Magazine ™

EXECUTIVE EDITOR
JOHN IKUMA
CONTENTS:
ASSOCIATE EDITOR pg. 6 - Laser Cutter Review
AI IKUMA
pg. 7 - Montreal Stop Motion
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
JOHN IKUMA Festival Highlights
SHAYNA YASUHARA
pg. 9 - Ring Around the
LAYOUT DESIGNER Mulberry Bush
JOHN IKUMA
pg. 12 - Noella B David
pg. 16 - Mark Osborne
Images provided by the following:
Montreal Highlight - Shayna Yasu-
hara
pg. 23 - Jamie Caliri
Ring Around the Mulberry Bush - pg. 26 - Anthony Scott
Nicholas D’agostino

Noella B David Interview - Noella B

David

Images for the Litttle Prince article

in this issue were provided by Mark Sponsor:
Osborne, Jamie Caliri, Anthony
Scott, and Alex Juhasz

Stop Motion Magazine is published quarterly by StopMotionMagazine.com, 4113 Irving Place, Culver City,
CA. 90232. Content is Copyright 2009-2016 by Stop Motion Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Reprint in part
or in whole without written permission from the publisher is strictly forbidden. Stop Motion Magazine is
trademarked by John Ikuma/RocketSpaceBoy Industries.
Letter from the Editor:
Happiness the Ultimate Goal
Happiness is by far the number one goal of every living person on this planet. If you look at the world and see
what’s going on it becomes obvious that most people are only concerned with their own little world and their
own form of happiness. What’s amazing to see is that for millennia philosophers and writers have witnessed
and documented this throughout history. The book The Little Prince written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is one
such writing that expertly looks at mans pursuit for understanding and happiness. Mark Osborne has taken this
even further and expanded this idea for his film without compromising the original story. The film is a magical
achievement with offering both a modern CGI animation technique along with a classic and beloved stop motion
animation technique. The crew as well did an amazing job bringing the whole production together even when
facing the push and pull of the big wig executives at the film studio. It truly is a work of art and deserves all
the praise I can muster. This issue is dedicated to those individuals whom worked as a collective voice on this
production and made something unique and special.
This issue also has some wonderful interviews with Noella B David and Nicholas D’Agostino, two indy
animators whom have been doing great work and definitely deserve a look at for their art. This little magazine
publication is a constant ongoing project filled with ups and downs. We are on our third issue of the year and
with also be releasing the fourth and final issue at the end of the year. 2016 was a roller coaster of emotions and
struggles not just for myself, but for the world as a whole. There are lots of things going on that literally will
make you go crazy if you think about them too much. That being said it is our responsibility as filmmakers and
artists to make are voices heard. We as artists have one of the most powerful mediums for communication on the
planet. Animation is that dirty little secret of marketing that is used everywhere to promote products and ideas
that you normally wouldn’t even look at. So what am I getting at? Well, pursue happiness... Do what makes you
happy in life. If you have a dream, then be both a dreamer and a realist and make your dream come true in this
reality. Focus on your goals and use your mind to navigate your path while you use your heart to pinpoint the
final destination. This is what I learned from the Little Prince story when I was young.
I pursued my dreams and made many of them come true. The only problem which is laughable is that
you will have an endless amount of goals and dreams and this is where the being realistic part comes into view.
If you can see your goal and it takes unrealistic effort to get there then that goal is something you shouldn’t focus
on at that time. If you see a goal and it is realistic in a sense that you can achieve it with reasonable effort and
work then go for it! After you’ve achieved your goals ni production or life you will start to see those paths that
lead to the goals that were unrealistic will have opened up and you’ll definitely be more able to achieve those
larger goals. My many positions in the entertainment industry have all been the various goals that I’ve tried to
achieve. I have many more to go before I’m done, but for now this issue was one of the hardest to reach because
life outside of the magazine is filled with crazy and sometimes things move slower than you anticipated. So
thank you all for your patience in waiting for this issue. I appreciate your love and support and look forward to
reaching new heights with all of you in the future.

Keep Animating and Keep Dreaming

John Ikuma- Executive Editor

Motion Control Goodness for Animators

Check details at:

ditogear.com/products/omnislider-animators-edition/
Chinese Laser
Cutter/
Engraver
Review
by John Ikuma
At times when you are making something tedious that re-
quires lots and lots of time, precision and patience, let alone
stamina to keep the job rolling is essential and you might find
yourself asking “there has to be a better way”. Having worked
in productions for many years now and have worn many hats I
can tell you first hand that time of course is valuable and your
physical and mental is even more valuable. Thus we come
to this review of the Low Wattage Chinese Laser Engraver/
Review. One of the biggest inspirations in my own life is
paper cutout animation. I don’t know what it is but there is
something about paper that’s very different than all the other
materials used in animation. Biggest problem however is the
constant and endless cutting that must be performed to be able
to make a cutout film. Another problem tends to be if you de-
cided to cut paper and use it as a layering technique like scales
or feathers on a three dimensional puppet. The amount of cut-
ting that requires is also a pain at times, and what I mean by
pain is this on going carpal tunnel injury from way back and
add a little arthritis and you got a no go for a production build.
So now lets step forward to a week ago. I was com-
missioned to build a bird puppet for a client and they needed
something geometric and slick but with a handmade feel. So
of course I gravitated to paper. To build the framework of the
puppet I chose to design and print the various parts with a 3d
printer, but the feathers would have to be paper and would hid
the armature and body parts. To be able to make precision cuts
and have exactly what I wanted I needed a cutter of some sort.
I have one of those Cricut paper cutters, but it always makes
the paper curl when you remove it from the palette and it’s re-
ally only good for cutting sticker mouths. I found this Chinese
laser cutter which was rated at 500mW and discovered it was
only $170 with a working space of 40cm x 50cm. That’s pretty
big! It also would cut paper and engrave wood. So I placed my
order on Ebay and crossed my fingers. Reviews on the device
were mixed. Mostly the negative reviews were about the as-
sembly and the software. I attributed this to individuals whom
never used or assembled a arduino style printer or cutter be-
fore. I had this experience so I wasn’t afraid. The distributor
of the model I purchased was located in California so I was
hoping to receive the laser in a week at most.
The package literally arrived in 2 days and only took
2 hours to assemble. It was immediate fun. The box contained
all the parts and some extra screws just in case you loss one.
It also came with a pair of green laser glasses to protect your
eyes from the beams which is a serious percaution to take
given that laser beams can blind you pretty fast. Once the
machine was set up I had to install their software from their
website which I believe was in China. I did this on an old $60
laptop running Windows XP. The software won’t run on Mac,
but that didn’t bother me. I loaded up an image, placed my
material under the laser housing and pressed the start button.
LASER BEAMS!!! I exclaimed with excitement. The laser
made a beautiful engraving on the wood and I was searching
all over the house for more items to engrave. The software
was very easy to use. Maybe it’s because I’ve used so many
graphics softwares in this lifetime that I was at home with the
interface of the software, but literally needed no training on it
at all.
Somethings that I did need to take care of once the
laser was setup was the focusing of the laser which takes just a
second to do and the engraving of a grid for alignment purpos-
es. Something to consider about adventuring into the world
of lasers is that you definitely need eye protection, there will
be a lot of burning smells and a fair amount of small smoke
plumes. I would suggest building a metal enclosure with a fil-
tered fan port to avoid the smoke smell and to prevent laser
light bouncing all over you room and damaging your sight.
Pretty much this device is the coolest kit I’ve built and is al-
ready allowing me freedom to build anything I desire with
paper. The time saved is invaluable and I know that I’ve be
using this device for a long long time. One last note, to cut pa-
per it’s best to keep the laser power low and to have the paper
sit on a metal grid. This will prevent flare ups and scorching
of the paper. Would I suggest to get one of these devices? Yes,
definitely... It’s now in my top ten of what awesome machines
a shop needs. If you want to checkout more of these devices
be sure to check for them on Ebay or you can look at our laser
info article on the magazines website.
Highlights from the Montreal Stop Motion Festival by Shayna Yasuhara

Festival Stop Motion Montreal is the world’s first festival dedicated purely to showcasing films animated exclusively using stop
motion techniques. Now in its eighth year, the festival drew quite an international crowd with an impressive number of attendees
traveling from Europe and the United States specifically for the event.

Special guests included Montreal’s Clyde Henry Productions. Founders Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, who are Acad-
emy Award nominated directors and animators, were there on Friday as part of the Official Opening and were there to do the
honors of cutting the cake.

Then on Saturday, Mark Shapiro of Laika spoke to a sold out auditorium. He revealed some of the behind-the-scenes footage
from Kubo and the Two Strings, including the sixteen-foot-tall skeleton prop for the Hall of Bones scene. Shapiro fielded ques-
tions from a room full of awe-inspired animators, many with questions on whether more or less CG animation techniques were
going to see its way into their film process. In a nutshell, a ton of CG effects were used, however, they promised to stay as true
(as possible) to the stop motion genre. Oh, and yes, they are hiring. Laika is currently working on a new film (the title is yet to be
announced) and then one other film, following the undisclosed film, is set under their contract with Universal Studios.

This three-day event was hosted by Erik Goulet, the hands-on and very animated (no pun intended) director and founder of this
growing stop motion fest. The films were separated into categories: Academic, Independent, and Professional. And per Goulet’s
friendly forewarning, if these categories had at all influenced viewers to go to one showing over another, you’d run the risk of
missing out on some very fantastic films. True to form, some of the most memorable films, in my opinion, were from the Aca-
demic category.

The event closed out with another sold out showing, this time for the Professional Competition, followed by the awards ceremony.
Special metal armature trophies were awarded to The Five Minute Museum by Paul Bush (Switzerland), Under the Apple Tree
by Erik van Schaaik (Belgium) and Hi, It’s Your Mother by Daniel Sterlin-Altman (Canada). Voting throughout each showing
resulted in the People’s Choice Award going to Fulfilament by Rhiannon Evans (UK), a charming film using illuminated puppets.

With the wide-range of techniques, including traditional cut-out, pixilation, claymation, puppets, and a surprising number of
animators unafraid of creating water scenes—here were ten most-memorable films from the event.

Ape Eustace Ng, Canada (2015)

Wellington Jr., Cécile Paysant, La Fémis, France (2015)
Trapped, Theresa Grysczok & Florian Maubach, Kunsthochschule Kassel, Germany (2015)
First Snow, Lenka Ivančíková, Film Academy of Miroslav Ondříček in Písek, Slovakia (2015)
Beyond, Milán Kopasz, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Hungary (2015)
Gnome, Ben Cresswell, Edinburgh College of Art, UK (2016)
Fulfilament, Rhiannon Evans, National Film & Television School, UK (2015)(*Also the winner of the People’s Choice Award)
The Lighthouse, Simon Scheiber, Netherlands (2015)
I’m Scared, Pete Levin, USA (2015)
Under the Apple Tree, Erik van Schaaik, Netherlands / Belgium (2015)
 Nicholas D’agostino “Ring Around the Mulberry Bush”
SMM: What Inspired your film:
Nicholas: When my Grandfather was a young man he saved his
cousin from a burning building. Humble till the end he never
spoke of his heroic act, never even wore shorts for fear of re-
vealing the scars on his legs. This tale has been passed down
through other family members and so it felt right to focus on
the telling of the tale rather than re-enacting the event. To do
this Tom needed to be in a place where he could let his guard
down, and so the world of Lilly and Ruby, who are based on
people I knew while living in Brooklyn, felt the necessary set-
ting. In their own way all the characters in the film have been
burned and ultimately the piece became about how they grap-
ple with that.
SMM: Where did you film this production:
Nicholas: Preliminary photography began in my apartment in
New York, but the majority of the piece was shot on a sound
stage at the California Institute of the Arts where I am currently
earning a graduate degree. The table on which the majority of
the film was shot is no larger than 3’ x 2’.
SMM: What were your puppets made of:
Nicholas: For this project I used a variety of armature tech-
niques; Tom was wire, Lilly was a machined armature pur-
chased from Julian Clark Studios, and Ruby was a mix of both.
On top of that skeleton I glued and sewed cut pieces of foam in
a variety of densities. This allows for strength in core areas and
mobility at the joints. Areas of exposed skin were created with
sport tape dipped in latex and wrapped tightly around the body.
The heads are a slip cast latex skin applied over a hard core
with a paddle mouth. To give the eyes a lifelike gloss I coat
them in petroleum jelly. Tom’s hair is flocked, Lilly and Ruby’s
are human hair extensions pinned to the skull.
SMM: How has your film been received by the audience that
you’ve communicated with?
Nicholas: It has been wonderful hearing how strongly audi-
ence members connect with the emotion and milieu of the film.
Often they are struck by not just how real the puppets appear,
but how much they feel for them. Surprisingly, many audience
members appreciate the slower, quieter pacing of the piece, a
style that can seem out of place in this world of quick short me-
dia. During production many questioned why I would choose
to tell this story in stop motion, but once the film was com-
pleted it became clear that the medium is perfectly suited to
tell very human stories. The success of later realist stop motion
solidifies this notion.
SMM: What kind of background do you have in filmmaking?
Nicholas: It feels as if filmmaking has always been the center
of my life. After an adolescence filled with creating short stop
motion and live action projects I began my formal education at
the Purchase Film Conservatory. There I worked in a variety
of styles, focusing mainly on documentary. This taught me the
power and beauty of real people telling their stories. Out of
school I spent years as a lighting technician in the independent
and commercial film world. As a break from the stresses of live
action I continued to experiment with animation in my spare
time. This soon became my whole life as I began Pox Films
Inc. with a mission to marry the delicate realism I learned from
documentary with the stylized animation I loved in my youth.
SMM: Can you give us a run down of your equipment set up?
Nicholas: The film was shot on a Nikon D800 with a Leica
60mm macro lens using Dragon Frame. Lighting set ups typi-
cally consisted of three or four Mole-Richardson fresnel lights
ranging from 100w to 500w. I use a variety of grip equipment
to properly sculpt the light. Over the years I’ve amassed quite a
collection of small wattage bulbs in all shapes and sizes, from
the
pg.9
size of a golf ball down to that of a grain of sand. Having
worked in the live action lighting world for a long time I just
try to take what I learned there and shrink it down. Keeping the
sources small and not being afraid of shadows brings not only
a sense of scale to the work, but a sense of drama.
SMM: The film is very deep in emotional and mental narra-
tive. How did you come to building such a very emotional and
striking film?
Nicholas: Thank you! Creating a piece that engages the heart
and provokes the mind is my first and foremost concern. It is
the driving force by which every other decision, from design to
performance, is made. The biggest danger for artists working
in a medium as aestheticized as stop motion is that the emo-
tional core of a piece can be lost in a sea of beautiful design.
As for constructing the narrative, I prescribe to the tenants of
transcendental filmmaking by which the use of a slow deliber-
ate pacing builds to, and increase the impact of, the emotional
release act the finale of the film.
SMM: Who influences you as an artist?
Nicholas: My heart lies with the artists of the New Objectivity
such as Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, and George Grosz. Their
work is able to be highly emotional and highly political while
still being accessible and visually dynamic. The work of Tim
Burton and the Brothers Quay was not just very influential,
but a gateway to the artists of Weimar Germany. The Fleish-
cer Studio’s madcap, sometimes sinister, city antics was the
birth of my love for animation. Just recently I wrote an essay
for Animation Journal on the link between the artists of the
Fleischer studio with those of the Ashcan School, a movement
in American scene painting of which George Bellows and Ed-
ward Hopper were a part. My connection the the Ashcan school
can be clearly seen in “Ring Around the Mulberry Bush”.
SMM: The sets on the production are amazing. I especially
love the opening sequence. Can you tell us a little about your
process in making the stage and sets for the animation?
Nicholas: The opening shot of the city is all HO Scale minia-
tures which I’ve modified to fit the look of the film. A myriad
of small bulbs illuminate the buildings. All the larger sets are
made using flats of foam board glued to a wood frame. The
brick walls are made up of individually cut pieces of card-
board. I take great time building texture and depth through the
painting process. Layering, washes, dry brushing, adding grit
to the paint, anything to make the sets appear lived in. One
trick I’ve found is to make sure your brushstrokes match the
scale of the world.
SMM: What’s next for you?
Nicholas: Currently I am working on my next short film enti-
tled “Blind Mice”. It follows Walter, a con man who might just
be conning himself. If you look closely you’ll see him in the
opening of “Ring Around the Mulberry Bush”, he’s the fellow
smoking the cigar. Both films are an introduction to a larger
world of interlocking tales I’ve been developing into a series.
-End
Stop motion series for preschool children
by Kolja Saksida

COMING SOON
www.koyaa.net
www.facebook.com/koyaa.extraordinary/
 Noella B David
Interview
SMM: When did you start adventuring and creating in the me- how much work is put into a few seconds of animation. So when
dium of stop motion? people from the industry recognize your work as good, you know
you’re doing something right. It encourages me to work harder
Noella: I remember exactly it was right after seeing Coraline in and develop new projects.
2009, I realized it would be the perfect medium for my project
Faceless Neil and decided to explore how to make stop motion SMM: What kind of material are the puppets made out of?
animation.
Noella: The puppets were made out of silicone and Manny (the
SMM: What inspires you to create your artwork? snake creature) had a set of plastic replaceable heads for the lip-
sync. The great Ron Cole and Ralph Cordero worked on them. I
Noella: Lots of things, mostly music I listen to an of course provided the design and they turn them into the puppets you see
films. My obvious influence are early Tim Burton, David Lynch, in the film.
Henry Sellick, Richard Williams. Music often sparks the ideas
in my head and drive SMM: How long did
me to start sketching/ it take you to make
writing. For example, the film Faceless
Neil was inspired by Neil?
Andrew Bird’s music
and Love at War was Noella: From start to
inspired by Sergei finish it took a year
Rachmaninoff and and a half. From sto-
Rimsky Korsakov ryboarding to raising
symphonies. money to post pro-
duction and sound
SMM: Faceless Neil editing. I was proud
is a fun short film. to managed and
Can you tell us a little stayed on schedule
about the story? with only a few set-
backs, I did all the
Noella: I’m still RE- animation in about 7
writing it! But it’s months.
mainly the story of a
little boy who feels misunderstood, he crosses the path of an evil SMM: Will there be more Faceless Neil?
Gypsy witch who steals his soul and traps him inside a room
within her walls. When he comes too he’s faceless and he must Noella: YES! he’s my little guy. I want to find a way to make a
go on a journey to escape the spell, and save his new friends. It’s feature film to tell his full story. I have some very faithful fans
all about feeling of being misunderstood and alienation. who have been following me for years, they keep me going. I
wish I could do the film as soon as possible but as you know
SMM: What was it like to get so much recognition for the hard making feature independently is quite a challenge. But I’ll never
work you put into the film? give up on Neil, I want him to hit the big screen one day and I
will work hard to make it a reality.
Noella: It’s the best feeling because a lot of people do not realize
SMM: Is there a deeper story to the short film?
Noella: Yes, the short film was an extract from the screenplay
which I’m currently reworking on. I have a strong concept and
visuals, but a strong story is what holds everything together so
my priority is making sure the story will be entertaining and
unique.
I remember starting to write the story at a time of my life where
I was feeling very lost about my identity, I had arrived from
Tokyo to NY and the change of culture yet again was sink-
ing in. I grew up in France and traveled a lot in my youth, so
I know there is a lot of my subconscious in Neil’s story, who
ultimately is a lost little boy discovering a new world and mak-
ing new friends.
SMM: The follow up film is a highbred of 2d animation and
stop motion. The 2d animation is beautiful and mixture of the
mediums is a lot of fun. What drove you to go this route?
Noella: So “the face shop” was actually my graduation film
but it does storewide belong after “out of the darkness”. At the
time I was exploring how to make stop motion so it was my
first attempt at it. I had decided to use mix media influences by
my favorite show at the time; “the marvelous misadventure of
Flapjack”. I loved the aesthetic of that show, the creepiness of
the stop motion close up and the fun use of mix media. In a way
I was mimicking this look, trying to make it as close as possible
to a tv quality show.
SMM: You also worked as an animator on the beautiful short
films The Sea Is Blue. Can you tell us about the film and what
the experience was like?
Noella: It was a passion project and the director reached out
via friends when he was looking for an animator. It was nice to
come in “just” as an animator because everything was thought
off and I just had to focus on the animation, but since we were
a very tiny team, I was part of a lot of the decisions when fig-
uring out the best way to animate a scene. It was a very nice
project to work on and I wish more of those came along in the
NYC area.
SMM: What’s it like living in New York and being a stop mo-
tion animator?
Noella: The up side is the stop motion community is very small
so we all know each other and we all help each other with tips
and advices on “How to(s)”. The down side is stop motion paid
gigs are rare so we are lucky if we work on more than 2 a year.
I’m planing to move to LA as soon as I can find a job there!
SMM: Tell us a little about your experience as an independent
artist finding their voice…
Noella: I think meeting fellow indie animators/filmmaker from
the area has been great and inspiring. See people who manage
to do their films, no matter what, shows that you can accom-
plish anything if you put your mind to it. And the struggles we
face as artist surviving in the city gives us a strong voice. We
want to be heard, and I think it drives us to make strong mov-
ies.
SMM: Your illustrations for Love is a Bitch are beautiful and
very erotic. The lone clip you did of 2d animation looks amaz-
ing. Are you planning anything further with this concept?
Noella: It’s in the back burner like many projects! I would love
to do a series of short animated clip like that one based on all
the Polaroids, that would be about 350 animated short videos!
If given the opportunity for a display I think it would be a great
show juxtaposing the original drawing and the animated ver-
sion. A friend is representing my “fine art work” and we often
talk about integrating my animation with paintings.
pg.13
SMM: Love at War looks like a massive amount of work for
a paper and practical down shooter stop motion. How did you
manage to do this production test in such a short period of
time?

Noella: I worked full time on it which allowed me to do it

fairly fast, once I found a rhythm drawing, painting and cut-
ting, it moved forward fast. I always say planing is primordial
for stop motion projects. The better you plan, the smoother the
actual production goes.

SMM: Have you considered taking the concept of Love at War

even further?

Noella:Yes! I already wrote a screenplay and would like to

turn it into a feature 2d film. I have to find a way to fund it,
which is the hardest thing, but I’m sure I’ll find a way to
produce it independently eventually.

SMM: What are your future plans?

Noella: I’d like to move to LA to have more opportunity to

work on animated shows. Being an indie animator means
you don’t work on actual big production, and I’d like to learn
and work with bigger team of equal driven animators. I will
also keep on developing my own projects and try to get my
first feature film going. -End
BRING YOUR CHARACTERS TO LIFE.
At Huntington University you will learn all forms of animation
from stop-motion to hand-drawn, to the most complex 3D
computer technology. Our students have open access to
state-of-the-art computer labs, puppet fabrication labs, 3D
printing, and motion-control technology. You will be taught
the skills needed to not merely survive in today’s media
culture, but to thrive and make a lasting impact.

INTERESTED?
Visit huntington.edu/DMA or call (800) 642-6493.

Christ. Scholarship. Service.

 MARK OSBORNE - INTERVIEW

SMM: How did you get involved with making this film?

Mark: It was actually the two French Producers approached me. They had created a partnership with the estate of
Antoine de Saint-Exupery and they wanted to make a feature film and you know I always say the book was a big
part of my life, but I would never of had the courage to pull it off my shelf or the audacity to pull it of my shelf and
say, “ok I’m going to make this into a movie”. When I was asked I said “no”, I said “it was impossible, there was
no way that you can make this beautiful book into a movie because it lives in the imagination of the reader”, and
that is such an important part of what the book is. Once I started sort of thinking about it though I couldn’t stop
thinking about finding some way to deliver the content of the book or bring the content of the book into a larger
story that would really be a celebration of the power of the book. Once I started realizing that that was maybe the
real opportunity, that was when I got really excited about, not only could we adapt the book, but we could adapt
sort of the powerful experience people have with the book. I mean that is really what the movie is about.

pg.16
SMM: This is a big departure from the way the original
story is told, the audience is now witnessing the story be-
ing told through the eyes of the pilot years later. Also, you
have this little girl who is his audience and a character eh
interacts with a lot. How did you come up with this ap-
proach of using them to tell the story of the Little Prince?
Mark: The experience reading the book is so singular
and everybody has their own experience. The book really
brings you, brings your life, and forces you to have a dia-
logue with the book. So for me the book itself is impos-
sible to adapt. So when I started thinking about the power
of the book and how powerful it was in my life and many
peoples lives, that was when I decided that maybe the
movie should be about a significant transmission of the
book. So many times the book is shared with us and for
me in particular it was shared with me and it was really
important in my life because of the person who shared it
with me. So I said maybe there was a way to tell a story
that can sort of be born out of the book and be born out of
elements of the book, but it would really be a way to tell a
larger story that would be more movie shaped that could
be more cinematic and it could nestle and kind of protect
and hold the book, and protect the book at the heart, and
thats what I wanted. I wanted the book to be the beating
heart of the movie as opposed to, you know I didn’t want
the book to be stretched out to fill the movie screen. I re-
ally felt that then it would break. By doing the larger story
and by telling this larger story about the book, it actually
allows me to keep the book small and poetic, and lyrical,
and beautiful, and this other larger story is underlining
and underscoring the themes and the ideas from the book
but we’re able to do something that is far more what you
might expect for a big animated movie.
SMM: Now you’ve had experience in stop motion before
this film with your short film “More”.
Mark: Yeah, well I started with stop motion it was really
kind of my first love in animation. I kind of fell in love
with the idea of making animated films once I saw the
work of the Quay Brothers, and Jan Svankmajer, and I
had been stepped heavily in all of Henry Selicks early
work for Mtv and that was also obviously influenced by
the Quay Brothers and Svankmajer. So for me stop mo-
tion is where my experience in filmmaking really began.
Actually the first short film I made when I was a student at
CAL-Arts called greener and then I really had surprising
success with that film which is a very weird strange film.
Years later I got asked to go back to CAL-Arts to teach
stop motion animation techniques and it was at that time
that I decided I was going to make another film and that’s
where “MORE” came from. I really wanted to make an-
other short I wanted to do something that was indepen-
dent and I wanted to keep working in stop motion.
I was seeing a lot of people I knew that loved stop motion that
were really struggling at that time and it was a time where peo-
ple were calling it a dying art-form, and it really didn’t feel like
it was going to be around for much longer. So it was sort of a last
ditch effort to work in stop motion. The amazing thing is I’ve al-
ways wanted to work in stop motion and it took a lot of convinc-
ing and a lot hard work to make sure that the stop motion could
be a part of the Little Prince. It was a great idea and everybody
love the idea of using stop motion to preserve the book and to do
something really unique and poetic, but it wasn’t easy. It was not
an easy choice to make both from a production standpoint and a
budget standpoint and creatively as well.
SMM: So how did you get to the decision to adding stop motion
into this already CGI film?
Mark: Honestly it was the first decision. When I was first ap-
proached about it, I was asked if I wanted to make a big CG
animated movie out of the book, and that was one of the sort of
things I realized, I couldn’t really conceive of any way to use
CG to really truly adapt the book. I went back to the produc-
ers with two big ideas and one was that I would tell a larger
story around the book to protect the book, but that I would also
use two different techniques. The idea of using stop motion to
portray the little girls imagination and to portray the world of
the little prince and to portray the story with in the story. That
was one of those ideas that I had early on that really made it all
make since to me as a filmmaker. I couldn’t really conceive of it
any other way. It was a hard fought battle over the course of the
five years it took to make the movie, but luckily we were able
to not only utilize stop motion but hire I think some of the most
incredible artists working in stop motion to really help realize
the really valuable and very important source material.
SMM: The texture on the stop motion sequences is amazing.
Why paper? Is it because of the story being from the book?
Mark: Yeah, precisely... It’s coming off the page. We all know
what paper feels like. We all have that experience of reading
the book and if you haven’t experience reading the little prince,
you’ve read some book and so it’s something that we can all
connect and relate to and it was a way to bridge the two worlds
that we were creating. The reality and the world of imagination
and paper was the link between the two. And I have to say Jamie
Caliri who was my co-director and really the creative director
on all the stop motion sequences. He is really the one I have to
credit. He’s had so much experience working with paper and his
ascetic was a huge inspiration to me and has always been. So
when I asked him to help me with this and to partner with me
on this I really believed that he would find the right way, but I
honestly never believed that we would be able to use paper for
everything. I was really wishing and hoping for something like
that. Everything you are seeing on screen is made out of paper
and Jamie and his team really tirelessly explored materials in
order to make that work in a way that is really breath taking on
the big screen.
 SMM: Where was the film made?
Mark: We actually did all the physical production in Montreal.
The credits are sort of confusing because there are so many en-
tities involved and so many countries and tax credits and what
not. We did all our preproduction both in Los Angeles and in
Paris. Then we did our production both stop motion and CG
all happened in Montreal. That was incredibly complicated. I
think it was complicated because of the fact that we started the
project in Paris. We were supposed to make the whole project
in Paris but there was no way to make that work financially. So
Montreal became a great solution for us and it actually brought
us in contact with a lot of great artists and allowed for all the
production to happen in one city. So it was complicated in that
we had two different studios basically working to make the
footage for the movie but I had a small team of really key col-
laborators that really helped to hold it all together and pull, my
editor and my writer, and head of story, and my production
designers.
SMM: Can you talk about the struggles you may have had dur-
ing the writing stage of production?
Mark: The writing of it was incredibly complicated and that
took about two and a half to three years to really figure it out.
The first writer I worked with was a British writer name Irena
Brignull and she was really amazingly talented and she really
found the heart and the soul of the story that we needed to tell
and really helped me build and design a larger story around the
book. But it wasn’t until my head of story Bob Persichetti came
on board and he moved to Paris with his family to work with
me on the storyboards along with the story team. Bob and I did
a lot of rewriting over the course of the story process to really
find the characters and hown the story and kind of make it as
simple as we could. It was a very complex thing we were try-
pg.19
ing to do and so it was a constant struggle to simplify it down
and boil it down and try and work as delicately as possible
in trying to tell this story. It was an incredible challenge. The
whole project was five and a half years for me, but hundreds
and hundreds of people who really really love the book poured
their hearts and souls into this movie. I think it was because of
the love of the source material and the true power of the source
material that people really gave everything to the project. It
was quite incredible to see on a daily basis.
SMM: Can you tell me a little about the character designs for
the film?
Mark: The character design for the stop motion sequences was
done by an artist named Alexander JUhasz. He was like Jamie
Caliri’s right hand man and they were partners on a bunch of
projects including the Dragon United spot and the Shins mu-
sic video Rifle Spiral that they co-directed. And Alexis’ work
is extraordinary and it was probably the biggest coup of the
whole project was getting Alex and Jamie to come to Montreal
and join the project. The two of them together collaborated
very closely, but it was really Alexis’ design from his personal
artistic vision. That’s where those designs really come from.
It’s really all Alex. If you look at Alexis’ previous work you
can really see the link. I was very lucky to be able to get the
benefit of their incredible working relationship but also their
incredible deign sense. If you go look at his website it’s clearly
his soul that you’re seeing in those characters. The other thing I
would say is that we had an amazing character designer for the
CG characters as well and overall Peter de Seve for the whole
movie but ended up focusing mainly on the CG characters. If
you know Peter de Seve’s work, I mean he is truly extraordi-
nary and one of the greatest character designers working in
animation today. He contributed quite a bit and brain stormed a
lot across the whole movie. But I really had Alex focus on and
design the stop motion characters along with Jamie.
SMM: The music in the film really pulled me in when watching
the film. Did you work with Hans Zimmer directly when dealing
with the music?
Mark: Yes, I went to Hans directly. I had a great experience with
him on Kung Fu Panda and I asked him if he would joined this
project. I had absolutely no idea what the music could sound like. I
was really puzzled about it. We had a lot of temp music in that was
trying to find a feel for it and Hans amazingly agreed. He loved the
project he loved the source material and it was incredible to have
him join the project. What he does and what he did on this was he
said “I know what I want to do, I know what I need to do” but he
said “ but I can’t do it”. So he brought on a friend of his named
Richard HArvey who is another incredible composer that they had
worked together a lot. And he said “I think Richard can do a lot of
the things that I’m imagining that I can’t do”. Together they cre-
ated the score, but the third really important element in the score is
a french singer named Camille. She is an extraordinary talent and
an extraordinary voice, an extraordinary artist. Hans brought her in
not only as a collaborator and as a musician, but also as an instru-
ment for the orchestra. Her voice is there throughout as really rep-
resenting the soul of the little girl. An I love everything they came
up with. Especially the songs and how everything fits together and
how everything has a real french kind of feeling which reminds us
of the original material and it kind of hints at and points back at
the original material.
SMM: Whats interesting is that you kind of get the little girls char-
acter arch and the pilots arch around the same time. How compli-
cated was it to weave in and out of these different story lines and
arcs when writing and directing the film?
Mark: Very tricky but if you look at the movie, if you step back
and you kind of squint at the movie as a whole. The little girls arch
is very similar to the aviators arch in the book. So she is sort of an
echo of that same arch. In the beginning of the book he’s broken
and he needs this magical character who helps him and fixes him
and gives him a chance to fix others and thats really I think the
incredible thing about the book is it’s about the aviators ability
to write the story and share his experience of meeting the little
prince. So I really invented the little girls as a way to deliver that
same story in a very different way. She’s broken at the beginning.
She’s not a little kid, she’s a little grown up and she’s never had a
childhood, and the magical being she meets is the Aviator, and he
is now in bodying the spirit of the little prince and he is the magical
character that helps her. In the end she’s able to take that experi-
ence and take that story that helped her so much and she’s able to
put it together in a way that will help others. So in some ways it’s
very complex because we are sort of telling two stories but the
stories are very closely related and thematically they’re incred-
ibly closely related because thematically they’re about the same.
So for me that was a way to simplify and boil everything down in
such a way that is was, again we really wanted to have everything
connected to the book everything connected to the themes and the
ideas of the book. I think that’s one of the things I’m most happy
about and excited and proud of, is like if you really loved the book
and you really looked closely at the movie, every single element
in the movie is born out of a notion or a line or a few words or a
theme from the book.
SMM: The world that they are populating kind of reminds me of
the circuit sequence in the film Kuyaanisquatsi. Was that the inspi-
ration for this sequence?
Mark: That’s exactly the reference that we were using. When I first
encountered the book I was about twenty years old and I think I
was struggling with this idea of what it meant to be a grown up. I
was trying to hold onto my childhood and the book really made a
strong impact on me. And that was about the same time as films
like Brazil and Citizen Kane were also making a huge impact on
me as I was sort of learning about film. So all those elements are
tired together for me so that’s about the time I saw Kuyaaniquatsi.
So when I read the Little Prince is really brought out a lot of those
ideas and thoughts about what it means to be a grown up and what
a grown up world looks like and what a grown up world is and
what an unhealthy place the grown up world can be. To me it was
a great way to visually tell the story of just how broken this world
is because this world didn’t have the book. It didn’t have this story
because the Aviator was misunderstood.
So the story was never published and so this was a very
grown up and broken world that really needed the story. When I
look at our world now as broken as our world might seem, I re-
ally believe that that book over the last seventy years has had sig-
nificant impact on our world, and if you look at how many people
have read it, how many people love the book, it’s incredible. It’s
been translated into 260 different languages and I think it has made
an impact into so many peoples lives that you really see the full
effect that the book has had on this world and so when you try
to imagine an alternate reality where the book isn’t a part of the
world, that’s where we came up with this very cold, very grown
up and very much, almost like an automated world that is really
in need of the themes and ideas, the story about bring out the im-
portance of friendship, the importance of love, the importance of
human connection, maintaining relationships. All those powerful
things in the book that speak to us on a really deep level. I think
that was a way for us to make a counter point. So reality becomes
a counter point to the lush world of imagination that is all rendered
in paper and is like a beautiful art project and the rest of the world
is choking from being manicured to an inch of its life.
SMM: Is your son acting in this film?
Mark: My son is actually the voice of the Little Prince, yeah. Not a
lot of people have caught on to that yet. In the early days of making
an animated movie, we don’t have all the star actors and we have
what’s called scratch audio and everybody who is on the project
or in my case my family was joining in to do the voices on the
movie. And as a way to just help develop the story and as a way
to help just develop it before we hire our big time actors. And my
daughter who is a little older then Riley, she inspired the character
of the little girl and she was the little girl throughout the entire pro-
duction. She was temporary voice for the little girl. But kind of an
amazing thing happened when we recorded Riley, he was eleven
years old and he was absolutely relaxed and absolutely plugged in
and somehow he just managed to do something quite amazing that
we were astonished by and we frankly could never remove it.
Nobody would let me remove his voice, and so even
though we cast all these other actors for all these other parts I re-
ally wanted an innocent voice for the Little Prince and Riley just
did an amazing job. It felt very lucky, it felt very much like kismet.
You know Riley is product of the marriage between my wife and
I and my wife is the one who gave me the book back more then
twenty five years ago. So in a way the book is an incredibly impor-
tant part of our lives and when she gave me the book, the reason
the book became so significant to me was we were having a long
distance relationship for a little while and the book was really the
glue that kept us together ultimately. So the whole project is re-
ally a tribute to I think the fact that she had given me this book
and it made such a profound impact on me and that is really what
inspired this idea of telling a larger story of the power of the book,
the power of when the book is shared with you and how the book
can effect your life.
SMM: It’s almost as if this film is a family Opus for you.
Mark: It is, very much. That’s why it’s been a joy and a plea-
sure to be able to share the success with them and you know we
moved as a family to France for two years during the preproduc-
tion and it was quite incredible to go back France for the premier
of the film at the Canne film festival and to have Riley walking
down the red carpet in a tuxedo as one of the actors in the movie.
My wife was there my daughter was there. It was like an incred-
ible way to put closure on the who experience. And honestly to
top it off one step further when we won the Cesar (award) in
France which is the french equivalent to the Oscar. We won the
Best Animated Feature Film Cesar back in February of this year
and that was the ceremony that took place in Paris. So that was
an extraordinary moment for not only everybody that worked on
the movie and the entire crew, and my french producers who it
was their brain child, this whole project. But for me and my wife
it was an incredible way to kind of mark the experience of the
journey that we’ve made together, making this film together.
SMM: It seems like it’s been awhile since you’ve been involved
in a stop motion production. How did it feel to visit the stages
during production?
Mark: We’ll I’ll tell you honestly, I’ve always wanted to stay
working in stop motion. I got the opportunity to work on Kung
Fu Panda and it really brought me into this whole other universe
of working in CG and I never thought I would work in CG. So I
have to say I’ve sort of been fighting for stop motion ever since
I started making films. The fact that we were able to build pro-
duction in Montreal allowed for me to be present which was an
important aspect. I didn’t want the stop motion to be happening
somewhere else. So yeah I was trying to be there as much as
possible and sometimes as much as once a day, but some weeks
I was only able to go two or three days a week but I wanted to be
over there as much as possible because everything that was be-
ing done was so important to the movie and really wanted to be
witnessing and be there to help as much as I possibly could. But
honestly it was really the life support for me to smell the paint
and the wood and the hot glue and to be in that environment just
nurtured my soul every single time I went. You know this was
not an easy project and on a daily basis making a movie is always
incredibly frustrating. This project was really fraught with peril
at every step for many reasons, so visiting the stop motion stages
was a shot in the arm for me and frankly every time we had
footage from the stop motion stages it inspired the entire crew.
(laughingly) I don’t want to say that visiting the stages saved my
life, but it pretty much saved my life on the project.
SMM: What kind of advice can you give those young filmmakers
that want to get into the industry?
Mark: One thing I would say is create your own opportunities.
Don’t go think you have to fit into a cog at some pre-existing
machine. The students of today are going to be creating the new
wave of tomorrow. I always try to encourage students to think
outside of the box. Don’t feel like you have to work in CG. If
you don’t love CG, don’t go down that road. Create your own op-
portunities, make your own films, tell your own stories, find your
voice. The sooner you find your voice the sooner you figure out
your strengths and weaknesses, the sooner you figure out what
you love to do, where your skills are, where your gifts are as a
filmmaker or animator, whatever it is you are pursuing. Really
use the time you haver as a student to explore that fully. I think
that’s the strongest message I can give and I think it’s really im-
portant for you to figure out as a young filmmaker to tell stories
that mean something to you so that they will mean something to
the audience. The film won’t matter unless it means something to
you and that’s really really important. You have to consider your
audience, but you really have to find your own way to tell you
own story and your own path forward and if it doesn’t work out
you can fall back and be a cog in a pre-existing machine, but I try
instill that revolutionary spirit in every young student that I can
and say “you’re the hope for the future”. Also, students are ther
ones that can sort of do the impossible, because they don’t really
know what is right or wrong and they don’t really know what’s
impossible yet. I try to push that as much as possible as the mes-
sage to anyone who’s trying to figure out how to get somewhere.
pg.22
 Creative Director / Lead Camera
Jamie Caliri - Interview
SMM: What was your position on the production?
Jamie: Technically I’m credited as the Stop Motion Creative Di-
rector. My role was to kind of pull the stop motion team together
and organize shooting and stuff like that. My day to day role was
as the Director of Photography for the stop motion.
SMM: How did you get pulled onto the production?
Jamie: I’ve known Mark all the way back to our time at CAL-
Arts. We didn’t really work together back then. We didn’t really
work that close, but people always pointed us into each others
direction “that guys doing stop motion and I think you’re doing
stop motion”, because Mark did stop motion back then. So we
knew of each other and actually we worked on a couple of little
things after school. I think Mark helped me out on a Fruitopia
commercial, but he was making films and working his way up to
Dream Works and doing really cool stuff and I was doing music
videos. We didn’t really connect back for quite a while, but I
think that Mark would say that it was the Shins music video that
we did. Alex, Anthony, and I did the Rightful Spiral video that
Mark kind of saw that as a reference for the stop motion of the
Little Prince, and so that’s the reference and “hey lets get that
team”. I think that was kind of our calling card, the Rightful
Spiral music video for the Shins that Mark sort of took ahold of.
SMM: How long were you in Montreal shooting?
Jamie: About a year or a little over a year. It was quite a long
production and we had had 14 stages at the most. Usually only
pg.23
five or six really in turn over that were really active, but it got a
bit kind of hairy sometimes. We had a really great Art Director
Karin Marrell, she was tasked with building all these sets out of
paper and cardboard. So she had a whole art department team
making making stained paper and building sets. I was there just
trying to get the shots took look as good as they possibly could
and make Mark happy with the overall product and make sure
that the shots that we were getting were as good as the story-
boards or conveying as much of the emotion as the storyboards
or story reel, and if not more hopefully. But some of the story-
board drawings are just amazing. So we had really good guides
there. Mark was really directing all the actors, so by the time
we got there there was already storyboards, there was already a
story reel and the acting was already recorded. So we just had
to knock out the shots and try to make them as good as possible.
SMM: In the stop motion shots for the daylight there looks to be
a lot of hard back light. Can you explain your lighting technique
and how you came to making the shots look so vast?
Jamie: When you’re dealing with miniatures it’s hard to get a
real outdoor feel sometimes. I used a hard sunlight very often.
A lot of the scenes in the desert or out in the daytime and if the
sun was out I would use a hard source and try t0 get it up and
far away as much as possible with a little diffusion so that you
got really cridpy shadows and stuff. That’s kind of my approach
to using the sun. When the sun is out and there are no clouds in
front of it it is a very sharp source. It doesn’t have a big sheet of
diffusion over it unless your in the clouds. So that was my ap-
proach to use the sunlight was to usually just have a bare light.
Sometimes even taking out the fernel so it’s literally just a bare
bulb to get really crisp shadows.

SMM: What was the biggest light you used for the sun?
Jamie: I don’t think we had anything bigger than a 2K. We didn’t
have a lot of power (laughingly). There were power issues and
stuff. I don’t think we had 5K, we had some 2K’s a lot of 1K’s and
650’s. Sometimes we’d light something with a single 650 and get
away with it by just bouncing it around a little bit. If it was a clo-
seup sometimes there was one light and a bounce. We did that a lot.
It all depended. Obviously if you had a big sky drop that you need
to light then you’ve got to get out a lot of lights and sometimes that
lights start to stack up. But if I could do with less then that usually
helps stuff look better. You know you start with something strong
and simple and then you go with smaller sources to try and make
sure everythings kind of filled in properly here and there. Some-
times I let the shots get fairly dark even if it was broad sunlight.
SMM: Did you do the planet scenes front light back light or green
screened?
Jamie: We did them blue screen. His coat was green and that would
have made green screen more difficult so we went with blue. Also,
when I’m lighting I’ve never liked green screen. Green screen is
better for pulling out digital (key) but I just don’t like looking at it
for long time when I light it, I find it kind of blinding. So the blue
is a little easier for me to see what I’m doing when I’m lighting,
and sometimes we would have the dmx programmed to do a pass,
like a beauty pass without any light on the blue screen. Then there
would be almost like a front light back light pass where the other
lights would go out and then the blue would get lit with blue light
so it was very sort of blue on blue, and we’d get that as another
exposure that was really clean. We did that a couple of times on
stuff that was tricky. Otherwise we’d just try to light the blue just
like everybody else does and try to get it right.
SMM: When I interviewed Anthony Scott he described the facial
animation where you did a double exposure. Can you talk about
this futher?
Jamie: For a couple of the characters, The Little Prince and the
Aviator I wanted to have a mouth that wasn’t just your generic
split the face in a weird way. I didn’t want a seam that we’d have
to fix in 3D. So basically we had a face set that had more to do
with the eyebrows and the eye shape and maybe basic smiling,
something like certain levels of smile, but they’d be neutral. All
the faces were neutral at the mouth, they had mouths on them.
The animator would do their animation, they would hit the shoot
button. They’d shoot a left and a right, they’d wait in the right
position. They’d pull the head off striaght up and then they’d put
a dummy head on, straight down that had a space for putting in
a mouth. A little wedge, kind of like if you’d imagine a chin un-
derneath the nose. That would go in with the same face color and
it would have the mouth. They’d then snap in the mouth because
they were magnetized.
So the head was a dummy head with a gap and a magnet
and they’d put the right mouth in there. Then they could frame
flip between the last mouth they shot and then this mouth but with
the weird head. The reason it’s a dummy head was because the
dummy head would then cast shadows correctly onto the mouth
if we had to. Then it would shoot again right (position) and back
to left (position) and then we would put the regular head back
on. So what that allowed us to do is put a really simple soft mask
around the mouth area. It didn’t have to be very complicated and
therewasn’t a lot of seaming, it was like a soft little mask that we’d
track around in After Effects and it sat in 3D in the rnight place.
It was in the right physical 3D space. That’s how we did both the
Aviator and the Little Prince. So it was time consuming.
SMM: Can you tell us a little about your lighting and set up? Was
it different than other productions?
Jamie: Well the color pallet was fairly controlled, and we used
a lot of suttely different kinds of painted look we were creating
ourselves. The paper was stained with tea and what not. We kept
it pretty suttel. As far as how we would set up a shot. We would
have a story board so we would start with that as a guide. Then we
would pick a lens and say ok this is how wide I want to shoot with
this lens and then maybe we would set up a puppet. So then that
would dictate sort of how big the background painting would have
to be or how close we’d have to be to the background. Then we
would start blocking it in with foam core and cardboard and matte
board and stuff. So a lot of sets were just built right to the camera.
So it wasn’t like we were building sets in a 3D environment or
something and then marching them out on set. We would just set
up a camera and go “this is the shot” and then the art department
would get in there and then maybe they would prep certain ele-
ments and they would start piecing it in.
cont.- We actually showed the art department how to use Drag- ture and kind of forced perspective. It wasn’t assigned to a city
on Frame and even how to use the motion control so if I had where you can just start moving buildings around and things
a move programmed they could actually go through the move have to be where it is. Not a lot of bedrooms or rooms, you
and see that the camera didn’t go off the edge of the set, and know.
they could see what that camera would look at this frame or it
would look like at that frame. That’s usually kind of unheard of SMM: It’s great that you’ve master this ability to get everyone
but I really trusted Dragon Frame and its motion control and I working together. Whenever I’ve witnessed productions try to
just let them jog through the positions of the moves. collaborate on the stage it ends up being a lot of cooks in the
kitchen and nobodies making soup.
SMM: I’ve never heard of a setup that way. That’s pretty revo-
lutionary for your art department. Jamie: Well we had a really tight team and we all understood
our place pretty well Carin the art director Alex the production
Jamie: Yeah, but I think it really helped out because I really designer and head of puppets and puppet design and myself as
wanted the film to be strong graphicly and one way to do that the DP, we all really respected each others opinions, we some-
for me is to everything maliable. So if you see shots with the times disagreed but you know we could always find common
plane and theres the dune, each dune is on a separate C-Stand. ground and we worked well with “oh what about this” and kind
Alex and I would get in there and go “I think this dune should of vibe off each other. For the most of the time we’d move
go higher, I think this things in a good
should be over to positive things until
the right. Okay now it was right. We all
look at how this thought each other
line is lined up right had a good eye and
with that one. Oh we also knew that
it’s getting too much Mark boarded it re-
of a highlight”. So ally well. Also there
instead of “there’s was great thumbnail
your set and now color work from Ce-
light it and make it line Desrumaux who
as good as you can, did these amazing
okay, whatever”. We color color studies
were really focusing in like thumbnails
and using the cin- that were really bril-
ematography win- liant. A lot of times
dow, shooting test if I would get stuck
shots, talking about I would could just
the composition, try- look at those and she
ing different things. was always doing
Some of it something really in-
was moving the camera to a totally new position, we’d send it teresting and I would be like “okay lets get something like this
to Mark and he’d say (laughingly)”No, no... put it back” then going”, and she would have like a red color pushed into here,
he’d say “It’s great I love it”. It made it a little probably stress- and it wouldn’t be exact, but it would set us up to do some re-
ful for production because if someone went in there and tripped ally interesting stuff. She would paint like the way the light was
and knocked down a bunch of C-Stands you’d have ruined the movingt through. So it was kind of cool. There was a lot of cool
setup, but we tried to keep everything really maluable. We start- stuff to pull from.
ed to build a few things with the table like some dunes and stuff
and then were like “I want to lower this dune”, well there’s a SMM: How do you feel about the film?
table there I can’t lower it. So it was like get rid of the table and
put everything on C-Stands and put a background in the back Jamie: I think the film is good. I’ll tell you this, the film you
of the room and lets light it nice. Then we’d get the pieces of see is the film that Mark wanted to make or very close to it.
the set where they needed to go to where that felt graphically You know he didn’t get it taken away and re-cut. People sug-
right and then I would do lighting and then maybe even after gested changes and he kept with his vision of the film. He was
the lighting we would due maybe another little bit of nudging always listening to everybody, but he got to make his movie
things around, puppet positions. and I thought that that’s really cool. I think there’s a sweetness
It was just like we would go around and around and in the film that is really evident and really is attributed to Marks
making adjustments to everything so that everybody was happy nature. He’s just a really kind guy and I think that the films has
and then launch the shot. I think that’s why some of the shots got his sweetness in it.
look as good as they do. I know that for me I didn’t feel boxed
into a corner with the sets. Now almost all of out sets were na- pg.25
pg.25
Lead Animator
Anthony Scott - Interview
SMM: How did you get involved with the Little Prince?
Anthony: Jamie Caliri told me about it first and it was prob-
ably a year before I even left to go work on the film in
Montreal and at that time I think they were thinking about
going to Berlin to do the stop motion. So I said “Sure, Lit-
tle Prince, yeah!”. That book was an important part of my
childhood. SO it was a no brainer for me. I really wanted
to be part of the show, and I liked working with Jamie and
Alex. I didn’t know Mark Osborn. I had met him once, had
lunch with him. So I was interested in working with him.
It just sounded like just a really great project. A year later,
about 6 weeks before I moved to Montreal I was told that it
was a go, and that I was still on board. It all happened pretty
quick at that point. So I had 6 weeks to pack up, I was living
in Oregon and I moved to Montreal and started planning
how we were going to do the stop motion.
SMM: How many animators were on the project?
Anthony: As far as animators I think we had 5 plus me, and
then we had another guy who did effects animation in paper
and was in charge of pre-visualizing. So small team, small
crew. I think we eventually had about fourteen stages. We
ramped up into this over time, we didn’t just start out with
all these people. We started with me and then a couple of
months later we hired one animator to come in and gradu-
ally ramp up with one because we have to build everything
and it’s a very slow process at first.
SMM: Were you lead animator on the film?
Anthony: Yeah, Lead Animator was my credit on the film.
SMM: How was the mouth animation handled? Was that
done in post or was it handled on set?
Anthony: Kind of a little of both. We shot two exposures.
All the mouths were sculpted individually and they were
shot on a second pass, and basically we took off the head
with the hair and the eyebrow expression, the beauty head
that was painted. We did about twenty different heads and
different eyebrow expressions, but they had no mouths at
all. The second exposure was just a mouth and basically
we had a dummy head that we stuck on the post where you
put the other head at the neck, and it registered. We’d take
the second exposure of just the mouth in the right position
because it was just sitting on the puppets in the same head
position. Then in post they just kind of cut out that mouth
and they composited it right there.
pg.26
SMM: Was it a different take or was it a second exposure SMM: The tails made out of a paper material as well. So
within the same take? it’s probably difficult to animate that?

Anthony: Same take. Say your on frame 33 you’d do one
exposure of the beauty head and then you’d do a sec-
ond exposure, and this is all done with Dragon Frame, so
you can do this quite easily. And then we’d do a second
exposure of just the mouth, and then we’d switch back
and put the other head back on. It was something that
I’d never done before. It was Jamie’s idea to try it this
way. The reason why we did it was because the heads
we wanted we couldn’t afford to make a huge library of
heads and mouths, but the other thing is that everything
was hand painted. Everything had to have that look to it.
To retain that and reduce the chatter and everything, this
was the best solution.
SMM: Hows it animating those puppets with all the pa-
per texture and different unique materials used on them?
Anthony: We’ll they still had ball and socket arma-
tures and so they were basically like a a lot of stop
motion puppets I worked with except that we had
paper costumes. So sometimes they would tare so
you’d have to be careful, but they actually held up
pretty good considering that they’re paper.
Anthony: Yeah, it’s paper with wire. It’s got some very
thin wire. You know we tried to treat the paper kind of
like you animate cloth. You don’t want to put too much
wire in it but you want to find the perfect wire for it. One
thats not going to fight you, one that you don’t have to
put too much wire in it. You want one that’s going to
kind of gently move and then hold its position, just so it
doesn’t disrupt the paper and wrinkle or disrupt the pup-
pet or anything like that. So we did a lot of experimen-
tation. Especially with the scarf with the Little Prince.
It was one of the very first things we tested. We went
through a lot of different kinds of wire and paper because
we wanted to see through it and make it translucent and
make it look like paper, very thin. As asked for sort of a
thicker wire on top of the scarf and on the bottom of the
scarf a thinner wire. That seemed to be the best combina-
tion.

SMM: What kind of tie-downs were they?

Anthony: We would drill holes and then come up

through the bottom with the treaded tie-down and
screw into the foot or the toe.

SMM: Was the production animated on twos?

Anthony: Yes, I’d say most of it was on twos. We

sometimes if the action was very quick you’d do it
on ones, but just to kind of have this look that we
were going for we settled on twos. We like it, we
liked the way it looked.

SMM: Did you animate any of the fox?

Anthony: I did. Only a couple of shots. I really want-

ed to animate more because I love dogs. There’s a
shot of the Little Prince and the Fox. They’re at
opposite ends of the frame, and the Little Prince is
trying to tame the Fox and there’s grass blowing.
The Fox is kind of walking up to him slowly and
cautiously. I did that shot. I think that’s the only
Fox shot that I did.
SMM: Many times in the studios in Hollywood the light-
ing department ends up caging its animator with lights
and c-stands making it very difficult to move and ani-
mate without bumping the lights or table. Was it like this
on the Little Prince production?
Anthony: The only thing remotely like that was when
you had a very very large set to work on, you might have
to animate behind part of the set. The large sets in front
of the camera look like they are one big set, but it’s actu-
ally kind of chopped up. So you can walk behind certain
parts of the set. There’s one in particular where you’ve
go the airplane on the left hand side of frame and it’s
when the Aviator first meets the Little Prince. That set
was divided up into parts basically, and pieces that just
kind of held up by C-Stands. It wasn’t one big table.
They did it that way so that they could kind of keep ev-
erything kind of floating so they could make it actually
look good in camera. But it also made very easy for the
animator to access everything. So I never felt traped or
that I had to go over anything or reach over too far.
SMM: The Aviator with the scarf around his head looked
like a very interesting puppet to animate.
Anthony: Yeah, the same approach. We try to keep ev-
erything very thin with the paper because the light was
so important. We wanted to see the skin tone so hisscarf
was very thin and we wanted to animate it. Animatabil-
ity, how it reacted to light, all these things are very im-
portant, just the materials were chosen were important
to not only the Aviator, but all the puppets. The Avia-
tor was our biggest puppet. He was probably around 14
inches. I did a lot of shots with the Aviator and the Little
Prince together. They’re kind of the quiet scenes and I
really liked animating those. Like when they’re walking
and talking. I think there’s a shot where the Little Prince
holds his hand. I did a lot of those. I did a lot of shots
with the Conceited Man. He was a lot of fun just because
he was a funny silly character. I could kind of animate
him in a different way. I really like Ricky Gervais, he’s
the voice so I really wanted to animate that character.
SMM: There’s a tunnel sequence with the plane you ani-
mated. Can you tell us about it?
Anthony: Early on we started with a lot of the flat art-
work. Sort of, I don’t know if you call it 2d, but we
started with the flat section first, the airplane the aviator
when he first crashes into the desert before he sees the
Little Prince. Everything looks very flat, and yet it’s on a
pg.28
regular stop motion set setup with lights and everything.
It’s not like it’s shot on glass or anything like that. So
we started with the airplane flying with a big cloud tun-
nel setup. We did that first because we had to build a lot
of puppets. Alex and his team, they had a lot to do, and
Alex was creating these 2d cutout characters as well. So
we decided that we were going to start out with that first.
So I started working on that. Then Silvy came along and
she started animating some of the flat stuff as well. Then
we were able to get into the puppet stuff after that.
A lot of times things were shot in stages. The card tunnel
for example we shot and then I shot the airplane against
blue. To kind of give it this look we had four or five re-
placement planes so I’d alternate them every two frames.
The propellor was another layer that was composited on.
SMM: What’s your favorite shot that you animated on?
Anthony: It’s really simple. It’s when the Aviator first
meets the Little Prince and it’s that wide shot of the air-
plane stuck in the sand and the Aviator stands up and he
says something like “draw? I don’t know how to draw”.
I just love the look of that shot, it’s very simple and a
beautiful composition. Yeah, I like that shot of the Little
Prince in the desert. I don’t think he says anything, the
scarfs just blowing in the wind. I think it’s a really cool
shot.
SMM: How did you deal with the breakdowns of your
shots when planning them out?
Anthony: I think it was all in Dragon Frame. We had a
guy, Phil Eddolls. He was figuring out all the lip-sync.
He’d do it all in Dragon Frame so we could access it.
He’d import his information onto our stations. A lot
of times I’d shot a couple of frames and kind of knew
where I was going eventually. Because he was in another
building a lot of times with the CG guys we would Skype
with him and get our direction that way. You know a lot
of times I’d just go for it. I wouldn’t shoot lots and lots
of tests. Sometimes you’d have to shoot tests of course
for other reasons. You’d want to checkout your timing
but wanted to see how the lights and camera were work-
ing so you’d shoot quick tests. That’s the way I like to
work is shoot a very quick test. I learn a lot I take notes
as I go and then I apply and modify them as I shoot the
final hero shot.
Character / Production Designer
Alex Juhasz - Interview
SMM: What was your role on the film?
Alex: I was the stop motion production designer and the
stop motion character designer. Which intailed concept
stuff on the production side; like illustrations, illustrating
storyboards, setting the look and keeping an overall eye
on the look of it, giving style reference when needed. In
terms of the character design it’s start to finish interpreting
drawings into character illustrations then into sculpts and
then overseeing the entire puppet building process as head
of the puppet department.
SMM: Wow that’s a lot. Having been on productions my-
self I can see you wore a lot of hats.
Alex: This was the biggest project I had ever worked on
and usually having worked with Caliri for eight years be-
fore that it was like of course you wear hats; you wear a lot
of hats; you know you build puppets. What’s great about
working him for so many years is that you got to try on
many things so I went from character designer to produc-
tion designer to co-directing. I taught myself how to sculpt
over the years. So this was kind of a natural thing and the
big learning curve in terms on this project was having a
bigger crew and learning how to delegate properly or ef-
ficiently at first and then assigning people to sort of trust
them and their talents to be artists and do good work.
SMM: So you had to do this whole process using paper as
the medium since it’s the section of the movie that’s in the
book. How difficult was it?
Alex: I find that paper is a very natural medium to en-
gage in and to sculpt with. My first job in stop motion was
with Jamie on the United Dragon commercial; which is
all flat paper stuff. Before that, my father is an illustrator;
we grew up in a house with tons of paper. So paper I feel
very comfortable with and when Caliri suggested to Mark
that the transition between the stop motion world and the
CG world should be in this flat paper dimension. I think it
is something that we both knew we could pull off. I love
working in paper. All my initial sculpts of the characters,
the mock-up moquettes were clay and hot glue and just
paper all kind of stuck together. It’s very forgiving; you
can rip it you can through it out. The material is replace-
able.
pg.29
 SMM: What kind of paper are you using?

Alex: It depends, there’s a lot of really nice Japanese rice paper that
we used in the end. In the flat sequences one of my favorite things is
Bristol Velium. You can fold it, you can paint it, it can take a beat-
ing and glues together well. That opening hand sequence where it
looks like a flat paper hand that’s opening and sand is blowing out
of it; that was in fact just a piece of paper. There was no wire in it
or anything.

SMM: You dyed the papers?

Alex: Yeah, for the art department they did a ton of working dy-
ing paper. They basically had like a paper dying factory for all the
set pieces; all the big pieces of paper. They got huge sheets of it
and would spray different variations of color that could used and
chopped up as set pieces over the course of production. In terms of
the costumes we would figure out the measurements and dye big
pieces of paper as well and cut it apart. All the flat stuff I just hand
painted. We didn’t really have a proper pipeline going then with
the flat stuff so I was kind of doing one off illustrations; like little
sculptures, little character sculpts, and all the replacement heads for
when he first crashes.

pg.30
 very limited expression set that really
getting back to that projection of the
audience onto the character. If you’re
in a scenes telling a story and it’s a
neutral expression on the character,
there’s a lot of power in that because
it engages the audience to project
their own emotional state, like what
they are feeling or what they think
this scene is about. Kind of roping
people in like that and including them
into the creative process, and not just
as a viewer of the story is part of the
success I think of the designs. There’s
a lot open to people interpretation and
imagination.

SMM: How challenging was it transitioning

these two dimensional character designs into
three dimensional puppet? Also what was it like
interpreting the original character illustrations
into a modern interpretation?

Alex: It was a fun challenge because it was dif-

ficult. (The Creator of the little prince book) has
these very endearing, cute, powerful illustrations
that go along with his writing. They’re naive,
there not really well rendered and there’s a lot of
suggestion in there. I think that’s why they’re so
beloved by people is because the audience has
to sort of interpret and do some work with what
the author is giving them. That was an impor-
tant thing to incorporate into the designs when
I was interpreting them. It was this suggestion
of things. Once you have a model and you’re
like “this is it” you have to clarify a bunch of
things, but leaving the expressions open to inter-
pretation; neutral, simple, keeping things very
simple. For all the little prince drawings I did a
little board where I took all of the little prince
that (Sandy Cooper?) did and none of them look
remotely like the same boy. So I was like “what
are the defining characteristics here”, he has
little circle holes for eyes, so I was like, lets roll
with that and leave them little gouges. He had a
very high forehead and a kind of oblong shaped
head, but that wasn’t jiving with Mark so I made
him a little cutter. In all the expressions I made a
pg.31
SMM: What’s your take on the illusion of vastness in the
sets?

Alex: Well I did some drawings but I think the real credit
goes to Jamie and the art director in the Art Department
who were on set. Jamie is a fantastic photographer and he
really knows how to create spaces that have wonderful at-
mosphere and he has an amazing ability to change flat piece
of paper by lighting it in such a way that gives that illusion
of depth and grand space. Not to take away from the fact
that it was kind of a struggle to find interesting ways to
shoot flat paper dunes for many months. I think really that’s
a credit to Caliri’s talent to sort of make magic out of very
simple set pieces and props, and the art department really
fighting the simplicity of the material to find like a variation
in different papers and different textures of the set pieces to
help create that illusion.

SMM: Now with the head replacement set up did you have
to mold the heads? How did you deal with this reproducing
of the same head elements and different expressions?

Alex: This was a giant pain in the ass. Early on each char-
acter kind of got a different approach to the replacement
faces. The little prince I think was toughest because he had
the most simplest designs and he was the smallest character
next to the snake and the fox, but they didn’t have any fa-
cial replacement. The Little Prince, I made a bunch of little
heads and once I found one where I was like “this is our
guide, this is our character”, we made a mold. Brenda Bom-
garden who was our main fabricator made some silicone
molds of the heads and the material we were using is this
material called creative paper clay, which I think is mainly
pumas, paper pulp, and some sort of bonding agent and a
preservative so it doesn’t spoil. The shrink rate on that is
5% which is huge. Especially when you are working on the
head which is an inch an a half circumference. We’re work-
ing in millimeters. The mouths themselves were so small.
So when we went to mold these things and you have a 5%
shrink rate, we were just baking trays of these. We had to
remold, remold, remold... And out of hundreds of heads we
would find a dozen that worked once we registered them
on camera. They were close enough that we would then in
camera using a mirror set to see the profiles; we would hand
sculpt them, and we could only really get in a head set of
thirty, each expression set.
The neutral (expression) would have 6 heads that
sort of look the same, but each expression would have 1,2,3
if we could find three that looked alike, we would be like
“Great!”. It was all done by hand, so it was a lot of labor.
When you see those little things it’s great because they are
really chattery, they’re all imperfect which goes with the
style and as we got better working with the material; by the
time we were fabricating the planet people we had a bet-
ter understanding what we could push with. The sculptors
confident with reproducing these things. We could push the
material. It wasn’t jus this simple cute beautiful little faces
of the little prince. I think by the end I was wishing I could
go back in time I push the Aviators mouths a little bit and
push that character a little more.
SMM: How did you deal with the paper clothing of the puppets
ripping?
Alex: Just about after every shot we would replace the entire cos-
tume for every puppet. The Little Prince and the Aviator for sure.
Especially because the Aviator was a kind of beat up character al-
ready being stranded in the desert. We kind of had to do a little
man handling of him before he got onto set. But in terms of ripping
during a shot and stuff, stop motion animators are incredibly adap-
tive creatures. I was like “here’s a kit. If something rips, stick some
paper behind it”. I was telling them if they needed to rip or remove
something or shred the costume during a shot to get the perfor-
mance then I was like “do it”. What’s great about the style, just the
nature of the paper where there were shots with massive rips that
you can’t tell because it looks like it’s consistent with the overall
ascetic that we were going for. It kind of worked to our advantage.
I’d say that hands breaking and stuff like that, I think there were a
few armature snaps that occurred, but not many.
SMM: What kind of armatures were you making?
Alex: We made arma-
tures from scratch. The
guy that founded the
Montreal Stop Motion
Film Festival, Eric Guil-
let, he was kind of man-
aging all the equipment.
He teaches at Concor-
dia which is a college
here in Montreal and he
brought in a bunch of
ex-students who helped
fabricate all the designs
specific to each puppet,
which was great because
they learned a ton and we
made a ton of mistakes.
But the fun part was that
we got to invent a bunch
of solutions specific for
our project. Grahamn Reid, he’s a fantastic armature builder who
works at LAIKA and he came to build the Fox armature. I put him
in charge of the team for awhile so that they could learn and up
their game. By the end Andrey and Haymish who were the young-
er guys on the squad, they’re making really beautiful armatures
now. I’m really proud of the level they brought the armatures to.
They were all steel ball and socket. The fox was just a piece of art
that Graham made that was so tiny and so exquisite. I think I’m
most proud weirdly of the snake armature because it was a piece of
floral wire and a bunch of hole punched paper. So we did different
sizes and punched holes in the center and every forth or fifth paper
punch we’d use a very thin piece of tin that we’d punch and put it
between them, and that’s how we rigged it... Through Magnetism!
The entire snake was magnetic. It was very tiny.
SMM: How challenging was it transitioning these two dimension-
al character designs into three dimensional puppet? Also what was
it like interpreting the original character illustrations into a modern
interpretation?
Alex: It was a fun challenge because it was difficult. (The Creator
of the little prince book) has these very endearing, cute, powerful
illustrations that go along with his writing. They’re naive, there not
really well rendered and there’s a lot of suggestion in there. I think
that’s why they’re so beloved by people is because the audience
has to sort of interpret and do some work with what the author
is giving them. That was an important thing to incorporate into
the designs when I was interpreting them. It was this suggestion
of things. Once you have a model and you’re like “this is it” you
have to clarify a bunch of things, but leaving the expressions open
to interpretation; neutral, simple, keeping things very simple. For
all the little prince drawings I did a little board where I took all of
the little prince that (Sandy Cooper?) did and none of them look
remotely like the same boy. So I was like “what are the defining
characteristics here”, he has little circle holes for eyes, so I was
like, lets roll with that and leave them little gouges. He had a very
high forehead and a kind of oblong shaped head, but that wasn’t
jiving with Mark so I made him a little cutter. In all the expressions
I made a very limited ex-
pression set that really
getting back to that pro-
jection of the audience
onto the character. If
you’re in a scenes tell-
ing a story and it’s a
neutral expression on the
character, there’s a lot of
power in that because it
engages the audience to
project their own emo-
tional state, like what
they are feeling or what
they think this scene is
about. Kind of roping
people in like that and
including them into the
creative process, and not
just as a viewer of the
story is part of the suc-
cess I think of the designs. There’s a lot open to people interpreta-
tion and imagination.
SMM: What’s your take on the illusion of vastness in the sets?
Alex: Well I did some drawings but I think the real credit goes to
Jamie and Karin Morel (?) and the art director in the Art Depart-
ment who were on set. Jamie is a fantastic photographer and he
really knows how to create spaces that have wonderful atmosphere
and he has an amazing ability to change flat piece of paper by
lighting it in such a way that gives that illusion of depth and grand
space. Not to take away from the fact that it was kind of a struggle
to find interesting ways to shoot flat paper dunes for many months.
I think really that’s a credit to Caliri’s talent to sort of make magic
out of very simple set pieces and props, and the art department re-
ally fighting the simplicity of the material to find like a variation
in different papers and different textures of the set pieces to help
create that illusion.
pg.33
SMM: Now with the head replacement set up did you have to
mold the heads? How did you deal with this reproducing of the
same head elements and different expressions?
Alex: This was a giant pain in the ass. Early on each character
kind of got a different approach to the replacement faces. The
little prince I think was toughest because he had the most sim-
plest designs and he was the smallest character next to the snake
and the fox, but they didn’t have any facial replacement. The
Little Prince, I made a bunch of little heads and once I found
one where I was like “this is our guide, this is our character”, we
made a mold. Brenda Bomgarden who was our main fabricator
made some silicone molds of the heads and the material we were
using is this material called creative paper clay, which I think is
mainly pumas, paper pulp, and some sort of bonding agent and
a preservative so it doesn’t spoil. The shrink rate on that is 5%
which is huge. Especially when you are working on the head
which is an inch an a half circumference. We’re working in milli-
meters. The mouths themselves were so small. So when we went
to mold these things and you have a 5% shrink rate, we were just
baking trays of these. We had to remold, remold, remold... And
out of hundreds of heads we would find a dozen that worked
once we registered them on camera. They were close enough that
we would then in camera using a mirror set to see the profiles;
we would hand sculpt them, and we could only really get in a
head set of thirty, each expression set. The neutral (expression)
would have 6 heads that sort of look the same, but each expres-
sion would have 1,2,3 if we could find three that looked alike, we
would be like “Great!”. It was all done by hand, so it was a lot of
labor. When you see those little things it’s great because they are
really chattery, they’re all imperfect which goes with the style
and as we got better working with the material; by the time we
were fabricating the planet people we had a better understanding
what we could push with. The sculptors confident with reproduc-
ing these things. We could push the material. It wasn’t jus this
simple cute beautiful little faces of the little prince. I think by
the end I was wishing I could go back in time I push the Aviators
mouths a little bit and push that character a little more.
pg.34
SMM: How did you deal with the paper clothing of the puppets
ripping?
Alex: Just about after every shot we would replace the entire
costume for every puppet. The Little Prince and the Aviator for
sure. Especially because the Aviator was a kind of beat up char-
acter already being stranded in the desert. We kind of had to do a
little man handling of him before he got onto set. But in terms of
ripping during a shot and stuff, stop motion animators are incred-
ibly adaptive creatures. I was like “here’s a kit. If something rips,
stick some paper behind it”. I was telling them if they needed to
rip or remove something or shred the costume during a shot to
get the performance then I was like “do it”. What’s great about
the style, just the nature of the paper where there were shots with
massive rips that you can’t tell because it looks like it’s consis-
tent with the overall ascetic that we were going for. It kind of
worked to our advantage. I’d say that hands breaking and stuff
like that, I think there were a few armature snaps that occurred,
but not many.
SMM: What kind of armatures were you making?
Alex: We made armatures from scratch. The guy that founded
the Montreal Stop Motion Film Festival, Eric Guillet, he was
kind of managing all the equipment. He teaches at Concordia
which is a college here in Montreal and he brought in a bunch of
ex-students who helped fabricate all the designs specific to each
puppet, which was great because they learned a ton and we made
a ton of mistakes. But the fun part was that we got to invent a
bunch of solutions specific for our project. Grahamn Reid, he’s a
fantastic armature builder who works at LAIKA and he came to
build the Fox armature. I put him in charge of the team for awhile
so that they could learn and up their game. By the end Andrey
and Haymish who were the younger guys on the squad, they’re
making really beautiful armatures now. I’m really proud of the
level they brought the armatures to. They were all steel ball and
socket. The fox was just a piece of art that Graham made that was
so tiny and so exquisite. I think I’m most proud weirdly of the
snake armature because it was a piece of floral wire and a bunch
of hole punched paper. So we did different sizes and punched
holes in the center and every forth or fifth paper punch we’d use
a very thin piece of tin that we’d punch and put it between them,
and that’s how we rigged it... Through Magnetism! The entire
snake was magnetic. It was very tiny.
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