The Miraculous Pear Tree

Directed by Jeroen Zijlstra

The Miraculous Pear Tree is a stop-motion animation, shot entirely in high-definition. It tells the fairytale of a Tibetan monk who encounters a less than dignified salesman. After finding out about the salesman and his intentions, he teaches him a lesson.

Artistic statement :

The Miraculous Pear Tree is a product of some the interests of Jeroen Zijlstra:
Sjamanistic Buddhism and fairytales. It finds its origin in Tibetan fairytales and Buddhistic
traditions from Tibet, Nepal and Mongolia.


Workprocess

From concept to final product it took six months to realize this animation. This also because
it is the first digital stop-motion animation project in the Netherlands, which was
entirely made in High Definition (HD 1920x1080).

The building proces took four months and the shooting/postproduction about two.
Every shot was made with a Nikon Digital SLR camera in front of a greenscreen or
bluescreen, depending on the colors in the plate.
Every set was made out of styrofoam, PU-foam, balsa wood, latex paint and final acryllic
paint coatings. For the snow we used about 50 Kg. of salt and to make that stick on the feet
of the puppets we sprayed some spray-glue over it.
The puppets are made out of aluminum wire, polyurethane rubber and plasticine.

Everthing in the film, including the many props, are all handmade. All out of quick hardening
resin, balsa wood, etcetera. The final compositing, colorcorrection and edit are entirely done
in Adobe After Effects and Apple Final Cut Pro.

Jeroen Zijlstra

Continue here for Jeroen's biography