The Alchemist's House

A melange of puppets, Gothic elements, flaming digits and lots of candles with video, animation, art and scorched fingertips by yours truly (with some interesting UK guest collaborators at work on a sound track to be added soon).

A Short Stop Motion Video Test With Wire Frame Puppets

Yet another video test of stop motion techniques--My second attempt in this genre and a bit funky but I hope not without some charm. All puppets and sets were constructed by me, principally with pulped papier-mache and natural materials such as twigs and moss.

Cut Paper Animation Test Video

The following a silent test of an animation with my cut paper puppets, made in a springtime afternoon using an old door as background on the floor of a friend's tiny living room---camera duct taped in place and me doing the contortion dance to make all the articulations amongst the throng of objects. It's a very funky but fun view with much shifting movement and scotch tape visible on the puppets---'nuff said. Hum the jazz standard "Fly Me to the Moon" if you feel in need of a soundtrack...

(Note: The still seen here appears pixellated but the images are relatively clear when you press play and watch on the small screen--it's definitely not a quality version in full screen but at least quick to load and play---This is a first for me so any helpful advice gladly accepted!)

A Found Object Puppet

I fabricated this puppet last year for a stop motion animation. It was inspired by the twin faces of the Roman deity Janus, gazing in two directions, looking both forward and back, past and future, here and there. Its hollow torso represents the blind windows of the crow inhabited multistoried temple of Janus ruin in Autun, France.
If you look closely you will discover butterfly wings preserved between thin sheets of mica, a demitasse spoon found flattened in a parking lot, a pocket watch case that lay many years at the bottom of a great river, a porcelain doll leg of late nineteenth or early twentieth century vintage, snapping turtle bones, almond shells, slices from deer antlers and so on... I love the stories that one can spin around such objects, the histories known and imagined. And the weird synergy of attempting to bring together so many disparate objects into a coherent and evocative whole.

Film Still

Shadows and Travels

 I have spent the past two days moving paper bits around and capturing the results on camera. Soon I hope to have a video of shadow puppet stop motion to post, but until then I am including an overview of some of the bits and pieces used. (The soundtrack is the jazz standard "Fly Me to the Moon" )

Recently I spent a few days in Sete, on the Mediterranean coast of France. Sete is a city with water on all sides--- a grid of canals criss-crosses the urban area, with the sea on one side and a large salt water lake on the other. The canals are used for commercial shipping as well as pleasure craft, so some are quite wide and deep. At other places there are small impasses where looking down from the hewn stone sides is rather like observing a large salt water aquarium. Oysters and dark red sea urchins cling to the sides, small fish dart past and clusters of transparent medusa jellyfish perform their pulsing dance. I found the latter fascinating and deeply calming to watch---the sea is truly an alien world full of magic and mystery.

There are other more raucous inhabitants in the salt water basin outside the city. The brilliant rose flamingos are a sight to see flying en masse to land along the shallow water by the shore. Their voices sound something like the croaking of huge, tuneless frogs but their dances are an amazing synchronized choreography of aligned long legs and nodding heads that sweep forward and back again. They also seem to have little fear of humans, so I was able to observe them at quite close range.

May is also the season for the beautiful papery petalled red-orange poppies that line the roadsides and pastures throughout France.

Until next we meet...