Wildlife on Mars, Past and Future... Part 1
I first came up with the concept of Wildlife on Mars way back in 2004 during my BA Animation Degree at the University of Central Lancashire. I wanted to make something new, that hadn't been done before but still held a loving homage to the stop-motion creature effects of my idol, Ray Harryhausen.
So, after many ideas ranging from generic comedy spoofs to "art house" film, none really felt right for me and I decided to follow my instincts and stick with what I knew best...Dinosaurs!
I started to think a little more outside the box, thinking to myself "Mars was always a good source of science fiction in the past, could it work for me?", and at the time news of evidence of frozen water on Mars and the possibilities of "life" on Mars were in all the papers.
Dinosaurs have always been popular in the public eye, Jurassic Park 3 was the most recently released film from 2001 and Peter Jackson was tackling his own passion project for a remake of King Kong. But how to combine the two was still problematic, I couldn't do it in modern times as the public wouldn't have bought the concept and I couldn't simply put Dinosaurs ON Mars as again the public would not have found it believable. Then I started to think "what if it was the past but the distant past, like prehistoric?", even by the current standards of science's understanding of Mars, we have never set foot on Mars or truly explored its terrain in great detail, we have only gathered data from photos and a hand full of samples brought back by rovers and satellites and there's only so much they can tell us. The more I thought about it, the more the idea had a greater appeal to me, the scope of possibilities started to unfold.
THIS was to become MY PROJECT!
In the space of a year I threw ideas, concepts and storyboards around, eventually coming up with the original backbone of Wildlife on Mars. From the sculpting of the creatures to animating them, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process.
I used Newplast clay for sculpting the creatures which I found both a blessing and a curse, it would allow me to have the fine details I wanted in the muscle and fat tones but it was far to soft for me to sculpt skin textures onto the creatures without loosing them to being knocked or rubbed out due to the body temperature of my hands and fingers. Using plastic necklace beads for the eyes and milliput for the claws of my creatures, I was happy with the end result.
At the time we only had plaster for mold making, this was always tricky for me back then, making sure it was the right mix ratio, ensuring I had covered all angles so there would be little clean up afterwards and ensuring they were big enough to fit in the oven we had. Over the years I have grown a greater understanding of making molds well so they have the thinnest seam line for cleanup after casting. Two of the four puppets for Wildlife on Mars were made as a two part mold, the remaining two we're between two part molds and three part molds.
Back then we didn't have access to places that sold ball & socket armature kits, it was either something you had to purchase from a professional or make yourself from scratch and the technicians at the time sadly didn't have the skill level or the knowledge to help you make one.
The only place you could get them (as far we where aware of anyway) was John Wright Model making and believe me they are worth the cost but for a student film on a tight budget the are TOO expensive, so sadly we only had access to aluminium wire armatures, which worked for some creatures but not all. I used plastazote (I always describe it like a plastic Areo sheet) to bulk out the denser areas that needed to be manipulated, like the skull, rib cage and hips. It's light, easy to cut and can be glued together with either a hot glue gun or two part epoxy glue.
I had more or less worked with foam latex the whole three years of my BA course so by the time I came to casting these for my 3rd year film I was all ready well educated on how to get the right density of foam for the puppets, and this time I was trialing out a new painting technique, on previous puppets I had always applied the paints with a brush which clogs up the bristles and results with a unusable brush, this time I was spraying them on. It worked a treat, it even added the additional texture to the smooth surfaces of all the original sculpts.
Tackling the set was my next challenge, I wanted to use as much natural looking materials as possible (inspired by the use of such materials in 1933's King Kong and Ray Harryhausen's works) I mainly used potpourri for my martian plant life and model lichen for the denser grasses and mosses. In some cases I would build a plant from scratch such a giant mushroom that would grow from an old trees roots. For the trees I just used fallen branches but carefully selecting those that looked the right scale in contrast to the puppets. I also designed the set that it could be swapped around therefore creating a new set whilst using the same props.
When it came to shooting the puppets I used pins to secure them down to the set, I strongly advise against this to anyone who wants to try this method, it hurts you finger tips after repeated use and unless you have a puppet with a similar looking colour the steel pin head stands out. I think it took me about 10 weeks to animate and edit all the scene together and that everything I shot was pretty much the first pass and not very many reshoots.
In the end it landed me with a 2:1 BA Degree in Animation (and it would have been a 1st had it not been for 3 or 4 marks down), I was always proud of that and I never look back at my time from 2002 -2005 in a negative way, only in how I can see opportunities to improve and better the chances of future stop-motion students.
In hindsight, it wasn't the way I had imagined it. The outcome I was aiming for was that of a type of BBC wildlife documentary, showing the lives of four creatures living on prehistoric Mars. It was an interesting idea at the time, but it didn't quite meet the personal level of quality I had hoped for.
After repeated viewing I began to realise the errors in my judgement, the episode formula was repetitive and some scenes were just boring to watch, especially since I had desired to cut the scripted dialog since I couldn't find any voice talent subtitle to play the roll I had in mind. However, I did realise that the way I had built my sets did indeed make the small space become larger and deeper to the viewers.
It would be quite a few years before I touched the Wildlife On Mars Project again, but this time I had a real goal rather than just a degree...
So, after many ideas ranging from generic comedy spoofs to "art house" film, none really felt right for me and I decided to follow my instincts and stick with what I knew best...Dinosaurs!
I started to think a little more outside the box, thinking to myself "Mars was always a good source of science fiction in the past, could it work for me?", and at the time news of evidence of frozen water on Mars and the possibilities of "life" on Mars were in all the papers.
Dinosaurs have always been popular in the public eye, Jurassic Park 3 was the most recently released film from 2001 and Peter Jackson was tackling his own passion project for a remake of King Kong. But how to combine the two was still problematic, I couldn't do it in modern times as the public wouldn't have bought the concept and I couldn't simply put Dinosaurs ON Mars as again the public would not have found it believable. Then I started to think "what if it was the past but the distant past, like prehistoric?", even by the current standards of science's understanding of Mars, we have never set foot on Mars or truly explored its terrain in great detail, we have only gathered data from photos and a hand full of samples brought back by rovers and satellites and there's only so much they can tell us. The more I thought about it, the more the idea had a greater appeal to me, the scope of possibilities started to unfold.
THIS was to become MY PROJECT!
 |
| Concept of the Martian Rex with its kill. |
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| Concept of a early scene that would later be removed due to time constraints. |
I used Newplast clay for sculpting the creatures which I found both a blessing and a curse, it would allow me to have the fine details I wanted in the muscle and fat tones but it was far to soft for me to sculpt skin textures onto the creatures without loosing them to being knocked or rubbed out due to the body temperature of my hands and fingers. Using plastic necklace beads for the eyes and milliput for the claws of my creatures, I was happy with the end result.
 |
| Newplast sculpt of the Vaccamimus puppet 2004 |
 |
| Newplast sculpt of the Martian Rex, here I had to develop the tail, arms and legs as separate sections for easy casting 2004 |
Back then we didn't have access to places that sold ball & socket armature kits, it was either something you had to purchase from a professional or make yourself from scratch and the technicians at the time sadly didn't have the skill level or the knowledge to help you make one.
The only place you could get them (as far we where aware of anyway) was John Wright Model making and believe me they are worth the cost but for a student film on a tight budget the are TOO expensive, so sadly we only had access to aluminium wire armatures, which worked for some creatures but not all. I used plastazote (I always describe it like a plastic Areo sheet) to bulk out the denser areas that needed to be manipulated, like the skull, rib cage and hips. It's light, easy to cut and can be glued together with either a hot glue gun or two part epoxy glue.
I had more or less worked with foam latex the whole three years of my BA course so by the time I came to casting these for my 3rd year film I was all ready well educated on how to get the right density of foam for the puppets, and this time I was trialing out a new painting technique, on previous puppets I had always applied the paints with a brush which clogs up the bristles and results with a unusable brush, this time I was spraying them on. It worked a treat, it even added the additional texture to the smooth surfaces of all the original sculpts.
Tackling the set was my next challenge, I wanted to use as much natural looking materials as possible (inspired by the use of such materials in 1933's King Kong and Ray Harryhausen's works) I mainly used potpourri for my martian plant life and model lichen for the denser grasses and mosses. In some cases I would build a plant from scratch such a giant mushroom that would grow from an old trees roots. For the trees I just used fallen branches but carefully selecting those that looked the right scale in contrast to the puppets. I also designed the set that it could be swapped around therefore creating a new set whilst using the same props.
 |
| Martian Rex: Foam Latex Puppet. |
 |
| Vaccamimus: Foam Latex Puppet on set |
In the end it landed me with a 2:1 BA Degree in Animation (and it would have been a 1st had it not been for 3 or 4 marks down), I was always proud of that and I never look back at my time from 2002 -2005 in a negative way, only in how I can see opportunities to improve and better the chances of future stop-motion students.
In hindsight, it wasn't the way I had imagined it. The outcome I was aiming for was that of a type of BBC wildlife documentary, showing the lives of four creatures living on prehistoric Mars. It was an interesting idea at the time, but it didn't quite meet the personal level of quality I had hoped for.
After repeated viewing I began to realise the errors in my judgement, the episode formula was repetitive and some scenes were just boring to watch, especially since I had desired to cut the scripted dialog since I couldn't find any voice talent subtitle to play the roll I had in mind. However, I did realise that the way I had built my sets did indeed make the small space become larger and deeper to the viewers.
It would be quite a few years before I touched the Wildlife On Mars Project again, but this time I had a real goal rather than just a degree...
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