Health is a stop-motion animation using clay, paper and objects on glass by Hayley Morris.

This animation was done for the Advertising Council’s 57th Annual Service Award Dinner to introduce all the health commercials that have been made this year.

We asked Hayley a few questions about the project:

Can you tell us about your inspiration for the spot?

For “Health” I wanted to visually express what the word means in a unique, clever, funny and beautiful. I came up with the idea of showing an unhealthy person vs. a healthy person with a split screen effect. The short is broken up into three sections. 1.Bad Food vs. Good Food   2. Negative Thinking vs. Positive Thinking 3. Inactive Vs. Active. I felt it was important to use clay because it is easily malleable and would show the transformation of the two heads, which started out identical in the beginning and went in opposite directions based on what they did to their bodies. As reference and inspiration I looked at the films of Jan Svankmajer.

Can you tell us a bit about about the process?

I started out drawing storyboards to get the timing and look. I then sculpted and drew all the tiny props, like the fruits and vegetables or the random objects the unhealthy man eats. I then made all the backgrounds using colorful and textured paper. Once I was done hand-making all the pieces it was time for animation, which had to be done in one shot. So, once I started I had to keep going until the end. Doing something straight forward like this is always a little stressful because if the camera shifts or a light gets kicked your animation is pretty much ruined.

I animated “Health” on a multiplane, which is an animation tool made of a series of panes of glass stacked on top of each other. The camera is placed above the glass and shoots through them creating the illusion of depth. I usually animate everything in camera at once, but for this project I shot the heads separately against blue screen and then shot the backgrounds after, using each layer of glass. The two parts were then composited together. The animation process was extremely tedious, because every frame is essentially a new sculpture. The clay really stuck to the glass, so if I wanted to move the head or a hand I would have to rip it off and sculpt it again. It was basically like doing hand-drawn animation with clay. I also had to clean the glass every frame because the clay left a residue around each figure. I really wanted the two heads to feel alive even when they were still, so I constantly animated the clay circulating with fingerprints and subtle blinks. I also liked adding other materials besides clay to give a unique look. For example, when the unhealthy man was smoking I used pillow stuffing for the smoke and charcoal for the blackness that fills his lungs. I think little touches like these add a lot to the piece. I also created the soundtrack, which was made from sound effects I recorded as well as stock sound that I layered in protools to create two distinct sounds for both characters. Overall I love how it came out and it was worth standing on my feet for 2 weeks straight to have these two heads come to life and tell a story.

Were there any special Dragon Stop Motion features that were essential?

Dragon really helped to create this piece. The tool I used a lot was the line tool. For example when the two clay balls roll into frame in the beginning and form into two heads I used the line tool to create a guide for myself. I drew the outline of the two heads as well as the split screen line to know where the two balls of clay needed to end up. Without this tool it would have been difficult to make two identical looking heads. It also helped me to see the split screen line, so I knew not to make a hand or an object cross into the other side.

The other feature that was very helpful was, adding a line up movie. Since I did the heads on blue screen first I needed to line up the backgrounds perfectly with the heads. This tool allowed me to load the head footage, which showed up like an onionskin. This allowed me to see the backgrounds through my camera as well as the heads so I could line them up perfectly and create the right composition.