Der Konsument
Cumulus
Max Moertl shows us some whimsical ingenuity in these two shorts created in the Design Department at HAW Hamburg. Adding to their charm is the quirky and well crafted sound design. We look forward to more projects from Max. Below, he provides us with some insight into his process.
Max-
Der Konsument
The idea for the clay animation “Der Konsument” (The Consumer) crossed my mind at the supermarket. A place where the overload of products from which to choose leads to desperate and random purchases and special offers convince the dizzied customer to buy, buy, buy. I thought about this misguided consumption and explored whether the ‘special guest’ in my animation would be able to develop healthy consumer behaviors.
I started with conceiving of different meals, and then drew a minimalistic storyboard and then arranged the meals in a sensible order. After building the set and moulding the character out of clay I began animating. During the animation, I had a rough plot in my mind, but sometimes I spontaneously added or changed actions. The most challenging and time-consuming part was to animate the different phases of the mouth without using replacements.
In this project I was working with Dragon Stop Motion for the first time. Right from the start it is easy to control and I am impressed by the program’s helpful options. I used the toggle option to replace the eyes and to repair broken tentacles. With the drawing tool, I drew guides for flying objects.
Cumulus
The stop motion animation “Cumulus” was made for a group exhibition with the theme ‘water’. In my work I focused on the value and need for water and decided to let a small drop communicate these issues to the viewer. It was exciting for me to portray water in its different states. By having the ability of transforming between these states, the drop finds its own way through the story.
It was a challenge for me to animate water and to find suitable techniques to render each of the different states. After some tests with different liquids I decided to animate with real water. Equipped with a pipette I moved the water, drop by drop, each step further along. In some takes I used continuous shooting to capture the movement of the water. Animating with ice was a bit stressful due to the limitation on time caused by melting. A nylon thread which was frozen into the ice made it easier to control the movement and prevented the ice from slipping away. To make the steam touchable I used cotton for the clouds. It was important for me to create all effects on location without computer animation to achieve a tactile look – for example the lightning was done with light painting.
Dragon Stop Motion was very helpful during the animation and enabled me to work fast with precision on the project. An essential feature was the reverse playback which helped me to capture and view scenes in reverse order.
