At the beginning of 2023 I made a goal for myself to focus more on stop motion and to finally delve deep into it.
I read many books on stop motion, made a homemade rig utilizing helping hands kits for soldering (budget friendly), made a few test shots and finally put together my thoughts into a short story.
I created a storyboard detailing most of the shots and camera angles that would be needed and tried to describe each with description of sets and colors and lighting as well.
Starting is the most important step.
At the beginning of May I was laid off my job and I looked at this as an opportunity to focus entirely on creating this short between job applications and interviews. Once I got a job offer that kicked my stop motion into high gear to get it done before I started. I learned a ton over the past month about all the intricacies of stop motion. I designed sets out of random stuff I found in my garage; and made all sorts of makeshift stuff to figure out lighting and rigging to do complex shots. It all looks fairly seamless here, but the amount of days spent sweating over tiny changes and minutiae details in my garage was painstaking. But I wouldn’t have it any other way—I had a blast!
I utilized lots of wire and duck tape, Litra torches, flashlights, cardboard, paper tubes, tripods and several different cameras and lenses. The background music was found on Archive.org in the open domain for personal use. I created most of the sound effects except for the excerpt of ET speaking (which I changed around to match what I needed with inflection and such).
Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the finished project and results as much as I do—I know it will be consumed in less than two minutes; but just know it was months in the making. ENJOY LoNg DiStAnCe!
Equipment utilized:
Cameras: Fujifilm X-E4, Sony a7r, and the bulk on Olympus OMD E-M5 Mark II
Figure:
100,000 miles project cosmonaut and starship ufo by Damtoys & CoalDog studios.
www.sideshow.com/collectibles/coal-dog-one-hundred-thousa...
NECA - E.T. - 40th Anniversary Deluxe E.T. Ultimate 7'' Action Figure with LED Chest
amzn.to/3qfERb0
Phone booth:
by the talented GrimeCity on Etsy
www.etsy.com/shop/GrimeCity
Lighting:
Litra Torches & Litra pro with lightbox and filters.
Set design: me, myself, and I
Russian accent voiceover: me, myself, and I
Background Audio:
Victor Theremin Recordings Collection 1925-1935; “You’re driving me crazy” (1930), *public domain
archive.org/details/VictorThereminRecordingsCollection192...
Intro Audio:
ECTV, CAPS Media,
Dr. Ollie Powers performs on the Theremin,
archive.org/details/capscav-ECTV_-_UFOs_and_Theremin
*Creative Commons attribution license