stopmotion film
The Journey of Midnight Mission
Every frame has a story
My stop motion film Midnight Mission was not made in a rush. It grew slowly — piece by piece, hour by hour, year by year — until the world, the characters, and the story felt fully alive.
What began as a long-held dream in 2018 became a seven-year journey of designing, building, shooting, and refining. Almost everything you see in the film is handmade or sourced second-hand. More than 600 hours went into creating the sets, props, and characters, and over 300 hours into shooting the 8,500 photographs that became the finished film.
This timeline is more than a list of dates — it’s the story of how a spark of an idea turned into a handcrafted film, stitched together with patience, creativity, and a deep love for the art of stop-motion.
Editing began — 449 photos refined, 40 hours of photo editing, and 70 hours of film editing. Sound came next: 173 recorded set sounds, 6 voice performances, and 14 hours in the sound booth.
Then came the music — and here, something magical happened. I didn’t go looking for the composer. He came to me. From the first moment we met, we both knew it would work. And it did, perfectly. His score — dreamy, electroacoustic, with 74 instruments, shifting tempos, and no fixed key — elevates the film in a way I could only have hoped for. I am deeply happy with it.
After seven years, Midnight Mission was complete. Now, it travels to festivals, carrying not just a story, but the love, patience, and quiet determination that shaped it.
The filming year. I designed and built the final stairs for the story and created the end scene. Then came over 300 hours of shooting: 196 scenes, 5,739 photos used from a total of 8,500 taken. Each click of the shutter was a step forward, a moment caught forever.
This was a difficult year. I lost some courage, and the project slowed. But the story stayed with me, quietly waiting. When I returned, I made and found the missing pieces, and the momentum returned.
Over these years, I spent more than 600 hours designing and creating every prop, set piece, and character. The work was meticulous, but it gave the world its soul.
I made the storyboard — the blueprint for the entire film. 200 drawings, for each shot one. Each panel held a promise: a moment I would one day animate, a beat in the rhythm of the story.
arranged with care, every surface layered with detail. I continued creating elements until the world felt whole and ready for the characters to inhabit. The carpet in the sets was the same carpet I had in my childhood bedroom, and the wallpaper was a leftover piece from my current bedroom walls. So many elements carried memories.
I began creating the many elements that would fill the film’s universe — props, textures, and details. Each piece was touched by hand, imbued with its own story, waiting for its moment on camera. I made the characters themselves, along with their beds, closets, tables, chairs, bed linen, sofa, toy boxes, trees and so much more. I shaped hundreds and hundreds of tiny stones to build the walls, each one placed with care. Every object carried a piece of the world I wanted to bring to life.
I wrote the story and shaped it into a script. From the very beginning, I knew it had to be about two boys — my grandsons — set in the night so I could play with the magic of nighttime lighting, and it had to be an adventure. That became the foundation of the film. I decided almost everything would be handmade or sourced second-hand. I tested armatures, experimented with materials, and began sculpting the characters who would carry the heart of the story. Their personalities began to emerge, and the adventure started to feel alive.
As a photographer, it had long been my dream to make a stop-motion film. I was drawn to the patience and intimacy of the medium — how you can build a world from nothing, one frame at a time. That year, I began researching everything I could about stop-motion, learning the craft from the ground up. I had no idea it would become a seven-year journey.
Behind the scenes
Step behind the curtain and discover the seven-year journey of sets, puppets, and patience that brought Midnight Mission to life.