The stop-motion short film "Astra" closes shooting in Wrocław
After a 75 day job, in which a team of 15 people juggled a demanding job on three simultaneous programs, 12 minutes of filming was completed. Astra, the stop-motion short film by Michał Łubiński, at the Audiovisual Technology Center in Wrocław. The project enters post production with a premiere scheduled for mid-2022.
Łubiński's new film is a universal story about brotherly love, great adventures and the inevitable hardships of life. The story centers on Astra, a six-year-old girl, who tries to stop her sister from taking part in a dangerous mission. However, when Anna needs help, the little girl embarks on a solo mission to space rescue without hesitation.
“A movie set usually means large constructions or virtual sets, but this time everything was in miniature,” said Robert Banasiak, director of the CeTA Audiovisual Technology Center in Wrocław, producer of the film. “We [were introduced] to Michał Łubiński and his project Astra in 2018 in Łódź during the ANIMARKT Stop Motion Forum. We were happy to decide to make this film in our studio, because we also want to be present in the animation film production sector ”.
Before the puppets made their debut on the set, it took many weeks of preparation. “First I made drawings of figures, then 3D models, based on which elements of the head and some fragments of the body were printed with the technology of 3D printers,” explained Łubiński. The creation of the puppets required precise manual work, carried out with talent and experience. The puppets for Astra they were created by a team from Łódź: Piotr Knabe, Dariusz Kalita, Agnieszka Mikołajczyk and Agnieszka Smolarek, Beata Jarmuż-Socha and Anna Szcześniak.
“Łódź is world famous for its excellent specialists who create animation puppets,” said Katarzyna Gromadzka of MOMAKIN, the film's executive producer. "The Astra project brought together six recognized [artists] with great experience in the production of Wes Anderson's Isle of dogs and Academy Award winner Suzie Templeton Pierino and the wolf. "
The story of the film takes place in many places, starting from Astra's tiny room, through the corridors of the science center, to a ship in space. The range of the scale is wide, which was a real challenge for the sets and props team led by Jacek Spychalski of CeTA Animation Studio and for the puppet makers.
“Astra's hands, which are about an inch long, proved to be a challenge when working at a scale of 1: 6. We animated his little fingers, built on fine threads, so we had up to seven pairs of interchangeable hands for the character, ”Łubiński observed. “We also used a very attractive and original ink-in-water technique to reproduce the cosmos. To achieve the slow motion effect, the movement of the mixing fluids was recorded at a higher frame rate per second. I couldn't do everything at home, animating by myself. The possibility of using CeTA facilities has guaranteed us the world standard of production and working conditions ”.
Łubiński is an architect whose passion is animation, to which he dedicates every free moment. His first film, History of the bed, has been recognized by film festivals such as the Warsaw International Film Festival and the Zubroffka Short Film Festival and has won two awards.
Astra it was co-funded by the Polish Film Institute and the Ministry of Culture, National Heritage and Sport. In recent weeks, the institutions supporting the project have joined EC1 Łódź - City of Culture within the Łódź Film Fund. The project was the winner of the 2018 Pitching Competition of the ANIMARKT Stop Motion Forum.
Go to the source of the article on www.animationmagazine.net
