(c)mmx
Mord Im Holstenwall is intended to be in the style of early 1920's German Expressionist Cinema and in particular the Robert Weine film Das Cabinett Des Dr Caligari.
I wanted to make a film of between 5 and 10 minutes, relying on more than a piece of music to provide the story. Mord although loose on plot follows the actions of a mad Miller who wreaks terror in the town of Holstenwall. Holstenwall is a creepy little walled town of stone buildings, situated at the edge of a dark, dense forest; perfect expressionist material providing a simple tale of madness and murder.
I wanted to make everything myself, from the characters and buildings to the music. I had already constructed most of the buildings for a previous projects so I only had to build a few extras to block out some of the scenes and the wind mill (the windmill as a device is a loose hommage to James Whales Frankenstein (1931)... oh and Trumpton).
All filming took place at the new Alptraume Production Facility (APF).
The camera is a Sony Digital 8 Handycam mounted on a tri-pod, with a USB link to my computer. The stopmotion was captured using a freeware programme Stop Motion Animator.
The animation was carried out at 12fps generally in 3s (36
frame) segments. The clips were assembled and edited using Adobie Premiere and compiled as an AVI file. Most of the lighting was provided by natural daylight and halogen desk lamps.
The basic story was roughly storyboarded into the main scenes, but most of the mise en scene was in my head and created on the hoof! For certain scenes it was necessary to pre-plan the motions ; the character paths were drawn out on the base boards, and where necessary the movement for each single frame indicated.
The basic story was roughly storyboarded into the main scenes, but most of the mise en scene was in my head and created on the hoof! For certain scenes it was necessary to pre-plan the motions ; the character paths were drawn out on the base boards, and where necessary the movement for each single frame indicated.
