New 'Cyril and Daisy film'.
- Thread starter PaulR
- Start date
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- Tags
- train film
PaulR
Western Thunderer
Thanks Simon and Richard,
The odd thing is that over the past four years Cyril and Daisy have taken on strong personalities, despite being only 5 cm high and unable to move (we also have a second set slightly larger who can be set in different poses). Cyril is well meaning, hapless, poor, foolishly enthusiastic - he's obviously a clerk of some kind. Daisy is more intelligent, indulgent and kindly, passive but knowing, probably a waitress.
When we're planning the films, we just ask ourselves, 'What would Cyril or Daisy do?', the answer usually moves us on.
There are no visual digital effects in any of our films. We used a snow machine. Co-ordinating the lighting, snow machine, smoke machine, camera and the trains was quite a complex game!
I'm giving the game away a bit here, but for instance, to do the compartment interior shots we made a film of just the snow and smoke passing the camera under lights, then played it back through a laptop in front of the set while we filmed the scene, and it worked!
The sets are made out of mounting board. The trick is to make them look realistic, but also obviously toylike. We do this by making them slightly crude and with strong colours. Adding authentic sound helps create the slightly heightened illusion of (some kind of) reality. We put a lot of effort into maintaining a consistency of style, that seems to be the key to it all.
Paul
The odd thing is that over the past four years Cyril and Daisy have taken on strong personalities, despite being only 5 cm high and unable to move (we also have a second set slightly larger who can be set in different poses). Cyril is well meaning, hapless, poor, foolishly enthusiastic - he's obviously a clerk of some kind. Daisy is more intelligent, indulgent and kindly, passive but knowing, probably a waitress.
When we're planning the films, we just ask ourselves, 'What would Cyril or Daisy do?', the answer usually moves us on.
There are no visual digital effects in any of our films. We used a snow machine. Co-ordinating the lighting, snow machine, smoke machine, camera and the trains was quite a complex game!
I'm giving the game away a bit here, but for instance, to do the compartment interior shots we made a film of just the snow and smoke passing the camera under lights, then played it back through a laptop in front of the set while we filmed the scene, and it worked!
The sets are made out of mounting board. The trick is to make them look realistic, but also obviously toylike. We do this by making them slightly crude and with strong colours. Adding authentic sound helps create the slightly heightened illusion of (some kind of) reality. We put a lot of effort into maintaining a consistency of style, that seems to be the key to it all.
Paul