I finally got around to the last day shooting and took some pictures to record some of what was involved. I still needed the opening shot - where the camera (viewer) tracks forward through the long grass. I had imagined that I could use some real footage for this sequence, let's face it - there's no shortage of grass here, but there was nothing useful. I know I got some usable grass of the right length and colour, but that was pulled from hedgerows and there wasn't enough in the one place to make the shot. I had planned to just move the camera through some real grass but as there was none available at this time of year, I had to make my own. Well I didn't actually make grass, I added some dead grass stalks to  the set and tracked my camera through that.

 

 

 

 

I had to add some similar coloured paper behind the grass at each side as the grass wasn't dense enough. It's surprising what you learn through trial and error.

 

 

This is roughly the camera level I was trying for.

 

 

 

 

I enlarged the existing hole on a metal joist strap and secured the camera mount to this. This could then be moved through the grass at ground level. I could have added wheels for a smoother movement but I was trying to replicate the lions crawl.

 

 

 

It took several takes to get anything close to usable. The final footage is a bit too shaky, it really did need wheels or maybe a rail, but then I'd have to figure a way to add the movement relating to the crawl. In hindsight, a longer bar travelling on a rest - like the ones used in snooker - might have worked.

 

For the shot after the buffalo's explosion, I wanted to have just his legs remaining (in a standing position) and for them to fall - one at a time - at the end, as a sort of delayed reaction. For this I had to remove the legs from the buffalo and add some protruding bone ends and flesh. Once these were secured to the set with wire spikes, I then dropped pieces of black and red clay, along with more bones, onto the set while the camera was rolling. They were dropped one at a time to try and keep some control over where they were landing and how much bounce was occurring. I was then able to edit these falling pieces to make it seem like it was raining bits of buffalo. At least that was the intention.

 

I had made a cardboard silhouette of the buffalo - to its original size - for a previous shot, when the lion leaps into the air. I was able to use this for the explosion shot. I lightly traced around the outline in pencil to keep the various layers (of the buffalo) consistent.

 

I started with a rough skeleton, which would be the last visible form of the buffalo as he disintegrates.

 

A collection of expansion foam pieces that were left over from when I was making the buffalo torso, \I kept them specifically for this shot, intending to paint them, for the buffalos various organs.

 

Some of the bits that I thought might come in useful for this shot.

 

I had to remove the head, as it was secured with strong wire and I needed it to fly off the torso. I cut away almost half of the torso so it wouldn't roll when laid on the green screen. I had always intended to film the explosion from overhead so that the moving pieces could be gradually moved with more control. 

 

I had hoped not to have to cut up the buffalo character as it would have been nice to display it at our exhibition show, but it seems to be beyond repair.

 

For the layer below the skin I removed the black clay and replaced it with red. I'm not sure why but the red clay has appeared pink throughout the filming. That took a bit longer than I'd expected and I've been thinking since that I might have got away with just changing the colour on the shots I'd taken of the skin blowing off. 

 

So the next big thing is our exhibition show, where all the shorts will get played for family and friends and guests. I have some of the lion characters that can be patched up, they're all a bit dilapidated after filming, which I can bring in for display with other peoples characters.

 

Before viewing the Animation Short there is a 20 second promo showing some of the highlights without giving away the ending

 

 

 I've also added some end credits to the original version of the short

 

 

The finished product