This almost, 16 minute stop motion short (mixed with live action) was initially release a few years ago. I am guessing it did some film festivals. The director / creator of The Vandal is Eddie Alcazar. I was not familiar with his work. His Biography ... LINK
I would suggest that you might watch in this order, preferably on your laptop at full screen, for a better immersion experience! 😁
Note - Any photos, click, then again, for larger image. Also video player option at full screen
THE VANDAL - Trailer
THE VANDAL - Animated Short - "A man recovering from a lobotomy (Bill Duke) suddenly loses the love of
his life, who was also his caregiver. The aftermath leads his mind into
the incomprehensible." WATCH ....
BONUS - Behind the Scenes! 👇
This appears to have been released some months ago in 2023 - Making of THE VANDAL
It looks like the stop motion puppets were made of cast Silicone Skins. I do not see in credits if they were 3D printed. Perhaps the main characters heads were actually sculpted by an artist, then afterwards, molded to make the skins. The heads/face have a neutral expression. In the film, the puppets do not talk. Only the close-up live action, we see the actors talking then cuts away to the stop motion.
Inter-mixing live action with puppets gives it a surreal, fantasy element. Not meant to represent reality. CGI would NOT work! Eddie Alcazar has labeled the effect technique as 'Meta-Scope'! The primary tricks of The Vandal were: Using very large LCD Screens as the background elements (of the pre-filmed miniature sets), somewhat similar to old school Rear Projection. The other trick was ... motion tracking the puppets heads and compositing the actor's REAL eyes onto the puppets. This reminds me of similar technique used years ago in 2007, on another stop motion short titled Madame Tutli-Putli LINK.
Here is something else, I do not see mentioned much. Apparently, the final version of The Vandal was re-edited and the scene below was deleted .....
THE VANDAL - CREDITS
