My Latest Animation Presented a New and Unique Set of Challenges

In my creative endeavors, I always push myself to grow and advance my repertoire, and this can involve trying new techniques as well as figuring out new ways of doing things, so that the process never stagnates. This is important in any artist’s creative process, in my opinion, but it can still be daunting. What if things go wrong? What if the end product is s—t, and I have to either do it over again or move on to something else? How do I cope with epic failure?

One thing that has kept me going through this learning and discovery process is this quote from Wayne Dyer: “You can never fail. You just produce results.” So, with that in mind, I work to become better and more versatile, because, even if I didn’t create the result I wanted, I can have the satisfaction of knowing I said “I tried” instead of “I wish I had.”

This is actually a big part of the reason I create a short bumper every year for The Rectangle Show. Bumpers are usually no longer that 10 or 15 seconds tops, which gives me a lot of wiggle room to experiment with new styles and techniques.

And that’s what brings me to the topic of today’s blog entry. The Rectangle Show bumper for 2024 is unlike any other animation I have ever created because it is a stop motion animation with a twist — it involves a live model instead of a clay puppet! Below are a couple of commercials from the 90s that use this technique, and they are what inspired me to try it myself.

The concept I decided on was fairly simple and straightforward: an arrogant child shows off by eating a hot pepper, which proves to be too spicy for him, and thus the heat literally makes his head explode, revealing The Rectangle Show logo in its place. (How I arrived at this subject matter is a whole other story in itself, which I have decided to save for another blog entry. You can read it here.)

The first (and biggest) set of questions I now had to ask myself were these: who would be willing to pose for the pictures, who would be willing to shoot the pictures, and can I get them to do the job right with the limited funds I have? After endlessly searching Fiverr for photographers who have access to child models, (and getting one slightly testy rejection from a concerned mother,) I finally found a pair who were up to the task. The photographer said she normally charges ten dollars a shot, but she was eager to discount it for me because this was a project she wanted to see succeed. In the initial negotiating phase, I sent her a set of 57 pictures I had taken of myself acting out what I wanted the kid to do in each frame. (Below are two of these reference images.)

When I received the frames, I was impressed with the fact that she had taken way more than the 57 I asked for, so there were lots to choose from in case one frame was off in any way. Despite this, there were a couple of sequences towards the beginning that weren’t quite what I was going for, and none of the extra images I had received would work as substitutions. So I had to ask for a revision, which, sure enough, I received, but I also got some troubling news. Here’s what the photographer told me after she sent the revisions:

“Hi. We reshot it. I have to admit there was [sic] some tears as he didn’t want to repeat it. Kids these days. But I hope it’s good. Actually I pray it’s good”

At this point, I resolved not to ask for any more revisions, and that I would make do with what I had. If the model were an adult, I’d be a little more nit picky, (which is tempting for me, as I do have a spot of OCD, and other freelancers I have worked with have received a lot of persnickety revision requests from me in the past,) but this was a child, and children are generally not as resilient. (One thing I absolutely could not do was allow this project to devolve into child abuse territory.)

So, after paying the freelancers, (and giving them a generous 100 dollar tip for all their hard — and stressful — work,) I fixed some of the inconsistencies that were introduced in the second set of shots: one being that the boy’s hairdo is different between each set of pictures, and the other being the size of the pepper. (Though, to be fair, she was aware of the latter, so she shot the entire pepper sequence over again in the revision. The problem was that some of those shots weren’t what I wanted, but some of the shots from the first set were what I wanted, so I used shots from both sets.)

Below are some before and after images showing the edits I made to correct the inconsistencies. (I show only one frame here, although I have had to do this process over fifteen frames total.)

I did not record the process of fixing the inconsistency of the pepper’s size, unfortunately, but below are some pictures illustrating the process of fixing the haircut inconsistencies. These could easily have been the most challenging, since the slightest error can make the kid’s whole head look distorted, but I was surprised by how simple it actually turned out to be. I was mindful to extract the correct haircut from an image where the head is the same size, and I also used the top of his ears as an anchor to ensure correct placement.

Once the frames were all fixed, I imported them into After Effects, where I used the stabilization effect to correct the flow. (These shots also weren’t consistent in terms of the camera angle, so stabilization made the sequence look less wobbly.) Then I keyed out the green screen and added the threshold effect (threshold is an effect that reduces the image to straight black and straight white, with no halftones, so it basically makes it look like it came out of a cheap xerox machine.) I then tweaked the blend with original setting so as to introduce some halftones while still maintaining that harsh, choppy look I was going for.

But why did I do this? Why degrade the footage in such a manner?? The reason is because I wanted to hand color the frames, but I also wanted them to have a rough texture, like in the Bubble Tape commercial I show towards the beginning of this entry.

Once that was done, I began to hand color the frames in Photoshop. I also did some minor tweaks, including stamping out the Tommy Hilfiger logo from his shirt, since it be a violation of trademark laws to allow it to be displayed.

I originally colored the boy’s shirt purple, but it was suggested that I use a color that would be more in contrast to the color of his face when it reddens. So, in the final version, I colored it yellow.

Then I imported the footage into Adobe Animate so as to add some hand drawn elements, including fire coming out of his ears and mouth, and , of course, the head explosion and logo reveal at the end. After this, I created an animated background, (including some dancing peppers towards the beginning, in a sly reference to the It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time meme. Sometimes I like to have some spontaneous fun…)

What I learned from this process is that live models can be really fun to work with, but because they are humans with their own needs and feelings, there can arise a real need for flexibility. These aren’t puppets you can manipulate, and because they have a mind of their own, they can also make mistakes. Besides this, they can also get tired easily. So this was a unique challenge because it forced me to make what I needed out of what I had. This can also be applied to other projects where resources are limited. You make do with the resources that you have at your disposal, and you take care not to waste any of them. In other words, where there are limitations, make them work for you.

As for what I might do differently next time, I might only use a child model for much shorter and simpler sequences. In hindsight, this image sequence was perhaps a bit too long and complex to assign to a model that young, and although I’m grateful that I was able to create a good result, I still feel that I may have asked too much.

You win some, you lose some…

Here’s the finished product: