Co-creators Bec Sloane & Taylor Stanton present, Overture to The Flying Dutchman, a stop-motion animated adaptation of composer Richard Wagner's 1843 drama, Der fliegende Holländer. As winner of the Symphonic Storyboards film grant, the piece was screened with live accompaniment by Philharmonia Orchestra of New York at Lincoln Center in March, 2017.
SYNOPSIS:
A petite tuba player amidst a grand orchestra gears up for her moment to shine in performing the music of Richard Wagner, only to miss her queue and sink into a guilty conscience that whirls into a slew of world-shuddering events to follow.
The music
The film screened at Jazz at Lincoln Center, accompanied by a live, fifty-member orchestra led by maestro Atsushi Yamada. The story was an original screenplay written by Taylor Stanton and Bec Sloane.
As a part of the Symphonic Storyboards guidelines, the film was set to- and synched with the overture of the piece.
The puppets
Our leads, the Girl and Wagner, were the main puppets being animated, but there was a also world of hidden figures throughout. Cherubs in the ceiling, the ship's figurehead, and the micro 50-member orchestra were also hand-built, armatured puppets. The primary material used in fabrication was repurposed textile.
The ship
Our ship (the Flying Dutchman) was a 4'-long structure built from cardboard, chopsticks, and wire and textured with styrofoam and peanut (plus a couple pistachio) shells.