HyperNormals - ElectricHobo
Creating the Robot
Initial Concept Design presented to Fritz by Douglas and Jamie.
A friend of mine Fritz Bitsoie came and told us he is directing this video. A bunch of us sat and heard his concept. Fritz needed a robot. Im interested. I had a lot of ideas running through my head. I sat down with my friend Jamie Budiana and we designed it in like 2 weeks. We proposed it to Fritz and he was down; if we could pull it off.
After all that I had to put together for my previous video, building a robot suit didn't seem too farfetched. I figured id use chicken wire to form the basic shape that I could fit in. That worked pretty well for the most part aside from the chicken wire poking into my skin while shooting. A lot of foam tubing was used to protect my body from the chicken wire actually but it didn't always work. I duct-taped the chicken wire body completely and then used hot glue right on top of the tape to apply foam.
Each part of the Foam was basically cut like a pattern to create the proper shapes to get in the ballpark of our design. The Foam could be any color because it would be painted all uniform. I liked the idea of making the robot look like it was right out of the box, and then we would slowly start to degrade it and make it look more worn and used.
The suit had to be in multiple pieces that clipped into each other which was good for transporting it. When it was all done that thing was huge. It wouldn't fit in just any car. I had to get help getting into it sometimes.
You can see me here wearing the suit with suspenders. The belly needed support or it would weigh down on the legs too much and make it difficult to walk. The feet were really easy to walk in and helped keep balance once the whole suit was on.
I went looking through some salvaged pieces of old VCRs and things and tried to make the robot's face. There were some pieces of bulbs and a filter of some kind. I made some incisions in the foam and placed the pieces in it with some hot glue and that was that. Spraypaint hides hot glue pretty well and if you are good, you try to make your gluing look like it’s a weld in the metal.
All in all, it was a lot of fun working on this one. It really turned out. Check it out at the bottom if you’re interested.
Douglas LawlorDirected by Fritz Bitsoie - Director of Photography Leo Maco - HyperNormals - Electric Hobo 