Behind the scenes from Race the Wind



Above is a thumbnail image... click it to see Race the Wind at StopMoShorts. It was originally going to be a longer film but didn't pan out, so I decided to at least use it as a demo for the running rig I built. I wanted to do a film where the puppet completely breaks free of the stage, no tie-downs and no need for one foot to always be bolted down, but at the same time I didn't want to erase out a flying rig. So Instead I made this running rig, and the pictures that follow illustrate how it works.

Rather than moving the puppet (and his hat) across the set, I wanted to actually make the set itself slide past behind him while he remains centered. This way I can track him with the camera without needing to move the camera (and match it's movements to his frame by frame, which sounds like a major hassle). Because the shot is set up the way it is (angle of the camera) I was able to hide wires behind both Buster and his runaway hat. And just in case they managed to show for a frame or two, I painted the wires black with some acrylic paint to help them blend into the shadows.


How about a hotglue and alcohol cocktail?

This pic shows the main ingredients I used. It's good to keep these materials on hand in a stopmo studio. Wood in various shapes and thicknesses - I generally get basswood strips which in certain shapes can stand in for scale sized lumber. Here you can see I hotglued a couple strips of it down to the table to act as rails because the tabletop wasn't very smooth anymore, and I needed a smooth surface for my terrain boards to slide on. Also of course there's the glue gun itself, a roll of 1/8" aluminum armature wire, and a squeeze bottle of 99% isopropyl rubbing alcohol. What's the alcohol for you ask? Here's a nice little trick.... if you need to break something loose that's been hotglued down, just douse it with alcohol and let it sit for a minute or two to soak through, then pop it loose! Works like a charm.


Here you can see the actual working mechanisms

There are only two wall panels, textured to look like brick. I glued a row of bricks along the edge of one panel like a pilaster to cover the joint where the panels meet. The door covers the other joint. Each panel is wide enough so it completely fills the background area, so when one panel slides out of camera range I bring it around to the other side so it can re-appear. Make sense? It's sort of like a conveyor belt system. The ground panels work the same way. They're just planks of wood with a green towel hotglued on top, and a little crumpled paper glued underneath to make the ground look uneven and hilly. You can see the track in which the wall panels slide, and you can also see the two wires painted black that supported Buster and his rolling hat. The wires were hotlgued into holes I drilled in the table for them.


Here's one of the ground panels

You can see I bent the edge of the towel down to cover the side of the board, just so nothing would show accidentally.
Home-made channel stock

I had to make my own channel stock. Didn't have any on hand, so I just hotglued together a couple pices of angle stock. Are you starting to see how important hotglue is in a stopmo studio? The gluegun can truly be a magic wand! The whole shebang is built on my miniature tabletop rigging system (detailed in another section of my Tips Tricks and Tutorials page). And I added a yardstick to elp me guage the movements of the wall panels. They need to move fairly precisely or the motion won't look smooth. So what I did was used a little blob of sticky wax to stick a piece of armature wire onto one of the wall panels. This served as an indicator against the yardstick. And because it was temporarily adhered with sticky wax I was able to move it when it threatened to appear on camera, or if something got in the way of its frame by frame progression.


A view from the rear

I turned Buster and his hat around backwards for this shot, just to show how they're attached. The armature wire is hotglued into a pre-drilled hole in Buster's pelvis block, and for the hat I found a little rubber bushing that happened to be the right size and shape and... well, I'm not even going to tell you how I attached it. If you can't guess, then you're not paying attention! I just made a loop in the wire and the hat can spin freely on it, which allowed it to actually roll as I slid the ground panels past under it. That was an unexpected bonus. Also there was a little bit of free play, which is why occasionally the hat sort of "jiggles" back and forth. This gives it a litle extra life.


Ready to roll!

Here they are turned around the right way and ready for animation. Fromn this angle you can see the wires (which are invisible from the animation camera position). You can also see that I sort of coiled the hat wire like a spring, to allow a little extra length if needed. Busters wire is laid back along the wall a little ways, for the same reason. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do the part where he leaps forward to make a desparate grab for the hat.

Well, hope I didn't leave anything out and that I explained it all clearly enough!







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