TriClops’ stop motion style is an instantly eye-catching and dynamic way to boost your brand. I welcome collaboration with likeminded clients looking for ways to tell stories that are bold, creative, and truly stand out from the crowd.

My professional experience ranges from my own low-budget award-winning short films to commercial series for major brands such as Jurassic Park and American Girl, all imbuing me with a vast understanding of how to (and how not to) keep a production moving through resourcefulness and clear communication.

If you’re interested in working with me (or are just curious as to my general creative process), keep on reading to learn more about how it all works!

STEP 2: Video Call and Quote

Once your form is sent in and viewed, we’ll make time for a video call on one of the two dates you requested. During the chat, I’ll give you an estimate on cost, check-in dates, and deadlines. Doing this in a video call rather than a series of emails allows us to more efficiently talk about the project, go into details regarding pricing, and make adjustments as needed. Once both parties have come to an agreement, I’ll send over an email containing a contract to be signed that goes over the details we discussed.

STEP 3: Concept and Pre-Production

The conceptual phase will allow me to begin throughly visualizing your project through the use of mood boards (a digital arrangement of images meant to capture the look and feel of the project), storyboards (a beat-for-beat illustrated version of the story), an animatic (a video version of the storyboard with audio and timestamps), and designs. Pre-production involves gathering supplies, organizing shots, files, and assets, and the creation of physical characters and sets. Animation or FX tests may also be done at this time depending on the needs of the project.

A key thing to keep in mind with stop motion is how crucial planning is to the overall process. No feeling is worse than spending countless hours on animation only to find out that something isn’t working and having to take more time to re-do it all. As a result, the concept and pre-production phases are the most important times to give feedback and make major alterations before I dive into the time-consuming process of animation where it will be much harder to go back to and make changes.

STEP 4: Production and Post-Production

Now is when things really start coming to life! Production is when the initial stop motion gets done. This will likely take up the biggest chunk of the overall process due to the time it takes to set up shots, animate, build assets that I may have not gotten to during the pre-production phase, and repair damaged puppets or sets.

Once animation is complete, I dive into post-production. While the animation may be sent elsewhere for the final edit, at the very least most projects will require some level of compositing work, rig removal, and color correction to create the final polished animation. Much of my work also incorporates 2D animation for effects and this is usually where this will take place.

Once again, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of planning things out as early as possible to avoid unnecessary delays during this period!

STEP 5: Final Review and Additional Revisions

While I do my best to avoid delays as much as possible, I am aware that problems can always arise on any given production. Once the project is turned in, I allow for up to two rounds of complimentary re-shots or edits before charging additional fees. When setting the deadline, it’s a good idea to have some cushion time in between the turn-in and release date to allow extra time for any edits that may be needed (for example if you wanted to have an animation for a Christmas release, a turn-in date no later than early or mid November would be most ideal).

And that’s it! Among final approval, I will email you another form asking about your experience, if there was anything about the process that could improve, and if you could provide a brief testimonial. I do everything I can to provide as good and fair of an experience as possible while delivering top-notch work, with the hopes we can work with one another again!

Have a project in mind you think I’d be a good fit for? Shoot an email to triclopsfilms@gmail.com and let’s chat!