chapter 7

four walls and a sky – sets and props

research the look

Most of the artistic concepts – the character design and look of your set – are decided before you reach the storyboarding stage, and you will have already thought through the camera angles and lighting scheme. You have probably decided where there will be windows in an interior scene, and what appears outside those windows. This chapter will help nail down some of those decisions.

If your setting is an important part of the story you will want to create the right atmosphere. For your own project, if it's fantasy it's up to you, but for any period or realistic locations do research the look. Get some location pictures of what it should look like: if it's your granny's sitting room, take a photo, decide what is the thing in that room that gives it atmosphere. An old 1950s radio? A pair of slippers? The cat asleep on the back of the sofa? A pile of magazines on the floor? It's probably a combination of all these things. Do you need to be able to see down the street? Does the exterior match the interior? What period is her house?

For a street scene, try to make the angles interesting. Looking straight on from a middle of the road position to a row of terraced houses for a whole scene could be dull. Imagine the viewer looking down on it from a window or from an alleyway across the street. Give your set dimension, add foreground interest: dustbins you can look out from behind. An exterior countryside scene presents many opportunities to create depth with trees or hills and foreground interest with shrubs and bushes.

design and building of sets

In the early planning stages the director and DOP (director of photography) would go through the set design, working out the camera angles, depth-of-field (area that will be in focus) and so on, with the set designers. Then a mock-up of the sets would be made to scale. Some companies use foamcore (two thin cards sandwiching a layer of foam). It's a light and easily cut material, but is an expensive option. Artem, a London-based set and props company, make their mock-up sets with MDF. It's cheap to change, and if the set is approved, it's already made. Stylistically, the set designer will work to the art director, and advise on budgetary restraints that may have to be taken into account.

The DOP will then check the mock-up with a viewfinder to make sure that shots work. At this stage there may be parts of the set the designer knows will not be needed. Allowances should be made for camera angles changing, for lighting and for animator access, and when the set is built it should have walls that can be removed for reverse angle shots (see chapter 4, section on planning your shots).

CAD

Computer-aided design is a useful way of trying out a set first. A virtual set can be built in the computer allowing the ‘camera’ to fly through, check angles and lenses before committing the budget. Again lighting set-ups can be tried and tested this way, saving on time and manpower. Once the original investment is made in the computing software, the advantages are obvious. However, as with everything done in this way, it leaves no room for the happy accident when you come up with something you wouldn't have thought of, through some external factor. Decent 3D software to allow for the sophistication of fly-throughs and lighting is not going to come cheap and the range includes 3D Studio Max, Lightwave and Alias Studio.

scale

With puppets being around 20 cm to 25 cm, a standard scale to work to is 1:6. The scale of the puppets is dictated by the pieces needed for armatures, and by your depth of field. This is the range of your set that will be in focus. The smaller the scale, the harder it is to give it a sense of depth and without that, you will create a ‘miniature’ look. If you want your world to look realistic you will need to work at about a 1:6 scale and use plenty of light to give yourself more focal range.

Nick Hilligoss, animator for the Natural History Unit of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, explains:

For animation, I do human puppets in about 1:6 scale, so they are around 12” tall. (Some people use 8’’ tall puppets.) But I also have rats, frogs, and insects, and for close ups of those I make full scale copies of small sections of the 1:6 sets. For wide shots of suburban streets I make 1:24 scale sets. (Because you can buy a wide range of 1:24 model cars, and they're cheaper than 1:18.) I make 1:24 people for these sets, but they are not meant for seeing up close, they just add life to the shot, and help with continuity of action.

Figure 7.1 (a) Human puppets at 1:6 scale (© Nick Hilligoss); (b) Full-scale frog puppet (© Nick Hilligoss)

You will need to concentrate on detail if you know something is going to appear in a close-up shot. In some cases, the close-up shot requires a larger scale puppet – and a larger, matching scale portion of the set may be needed.

the base

It's best to build your set at a comfortable working height for animators to get to, and to make it as firm and solid as possible. This may involve screwing things into the floor to fix it, or getting hold of stage weights or sandbags. Glueing table legs to the floor is a more desperate method; another is to use steel trestles, weighted down with sandbags, which have an adjustable height you can clamp your base to.

A solid base made of 12–16mm MDF or plywood means you can fix your puppets’ feet with tie-downs, i.e. threaded holes in the feet that can be screwed to the base through a predrilled hole using a bolt and wing nut system. You can either drill the holes as you need them, or you could have a pre-planned route. Then fill the holes with a clay that matches your set base. Tie-downs are the best way of ensuring absolute contact with the floor, but can slow the animation up. On a budget shoot, you could use strong flat headed pins covered with matching coloured clay. Or if your puppets are very light, you could use double-sided sticky tape. These won't give you perfect stability, but can speed things up.

If you want to invest in a permanent base, a more expensive choice is a perforated mild steel base. Approx. £100 for 2 x 1m, 16 gauge thickness with 1’’ perforations (with the edges folded over and corners welded). The benefit with this is that you can use magnets underneath the table to hold your puppet in place. Rare earth (neodymium) magnets provide pretty good stability for animation, as long as the foot area is large enough. Magnets on their own might not be enough to hold a dancer on points, or a large dinosaur with little feet! Be aware, these are very strong magnets – handle them with care. Never put your magnets near any of the recording equipment as they will play havoc with its magnetic field. As it is perforated you may use it for screw tie-downs, but if your movements are critical, the perforations might just not be where you want them to be – so if you prefer tie-downs to magnets, use a wood base.

If you are using magnets you want to make sure the covering is no thicker than 1 mm. Christine Walker, production supervisor at Mackinnon & Saunders, remembers her days working at Cosgrove Hall Films:

They started off covering the perforated steel sets with sticky-backed plastic sheeting – terrible stuff – put it on and you'd have to sand it a bit and add a bit of texture and then you paint it. Each time you increase the depth between the magnet and the base of the foot, it's critical, because the magnetic draw drops off exponentially. So we came up with covering the sets with tissue, laying water glued tissue very fine, very thin. Then we discovered neodymium (rare earth) magnets. We needed them when we had to have texture – grass and snow, as in Pied Piper and The Fool of the World. We had problems with tie-downs because the animators weren't used to using them. On features like Nightmare Before Christmas they do several run-throughs and shoot the same scene maybe about 12 times before getting it in the can. The tie-downs are planned. But you don't have that luxury on series work, you're on a very tight budget. So that's why they've always worked with magnets.

Movement of the set is one of the animator's worst nightmares. Overnight the set may have moved. Check why this is, it may be due to camera movement, or it can be a problem with the frame grabber, or sometimes things within the set have drifted, drooped and flopped. The set can expand and contract with temperature changes. If you can keep the studio at a constant temperature, you will solve a lot of problems. At Christmas Films, a Moscow studio that provided the model animation sequences for Miracle Maker, animation happened at floor level. A back-breaking situation for the animators, but the only way they could ensure lack of movement of the set in that studio! Many animators will work through the night to get a shot finished to avoid overnight movement.

creating landscapes

If your character is going to climb up and down hills, jump into puddles, etc. you will need to think of the best way of securing it. But whichever way you choose, it is vital to keep the illusion of weight – and a crack of light showing under your puppet's feet will ruin it.

Nick Hilligoss makes a great many animated films with animals in various habitats:

If the ground's just a little built up, I use longer tie-downs. For monkeys walking on tree branches, I make hollow branches from plaster and fibreglass matting, with no back, so I can put the tie-downs in from behind. It's the same for tree trunks, rocks, hills etc. I make a mound of clay, build the shell over that (like making a mould), then pull out the clay. Then I drill holes and use the same tie-downs. It helps to make up a block like a wooden washer to put on the tie-down, to tighten the wing nut against, so it doesn't dig into the reinforced plaster. If the rock or hill rests on a flat base, I make a hole in the chipboard underneath for access. My puppets have aluminium blocks in the feet, with slots in them for the T-shaped tie-downs. On bare floors I usually fill the tie-down holes with coloured Plasticine. Then it's easy to poke the Plasticine out when pushing the tie-down up from below.

I drill holes in a path beforehand because a drill can shake the set and make sawdust. I drill more holes than I think I need then I fill them with coloured Plasticine. Some sets have a coarse velvet ‘carpet’ which can have little slits where the holes are, which don't show. And with rough ground, shot from low angle, sometimes the holes don't show anyway.

Landscape textures can be made using sawdust or sand mixed with PVA glue spread over your base paper and painted. Trees can be made with plaster, glass fibre, wood and branches. A variety of greenery and foliage can be bought in model shops, but as always, creating your own textures is the key to an individual look.

Figure 7.2 Possum's Rest. Courtesy Nick Hilligoss

To create hills and rocks and other irregular surfaces you can use 2-part urethane foam, a clear liquid and a brown liquid you mix together, which expands into pale brown rigid foam. (Health and safety note: toxic fumes released when mixing, use outside only wearing a mask.) The hardened foam is easily carved, but the surface is also easily damaged.

Flocking is another technique that can be used for a multitude of purposes. Flocking creates a velvety texture that is not only useful for close-cut grass, but also for animal skins. It can be added to make slightly longer ‘fur’. Using a flocking adhesive, similar to PVA in consistency, coated over the object or area to be flocked, you can go for two basic effects. One is just a case of sprinkling the flock over the area – which gives you a rough finish. Or you can get a smooth, uniform finish that typifies the ‘flocked’ look and use a flocking gun. This adds a static charge and stands all the fibres on end, giving it a velvety look. For thicker fur this can then be added to. (Health and safety note: Flock is an artificial fibre, so one should wear a mask to prevent any inhalation.)

buildings

There are some things for which MDF is the best material to choose: cutting smaller, complicated shapes where you need a clean edge. Buildings appearing at a distance can have detail such as windows and mouldings painted on them. But the closer ones would need the detail added in three dimensions with a reflective window surface put in. Care should be taken that any reflective surfaces don't reflect light or off-set details. Cans of anti-flare can be bought at photographic outlets. These cover reflective or shiny areas with a dulling spray. However, because it is easily cleaned off, take care as it can also be easily smeared with finger prints.

For speed, use hot glue. If there are parts of the set that need to be removed for shooting, they can be held together with clamps. Always make sure that nothing has warped, and that edges and corners are true. You don't want a light shining through a badly fitting corner on your set.

interior sets

If there are windows, what is to be seen through them? And if there are curtains, will they be expected to move? Curtains that need to be animated can have thin aluminium wire threaded along the hem. Curtains, rugs or fur can be stiffened with roller blind spray, which is basically a watered-down PVA solution. Alternatively material can be glued to heavy-duty foil.

Any props, furniture, etc. must be fixed so it cannot shift during shooting. Furniture can be hot glued but props that need to be moved about can be temporarily held in place with sticky wax, which is less springy than Blu-Tak.

Walls and floors must meet perfectly – again, an illusion can be totally ruined by a crack of light appearing between walls (see Figure 7.3).

practical lights

What's your light source? Are there interior lights? They can enrich the atmosphere and are relatively easy to set up. If it is a night scene are there practical lights to consider: table lamps and such like that will need wiring that need to be concealed? Flashlight bulbs or Christmas tree bulbs are the right sort of size for this. Small 20W halogen reflector bulbs can be used to good effect – with a domestic low voltage lighting transformer that you can buy from a hardware store for about £15 you can control the output of your various small lights.

Lighting can alter the appearance of a set, by creating illusions using shadows such as jail bars or venetian blind shades on a wall. These don't have to be built into the set, you can use a cut-out mask called a ‘gobo’ and place it in front of a light to create the shadow in the right place. A shadow effect of branches and leaves can be created in the same way, to break up a blank wall or hillside. (See Figure 7.5, page 93.)

exterior sets

Your main light source for an exterior set is the sun or the moon. Either will create shadows. You can choose a general diffuse light with no shadows – but it will give your film more life if you create a natural look that includes shadows. So when painting details such as shadows on buildings, the direction of the light needs to be ascertained in advance.

The backdrop is an important factor in the story. The size of the backdrop depends on the widest shot in the storyboard, and a skilled background painter can create a sense of great distance by use of colour and exaggerating the perspective. If the backdrop represents the sky, it should be lit mainly from below, as the sky is brightest near the horizon. Allow a space between the back of the set and the backdrop for lighting. The 150W halogen ‘garage’ lamps have a wide throw, but may need a little diffusing as the reflectors in them can cause a ‘streaky’ effect.

Figure 7.3 Example of an interior set. Puppets, sets and props made by Artem © Bob Thorne, Artem Ltd/commercial for Dairylea Lunchables; OSCAR MAYER is a registered trademark of KF Holdings, Inc. and is used with permission.

Figure 7.4 Set with practical lighting made using aluminium milled lamp shades and flashlight bulbs. Sets and props made by Artem, puppets made by Mackinnon & Saunders. © Bob Thorne, Artem Ltd/commercial for Brisk Tea/JWT

Figure 7.5 Lighting effects: examples of gobos. © DHA Lighting Ltd

Handle lamps with care: the housings of the higher intensity lamps can get extremely hot. Be aware of the heat generated and the flammability of your set. Don't put any lights too close to the set. The hotter the light the softer any clay animation will become.

forced perspective

There are several ways of creating an impression of depth in your scene. To create a forced perspective, you need a vanishing point – a point on the horizon where all your horizontal lines will meet up. The example in Figure 7.6 has a central vanishing point.

Figure 7.6 Background using forced perspective. © Bob Thorne, Artem Ltd

Place the background/backdrop at a distance from the back of your set if you need the background to be lit from below. The way you paint the backdrop helps to create depth. Distant hills/cityscapes get bluer and hazier the further away they are, a trick of the atmosphere. The sky gets lighter as it meets the horizon, and if you add a bit of yellow to the whitish strip before it meets the horizon, you'll be adding a realistic pollution haze!

If necessary you can make your set as separate strips of landscape, or cityscape, with the details on each strip getting progressively smaller as you go back. If you put a fine spray of white over the trees/buildings, getting denser and bluer the further back you get, that will help the illusion of distance. When using paints, a good reserve amount of the colours mixed should be set aside for repainting and matching.

making props

Prop-making is part of the model making department in an animation studio, as many of the same skills and materials are used. It is dependent on inventiveness and attention to detail.

Milliput, Fimo and Sculpey can all be moulded and baked hard. Model makers all have different feelings as to which materials they use for different purposes. They will collect and horde strange little bits of plastic and metal that will come in handy when making some item or other. Always keep your eyes open at junk sales, toy shops and electrical shops for items that can fit to your working scale. But when you need to get stuff in a hurry there are mailorder catalogues of prop and set building materials.

When making these miniatures, you have to think about your finger prints because a close-up shot will pick them up. Wear latex gloves if you need to.

Insulation board or polystyrene/styrofoam can be shaped with a modelling knife and filed down for less detailed items. Aluminium is good for metal fittings because it can polish up like chrome, and can be cut on a bandsaw and sanded to shape.

Newspapers, leaflets and fabrics can be stuck to heavy-duty foil, making them malleable enough to animate.

rigging

There's a range of mini scaffolding called Climpex made by S Murray and Co. They make a series of 13mm rods, connectors and clamps, mostly for use in laboratories but which have also been found useful by photographers and model animators to help prop or hang models and grip things like reflectors and boards. Needless to say it all costs an arm and a leg, but it's worth looking into because it can save a lot of toil and trouble. You should invest in a range of G-clamps along with your tool kit.

Other than Climpex, a scaffolding rig around the set for hanging lights off can also be available for attaching flying rigs. If your puppet is taking its feet off the ground, you can use fishing line or tungsten wire, attached to rigging points on your armature. Give the wire a coat of colour that'll match the background, or keep it matt with candle wax so that it doesn't pick up the light. Using a more sophisticated rigging arm is hard to hide in the filming and time-consuming to wipe out in post production, but is often the solution on a professional shoot.

There are very few rules for set design and prop making, other than the health and safety precautions when using MDF, spraying paint, etc. It's a case of experimenting, trying out different materials, collecting little bits and pieces and hoarding them for when they just might come in handy. Hobby shops are a treasure trove of miniature items, but the cost of buying ready-made objects can become exorbitant.

Figure 7.7 Climpex used to make a rig. Set by Artem, model by Mackinnon & Saunders. © Bob Thorne, Artem Ltd/Brisk Tea/JWT

glossary of materials for sets

Climpex: a range of mini-scaffolding, with clamps and accessories with a thousand uses on a set.

Fablon: the original sticky back plastic – available at DIY and stationery shops.

fibre board (MDF): available in most do-it-yourself stores. Dust when cutting is said to be carcinogenic – wearing a mask is essential.

Fimo, Sculpey, Milliput: see glossary chapter 6.

foamcore: a sandwich of set foam between two sheets thin white card, available in different thicknesses, easily cut with a scalpel or modelling knife. Available at art suppliers.

gumstrip: brown paper tape with water-based glue on one side. Available at any stationery shop.

heavy duty foil: Rosco make a black foil, also known as Black Wrap. It can be used for a variety of purposes in lighting such as cutting down spill from a light or flagging off a bit of glare on the lens. Because of its versatility, it has found its way into prop-making as it has no memory, i.e it stays exactly where it's bent, making it useful for curtains, flags or any material that has to move.

perforated steel: a sheet of mild steel with uniform perforations to use as a base for your set, allowing a choice of magnetic fixing or tie-downs for your puppet.

rare earth magnets: see glossary chapter 6.

sticky wax: a removable adhesive material useful for fixing props in place (available at model shops).

See appendix 2 for suppliers.