generic “set-dressing.” Thus, no fancy costumes or props! Awww, man. Here’s what we ended up with.

For costumes—Oversized, white, long-sleeve t-shirts with the ribbing on the sleeve cuffs cut off. Simple, cheap, and you can dirty them up all you want. Or cut holes in them. (We didn’t do that.) Then we topped them off with raggedy vests, cloaks, and coats made from whatever we had available. We used everything from an old plaid blanket to a sleeveless polo shirt. A little cutting, a very minimal amount of sewing, and you’ve got it! We didn’t even hem most of the cut edges. These were Vikings, not fashion statements. Oh, we also threw old belts on some of them. Thankfully we weren’t going for historical accuracy, a general look sufficed.

Of course, we had to throw in some axes. Store-bought ones. (Guess who was planning to make all the axes? Cough, cough.) A bow and arrow set a la Stelen from the first movie (re-use your props; they come in handy!) and a few swords. The Norse had to look semi-fierce, after all.

I did get to make some fancier props, though. There’s a rather ornate horn.

And the battering ram. 

I also made some Celtic-knot style clasps for the Norse with cloaks, but they never made it on set more than once. Which is probably a good thing, because the “Celtic look” was strictly for the Cones. And who wants to add ten minutes to the movie length just to explain what Cone stuff was doing on the Norse? 

We discovered that the mix-and-match abilities we ended up with lent themselves to a plethora of Norse really, really well. It also allowed us to create more Norse than we had extras. (More about that later.) But let me just say, if you’re going to have a specific Norse (or anything) show up in more than one scene, write down what his costume is like. In detail. What color is his helmet? How about the thingies holding the horns on? What size is his shirt? What else did he have on? Was he wearing a blue or green shirt underneath? Etc., etc., etc. Trust me, it saves a whole lot of time. You don’t want to leave the film site, run upstairs to turn on the computer, launch your editing software, find a clip that has that Norse in it, run back downstairs and forget what he looked like. Things can get messy.

iSundae II - Part 1 of 10 from Phantom Moose Films on Vimeo.

You can also watch the movie on YouTube.

Stay tuned for behind the scenes articles coming this week. Also, you might want to check out the iSundae II page. See you next week for part 2!

 
iSundae Bloopers Reel from Phantom Moose Films on Vimeo.

“He’s right, Somindeo…”

We did this scene on a stool, because Malfhok had to float down from the ceiling. I’m wearing a green box so that I can’t wave my arms around, and so we can key it out for the floating head effect. Well, it’s really hard to step off of a stool with a box that comes down to your knees! Needless to say, the box got the worst of it.

Clocks

This was one of the worst interruptions we had while filming iSundae. Normally, it’s perfectly lovely to have a clock that chimes every quarter hour. But when you are trying to finish a scene ASAP, a chime every fifteen minutes is quite annoying. We learned our lesson and ran the clock down before we started shooting iSundae II. My advice? Think carefully about what makes noise in a location before you decide to shoot there, and if you can, silence them.

Weather Conditions

Man! We had such a hard time on that day. The place where we were filming was right next to the road and right out in the open. Plus, as you can tell, that day was windy. So we shot in between cars going by and gusts of wind. However, it was fun to watch all the people in their cars turning to look at us while they went by.

Sword Belts

This was a recurring trouble. The belts were made of cardboard covered with fabric, so they tended to spring open a lot. For iSundae II, we used real belts.

The Garage Cave

Yes, we know. That scene was shot in a garage. Shocking, isn’t it? Now you know why we darkened the scene so much.

“Have you seen my DVD collection?”

This is what happens when you tell your actors to have a conversation, and then tell them that the audio won’t be used. Consequently, I’m the one with the remark about the DVDs.

iSundae: The Way of the Wielders (Part 7 of 7) from Phantom Moose Films on Vimeo.

You can also watch it on YouTube.

Here are some posts on Phantom Moose that are related to part 7:

• Somindeo’s Costumes
• The Chocolate Box of Your Dreams
• Sword Sheaths

And some that are related to the whole film in general:

• Music of iSundae
• Fun on the Set, Part 1
• Fun on the Set, Part 2
• Movie Making Tips

So, what did you think of iSundae? We’d love to hear from you. Just leave us a comment.

 
iSundae: The Way of the Wielders (Part 6 of 7) from Phantom Moose Films on Vimeo.

You can also watch it on YouTube.

We’ve broken the movie into seven parts for faster download, and we are posting a new part each week. So be sure to check back next week for part 7 and the exciting conclusion.

Here is a post on Phantom Moose that is related to part 6:

• Somindeo’s Costumes

 
Cheese Soufflé from Phantom Moose Films on Vimeo.

You can also watch it on YouTube.

Now you’ve watched it, and I’m sure that some of you want to try some stop-motion of your own. Read on for some tips.

What software do I need?

We used FrameThief (which hasn’t been updated since 2006) for Cheese Soufflé, but in the past I used iStopMotion for smaller projects. Both are Macintosh only, so if you are on a Windows machine, you may want to comment on this post with what you use. If you expect to line up your animation to some dialogue or music, you’ll need to make sure that your software will display the audio waveforms for you to match with your animation.

So I should have my audio beforehand?

Yes. You should have all audio pre-recorded and edited before you start shooting the animation.

What camera should I use?

If your software supports still cameras and you have one, use it. Still cameras shoot frames at much higher resolution than video cameras, so your resulting video will be better quality.

How do I animate?

Ah, we’ve gotten to the hard and fun part! Here are some of the basics:

• Move your objects/characters in very small increments. The smaller the increments, the smoother the final animation.
• Use a tripod to ensure that the camera does not move. If you become very serious about animation, you will probably start perform animated camera moves. For now, though, don’t move the camera, as this is very difficult to pull off without practice. This does not mean that you cannot cut to different angles.
• Set up your scene in an area that will not be disturbed, and get as far away from the scene as you can before you take the picture.

The world of stop-motion animation is quite broad. For inspiration, watch claymation movies like Chicken Run and the Wallace and Gromit shorts and movie (my favorite is the short The Wrong Trousers). Just keep practicing and making movies.

 
iSundae: The Way of the Wielders (Part 5 of 7) from Phantom Moose Films on Vimeo.

You can also watch part 5 on YouTube.

We’ve broken the movie into seven parts for faster download, and we are posting a new part each week. So be sure to check back next week for part 6.

 
Ten Second iSundae Trailer from Phantom Moose Films on Vimeo.

There is no better way to keep boringness and stress from setting in than planning ahead. Storyboarding is the easiest way I have found to plan. It’s quite simple. Prior to filming (Or even before the whole filming schedule commences) you take a section of the script. Say. . .

EXT Sci-Fi Port (Badguy) NIGHT
Bob and Clyde have just escaped from the badguy headquarters, taking with them the secret plans for a fighter plane. The badguys have discovered them and are chasing them. Bob and Clyde have just reached their broken plane and are waiting for their mechanic to fix it.

BOB
Look out! They’re right behind us!

CLYDE
(into walkie-talkie)
Ground 20, have you got the ship working yet?

BOB
(looking at approaching badguys)
We can’t wait that long.

CLYDE
Do you see another way?

Alright. There you have it. (No, that is not part of our next movie.) Now, how do you get this from script to storyboard? Well, there are a number of ways. First, you could draw thumbnail sketches of what you think it should look like. (“You” being the director or official storyboarder) Think about the feel of the scene. What you want to camera angles to look like. What you want to them to show and in what order. Here is how I visualized this section and drew it.

As you can see, I am no drawing master. Stick figures work very well for me. Particularly when I give them some special characteristics to define person from person.

If you don’t want to draw you can write it down.

Wide Shot: Bob and Clyde rush up to side of the ship.
Close up Bob: Bob’s first line
Wide Shot of badguys charging.
Close up Clyde: Clyde’s first line.
Two shot with Bob and Clyde: Bob’s next line.
Close up Clyde: Clyde’s second line.

Now, this way is very handy because it makes converting the storyboards to a filming schedule easier. Do you see the repeat? Clyde has two close ups. On your filming schedule you can put: “Close up on Clyde: both lines” and film it all at once without having to move the camera around and shoot everything in order.

(I’m a little fuzzy on the whole “filming schedule” thing. It didn’t dawn on me until this last movie that such a thing would make it a ton easier. Trust me, next movie I’ll have one.)

How do the storyboards compare with the final film? For us, this varies by scene. Here’s a comparison of a scene from our movie iSundae.

iSundae Storyboard Comparison from Phantom Moose Films on Vimeo.

You can also watch it on YouTube.

So that’s how you do storyboards. I highly recommend them unless you are one of those directors/camera men who can see the whole thing in their heads and mentally check off the angles. That would be so handy. . . I wonder if I can teach myself to think that way. . . But anyway, try a couple storyboards. They can make things run a whole lot smoother.