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Permalink Reply by Cacá Veirano on January 18, 2015 at 9:06pm

It happened to me. I spend almost three months building puppets and sets and remained only 20 days for animation before my deadline... It's always that way? thought I was because I don't really know how to make a puppet :p

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Permalink Reply by StopmoNick on January 19, 2015 at 2:35pm

I used to take 6 or 7 months to make a 5 minute film. About half of that was making most of the puppets, sets, and props. Then I would would start animating, but I still had to make a few small things when I was setting up a new shot. It is hard to animate for too many hours without a break, so doing one shot and then making some props before animating the next shot is almost as good as a rest.
Maybe I am faster at making things, since by now I have usually made something similar before, or at least used the same materials. But probably slower at the animation. I am probably slower with the animation. I have gotten fussier about the animation than when I started, and if I have to I will go back and adjust the puppet if I don't think it has moved the right amount. Also, I can't do the 12 hour days animating any more, so I can only expect to get 1 or 2 average shots done in a day of only animating, instead of the 2 or 3 I used to force myself do when I had a deadline coming up.

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Permalink Reply by StopmoNick on January 19, 2015 at 2:50pm

Just realised, the proportion of time spent on making and animating may be different for us, but 3 months making time is exactly the same, and sometimes that is the same whether it is a 2 minute film or a 10 minute film. Of course, it depends on how many sets and characters are needed, a longer film might spend longer in the same sets or need more setups. And it makes a difference whether the sets are richly detailed or fairly simple - the Victorian room set and house exterior I am shooting on now took a lot more time than a stark modern setting. For me it would also depend on whether I make a wire armature for my puppet in half a day (usually), or spend a full week on making a ball and socket jointed armature (very rarely).

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Permalink Reply by Hendrikus De Vaan on April 27, 2015 at 12:44pm

For Disappear it was about 50/50 making to animation time (4 minute film, 1 character, two locations).

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Permalink Reply by gustavo arteaga on May 1, 2015 at 2:15pm

Hi Antonio.

I am so totally rubbish at building sets that I tend to avoid them all together. I end up creating a sense of space with lighting, depth of field, tracking, sound... Or I just shoot outdoors. Any thing to avoid building stuff.

Still, I'd say I end up spending 50% building puppets, props,  %40 shooting, and %10 in post.

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Permalink Reply by Antonio J. Cebrián on May 2, 2015 at 9:09pm

I see than building is a nightmare not only for me!

thanks for the answers

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