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We are delighted to reveal our latest Film of the Month winner Pandora's Egg Box, a modern reworking of the Ancient Greek tale by talented animator Ben, from Bedford.
In Pandora's Egg Box (engaging for ages 7+) all sorts of mischief begins after accidentally buying Pandora's Egg Box and bringing it home from the supermarket, told through stop frame animation.
A stunning stop frame animation and an imaginative retelling of an ancient tale.
Film of the Month Judge on 'Pandora's Egg Box'
We caught up with Ben to find out more about his filmmaking process.
I used to make funny films with my older brothers and sister when I was really young and I watched the animations my older brothers made. I made my first animation with my sister when I was 9, on a one-day course.
When I was 11, I wanted to enter a young filmmaker's competition. The theme was "A Senseof Hope', and I thought about twisting the Greek story of Pandora's Box which ends with Hope coming out of the box. It seemed funny to make it an egg box instead, and so I created seven deadly sin characters with different coloured eggs. Envy was green, Greed was orange, Wrath was red, Pride was grey, Gluttony was yellow and so on.
It was my first independent animation, and I made loads of mistakes, the most obvious being that the lighting was too dark. I remade it when I was 17, as I still loved the idea but could improve it as I was older and better at animating.
I kept all the deadly sins in their original colours but added War, who is purple and explodes, because it is in the original Greek story. Hopefully, you can work out each vice from the way they are acting. Also, this time Hope is human, and has had practise at keeping the Deadly Sins under control.
The kitchen is made of white foamboard stuck onto a wooden frame, which the lights are attached to. I use three garden security lights which are each 600 lumens.There were two sets of props: tiny versions to be in scale with the kitchen and puppet, and then life size versions. The Sinsburys, Vice Crispies and Self-Praising Flour labels were photoshopped and stuck on the boxes.
The character is built around an Anibild 3 rig, which is wrapped in bandages. The jumper was made from a sock and the hair was dyed merino wool tops. The head was made of porcelain coloured Fimo which was shaped and baked around an egg.The eyes and eyebrows are Fimo stuck on with Bluetack, so that they could move.
I filmed using a really old Nikon camera and Dragonframe 4, then edited on Davinci Resolve. I recorded my own sound effects with a dictaphone and composed music and recorded that on Ableton Live 11.
I had researched lip-syncing and puppet rigging for my Extended Project Qualification, which had a strict deadline. That meant I had to be really organised and had to stick to my schedule to finish it on time. If you include researching how to lip-sync and different ways to rig puppets, then about six months but making the animatic, model making, filming and editing was about three months of that.
The retreating camera shot, when Hope first sees the Vices messing about on the counter, was inspired by the shot in Jaws, when the Sheriff first spots the shark.
Other than that, I was trying to build an element of suspense, using lighting, weirdsounds, and mysterious darkened shapes in a way most thrillers do. That way, when the brightly coloured Vices appeared, it would break the tension in a funnier way. I planned the camera angles to keep changing to add interest, sothere were close ups and overhead shots.
These ten tips made my films better!
Ben's film will now be showcased to over 300,000 film club members online and all of our Film of the Month films are now on the Into Film YouTube channel, they have also secured a £100 Amazon voucher to help further develop their filmmaking. Think you could win Film of the Month? Find out more about how you can enter our ongoing Film of the Month competition.
If you've been inspired by Pandora's Egg Box then make sure to check out the following films:
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