Lighting The Way
Lighting the Way was a collaborative effort with two of my peers. Our intentions with making this short film was to explore stop motion as a medium for animation. We came with a story that we wanted to animate a small snippet of. The story is filled with mysticism and delves into the world of two moth humanoid creatures. They are apprentice and master. The master teaches the apprentice the importance of their job; which is lighting the stars in the sky. Without these moth creatures, the sky would be without any stars which would be detrimental to others in this universe that use the stars to traverse the world.
The designs for these two characters were brainstormed by all of the team members but we had felt that my initial designs (which you can see to the left) felt most appropriate. We then built off of those initial sketches and landed on the designs of the puppets you see now. I was tasked with making the puppet rigs as well as sewing a majority of the clothing. That was an extremely fun process.  I learned that I really enjoyed sewing tiny clothing for the puppets and my heart filled with pride when they fit wonderfully with minimal adjustments necessary.  What I learned also was that I love focusing on the small details that go into making something perfect. I found myself making sure that  everything that I contributed to was a reflection of my best work. 

 
I think overall, the hardest thing about this whole experience was to be able to problem solve. A lot of things went wrong and since we were on a time and budget crunch we had to be extremely resourceful and efficient. I think what I learned from this experience was that communication between members is very important. If you have hesitance about something or if you are struggling with a specific aspect, it is important to voice those so that everyone can come together and help each other out.