Puppet Making And Stop Motion Behind The Scenes

Apr 3

There Is No I In Island (2021)

Film still from There Is No I In Island, ‘Singing Grubs and Spiders’. Puppet by Jenae Hall and Vivien Mason, character design and background art by Sally McAteer, compositing by Aaron Luke Wilson.

WATCH: Singing Grubs & Spiders - There Is No I In Island- Ep 3

In January and February 2021 Super Fun Happy Time had the exciting opportunity to provide expertise and studio space for an episode of There Is No I In Island, a five part animated documentary series funded by Screen Australia. The production took around six weeks and resulted in a beautiful 5 minute short film featuring a wondrous cave of lip synced singing creatures. We made bats, fish, a velvet worm, cave beetles, cave snails and a Tasmanian Devil skeleton. The designs took a little bit of inspiration from the Brothers Quay and Jan Svankmajer, plus a few design ideas from rubber hose animation.

We engaged designer Sally McAteer to create concept art and backgrounds, and then our own stop motion enthusiast Vivien Mason worked with puppet makers/animators Jenae Hall and Avon Blazely to realise the puppets and the backgrounds. Finishing touches were added by compositor Aaron Luke Wilson.

The puppets were created using wire, Sculpey, foam, fabric and acrylic paint, and were shot using Dragonframe.

The series explored documentary audio recordings from 2020 lockdown and was produced by Rummin. Members of the public donated recordings of their own thoughts and experiences, creating a fascinating record of the experience of the 2020 COVID 19 pandemic. Our stop motion episode ‘Singing Grubs and Spiders’ focused on participants experience of music to express their emotions and was directed by Rebecca Thomson.

You can read more about the production of There Is No I In Island here, or find updates about festival screenings on the film’s Facebook page.