THE ART OF STOP MOTION ANIMATION: SCI-FI CINEMA

SCI-FI CINEMA
(1982)

BEHIND THE SCENES PHOTOS

Alien armature
built by Mike Walker.

Alien sculpture by Mike Walker.

PLOT

A cosmic starfield fades onto the television screen. Suddenly, a humanoid alien creature lurches from the bottom of the frame. It roars and bellows. Two fiery meteors zoom towards and past the creature. Enraged, the alien grabs a laser rifle, sets the trigger mechanism, and begins firing. The alien then turns and fires at you. The screen flares to white.

**CREDITS**
CONCEPT:	Dan Taylor Mike Walker Dave Hartlove
CREATURE CONSTRUCTION:	Dan Taylor Mike Walker Alan Burton
ARMATURE CONSTRUCTION:	Mike Walker
ALIEN SCULPTOR:	Mike Walker
ALIEN PAINTER:	Alan Burton
ANIMATOR:	Dan Taylor
ROTOSCOPE ANIMATION:	Mike Walker Dave Hartlove
STARFIELD PAINTING:	Dave Hartlove
PLANET PAINTING:	Alan Burton
LASER CANNON:	Mike Walker

BEHIND THE SCENES INFO

The idea for the Sci-Fi Cinema opening belongs to Dan Taylor, a Maryland-based special effects technician. Together with the Consolidated Visual Center (CVC), a Maryland animation house, Dan created Sci-Fi Cinema as a "stock" opening for syndication to television stations throughout the country.

The model of the alien creature is a truly fascinating creation. It was constructed and modified over a two year period by Dan Taylor, Mike Walker and Alan Burton. Mike built the ball-and-socket armature. The creature was cast in foam latex from a 5-piece mold and it was finished with glass taxidermy eyes (bird type) and a paint job by Alan Burton, who used a mixture of acrylic paint, liquid latex and ammonia which was thin enough to be airbrushed, for a finer blending of colors.

Once the model was ready for the camera, it was filmed using the front light-back light sytem for matting. This process consists of filming the model in front of a large sheet of backlit plexiglass called "milk-plex" or "opal glass". It is a white, translucent plexiglass that allows the light from behind to be spread evenly. The larger the piece of plexiglass the better, since the farther you can place it from the model, the sharper the silhouette (your matte) will be.

The front light-back light matte process involves shooting two frames for each position of the model. The first frame will be shot with the normally lit model. The second frame involves turning off all the lights except for the one behind the plexiglass (Dan used a 1,000-watt Mole-Richardson "broad light") and, without moving the model, exposing the next frame. What you will see during this pass is a black silhouette of your model in front of a bright, white screen. This frame will be the matte you will use to composite your creature against any desired background. When you're finished, you will have a piece of film that alternates from the normally lit model to the black and white silhouette.

This strip of film is then taken to a lab where it is skip printed twice. One of the prints will only have the frames of the normally lit model and the other strip of film will only have the mattes. The matte strip will then be printed onto hi-contrast (hi-con) positive and negative film. The negative strip is called a "hollow core matte", which is clear where the creature is and solid black all around it. The positive is called a "solid core matte", which is solid black where the creature appears and clear all around it. These strips of film will later be loaded into an optical printer along with a print of the background, where they will be combined to create one strip of film of the alien in front of the background.

For more information on the making of this fascinating, fully animated opening, check out Stop Motion Animation Vol. 2, which is available from Cinema Enterprises. Their address is listed in the Books section of this site.