Christmas, Squirrel King style

Merry Christmas one and all!

Imbibing, Squirrel King style. Alien One shows the Trouble and strife how extra-terrestrials enjoy Christmas cheer.


Stay tuned for images of a white Christmas.

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Alien Nursery Shoot

Saturday's sustenance: Alien One's blueberry marshmallow man.


And once the batteries were charged, it was off to costuming!


Costuming complete, Alien One waited patiently while Alien Two delicately tended to the acorns on the nursery floor.





The Trouble and Strife called for lights ...




Tom and I checked the shot ...



The masks went on ...





... but for action, you'll just have to wait for the series.







Much later came the painstaking frame-by-frame work of stop-motioning the Alien babies to life (look carefully below and you can see one of the babies crawling out of it's crib by the top of my arm).


Where we go from here is anyone's guess, but what a way to finish the year!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

The Cruel Tragedy of Life

In a cruel twist of irony, one of our own guppies took an unexpected turn.

The translation, of Alien One's eulogy (for those less familiar with "best-guess spelling"):

"Baby Spark, that's who I love. Just one fish to love."

As we've seen before though, new life follows death as surely as the sun rises. Stay tuned for images from today's shoot in which the Aliens' nursery came to life.

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

The world of The Squirrel King

A forest with a river running through it ...






And fish swimming happily in the river!

The Aliens were so excited to see the world, that they went where all rivers go to celebrate after the shoot.


Alien Two stood waiting for the fish, and when they came, she shrieked with joy.




More Alien footage to be shot this weekend!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

True Recycling: Return Paper to Trees!

To reforest the world:

1) Find some paints, paint some paper and cut some cardboard trunks.






2) Give your resident Aliens scissors or a knife and have them deconstruct the paper.






3) Voila, you have leaves ... lots of them!!


4) Take the cardboard boxes you've slashed and painted in the interim.

5) Stand them and apply said leaves.

6) Keep applying leaves ....


Tomorrow we'll add some wildlife for good measure!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Sneak Peak

The Squirrels are coming!

Vivian just gave me this sneak peak. Tomorrow they arrive to meet their advance party. And by the end of the week, at least one of them will have a tail, because we're shooting a dream forest scene in which it's threatened by a malevolent cat with a knife!

Back on the ranch, Alien Two watched over the construction of sheep.




While Alien One carefully picked out the perfect potato for stamping trees with.

More soon!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

PS just a reminder that The Squirrel King is now on Facebook. Friend us there and stay abreast of updates!

Every Ten Thousand Mile Journey

They say every ten thousand mile journey has a first step.

So, I guess, every forest has a first leaf. Alien One and I are now well past the first leaf, in fact I think our tally-counter recently ticked over the fourth digit.

And every leaf needs a branch, and every branch a trunk! ... And to fill a forest you need a lot of trunks!




Meanwhile, Alien Two has been working on the life-blood of the forest: water, rivers to be specific.

The truth is every ten thousand mile journey has a three thousand two hundred and forty second step, and a three thousand two hundred and forty third step, and a .... Time to tape the blister on my thumb and get back to the trunks. For some reason I set the target at 80 trees, sounds small for a forest, but I'm getting nervous.

More soon.

Chin chin Ruthless Whims

Black Friday Shopping

After building pine cone turkeys and eating the real thing we turned back to reality ...

We've been running low on supplies. Paints specifically, the bulk of which got finished off during the inauspicious backdrop bonanza (though in a silver lining the backdrops dried spectacularly). Fortunately the Trouble and Strife is a big shopper and today offered many specials.

Alien Two was, however, stumped when it came to finding the requisite bright green.

Stumped until Alien One pointed out that some cardboard furniture comes already painted.

Returning home, she sketched her own designs.


And me, I returned to lion's claws for Robin's papier mache shower.

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

PS I found the following clip on Youtube and have been inspired to incorporate the ideas into a night-time squirrel drive-by:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyU0pe6EFBQ

I love the Japanese!

And in the Distance ...

There must be mountains, trees and, most of all, blue sky.

No, not the background of the photo on the left, the background on which that bundle of energy is running! That's right, today we painted impressionistic mountains and skies of our own (something which will likely prove necessary for the forest shoot a few weeks from now - more on that soon).

And for a while everything proceeded swimmingly; the groundwork had been laid, the workers had dispersed and I was adding the finishing touches.


Then the Trouble and Strife wandered out to inspect the progress ... but nothing escapes the Trouble and Strife!

Her purview took in much more than scenic backdrops, indeed it fell to my feet where something was clearly afoot.

Or under foot as the case happened to be.

And worse, all over our dear friends' balcony!

In short order, efforts to apply turned to efforts to erase. The local residents rallied, the Trouble and Strife took out a rag and we all went to work.

But the work was slow. Hard and slow.




I did all I could, including physically throwing myself into it!



Two hours later, and working by flares (check the reflected light on the left of the last photo) the last bucket of soapy water was brought out to yours truly.


I only hope the light of day does not necessitate the complete repaint the Trouble and Strife immediately volunteered me for.

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims

Lost in the woods

Today's sustenance: raw banana bread mix, sans sugar (but with chocolate chips and nicely browned bananas).

The Trouble and Strife's recipe. A total winner according to Alien Two.




Today's task: build a forest.

Our progress: Alien One contemplates the limbs without leaves, while Alien Two contemplates her next move ...




... an all-out assault on Alien One's jar of battery-recharging home-made apple-sauce.




And the result: Alien Two, the deer!








Extra-terrestrial help aside, conjuring up a wooded forest takes more time than I'd bargained for, but with a quick field trip to reexamine nature, our inspirational subject, everything became clear. We need more workers ... more aliens! And I know just the place to find them :)

Stay tuned, very shortly we shall emerge from the woods.

Chin chin Ruthless Whims

Between Takes ...

Our fabulous cinematographer, Tom, stokes the fire in the center of the console before pausing to gaze at the galaxy, wondering which speck our Alien Interlopers originated from.




Little does he realize, the Aliens are lounging in what will later become Robin's studio apartment ...














dosing
up
on
sugar!





Meanwhile, unbeknownst to everyone, a squirrel escaped Vivian's studio, snuck into my office and absconded with an acorn.

So many mischievous characters to keep tabs on!

Chin chin
Ruthless Whims