Going Up

"One stormy night long ago, five people stepped through the door of an elevator and into a nightmare. That door is opening once again and this time, it's opening for you."
– Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

Hi friends! This summer has flown by. I’ve been juggling a new freelance project with finishing this film, and a potential move this fall (more on that soon!), and trying to stay sane throughout it all. Long story short – we are moving in October, and I need to finish shooting all scenes of my film before then. Of course I also picked up a freelance gig around the same time (everything happens all at once, right?), so I’ve been waking up early to work on the film before freelance commitments. Just trying to finish it all! :-0

I am very very close to finishing shooting (!) but still have quite a bit of post production ahead of me. Editing, rig removal, cleanup, sound, etc is still on the horizon. But it’s still so exciting to wrap up this stage of the process. It’s taken me about one year to make, and I kind of can’t believe it’s almost done.

Here are a few stills and process photos from building the elevator scene. The Tower of Terror quote kept ringing through my mind as I built it. They don’t have much in common story-wise, but perhaps a subconscious visual reference :) . The elevator itself is inspired by an old office building in my neighborhood – it feels a little bit haunted, like I might accidentally step out into an abyss at floor 7 or something.

The inspiration for these characters came from loose sketches I did on a post-it – I wanted them to feel like depressed soulless folks you’d find wandering in an abandoned 80’s office building. I had to build most of this in the wee early hours before logging into work, so I have odd memories of sculpting puppet faces and sewing tiny clothes at 5:30 am in the dark haha.

I really loved how the little belt turned out. I had a piece of scrap leather lying around and cut off a small thin piece for the belt, then bent a piece of gold wire into a square for the clasp. I used a needle to poke holes in the belt, to make it feel real.

After making their clothes I sculpted their faces. I love the mixed-media effect of using fabric paired with clay.

And finally I secured them into the stage with bolts, threaded through t-nuts hidden in their shoes. Here they are all together, ready to be animated!