Vintage Seance: The Film

Well, what an adventure it has been. I first began brainstorming on a story idea about a year ago (one that I am still working on) inspired by the spiritualist movement, which took place during and after the turn of the century. During the spiring I finally came up with the idea to create a short film based on the theme, design, and some of the characters and events that took place in my original story. I simply wanted to make short and miniature version of the story idea I already had, but by telling this story through stop-animation. Because the style and theme for the story also happens to be the same style and theme of my blog, I decided that the short film should be an introduction to my blog, while also being a short little story. ( Here's when I first proposed the idea in a post way back.)

I began to storyboard based on some of the vital elements that I had in mind for this 'seance story' during the early spring. Finally as summer rolled around, I knew that it would be the best time to create this movie with the time I had. So basically, for the first two months I worked on the puppets, then finally the set and props. After this, I filmed for about four days and edited for two weeks. I had finally completed the film! Only three minutes and twenty seconds long, but even that was longer than I expected.

When I thought my technical difficulties were over (after having to re-edit about half of the film, animating clay faces that only began to crumble over time, etc...) I soon realized I was wrong. The music I chose for this film became disabled on YouTube after I uploaded the film. I spent days trying to fix the problem using all sorts of complicated computer methods, and it still wasn't working. I was so bummed because I was worried that I wouldn't be able to show it to very many people.

Turns out, after posting pictures I took of the puppets on my Flickr photostream (which I promise to post all over this blog very soon) I also included the YouTube link, even though I knew it wasn't going to be the complete film experience without the music. Lucky for me, the amazing Pumpkin Rot commented on one of my photos with a link that saved the day (or film, I should say). To say it simply, I got the audio back!

The music is actually from a Panic! at the Disco song (random, I know) but I could really visualize the story when I heard this portion of one of their songs. I did edit the portion to last three minutes and twenty seconds so it may not sound perfect. Also keep in mind, I am not a very experienced animator. I just knew that I wanted to make this film... so I did.

Hope you enjoy the final product! This version is still not the best quality, but it is certainly worth watching. Enjoy!

Here's the link to the film on my PumpkinKidFilm channel and here is a link to the film on my new VintageSeance channel (not very active... yet.)

Thanks again, Rot!