This week, was… mostly really great, and quite productive considering the circumstances.
For anyone just tuning in, this week the production was (for want of a better term) semi-shut down. Due to the ongoing disruption of He Who Must Not Be Named. Basically everyone was given the option to work from home, and even if they couldn’t work from home, given the choice to stay home anyway and dedicate some time to learning a new skill (as everyone is continuing to be paid). We were also given the option to still go in to the studio to work if we felt safe doing so. The production is still moving forward, but everything is moving at a much slower pace with most of the crew working from home.
My housemate/ colleague Zilla and I chose to still go in to the studio this week. Everyone handles things differently, and for me, having a routine, getting out of the house and keeping busy has been the best thing for my mental health. Plus, with very few of us in the space, we were able to practice good social distancing while we worked. Things will likely change this coming week as strategies are set in place by the state governor, but Zilla and I have made the choice to work from home in his basement studio next week regardless. I am very lucky to live with Zilla; with plenty still to learn, having a wonderful teacher at my disposal is a huge bonus.
As you can imagine, the studio was very quiet this week, and spirits were high some days, low on others and everything in between. There was a lovely sense of camaraderie, love and support between the people in the space, and in fact, all those working from home as well. The internet is both a blessing and a curse, but having the ability to communicate so well with people in different locations is a huge plus. We have daily video meetings with the whole puppet department, everyone joining google hang out from their respective locations, and a daily crew meeting led by our amazing producer Mel Coombs. Usually the latter happens with us all meeting up in a communal space before lunch, the whole crew. For a couple of weeks now, these have been done via video, so the puppetry department (those of us still in the studio) usually crowds around one computer. See below us doing the social distancing dance while watching the midday crew meeting.
A silver lining in all this; with very few of us working in the space, I have been able to build stronger interpersonal relationships with individual people, and it has been really lovely to get to know people better. Everyone on the production is so wonderful and down-to-earth, I could not ask for a better group of people to be around, working with and learning from.
So what did I actually work on this week?!
Well, so many things actually! The tasks I undertook this week were incredibly varied, I got to shadow people as they took on techniques and procedures I know nothing about, and also got the chance to try a lot of them myself.
I helped cast eyeballs.
What does this entail? Well, the eyeballs themselves are 3D printed, there are then silicone moulds made of these 3D prints. The artwork (the iris and pupil) is printed on to a thick paper, punched out with a neat little hole punching tool that you hit with a hammer, and then glued to the 3D print using 2 part 5 minute epoxy. Then the final step is to add the reflective surface/ shine. Using a 2 part clear resin and a syringe, you coat the eyeball in the resin and then pop it back inside the silicone mould. This last part of the process is fun and messy (make sure to wear eye protection). There is very little margin for error here, but luckily, the first time I tried (supervised by Zilla) they turned out perfectly.
I practiced doing some lay ups/ clay ups*
A lay up is the base for your two part mould. Using a soft clay (we are using a product klean clay) you divide your object in two sections by covering/ submerging one side in clay. Keeping your lay up flat and square where possible is helpful and makes it neater. Zilla and Aaron, my mould making supervisors have both stressed the importance of making the mould look nice and neat. It does not effect the functionality of the mould, but is more professional and good to have for your folio of work as a mould maker. With the object you are creating the mould from/for, you want to have half of the object showing, so build the clay up around it. There is a lot to consider in your lay up, things like pry points, vents, keys, prosthetic edges etc. I will explain all of these terms in the resource I am creating, but feel free to ask questions in the meantime. I have not totally got the hang of this process yet, but am excited to continue learning and practicing as I move forward.
* “Clay up” is a term Zilla and Aaron use for a lay up as they work with clay most of the time.
I helped to cast a silicone skin on to a puppet body!
This particular puppet body is a background character, and I believe the body is in fact a stand in for costuming purposes (so a nice margin for error for me). Internally the puppet has a simple wire armature (common for background characters) and the body has been cast in soft expanding foam around the armature. Once ready, you need to snip off a thin layer of this foam, just enough to allow space to cast a silicone layer of skin in the same mould. You drizzle the silicone in to the two part mould, covering every bit of the surface area for your puppet, and then place the puppet inside the mould, clamping it shut so the skin can set. The outcome of my first (supervised) attempt at this was a little rough, but good enough for it’s intended purpose. The mould we were working with was a hard Urethane (1630) mould.
I practiced my sculpting at home with some personal projects
Once at home, Zilla and I often took some time to work on personal projects. We would sit together at the kitchen table and sculpt. It was very therapeutic and mindful. I highly recommend getting your craft on to help take your mind off things if you can. I have been sculpting some cute little dinosaurs (continuing my practice of small scale sculpting), and once they are ready intend to make moulds of them, and cast them (just for fun and practice). So expect tiny Dino’s coming your way as gifts in future! I have also been working on a self portrait which is going well-ish (my opinion of the sculpt fluctuates daily). It is a challenge, which is good! I have realised that I rarely make human characters. Most of my puppets are animals, or creatures of some kind. So human characters and shapes are a little out of my comfort zone. I will share progress shots at some stage!
I watched and documented Zilla making a one part silicone mould!
Purely a chance for teaching, in-between tasks, Zilla used his new 3D printer to print off a non-production related piece (a Thunder Cats medallion), which was great for me as it meant I could film all of the process and will be able to share it with you with no risk of breaching my NDA. He then went through the process of creating a one-part silicone mould of this medallion. No clay-up required, he simply hot glued the 3D print, plain side down to a piece of foam core, then built a box out of foam core around the piece. This is in fact a common practice in mould making for stop motion, creating boxes out of foam core. This is how most, if not all of the moulds in the studio are created. We used a platinum silicone for this mould, which ended up not being the best option for it as the silicone was inhibited. Inhibition is another term I have learnt, meaning that the material does not completely cure. Platinum silicones have a higher risk of inhibition than say a tin based silicone.
I learned about injection moulds!
One person I have gotten to know better this week is the lovely Tony Candelaria. Tony is a director, filmmaker and puppet fabricator who works in both live-action and stop-motion. Tony is working with us in the puppetry department at the moment, mainly assisting with moulds and casting. Tony let me shadow him as he did a silicone cast of a head which included using injection. There are some 2 part moulds that work by injecting the material through an injection point. In this case, Tony filled both sides of the mould with as much material as possible, clamped the two sides together and then used a syringe to inject more material in to the mould to top it up.
I learned about gravity feed moulds, and helped Zilla set some up
So a gravity feed mould is a little different. Instead of creating your mould using a clay up, and doing one half of your object at a time, instead, you rig up your object using wire so it can sit freely in mid-air. You then build a foam core box around the object and pour in the material you are using to create your mould, in this instance we were using silicone. I asked Zilla what the benefits of using a gravity feed mould are, and he said it is mainly time. You save time in not having to do the clay-up. However, gravity feed is best used on small objects. Once cured, you need to do a jewellers cut (something I am yet to learn) to open up your mould.
I learned how to seam a silicone cast
My last task on Friday to close out my week, Tony showed me how to seam a silicone cast. Seaming, is the process of removing any visible seam on your cast. Seams are formed from the space between your two part mould. No matter how tight you clamp your mould, there will always be a seam. The first step is using either small scissors or cuticle nippers to remove as much as you can without scratching the surface of the cast. Once you have the bulk of the seam cleaned away, you can sand down the remainder. Tony said, that in the past they would use a very fine sandpaper and slowly (very slowly) gently sand away the remainder of the seam. During the production Coraline, Tony and another of my colleagues, amazing artist Faon Lewis came up with a new and quicker technique; using a dremel tool (or foredom), and creating a little round piece out of foam to attach to your dremel, you can gently sand away the seam with little risk of damaging the cast. Two tips for doing this are to wear eye protection, and to continuously coat the seam line with vaseline to assist the process. This process is still very time consuming, but quicker than the alternative. I spent several hours on Friday slowly dremeling the seam away on a silicone puppet head. It was a calming and satisfying task at the end of the week.
A fun little side project this week; I decided it would be fun to make a playlist of everyone’s favourite happy/ uplifting songs. I sent out an email asking the entire crew for their 3 favourite happy songs. Thus far 50 of the crew have responded. I have promised to share the playlist on Monday (tomorrow for us). For those of you who have requested to hear more about the people, I think this will be a lovely way to meet them, and share in some joy. I will be sharing the playlist with all of you as well once I have shared it with the crew!
And that my lovely readers was week 7. Amidst all of the chaos going on with You-Know-Who, I am continuing to make the most of my time here, learning and growing as much as I can and ALWAYS doing my PB!
Next week is bound to be an interesting one with the transition to working from home, but I feel confident that we will be productive and have fun in the process.
Till next time!