Stop Motion Geek

Knitsune in Lost & Found . Photo courtesy of Andrew Goldsmith. Early on, while growing up in Adelaide, South Australia, Gerald Thompson – motion control artist and director of photography on the beautiful and heartfelt Australian short film Lost & Found – developed an interest in photography, and it didn’t take very long for him to became enamored with making “epic” Super 8 films with his friends. Knotjira (left) and Knitsune (right) in Lost & Found . Photo courtesy of Andrew Goldsmith. An engineer at heart – having gone on to design numerous motion control rigs as well as an incredible robot that interacts in real time with a dancer and musician – the element of filmmaking that Thompson found the most ardor remains the technical side of film’s craft, especially in the realm of special effects, specifically practical effects (for when Thompson – now a veteran in the special effects industry – began, CGI was still only in early stages of development, an...

A ghostlike apparition in a scene realized from Hedy Ben Khalifat's "Sahara Palace" script in Zélie Durand's Sahara Palace . Source: Vimeo. “The only things my grandfather left behind were dozens of 35mm film reels in my grandmother’s basement, which ironically took up a lot of space compared to the fact that nobody seemed to talk about him, and that he was noticeably absent of every family album,” Zélie Durand, a French director and illustrator, tells Stop Motion Geek about the very personal tragedy that inspired her most recent film, Sahara Palace – a transcendent, nine-minute long stop motion short film that realizes and further explores the greater themes of an unproduced film script entitled “Sahara Palace,” as well as the life and legacy of the script’s screenwriter: filmmaker Hedy Ben Khalifat, Durand’s grandfather, a man she never met. “I was not allowed to touch the reels,” Durand continues. “When I started to ask questions three years ago, my unc...

Knitsune in Lost & Found . Photo courtesy of Andrew Goldsmith. Ever since her childhood, Lucy J. Hayes – the producer of Lost & Found , an extraordinarily beautiful short film that make for a profound mediation on the impermanence and imperfection of life and beauty – she’s wanted to play some part in the creative industry, in some way, shape, or form. For Hayes, that dream went unquestioned. However, the challenge turned out to be figuring out quite where she belonged in the creative industry. “I dabbled in acting and directing, however, I was terrible!” Hayes tells Stop Motion Geek. It wasn’t until she began to put on plays with her friends in her adolescence and early adulthood that the answer to her search dawned upon her: All that Hayes found came innately to her – everything from her ardor for creative work to her love for working with creatives to bring an idea, the kernel of a story, to fruition – she found in the title of “producer.” Knotjira (left) and...