Notes from Halfland

A phone grab of the set in progress last week from the longest possible view within the room. A proper wider angle lens is needed to capture it correctly. It was a rare splash-out day to be a...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/09/its-long-shot.html

Just ham-fisting my way through the process of experimenting with equipment, small limited puppets, disco lighting, and generating GIF crossfade effects, i.e.; a learning curve. It was a BI...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/08/pushing-everyone-around.html

Forming black feather filaments into suggestions of English letters. When I started to see how it could be done, I doubted I could manipulate the delicate threads of a crow's feather to...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/08/a-feather-falls-at-dusk.html

Germinated palm trees are on the left, and Halfland's close-up ground set surface, on the right. Several years ago, I swept fallen palm tree dates into the parkway in front of our house...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/08/growing-my-own.html

  A grand 1/2L illusion, just a chewed leaf at first, reveals another message upon a closer look. A well-eaten leaf saved from my garden has the title card for Akt 2, "Day," hidden in its m...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/07/a-real-leaf.html

A new bug will be attending the Bug Party scene. This little drab fellow has their antennae festooned with colorful flower petals. They'll have a great night.  I noticed my Acanthas* plant'...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/07/a-banner-day.html

  Every once in a while, I get to wondering how I might present the Halfland animations floating and reflected inside a dark glass bottle.  I put a scrap piece of silver mylar on the insi...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-dust-is-real.html

I used the little bug clip taken with a close-up camera, no onion skinning, raw doggin, into PS to begin to learn its animation capabilities. Learned to lock down camera as well as puppet. Lea...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/07/jitter-bug.html

8 frames of MARIE-GEORGES-JEAN MÉLIÈS, Eclipse de Soleil, commissioned in part for a revue at a Paris music hall in 1907. He was a French magician , actor , and film director . He led ...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/06/a-hint-of-new-animation-style-im-going.html

Patron Paul shot this photo today of my shooting setup. Ms. Honeypot Ant has been performing her bit of business for Halfland's Bug Party scene. Several things are happening at once here...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/06/beginning-to-shoot-solos.html

Storm Watch Safe As In My Mother's Womb Heart of Coal Oscar Wilde is quoted as saying, "Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic." Since my mother's death ...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/06/every-exquisite-thing.html

Hi, I'm another new addition to the Bug Party, just completed. My maker had wanted this pun in the scene for a long time, but it wasn't until she needed a tiny 3D miniature for another project t...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/06/have-dose-of-new-pill-bug.html

The Writing Mouse character carries his journals on his back wherever he goes. These are his memories. Sometimes, things come together in Halfland as I watch. I have to keep paying attention...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-burden-of-our-memories.html

After making more attendees for Halfland's Bug Party, a large extra crystal bead spontaneously turned into a Honeypot ant, similar to the ones shown above. They're looking soiree-ready with ti...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/04/more-party-bugs.html

While making more Quick Bug puppets and organizing the workroom, I came across an unused giant fly puppet I'd built for a book illustration and thought it might make a better cicada peeking a...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/04/instant-insect-intricacy.html

1" dia x 48" L Round Poplar Dowel  $5 5mm x 4' x 8' Poplar Sanded Luan Plywood  $30 1" x 12" x 8' Unfinished #2 Pine Board  $23 1" x 6" Woodboring Spade Drill Bit  $6 1" x 2" x 8"...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/03/diy-distortion-mirror.html

I made his tiny eyes look dizzy because he'll be spinning and wiggling his tail to the beat. (Doesn't the soft, pretty bokeh of the party lanterns look magical in the background?! I love my n...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/03/stupid-project-goldfish-disco-ball-for.html

Shot with my magical shooting setup, the S5, with a tilt plane lens and 13mm extension magnifier ring. So much of what has been built in Halfland has been done in between. Between work projec...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/02/stupid-projects-bug-party-flower.html

Just came across these images of English actress Y Fitzroy taken by portraitist Alexander Bassano. The backdrop in them is EXACTLY my ideal for the Halfland set. Everything, the foreground di...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/02/backdrop-artistry.html

  Dick checks out the complete book spreads of Lona: A Fairy Tale spread out on my attic floor. Halfland Hero Dick Kaneshiro agreed to come for a socially distanced visit the other day. I...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/02/lona-study-dick-kaneshiro-visit.html

Here, we see a fully transparent frog from underneath. I had no idea such a creature existed when I made Halfland's Timefrog's transparent clockwork and organ belly! These frames were grabbed f...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2024/01/halfland-in-wild.html

  The refurbished Bay Windowseat Wall for the Main Set Cottage is complete  and not only completes the Cottage Set, it is actually also the stages for THREE separate Halfland scenes insi...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2023/12/one-wall-three-scenes.html

Kyelynn is helping me each week for two to three hours to construct the maximum landscape around the main cottage set. We use salvaged cardboard boxes attached to either the wall on the left ...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2023/12/lands-edge.html

Now that the Window Seat set is finally finished, I started blocking the Lacemaking Spider's shots as a director. Even though the puppet wasn't fully dressed,  He was installed for his scene in ...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2023/11/why-spiders-hide.html

Straight from the camera, I can get a glimpse of the storybook poetry Halfland props and sets can provide. Here, the little tea tray settled on a cushette in the window seat set at Dusk, feat...

http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/2023/11/get-details.html