Let's Make a Film!

testing 1 2 3 the yellow ball workshop is a place where people of all ages come to make animated films Jean Falcone is working on a face which will be animated the first step is to paint a face on a sheet of paper Jean uses felt pens and poster paint the face is large and the background is simple this is the lady sleeping on a pillow when she was sleeping a bird flew in the window and made a nest on her bed she opens her eyes and looks around and then she says oh my goodness what's a bird doing in my room Jean is one of the youngest members of the class whose ages range from 80 to 18 there are a maximum of 12 students in a class of mixed ages and experience some are new students like Jean some are second and third-year students who are working on more complex themes and techniques jean has painted the lady with closed eyelids the open eyes and eyeballs are painted on a separate piece of paper cut out and laid on top the eyes can then be moved under the camera so that the lady seems to open her eyes and look around [Music] Paul Falcone has just taken 24 frames or pictures of the lady with her eyes closed when this is projected on a movie screen it will last for one second now the lady will open her eyes jean lanes the new eyes and eyeballs on top of the closed lids the lady will also raise her hands in front of her face and surprise Paul and gene rehearse the movement the separate open mouths are laid on top of the closed mouth when filming the mouths are changed every two frames and the hands move upward one quarter inch every two frames a roll of developed film returns from the laboratory with scenes on it made by different students each student winds the new roll of film through the viewer and cuts out his own scene for splicing into his own role here is Gene's facing [Music] doing in my house if the lighting is right all the activity can go on in one room some students are creating art and over in the left hand corner two students are filming a scene which uses special effects Carroll stones is working on her film just a fisherman of my imagination the main characters of the film are grotesque fish made out of human eyes and mouths cut out of magazines a sheet of glass with built up walls of plasticine is filled with water and breaks between the camera lens and the at work each time the camera operator takes a few frames she Wiggles the water with her finger this gives the effect of an underwater scene Carol is director of the film but the other students in the class will help her film her scenes and make her soundtrack I'm going to check it out and see if it looks alright to you could you wiggle the water or something yeah it looks really nice it looks like I'm I mean like when it's animated it'll probably really move nicely this is three dimensional animation the camera shoots the action head-on instead of vertically Mimi Kravetz is acting as cameraman for her sister Amy who created this set with paper mache and wire the scene is the Garden of Eden the butterfly was supposed to flap its wings and fly into land on the flower first Amy tried to hang the butterfly from transparent fishing wire but she had a lot of trouble see I wanted it to be gently and flapping its wings but we couldn't find the balance point so Anton stick this big rod up it you know it's made of wire the final solution was to fly the butterfly in on a blue rod which blended into the blue sky as soon as the butterfly had landed on the flower the rod could be removed Amy could wiggle the flower and get out of the way while Meeny filmed the flower in motion Billie Fuchs helps Amy with the animation [Music] mark mahoney is a quiet boy who makes films about racing cars and motorcycles come back here Punk I ain't through with you yet the students come to class once a week for two hours there are 25 sessions in these 50 hours the student has learned how to operate the film equipment and make a one-minute animated film animated films have traditionally been associated with humour but very personal films have also been made mock whiner and Larry Stern in their film the Enlightenment make a strong social comment about the futility of war and the persecution of the individual this guy he's a hippie and he does all these things and he feels like everybody's against him because he's like this and they're telling him to conform and he can't take it really and he's getting lost and you feel it's kind of paranoia he doesn't know what to do and eventually he conforms and that's his worst decision and we haven't decided not his fate yet um the way we're showing this is in the first scene we're having a whole crowd of people and they're all going to be talking but we're just showing him running away cut your hair [Music] communists some people plan their whole story first and then make the art and film the scenes katheer her and paints first to develop an interesting face a character then she makes an environment for the character and films him in that scene it's just a street scene with all sorts of people the people walking down the street and this man walks up stairs he's reversible heat transfer one stair to the next and going up and then he goes out through the doorway here and the rest of the people this man walks back and forth in front of the windows and this little boy here is the main character the film walks slowly across the street while these other people hurry by you know they all have legs and stuff they're out taking a part though now and then after this is you know seeing everybody into the entire street the storyline develops week by week as the character has more adventures we often don't know how the story will end until the film is finished the cutout characters are usually hinged at the joints with tape and thread on the underside Cathy's characters are so small she decided to keep the arms and legs loose [Music] here is gene back at the editor she is going to remove her scene from the role the beginning our head of her scene is taped to the edge of our table the tail is dropped into a paper bag after she has cut out her own seen the role must be spliced back together this is a work print or copy of her film preliminary editing is done on this work print our copy to save wear and tear on the original there are many different types of splices some use cement and others use tape the class uses this tape splicer for work prints because it is simple to operate and the splices do not break after going back and forth and the projector many times the two ends of the film are trimmed then the ends are butted together they do not overlap a piece of the tape is pressed on top and the handle is pressed down this cuts off the tape and punches sprocket holes through it the film is turned over and the action is repeated on the other side after the film's are edited the whole class works together to make the soundtracks on quarter inch tape the sound and picture are made into a finished print with optical soundtrack at the lab let's look at Jeanne's film now [Music] what the bird doing in my house it's a baby bird look what I found this morning in my bed you want to Pat it ah she feels soft what are you doing with my baby mommy come back here