Joy - House Sequence Shoot (Week 1)

The house shoot is being split up into two separate shoots, as there is so much footage needed in the house set. This weekend we filmed all the sequences with Harold in his day clothes.

The house is our favourite set and it was exciting to see all the rooms together and completed for the first time. Unlike the other sets, which we made during the week and shot at the weekend, this set has been in development since the beginning of the project, as there were so many small details that needed to be incorporated to create Harold’s home.

This set has been the easiest to light in as we were able to realistically have two light sources (internal and external). We were the most un-restricted we have ever been in terms of camera angles because everything is contained within the walls, so we were able to get some lovely shots, however this also restricted us more than ever in terms of animating space.

After a wobbly start from Harold the shoot went really well in all, and we are looking forward to filming Harold in his pyjamas next week!

Joy - Dream Sequence Shoot

This is the most experimental sequence in the film, where we delve into Harold’s dream world. This was a very exciting prospect design wise as it enabled us to explore a different aesthetic to the rest of the film.

To achieve the dream sequence we have utilised two new forms of puppetry as well as chroma key to allow us to layer footage of shadow puppets behind the string puppets.

It was a very challenging and ambitious shoot in many ways. As one person was manipulating the puppets via their strings, the other was shooting in stop motion. We were also animating the set; breaking the world in two. This proved difficult in terms of camera angles, especially as Joy was hanging on the side of a cliff!

Joy - Memory Sequence Shoot

This is another shoot that we have decided to re-shoot to make the action smoother, as it was very fiddly to animate the layers of paper.

This is the first example of us using a different style of animation. We chose to use 2D paper cutouts to portray Harold’s memories. This footage will be incorporated into Harold’s scrapbook in the edit, to make it appear as though the photo’s in his book are coming to life in his mind.

Joy - Church Sequence Shoot

The church has been our favourite set to make so far as it involved more detail than the previous settings.

The shoot went very well, especially considering we had to make Harold walk for the first time. The only issue we had was restricted camera angles due to the size of the set.