Cornelisz's Hilltop Studio, Exterior Set: 2006-2007 R.I.P.

Its the end of an era - I finally had to smash my big, beautiful set today. It cost me a lot of money, and took hundreds of hours to build. Its final value was about zero. When I was tearing the thing apart, that jerk Eric Friesen was playing some mournful Russian music on CBC radio two - felt like a funeral. Seeing the thing again in a photograph with a sky photoshopped in makes me sad too.

It serves me right for persisting in the medium of Stop Motion animation for so long - its an expensive, thankless, and soul-sucking hobby. I could have made something of a much more feasible 'table top with clay' stlye, but that's not how I roll.

I think i've got some pretty good reasons why stop motion is such an elevated form of animation, elevated as compared to crap done on computers. First and foremost, you're working with actual materials that suggest things to you, and provide an unknown element - responsive, living, interactive materials. On a computer, things turn out pretty much exactly how you picture them in your head initially. This is unhealthy creatively, as all ideas must come from within your own head - no outside source to suggest things, and hence come out mentally incestuous-looking.

On the other hand, i've been able to make a short, quite detailed animated film working on my own, for almost zero dollars. I.e., its possible.