Viewfinder
Viewfinder is a short stop motion animation project that I created in 2005 while attending Ithaca College. The premise was pretty simple and self reflexive – a camera walks around and makes inanimate objects come to life.
The miniature set was laid out on sawhorses in my 10’x10′ bedroom and comprised of moss, branches, stones, bones, and other found objects.
The trees were dried branches, screwed from below, to a plywood base. Chickenwire hills were draped in landscaping fabric and then covered with moss. The whole thing had to be misted every day to keep it from drying out.
A painted sheet, stretched over a wooden frame and lit from behind, served as the sky. The sky was moved around the set depending on the angle of the shot.
Smaller sets, like the well and cave, were laid out on the floor and shot from above. Each set was dismantled before the next was set up due to space constraints.
This moveable forest backdrop could be clamped onto any part of the miniature set
Looking through the set with the moveable forest and backlit sky in the background
Animating the camera character
Breaking down the set for the “man in the cave”