Hi, Joe Carlson here, and 8-Leafer Studios is my baby. I must “art,” and since film school I’ve been making my own little universe, with the help of my amazing friends, without whom my work would be impossible 🙂 Most recently, Jack Schmidt and I appeared in “Son of a Snow-Man,” and I’ve been too busy to post about that one, maybe we’ll do a deep dive come winter, but for now I want to talk to you about my latest project, “Solomon.”

As part of what Jack Schmidt has unofficially coined “the gummiverse”, “Solomon” will be one of my first videos in years that actually has an on-location setting, yet I can confirm that they belong to the same pantheon of characters, joining “Nixie” the Sprite, “Clover-Man,” “Dane Kirschnott,” “Topper Selfmann” and “Captain Tombstone.” These videos have all had some kind of experimental aspect, “Space Trololol” for example features my first attempt at stop-animation, and took about a month and a half to work on, but “Solomon” has my first attempt at creature creation.

“Solomon” may be the first character I ever really created, as a sketch in one of my 1st-grade school notebooks. Wetlands were a heavily discussed topic, as the midwestern US was experiencing an epidemic of mutations in amphibians, like frogs and salamanders, that apparently has never actually stopped, as the problem only moves these days. As the media was downplaying the issue, we had students bringing in mutated specimens they had found in their yards. Over the years, it inspired many a school report and project showcasing the issue, a couple of them I wrote myself, but what really tipped me over onto this topic recently was when I decided to check old newspaper archives about the issue, and found nothing. It’s like it was erased. You literally couldn’t hold all of the articles that were written about it in both arms, yet there are none to be found at this time, why? Why erase history when the lesson about pollution is so clear? Well, that issue can live on through this character, born in a 30 year-old notebook, in response to the real world.

We filmed the base footage of “Solomon” in October of last year and wrapped in a day. Because of my shoe-string budget, I can’t ask for a lot of takes when my friends are willingly giving up their time for free, under the promise that if I ever make money, they’ll make money, and we have yet to do so, but the trouble we went through to get this done shows how much I care about this specific project. Check out this teaser:

To add some perspective, I started the creature-puppet for “Solomon” immediately after wrapping the shoot, and I have yet to do the final step of air-brushing the sealant, as we have no space to work in for the time being. That’s one of the biggest reasons things are taking so long, no space. I’m in a complicated family situation that basically means I can’t move to a city and be an artistic slave to some company, which I’m actually very thankful for, but it doesn’t come without the problems, like I can’t afford a studio. I did most of the work on the puppet sitting on my bed with parts hanging from the ceiling via ropes tied off to my bedpost, and thereby wrecked my sheets :3 It’s also a headache to find a space to set up a shoot at all, I usually use my living room but it’s often not enough or doesn’t vibe with the schedule.

I will be able to release “Solomon” as soon as I’m able to finish sealing the puppet, get out to the filming sight to get accurate lighting and edit it all together, otherwise the main cut without effects is finished.

While working to finish “Solomon”, pre-production on the continuation of “Space Trololol” has also begun. Erika Adams and Christina Johnson will be reprising their roles as “Nixie” and “Wisp”, and for that one I’m experimenting with another kind of creature creation that should hopefully prove more efficient. If you missed the first one, you can see it here:

That’s our update, and I’d like to give a big “Thanks for watching ^^” from myself and the crew!