For Sam Milton’s first show featuring his then-newly formed band, he handed me a camcorder and asked if I could record his performance. I took that duty on with great pride, and decided to use the footage I had to create a semi-documentary featuring his music and interviews with available band members. I created several animations for this video based off his song titles in a variety of different methods (”Babies”, “When The Dog Comes to Bite”, and this puppet intro.) For this clip, I physically created two different puppets based off Sam Milton with movable armatures. I had planned to create an entire stop motion scene. It was my first time foraying into stop motion territory, and the result was not exactly as expected. After building a full set and two puppets (featuring a hand-knit sweater and all hand-sewn clothing), I was displeased with the results, so I decided to animate the puppet using After Effects and compile small little trinkets around in the frame to create a fun and unique feeling. This clip serves as an intro to the film and depicts Sam Milton putting up his show flyers on telephone poles around town, only for them to be torn down. This is something that happened in real life.
You can watch the entirety of “Showdown by Sunset” here: