Dole Cherry Hell!

A Horrifying True Story

This project embodied all the pitfalls andevils of dimensional animation rolled into one. The greatest of which was making a big heavy character appear to jump and dive while suspended by tiny fragile wires.

Here's the story. The Cherry character had to dive from a high dive board into a pool of creamy yogurt. Since there were on- camera morphs and a camera move involved, the shot was to be done all in camera with no opticals. So instead of shooting the Cherry on a stand or pylon as a separate element, it had to "really" jump from the board. This meant using the dreaded monofilament. To save on additional optical post production costs, I also had to try and paint the wires to match the background. And this changed every frame as the wires raised or lowered. ARRRGGGH!!!(If this site wasn't viewed by so many grade school students, I'd use a different word.  I think you know the one I mean. In fact if memory serves, it's the word I muttered darkly under my breath when the damnable thing hit the table.  But I digress) The set was also about three feet deep so I had to reach up and out to re-position the character between frames.

Because of the shape of the character I could use only three lines to support the character. The first few frames went okay. But as the character had to tilt downward after reaching the top of the jump arc, there was a problem. It was almost impossible to position the damned thing for this one critical in-between frame. It would either pitch to far forward or to far back. And then the worst thing possible happened. The monofilament broke and the character dropped about two feet down,(see third picture)face first into the table top. (EXPLETIVE DELETED!)(Oh, did I forget to mention that this shot had to be in the lab by 8:00 a.m. the next morning?) Luckily the damage wasn't that great and the Cherry was tilted down on the last frame, so the face wasn't prominent in the shot.

Using the registration marks on the video monitors, I re-positioned the thing and resumed the shot. This made that single frame a four hour descent into hell. (I'm sure I could smell a hint of brimstone in the air.)  Shots like this made me truly appreciate the amazing skill, patience and genius of Ray Harryhausen.

Fortunately, I finished on time and the shot went out to the lab, the commercial was finished and was a mild success.

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