A YEAR IN MOTION

2014 was an incredible year and one that was also incredibly fast paced! Throughout the year there were several accomplishments that took place at lightning speed- Many in my personal life and even more on a world wide scale! To honor the year and all that it brought I wanted to take 6 of the most impactful moments of 2014 and bundle them into a funky little video that would be simple and fun for all to view. I looked at my calendar and it was December 9th, this meant to have the video ready for yearend I knew I had to hustle.

Here were the challenges:

Video length: The video had to be short to fit the time constraints
Speed: Problem solving had to be quick and effective we had to take the path of least resistance when executing fun camera tricks
Costs: Since this was a personal project we had a small budget and costs had to be kept to a minimum

It took two days to come up with the concept and planning. Because of the time factor, we chose to move ahead without an animatic- This meant that for the first time that year, I would be shooting a stop motion without a guide. We were going in blind, so we had to be extremely careful and constantly think 10 steps ahead so as to not to have to reshoot.

Once the concept was finalized my mantra moving forward was ‘KEEP IT SIMPLE!’ This was our biggest challenge. I personally love to get lost in complexities, to solve puzzles and come up with new and unusual ways to experiment with fun ideas. The time constraint meant as much as I would have loved to, I couldn’t do this with RECAP 2014- Instead we had to find the simplest, quickest and most effective method to execute every idea.
During the shooting process I had to make a number of executive decisions that changed the actual animation and in some cases even the whole scene. To stay on track I had to keep in the forefront of my mind the message, the art direction and the quality of the project.

Because of the run and gun nature of this stop motion I knew I needed the right tools for the job and the Kessler Second shooter felt like it was built just for this. My camera moves stayed true to my mantra and were kept within 3 key frames so this system executed flawlessly! With super quick set up times we were even able to use it to shoot some making of time lapses with it.

The team consisted of Zohaib Sheikh, a child hood friend who wanted to learn more about my world and was brought on as a producer-in-training. Zohaib was a great sport who kept up with the fast paced changes and early morning starts!

Simon Haung who was one of my biggest assets on set. Simon is an aspiring film maker and the newest member of my team and will be working alongside me through this year. His unique way of breaking things down from a 3D visual effects perspective was a huge plus that allowed us to cut a lot of corners and execute a lot more within a tight time frame.

Fahad Ahmed, a sound designer/ producer who has worked with me on some of my first few stop motion adverts was more than happy to jump onboard and kill it as he always does!

4 days of shooting and 2 days of post resulted in Recap 2014, or shall I say a guerrilla style Stopmotion. I know it’s rough around the edges in some areas and there are a few things that I would have taken some more time in perfecting if I had the chance. However, I am extremely thrilled to know that even under crazy deadlines we were able to conceptualize, shoot, edit and deliver a video that we can all be super proud of!

Here’s to a new year! May 2015 be a super creative one for everyone!