The first step was to create the clay figures. I started on the little girl by making a disk shape, upon which I built a basic face. Next, I formed the shape of a head and smoothes the face disk onto it, creating the entire head. I then began making the body with coils and styrofoam within to add density. The last step was to add the hair piece. Meanwhile, my father had begun work on the monster. He wrapped clay around a styrofoam ball to create the monster head, adding detail as he went along. Realizing the monster could not stand properly, I provided him with a serpent tail and large arms. I also went to work on the fish.

The next step was to paint the figures. I used a combination of dyes and acrylic paint for this.

I built the set with stones, rocks, and miniature flowers collected from around Austin atop a wooden platform (raised by two speakers). The red water was made with jell-o.

Next I setup the lights. I had two tennie-weenies. One key light raised high to simulate sunlighty. And a backlight clored with red gel to add surreal flavor.

With a digital SLR, I was ready to put the characters in the set and begin animating them.

After loading thehundreds of pictures onto the computer (and assembling them in final cut together to make their various scenes), I noticed what was missing was a sense of inclusion of the viewer within the set.

So once more, I assembled plants and flowers and shot them atop a blue screen. I loaded these pictures into final cut and composited them over the scenes I needed them for. I then applied thick gausian blur to provided the sense of their fore-groundedness.

Finally, I assembled the sounds I needed and began work on attempting to create my own version of a japanese song, using samples from a koto. Unsatisfied with the music I created, I found an authentic clip of Japanese music to play and resolved to play my music at the close, with the credits.

To view a video of making of, watch below. Scrub through the video manually to view each production photo.