Objects At Rest

[ explorations in audio and moving imagery ]

Category: Projects

  • Album Release: A Little Bliss by Catling Rebeck Soundpost

    A Little Bliss EP

    The Objects At Rest music project known as “Catling Rebeck Soundpost” has released an EP titled “A Little Bliss”. The EP contains new arrangements of traditional music from American hymnist Philip Paul Bliss. Listen to music by Catling Rebeck Soundpost at the following sites: TRACK LISTING Thanks to Joe Gilder and the Home Studio Corner…

  • RAGNAROK: An Animatic Previsualization (2008)

    Watch on Vimeo Synopsis: On the eve of Ragnarok, Odin reflects on the deeds of his life and consults with Mimir about the fate of the world before heading to battle. This is the animatic created in 2008 for my stopmotion animation titled “RAGNAROK”. Running Time: Approximately 7 minutes 18 seconds Format: NTSC, Widescreen, Color,…

  • Halloween Project 2014 – Work in progress

    Production still from a project that I’m working on. If all goes well then at least part of it will be ready for Halloween 2014.

  • ESCHATON: Acts I and II

    Watch on Vimeo Act I: And there shall shine a star which they will call a comet, baleful sign of sword and death. Title: ESCHATON: Act I Running Time: Approx. 3 minutes Format: NTSC, Widescreen / Letterbox, Color Language: n/a Audio: Stereo/Mono Genres: Animation, Stop Motion, Experimental Location: Atlanta, GA, U.S.A. Completed: December 2012 Act…

  • ESCHATON Act II Post-Production Underway

    ESCHATON (Act II) is now in post-production sound effects editing and music scoring. Watch ESCHATON (Act I) on Vimeo.  

  • Teaser Poster ESCHATON Act 2

    The second act of ESCHATON is now in production. Here is the teaser poster. Watch Act 1 on Vimeo

  • Man Drawing a Reclining Woman is Playing at the Northwest Animation Festival

    I am pleased to announce that my short stopmotion film, Man Drawing a Reclining Woman, will be playing at the Northwest Animation Festival. The festival runs from June 3rd through 5th and my film will screen on June 5, 2011 in the Block-F section between 3pm and 6pm.  This is the premier of the festival…

  • Lincoln: An Unrealized Experimental Animation

    PLAYING AT LIMITED TIMES ONLY! Lincoln, my unrealized experimental animation. Synopsis: The supernatural trial and judgement of John Wilkes Booth for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Running Time: 3:42 Format: NTSC, 1.77:1, Black & White Audio: Mono Genres: Animation, Computer Animation, Experimental Location: Atlanta, GA, U.S.A. Producer, Writer, Director: Grant Goans Music: Grant Goans (Variations…

  • Modular Support Rig for Puppets

    I viewed a work in progress video by Justin Rasch and Shel Wagner Rasch recently. The support rig is still visible, which is fascinating to see. What appears to be a free weight is being used for the base. I had previously been drilling holes in the floor of my sets to hold wire support…

  • Mirror Selected for the Stop Motion Montreal Film Festival

    I am happy to announce that Mirror has been selected for the Stop Motion Montreal festival.

  • VICTUAL 4

  • VICTUAL 3

  • VICTUAL 2 has been posted

    My experiment with clay continues. VICTUAL 2 is now on Vimeo.

  • VICTUAL – new animation experiment

    Watch on Vimeo My short experiment titled VICTUAL 1 is now online. I did the animation one evening during the week and completed the audio tracks this weekend. Sven Bonnichsen’s recent “mutate” project inspired me to try something quick and improvisational. I haven’t worked with clay before, but wanted to try something simple and organic…

  • MIRROR Now Available Online and in HiDef

    Watch on Vimeo Watch on YouTube

  • the mirror: a short experiment for halloween

    if everything goes as planned, i hope to have this ready for halloween 2009.

  • RIFF: VITRVVIVS at the Rome International Film Festival

    VITRVVIVS screened during the Experimental Block at the 2009 Rome Georgia International Film Festival on September 11, 2009 at 11pm. I estimate that between 20 and 30 people attended the block. Many thanks to those that came out to see and support the experimental films at the festival. The live-action-stop-motion film cycle.break. by Stephanie Shadden…

  • VITRVVIVS World Premier at RIFF 2009

    VITRVVIVS will be screening at the Rome (GA) International Film Festival on Friday, September 11, 2009 at 11pm. It is part of the experimental block…and a nominee for that category!  I am humbled and excited that they selected my film. It looks like Mythic Journeys is also playing (and a nominee for american documentary) which…

  • VITRVVIVS Time Spent in Post-Production

    While backing up my VITRVVIVS files I reflected on my Sony Vegas file naming convention. The file names are listed below to illustrate the incremental numbering for each session so I can rollback if something goes wrong: VIT-EDIT-FINALCUT-01.veg VIT-EDIT-FINALCUT-02.veg VIT-EDIT-FINALCUT-03.veg What this means is, with the date modified system info as well as my file…

  • That’s a wrap! VITRVVIVS is done.

    Festival Entry Specifications Title: VITRVVIVS Running Time: Approximately 17 min 35 sec Format: DVD, NTSC, LETTERBOX, COLOR, STEREO Language: Esperanto Subtitles: English Date Completed: September 2008 Now that the film is completed I am burning DVDs to send to a few festivals. I have plans for a future official DVD release which will have a…

  • View the Vitruvius video…sort of

    I captured my editor workspace tonight and this is what it looks like. That’s the whole film across the top…about 17 minutes at this point but that may change. I think screen caps of editing workspaces from other animators would be interesting. I may have to check flickr to see if there is a pool…

  • Video Tests Continue

  • Another Video Test for the 2008 Project

  • Test Video Footage Part 2

    More test footage with the forest and house.

  • Test Video Footage for Upcoming Projects Part 1

    In addition to making tiny steps toward the completion of Vitruvius I’ve also started pre-production on some other projects. Part of the process is getting familiar with the HV20 and further development of the sets. Doing these tests help determine composition and lighting but instead of just taking a single photograph I animate several seconds…

  • Vitruvius Update

    Vitruvius is still being edited in between other activities (including prep work for the next project). I actually find taking time away from a project to be good because when you view it again after weeks or months of absence you can view it fresh and sometimes differently. As I recall, it was almost a…

  • Plant a Tree: A Pop-thru Test

    I did an animation tonight using the pop thru ideas mentioned in the previous post. Here is the result. Plant a Tree – An Arbor Day PSA and Pop-thru Animation Test

  • RE: Pop-thru Animation Technique Posted by Sven

    Sven posted some intriguing ideas about utilizing pop-thru in a project as the actual method of animating for stopmotion. The idea appeals to me especially in terms of time. Wanting to see what it felt like to I threw my character on the stage and tried some poses and here is the result. The total…

  • Camera Dolly – Test Shots

    I tried out the dolly and confirmed that the current tripod mount is unstable…although I kind of like the uneven quality of the movement. I’ll probably try to mount the whole track on something more stable. Click to view

  • Camera Dolly 2008

    Recently I read some information about camera rigs and the concepts found in model railroad designs inspired me. So, I browsed the “orange” home improvement store and found some items to build a dolly over the weekend. All photos are on the Flickr site (click the photo to see them). You can probably get the…

  • Index Card Exercise (Follow Up to Starewicz Post)

    Ok, so I’m done with the exercise. Here is a photo of the final board. I forgot to mention in the previous post to work the exercise quickly…do not over analyze anything…it’s more stream of consciousness in that respect I suppose. Just go with the ideas that come to mind as disjointed as they may…

  • Starewicz as a Benchmark for Planning Animation Storyboards

    Some time ago I posted my analysis of “The Frogs Who Wanted a King” by Wladyslaw Starewicz on stopmotionanimation.com as a benchmark for developing shots and scenes. I am running through the exercise for my next project tonight as I draft storyboard cards so I thought I would re-post the info here at my blog.…

  • Vitruvius Project Update

    Slowly I am getting back into the Vitruvius project. Most of the puppet filming is done and now begins the task of creating the assets for post-production compositing. The Flash animation below is a test for the various line drawings that are planned for the film. The idea is to export animations such as this…

  • Armature 2008 – Tie Downs – UPDATED

    Update. I took another pair of carved shoes to try a modified design of the wire and brass nut. This time I wrapped the wire around the groove on the outside of the brass nut (see original posting below for context). I then placed the nut in a hole at the toe (instead of in…

  • Vitruvius: Quick Update

    I have all but finished the filming for Vitruvius except for some pick-up shots. There is one more sequence to shoot and then I’ll be taking a break during most of July and August before starting post-production. During the fall I’ll begin editing and working on post-production effects as well as revisiting the audio portions…

  • Damocles Screened at Roll Yer Own Festival

    ASIFA Atlanta’s Roll Yer Own Animation Festival, with entries from local animators, took place on Monday, May 21, 2007 at 8:00 PM. The venue was “the 5 Spot” at 1123 Euclid Ave in Little 5 Points. Thanks to Karl, Brett and everyone at ASIFA Atlanta for your work on the festival and for including my…

  • A Day in the Life…Move Puppet, Click, Repeat

    Forty years ago today Sgt. Pepper was released. My favorite tracks are Getting Better, Lovely Rita, and A Day in the Life. The album is going to be on repeat as my background music when I work on Vitruvius later today. I think Justin and Shel may put videos on in the background when animating.…

  • Curtain Test Video: Updated

    Update. I did another test tonight and got the motion smoothed out. This is more of the effect I was aiming to achieve. WATCH MOVIE Here is my original post and first test: Another test clip. I am finishing the assembly of the stage curtain and wanted to see how it would animate. The answer…not…

  • Video: Frame Rate and a Fix for the Ghosting Effect

    In both Man Drawing a Reclining Woman and the Sword of Damocles I have what looks like ghosting in the animation. My process is to shoot 12 photos for each second of animation then stretch that sequence in Sony Vegas to 24fps. Vegas then blurs every other frame. When analyzing the footage within Vegas frame…

  • Set and Stage: Some Assembly Required

    Tonight I continued to put my set pieces back together and started shooting test photos to check alignment and spacing between the background, the stage, and the camera.

  • New Studio Setup

    I’m hoping to get back into production on the Vitruvius film in April. I’ve started to re-build my sets in my new studio. The following picture captures my carts and stages better than previous photos.

  • Work Your Walking Week – Animating Walk Cycles

    There is a thread on stopmotionanimation.com about walk cycles. Here is a test that I did many months ago. I used the trial version of Stop Motion Pro and my web cam.

  • Vitruvius Update and New Armature Development

    I am in the process of relocating my studio over the next month or two. I plan to hold off on further filming of the Vitruvius project until I have the studio and lighting re-assembled. I have some compositing elements that I can work on in the mean time and I’m also exploring a new…

  • Business Cards: The MOO Solution

    I needed to get some business cards to hand out at various times and decided to try the Flickr / Moo option. I have a Flickr site and read the specifications for sizing photos as Moo cards and made 10 card designs in Photoshop. I got the Moo 100 card pack for approximately $20 and…

  • Vitruvius: Various Footage (Jan. Update)

    The following links play very short clips of footage from the Vitruvius project. The files are Quicktime movies at 320×240 resolution. Unfurled Writing Book IV The Orders of Antiquity The Books of Architecture More to come as filming continues.

  • Lighting With Clamp Lights

    The lighting that I have been using for my films so far consists of incandescent bulbs and inexpensive Clamp Lights that you can get at hardware stores. I believe Karl at Between the Frames may be using the same lighting system. I modify them by putting 4 holes around the rim which allow me to…

  • Sword of Damocles Production Notes

    The Sword of Damocles is a short stop motion animation that was made in response to the StopMoShorts December 2006 contest. The contest provided three words (sword, cave, and fear) to inspire animators. I focused on the sword with the idea of doing something related to the legend of the Sword of Damocles. I would…

  • Sword of Damocles Now Showing

    My short film “The Sword of Damocles” is now showing along with several other stop motion films at the StopMoShorts.com web site. Here is a sketch of the character designs that I used when building my puppets. I plan to post more info about the making of my film later.

  • That’s A Wrap – 24 Days, 4 Puppets, and 3 Sets Equals a 6 Minute Short

    My second stopmotion film, “The Sword of Damocles”, is now complete. The date on my three page draft outline for Damocles reads November 25, 2006. I posted my intention of doing the Damocles project for StopMoShorts on November 28th (see previous post). It is now midnight December 19th and I have finished encoding the QuickTime…

  • We Interrupt This Project…

    …to work on my StopMoShorts.com entry for December. The three items are sword, fear, and cave. I’m stretching it a bit but hopefully it will work out. I’ll be spending every free hour shooting “Damocles” until the last week in December. The plan is to move quickly and ignore mistakes and imperfections which should make…