Charlie Butters In "Toilet Toothbrush" Claymation Cartoon
So with this claymation I wanted to use one of our original characters. We have plenty of working scripts for a few others: Frankenstein, Captain America but I wanted to make more with Charlie Butters. Keeping with his personality we made a quick short for Charlie Butters and his wife entitled, "Charlie Butters Toilet Toothbrush." If you click the youtube video nest to this paragraph you can watch the finished project.
The basic premise of the cartoon is simply Charlie getting ready for bed. He comes to the bathroom with his usual whistling entrance and proceeds to wash his face, shave and attempts to brush his teeth. As he reaches for his toothbrush he accidentally knocks his wife's toothbrush in the toilet. As he hears her coming up the stairs he quickly grabs the toothbrush out of the toilet and looks around for a place to stash the toothbrush. With her about to come through the door he panics and puts her toothbrush back in it's cup holder. She comes in and promptly begins brushing her teeth to Charlie's horror.
Suffice to say that he doesn't tell her. She does get a little suspicious as he is looking at her strangely. After the clip is in credits you hear his wife ask Charlie for a good night kiss and Charlie stammering to think of an excuse. It is a simple script but good for a laugh so make sure you check it out.
The making of this clay animation was a little more difficult that I originally anticipated. I did have an issue involving no white clay and attempted to scour our home city for blocks of white for the bathtub. After doing so I had to give up and think of a different way to make the bathtub. At first I was going to make it out of cardboard and paint it heavily to seem not so angular. Eventually I ended up using a brick of red and orange clay to make it and then had to paint the clay white. It was a hassle as the clay wasn't really the type you paint. It was like painting play dough!
After the bathtub was completed most of the rest of our set and props were quickly assembled and put together. The making of this claymation cartoon was again as before a combined effort headed by yours truly but assisted by my wife and my daughter. Both contributed aspects to the project making characters/props and my wife lending her voice. I combined our collective efforts in Adobe Premiere CS5 editing and adding sound/voices/animation and of course production/taking the shots. We again used our Panasonic GS-500 with controlled lighting. I really hope you all enjoy it and if you are ever on youtube check out our claymation channel: http://www.youtube.com/superdaddytv
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