Gopher Golf: Gopher Shoot

Since amendments are currently being made to the Golfer puppet's measurements, and the Gopher puppet was finished a long time before the Golfer, it made sense to film the Gopher's scenes first.

These pictures are from the shoot for the Gopher's scenes.

Only the upper half of the Gopher puppet will be seen on film, so I was able to support the Gopher's posture by using the wires from underneath, to make him stand up correctly.

This is my first time using both Dragonframe and the Nikon D300 camera, so the settings were different to what I had used in the past - Canon cameras and the Stop Motion Pro software. Dragonframe was great to work with, especially because of its simplicity and having its own purpose-designed keypad, which meant I could operate the software's controls without leaving the set.

The Nikon D300 camera was more difficult to get used to at first. It took a long time to get the focus right and find out which lens was best. I had to make adjustments via Dragonframe as well, because the software wouldn't capture any images when the camera was out of focus. Thankfully the problem was down to the choice of lens - after this was resolved, the animation could continue.

These pictures show how the Gopher was attached to the set. The wires were moved to different holes when the Gopher was walking. The wires were also flexible enough to help posture the Gopher's main body.