Merry Christmas

Myself and visual artist Becca Rose decided it would be nice to make an animated film to send out to friends an colleagues as an alternative Christmas card. I'd been away from animation for a while so it was great fun to make another short. The film is low-fi, playful and silly and very Christmassy (it even has snow). Click on the still below to watch the film.

Star of Wonder from Joseph Wallace on Vimeo.

We wanted to make something immediate and simple and I saw the project almost as an extension of my 2007 short Showdown at Yohoko Valley. I started by sketching out a really quick storyboard illustrating the main beats of the story. I then scanned these in and made a rough animatic to work out timing but I didn't want to let this dictate the shoot too much as there are always new options presented whilst animating.

We sourced and borrowed the toys from various people and made the set really quickly from cardboard, fabric and paper. We shot the film in one day in Becca's studio using basic posable lamps and shot on my Canon 60d with the brilliant Dragonframe. Here are some photos of the process:

Becca Rose cutting out tiny letter for the credits

Me animating the sheep

The set up

Making the star appear above the shepherd on some very stable string rigging..

Teeny weeny words

Working with Dragonframe

Animating the credits

Merry Christmas and a happy new year!