Kara | production blog of a stop-motion feature film

Category Archives: Set building

Making room for something new!

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One last smoke on Kara’s rooftops.


Kara is a journey I started a few years ago, knowing it would be a long one. After quietly working on writing and re-writing the script, finishing the concept teaser and a long sabbatical due to private family matters, we’re now taking the next step!
It will still be a while before we can share the inspiring work of a very talented crew on the teaser – though it is finished, certain deals in the works require confidentiality for now.
We will however start sharing more behind the scenes photos and videos like we used to. We start the series with pictures of parting from some of our lovely sets (not thrown away, just in long term storage). It’s sad to say goodbye but very exciting to make room for new things to come on Kara’s journey.
With
 
 
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After all these years, I still love this Yesilcam set like the first day – even under ugly ‘house lights’.


 

Emek Sinemasi – "Once there was one, then there was none"

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When I started writing Kara, I had imagined one day I would sit in Emek Sinemasi and watch the film that has this cinema and the surrounding Cercle d’Orient building at its heart. A film that remembers the days I spent in this building above the cinema, watching films through the tiny window of its projection room. That, it seems, will remain an unfulfilled wish. I read with frustration and sadness the news that Emek Sinemasi has been gutted and torn down yesterday. Fallen victim to gentrification and political ambitions.
The meaning of the sentence that opens up most Turkish fairy tales (and Kara, too) rings different today: Once there was one, then there was none (bir varmis, bir yokmus).
İstanbul may have served as the capital of many empires and she may have been called countless names: Byzantium, Constantinople, Lygos, Augusta Antonina, New Rome, Queen of Cities, The City, hē Polis, Kostantiniyye, Stamboul, Islambol, Gate of Felicity, Bâb-ı Âlî, The Doorstep.

But she is forgetting her name.

Yesilcam – Colours

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Susanna Jerger, as always, did a really nice job on this set with the colours especially in capturing the richness and dreamy quality of the colours of the inspirational. By adding multiple layers of paint and pencil work, she achieved very dense yet subtle textures.


 

Yesilcam – The street with cobblestones

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The face of Yesilcam Street has changed in the last years drastically – and not for the better unfortunately. But we’re nostalgic people – we’re sticking to the good old days and taking inspiration from the first times we visited the street.


 

Yesilcam – chimneys, tiles and airconditioners

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The Yesilcam Street set lives from the incredible attention our set builders gave to its many – many! – details. And they never grew tired of being asked to avoid right angles and exact parallels – without getting wobbly or amorphous shapes.


 

Yesilcam – the first building blocks

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A pretty solid wooden construction was built for the houses to ensure that the set would not shift or shake – especially since we knew that during the shoot parts – roofs or single houses  – would have to be removed mid-shot and reattached later several times. Preferably without causing major set shifts.


 

Yesilcam – how we started

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We had an inspirational design, a sketch and then glued and taped together another analogue blocking.

Yesilcam – building Kara´s street

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Now that everything is “done” (which of course still is not…), we finally get around to putting together more pictures from the set-building process.
Our most complex set – both in building and shooting – is the set of Yesilcam Street, Kara´s street. This street is based on a real location – except for the parts that are made up. Sinem, Kara´s alter ego, lived here in her youth and this is where Kara´s journey in Istanbul starts.
I will present the pictures in a loose chronological order – starting with one from one of our research trips to Istanbul, when I met Ayse Teyze, who was still alive and running her tiny kiosk on Yesilcam.

Sinem and her mother in Yesilcam

Sinem and her mother in Yesilcam


 

Sorry Berlin!

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We’re afraid Berlin just lost its status as the biggest Turkish community outside of Turkey: Istanbul arrived in Hamburg today! Straight from the workshop. Paint having just dried.

Mini-Istanbul – a metropolis in one room

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The set building process:
First, there was an inspirational. Then (and those photos I spare you) I started to do a small plastillin blocking and drew rough groundplans of the buildings visible in the inspirational.
Then Eugen Kelle started blocking in 3-D until we had a set big enough for the camera move and sent out floor plans – basically the measurements of the set itself and the different heights of ground.
Pablo in Ruit built a wooden construction which was covered in styrofoam by Jörg. While Pablo started working on construction of the houses which include the practicals, Jörg started to saw back, middle – and later foreground houses from styrofoam – and would continue to do so for  several days, as there were many!
In the meantime the detailed “light-street-foreground” houses got into shape mainly on Nina´s and Susanna´s desks. More streets, groundplans, foreground houses, facade smoothing and filling, adjustment of all houses, fixing them to the set and finally the paint work – everybody working hard.
You guys in Ruit did an amazing job!