The Adventures of Kurt + Phil

Aga - Baker - Ke

There was a lot of trial and error for this project! We started out with ideas of LED characters walking across breadboards, but as we foraged around the floor we were lucky enough to find the foundation of our characters (on the Junk Shelf, really no idea why) and were able to bring them to life.

It reminded us of the “understanding comics” reading where we as humans can find a face in anything - in this case even something as simple as a pair of googly eyes was able to transform our junk into lovable characters.

Our story came organically as these characters already had so much chemistry. We decided to use this project to introduce the characters and create a title sequence that reflects the mood of the production. What was difficult for us was finding consistent lighting and production space. We used the StopMotion app for the iPhone and a magic arm to hold the phone stable. We used a classroom with the whiteboard as the backdrop and realized very quickly that too much light was bouncing around on the reflective surfaces, making the lighting extremely inconsistent frame by frame. So we explored using cardboard, greenscreens and white paper.

Ultimately we ended up using the white paper, as it allowed us to keep our production space and gave us relatively solid lighting. Must say, lots of room for improvement, however it gave our final gif even more of that stop motion feel.

We decided to use the title sequence as one loop, and then our pilot introducing our characters as the second. In the pilot we meet Kurt, a curious and gentle rover, and Phil, a more allusive robot who is always on the move.

Stay tuned for more adventures with Kurt and Phil

Some behind the scenes!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/oID-WggdJM_cujlI3WF3W1_6nQQbq9E3hJXjH0pMPyd7LCGEW2hBh_msl5AOC0CzNL3GOYjR94O4gKx1X-NjLvsxEHoEAYDiDJuX5I0p9KRW-cOTghMHTtkRwWEnwNiDzQdLMLlK

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/HaU0TofvIT5rOTjfYuxCzksgf3PXZZ46mx2f51SUSgto-DdJ0ePDNmZHjrDZcEv0CzLsIypPmmQBi1vHqosG_-PlrXgJEZKvU9nvWfU-es9o0mnYnmJGIAB4H-NYUhevUDOfQ0Kw