Helping Hands: Film by John Hankins

Friday, 21 October 2011 08:00
Last Updated on Monday, 29 November 1999 18:00
Written by Marc Spess

Helping Hands

Is it possible to successfully animate puppets without the use of tie downs? John Hankins tests himself to find out.

You probably have heard of John before. He is also known as Castlegardener and was a big help to our previous test site stopmotionmagic.com. He helped with our monthly challenges and other tasks to build our community. Since the demise of that site John has gone on to concentrate on making his new film called Helping Hands.

The big test was to see if he could complete a film where no tie downs are used. That's tough because everyone knows tie downs are one of stop motions biggest helpers. They are the bolts that screw into your puppets feet and hold them in place while they walk. John instead resorted to many legged creatures, flying rigs and paint programs to remove the rigs from shots. That's because his main character the sea horse never really touches the ground. Nor do the fish. And the sandy floor set meant it would be hard to use tie downs even if he wanted to. It would involve disturbing the set way too much.

So the end result of his one year endeavor can be seen below. You can also visit his blog here to see some behind the scenes pictures and thoughts, as well as talk of his brand new project! He is a real stop motion trooper who really loves the entire process. Oh, and also watch some of his previous films on YouTube over here. It won't be disappointing.

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written by Vincent Tetreault, October 21, 2011

Gorgeous movie !!
Congrats John !

helping hands
written by *castlegardener, October 21, 2011

thanks everyone who watched. This film was indeed a lot of work but it did teach me a lot of stuff. One thing that really helped was to glue down all the sand and make it permanent and then when I needed to interact with the sand like with the broom I would add some loose sand for that shot. As soon as that shot was complete I would vacuum up any loose sand and leave only the firmly glued stuff. To move the creatures I marked their legs in the sand with stick pins, then lifted the puppet out of the set, moved the legs, then replaced the puppet beside the pins, removed the pins, took one frame, then repeated. I hope you enjoyed the film.

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written by aliciaInHawaii, October 21, 2011

Thank you, Marc, for this feature!
This is a fantastic finish for the film!
I loved watching the little creatures come to life. I get to see all the challenges during film making, prop making, and production...and let me tell you, this was a journey. He faced lots of technical challenges, story challenges and character development considerations throughout the making of this piece.
All the puppets keep John's wholesome, good-hearted characteristics as they lead us into the world of disappointment, solutions, friends, and ultimately, helping hands. There sure were a LOT of hands on this set with all the multi-legged creatures.
He builds wonderful connections between the viewer and the undersea characters in this film. I've been snorkeled many times with John and I know that our true life reverence and respect for little sea creatures really shines through here in his creation.

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written by Marc Spess, October 21, 2011

Hey guys no problem. It's well deserved! Thank you for sharing what you do on the internet so we can watch things progress. It's a learning experience for the viewers as well and very inspirational!

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