Did you know that the Tin Woodman from Oz was once made out of meat?

BREIF

The Tin Woods is a personal film project directed and produced by myself, along with my good friend Mattzilla Duron. Together we wanted to combine our own skills and interests and create a short animated film about the Tin Woodman from the classic Oz stories by Frank L. Baum. We both loved and were fascinated by this character’s origin story, and I scripted a minimalist, abstract take on his transition from a meat body to a tin body. From the beginning we wanted everything to be handmade with stop motion order to give the world the texture that the story needed. I planned a Kickstarter campaign, complete with ads, a mailing list, and promotional events, and we exceeded our original goal by more than twice pitched amount. The film has done well in the film festival circuit and is available for rent or purchase at the links below. (Reach out to me personally if you would like a complimentary screener viewing!)

Behind the Scenes

The film took about 4 years to produce in our spare time. Multiple versions of the puppet were made in order to perform different tasks and required constant repairs and tightening and were supported with a variety of wire, clay and rod based rigs. There were three set constructed in our apartment basements. Mattzilla handled most construction and repair tasks in his own basement studio and I handled all lighting, editing and shooting tasks. We shared most of the animation duties, bur primarily focused on a particular character each.