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ThePpeGFX — Nowhere Near Here
Published: 2010-11-25 16:41:14 +0000 UTC; Views: 1801; Favourites: 42; Downloads: 20
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Description
Watch the animation here.'Nowhere Near Here' is a stop motion animation that uses a combination of light with stencils and long exposure photography to tell the story of a dog running around the city at night, doing whatever a dog does. The animation was first exhibited at the The Herbert, in Coventry, on the 7th October 2010.
With well over 300 hours in the making, more than 200 stencils involved and too many cold nights spent outside on my knees getting the shots, I am very happy (and relieved) to finally share this with you. Through the course of shooting 'Nowhere Near Here', I have dealt with curious drunks, a dog almost peeing on the camera (the irony is not lost on me, haha), the endlessly suspicious police and even someone nearly running off with a tripod.
The photos above are of the film stills I have printed from the animation, which are available to purchase here .
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Comments: 58
Oh I hadn't noticed the link at first.
Well this video has to be one of the greatest things I have seen, really.
Nice work !
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oh wow. WOW! This is totally AWESOME!
seems like tons of work and hundred sleepless nights but the result is pure magic! (:
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Not quite hundreds but definitely a lot of sleep lost, cheers.
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I've tried light painting with a stencil but it didn't turn out well at all. The light would poke too harshly through the stencil. I'd love some tip if you can spare them.
The animation was sweet and the music complimented it perfectly. You are a man of mucho patience. Cheers!
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You should diffuse the light by placing a sheet of paper (or multiple papers, depending on the light's strength) on the backside of the stencil.
Cheers and I hope that helps
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Oh.... So the stencil is something like dark cardboard and i diffuse the light with another piece of paper. That could work! And now I know why I had such a hard time before, my original stencil was made from lightweight paper. 
Thanks so much.
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Well I actually made my stencils out of acetate because it's easier to cut details into it but then I framed it with corrugated cardboard, as acetate doesn't really stand up on it's own.
I then sprayed the the front of the stencil (both acetate and cardboard) with black paint; it reduces the amount of light bouncing back at the camera and it makes the perviously transparent acetate opaque.
Once all that's done, I was taping cuts of paper over areas where the design has been cut out.
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Beautiful work, made especially impressive after checking out the process link you posted. I'm still not quite sure how the camera removes the background from the stencil & knows to only keep the light, but I will have to do some experimentation myself to see how it's done. A huge effort obviously went into this, so bravo!
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Cheers man and I hope your experiments are fruitful
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Cheers mate and yeah, we need to do some stuff soon
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sent me skype or facebook in private message mate! 
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seriously love this animation dude! the music and everything, it's just class!
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That's awesome! The dog has so much personality..
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That's some really cool stuff - very evocative.
My favorite part was when the dog chased the birds out; it felt very natural, yet slick.
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I think that's one of the first scenes I thought up, other than the stand off at the end and all the running.
Thanks man, always glad to hear from you. Infact, what criticisms do you have of the animation?
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The only real criticism I have is the first encounter with the cat, with all the sudden angle cuts. Like it seems like you were going for some kind of intensity there, but it just seemed out of place and a little jarring, especially when compared with all the other scenes where there's a longer focus on the location.
I had a similar thought in regards to the flashback moment right before the stand-off (which I liked, btw) but much less so, because I didn't actually have any difficulty understanding what was happening and because the flashback was a nice wrap-up right before the big finish.
I'm glad all the running was in there - the combination of that, the stop-motion world behind the dog and the choice of music really brought the whole thing together.
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Yeah, it's interesting you point that out. If I recall rightly, I wanted to hold many of the scenes for longer (almost as a precursor to the climax) but I had storyboarded to the music too tightly and didn't leave myself enough time for that scene; I had hemmed myself in with the scenes before and after it, which were synched with the music.
Glad the flashbacks came across as flashbacks, I initially thought people might think the video was being glitchy or something
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Yeah, I guess the only other option there would've been to straight-up cut a scene, and I don't know any which I would want to, so I suppose you made the right call there.
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you're more than welcome, sweetie
i absolutely love seeing new stuff from you.
i absolutely loved these characters. the Dog is such a cutie hehe! i loved him sitting and waiting for the green light, chasing the birds and howling. you've done such an awesome job. the Dog was moving perfectly, you got all the positions right (i'm still quite childishly amazed how simple is the design of the Dog yet how many things you can make it do). also i'm so much more of a dog-person rather than a cat one heh..
the scenery was beautiful and i'm very envious of you doing this project as it seems like you had such great fun
the feeling of accomplishment must feel indescribable after all that work you put into this. i have so much respect for you for that.
tl;dr - i was blown away by this. you rock!
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Haha, you and me both, I continue to be surprised how much I'm able to do with the pup and I'm sure the dog has many, many more miles ahead to run.
Great fun, most of the time yes, hah. The end scene of the 360 around the dog was a headache and finishing the edit at 2am on the day of the show, which launched 16 hours later was cutting it close.
Once again, thank you
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