Red and Blue Fall in Love (Part 1)

For the Hoot of my heart.

This is really only half of the film.  Rest of video to follow.  Red and Blue Hoot are on sabbatical.

This is a very personal film based on some experiences while I was in London, Summer 2011.  The first scene is where Red and Blue meet at an airport.  They are slightly shocked and curious about one another, and decide the natural thing is to spend some time together.  They go to the London Film Museum and enjoy exhibits featuring Medusa and a Tardis.  While there, Blue surprises Red with a small and very appreciated gift.  Then, they visit the Natural History Museum.  While Red is enjoying the various rocks and dinosaur bones, Blue makes a couple attempts to show how he feels by going up and hugging her.  But poor Blue can't quite work up the courage to do it.

This film was a huge undertaking for me.  In it, I experimented with moving camera angles and different forms of Hoot expression (blinking, eye widening, head movement).  This time, the Hoots were made with actual modeling clay (except the white fronts, eyes and beaks).  The Hoots needed to remain posable after days and weeks of their creation, and clay is the only way to do this.  Just about all of the other background props are made with play-doh or a play-doh knockoff.  Most of my troubles were in the first scene, where the wall in the airport fell down, and one of Red's eyes fell off once.

One bad thing about using clay for the Hoots is that after some time, the Hoots became shorter and fatter.  I took nearly a month to shoot these first few scenes, so perhaps if I did this project faster, their body shape wouldn't have succumbed to gravity as greatly as it did.

I took my time to capture as many frames as possible to make the movements seem as fluid as I could.  This made for long shooting days and frustration over progress.  I both love and hate shooting days.  I love them because the film is actually getting made, but I hate them because they take so long and I'm already afraid that my shaky hands will cause disaster.

The music I like to call "Red and Blue's Theme".  I'm very attached to it and think it fits this montage nicely.  Sadly, I cannot play the piano, so this is about as complex as I can make the music, but hopefully over the next few months I can teach myself a thing or two.  Mainly, how to play with two hands at the same time.

The other half of the film will feature 3 more scenes, tying everything up.  Filming has not yet started, but it has next billing.