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The Haunting at Danford Cabin - Stop Motion Animation

genshi

Active Member
I thought I'd share my first attempt at stop-motion filmmaking. I did this a couple of years ago and shot it all on the iPhone. I Directed, Edited and did the Music Score and all the Foley work (old school foley; recording my footsteps, door creaks, etc. with the Zoom H4N.)

Never actually went to film school, and am mostly a composer, but wanted to start doing my own films to showcase my music and sound design (easier than waiting around for someone to hire me as a composer!) I was fortunate enough to actually have this run in a few film festivals, and it won the 2012 iPhone Film Festival...

Hope you enjoy! Comments welcomed. Oh, and make sure to stay tuned after the credits for the grizzly bonus scene!

 
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I liked it! I'm always down for horror movies, and horror movies made in a very unconventional way (as this one is) 1. Creates a reality I believe in 2. Does unnatural things inside of that reality. The combination of these two things creates a situation where the ghost seems more real because it exactly obeys the rules set up by the movie itself - that things are done in stop motion, that people are made of cloth, that the ground looks this way, that houses look that way. Whereas when I watch "normal" horror movies and see, say, Freddie Krueger or Jason, I see the special effects bending around the live action, and it's less real for me. When everything is less real (as it is in your film), it makes the horror more real.

Cool stuff.
 
I liked it! I'm always down for horror movies, and horror movies made in a very unconventional way (as this one is) 1. Creates a reality I believe in 2. Does unnatural things inside of that reality. The combination of these two things creates a situation where the ghost seems more real because it exactly obeys the rules set up by the movie itself - that things are done in stop motion, that people are made of cloth, that the ground looks this way, that houses look that way. Whereas when I watch "normal" horror movies and see, say, Freddie Krueger or Jason, I see the special effects bending around the live action, and it's less real for me. When everything is less real (as it is in your film), it makes the horror more real.

Cool stuff.

Thank you Punky! I really appreciate the kind words. And you are very astute; I wanted to make sure that there was no CGI or superimposed post effects. So, for example, the ghost near the end when the door is open used the century old Pepper's Ghost effect, a pane of glass with the ghost lit off to the side so it's reflection would show on the glass. Unfortunately you can see the edges of the glass, which kind of spoils the effect (it could have also been lit better.)

But it was a learning experience more than anything and I'm hoping to apply what's I've learned on a live action mixed with stop-motion short soon! Thanks again!
 

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