buttons and paper dolls

I don't remember if I mentioned before, but in the "floor sequences", that Isadora creates for String man there are paper cut out versions of them that move around to create the memory sequence from their past. These will blur out, then blur back in with the real memory and real 3d puppets.

Ryan gently pointed out while we were shooting that it looks like Isadora is doing the "soulja boy" dance. You have no idea until you see the video. Either that or the Hula, but Soulja boy is much more funny.


Um... yes, that is a mouth in the floor made out of a wad of gum. Yes, it sings. And Yes, it spits out a bunch of stuff when it is done singing. It's made out of Sculpy actually, which I had to put in the fridge so it wouldn't melt to itself so quickly with the hot lights.

The gum is one of those weird things String man finds in a jar on her side table. He takes it out, gets it all stuck on his hands and then drops it on the ground, where it rollspast the carpet and forms into a snail, slugs along to this one spot, and then forms a mouth.

a really bad Flash picture of the paper puppet next to Isadora.


string man's puppet. I'll have to take a pic of the back of the paper puppets to show how I connected them together in a way that was animateable. I drew and water colored them on watercolor paper, cut them out, reinforced them with cardboard from a Cereal box, then glued and taped rubber bands onto them at the joints.


In the end of the memory sequence in the flower field, string man kisses Isadora, only to find that he gets stuck to her lips with this blasted gum(a symbol throughout the video of things that just won't go away... and one of the lyrics in the song), and that the gum lips are attached to a pile of stuff, no longer Isadora(Howard's idea!) It transitions back to the paper puppets on the floor, and that's what you see here.


The last shot in the video. After String Man takes her back to the flower field, in the last 4 seconds of the song after the last line is sung, the image transitions back to the paper puppets on the floor, who float up off screen. All the items on the ground scatter off screen. She lets go of the flower as they float away and te flower tumbles off screen last.


I am alllllll done with the floor animation, now onto the real puppets.