067

I've been wanting to get more plants for my room, so I went on a succulent hunt last week visiting about 5 different places looking for them. I did finally find them but it took a lot longer then planned. I hope these last longer than the last ones...cause I don't have much of a green thumb but I can try dammit.

I also wanted to make one of my 7" Munnys into a planter, so I decided to create one that had an old wooden sign/barrel look to it. I only cut my self a few times with the box cutter while working on it, and painting didn't take as long as I thought. Here are some pics of the finished planter and part of the process:

 These are the other plants I picked up and planted in the other planters I had.

 I thought I would try some air plants to see how they fair.

 And this is a planter I made from a reclaimed wood box I pulled from a dumpster a few years back.... yes I do dumpster dive on occasion. 

 And they lived happily ever after on my window sill.... hopefully.

In Other News:
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My film was in another festival: 2013 Moonrise Film Festival [Link]
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And my grandmother passed away on Friday and I'm still mostly in shock from it. I wouldn't say it was sudden because the whole family knew that she wouldn't be around for much longer. But going to the care home to check up on her after getting a bunch of conflicting phone calls only to have the nurse just come out and say she passed 10 mins before I got there was a little sudden. And my parents were in a different province at the time so everything kinda fell on me for a bit....but it all got sorted out in the end. That all aside....... I will miss her very much and I think it will take some time for it to sink in that she is actually gone.

N4YP

My film will be screening at a fundraising film festival (N4YP.com) in Berlin on Feb.17 so if your around that area of the world go check out the festival :)

I was in a really creative mood today, but due to sitting in front of a computer for several hours re-rendering something in AE over and over.....that creativity died somewhat. Anyways here's some more practice:

Grad Film Online

Disconnect from Carolyn Fisk on Vimeo.

I decided to make my grad film public because I feel more people will be able to view it this way and I will be able to get more exposure (positive or negative). Originally I wanted to release it online right after I completed it, but when I learned some festivals would not accept your work if it was online, I uploaded the video for private viewing only. Now I think its more important to have everyone be able to watch it instead of just a few.

So enjoy.

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If you need more information about the film, there is a link to the right in the "Labels" section for previous blog entires about working on my grad film, and there is a page on my Online Portfolio about the film.

Online Booklet: The Making of Disconnect

Please follow this link to view the booklet: The Making of Disconnect

The page flipping sounds can be muted by pressing the volume button at the top of the page. Pages may also take a bit of time to load depending on the speed of your internet connection.
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On a side note, if anyone wants me to answer any questions about my film just post a comment or send me an email: fisk [dot] carolyn [at] gmail [dot] com

Complete

I'm officially finished my graduation film. I just attended our schools opening night for the graduation exhibit and it was my first time to sit with a large audience and watch all the films on screen. That was an experience. I think I'm still too stunned with the fact that I've completed everything to really express how I feel about the whole film making process. I also feel like I should have more to say about my film at this stage but I think I still need more reflection time.

Anyways, I created a booklet to go a long with my poster display at school and I was planning to put it together somehow online... I just haven't figured out how to do that yet. So I will just post a few pages from it for now, and figure how to put up the rest later:

If you have yet to see the graduation show and the animations from this year, here is some more information on the event: Degree Exhibition 2011

There is also an external show where you can watch all the animations from this year. This is a link to the facebook page. You may need to log into facebook to see it, but I will also list some information for it here:

Odds & Ends: 2011 ECUAD Animation and Film External Grad Show

Saturday, May 21 · 11:00am - 4:30pm @ Van City Theatre, 1181 Seymour Street, Vancouver, BC

Come to Vancity Theater on May 21st for an afternoon of screenings from the 2011 Emily Carr University of Art and Design Animation and Film Graduates.

Event Schedule:
11:00 am - Doors Open
12:-00-12:30pm - Awards
12:30-2:00pm - Program A
2:00-2:30pm - Intermission
2:30-4:30pm - Program B

Tickets are $15 for both screenings or $10 for either Program A or Program B. They will be sold at the door.

Film Poster

Here is the poster for my film. I like how it turned out and it printed well:

Disconnect Trailer

Here is the trailer for my up coming film Disconnect:

Disconnect Trailer from Carolyn Fisk on Vimeo.

Sound By: Ozma Sound

edit:// I just checked my original file cause I noticed how dark this version was on Vimeo....Vimeo really bumps up the blacks. I may upload a different version later.

Sound Update

I forgot to mention here that I did find a sound designer to work on my film:

Ozma Sound

So now I can concentrate fully on colouring and compositing. I've also been having a hard time getting my rain particles to work the way I want them to in 3D Studio Max, but I hope I can solve this problem soon so I have enough time render and composite them.

The trailer for my film will be completed by Tuesday of next week so I will post it here as soon as I have time to do so.

Doing My Own Sound

So I've decided that I will just have to do the sound for my film on my own. I have not been able to find another sound designer to work on my film "for free" and with little to no money left to spend on my grad film (let alone anything else), I'm just going to suck it up and do the sound on my own....with input and moderate help from sound technicians at the school. Later today I will pick up the recording equipment and start recording all the sounds I need for my film (sfx, foley, ambient, etc.). And then attempt sound design... Neat.

But the good thing is I've almost finished all my backgrounds. And though my character still needs to be coloured in for a more then a few scenes, I am hopeful I can find some more helpers to help me with that. So I should have enough time to fiddle around with the sound for my film....like 2 days maybe.....to which everyone will tell me isn't enough time. But at this point 2 days is pushing it for me. I'll be spending 2-3 days just recording all the sounds I need.

Most of the scenes that are still unfinished won't require too much composting because I have already done most of it while working on each background. Though I still have to create and render the rain to put into the city scenes :/ but I know how to integrate them when they are done. And I need to re-render a couple of scenes due to colour banding. And I really hope that our final films can be rendered with a codec other then H.264 because my blacks really die on that compression and everything begins colour banding....not a lot.....but enough to make things look like shit.

Screenshots

These are the 3 screenshots I chose to show in our school's graduation catalogue.

Can I be finished animating now?

Almost finished animating. All I have left to animate is the ending train sequence which I'll just have to pull off somehow.

But what I really want to be working on is the backgrounds and compositing:

Also I sill have not found a sound designer, but if I do find one I'll let you guys know.

Updated Leica Reel

Another password protected video.....yay. For people in my Senior Animation class I'll put the password on moodle when I have time. And for anyone else who wishes to watch this version please contact me and I'll give you the viewing password. Within a year or so I'll probably remove the passwords from all these videos so people can see the process of my film from draft to finished piece.

This is the latest version. I have changed the timing in a lot of scenes and shortened the beginning scene by 3 secs or so. Which may not seem like a lot but it makes a difference. Everything is pretty much timed the way I want it up until the last train sequence which I am currently working on, but I'm hoping that all animation will be complete by the first week of March. Then I can finish composting and working on backgrounds.

This version does not have sound on it. It was going to be the version I would give my sound designer to start working on, but - long story short - essentially I no longer have a sound designer and I am in the process of looking for another one. It would be easy to find a sound designer if I still had money in the budget for one, but I don't have any money to put towards sound. My original sound designer was a volunteer and now I'm looking for someone else to volunteer. Now I could do all the sound for my film by myself, but I would only be able to spend maybe 2-3 days working on it, plus one day to find/record sounds. At this point that is all the time I have to spend on sound because between going to classes twice a week, working on my grad film everyday, and working on homework for other classes.......there really is not enough time.

On that note I'm going to count this towards my class update that was supposed to be on March 2.

ANIM 420 - Production Blog - #2

I tried out a different codec - sorenson - when I was rendering this version and the colours turned out a bit better this time around. But later in March/April I'm going to have to do a lot of colour correcting because the final version will be in H.264 I believe, unless we have another option.

I have now made my animatics password protected because as they become more finalized, I don't want them to affect my ability to apply to film festivals.

If you are interested in viewing this animatic please contact me for the password. Or if your from my ANIM 420 class, I will have the password on moodle.

This is what my production schedule looks like as of Feb.8:
http://www.mediafire.com/?fdzdjby92bq1s4z

I really need more people to start colouring my work. I should make a new "help wanted" poster for the animation room.

ANIM 420 - Production Blog - Week 2

**This is a post specifically for my Senior Animation class this semester. If you are not in my class please ignore this post because I will probably delete it after spring semester is over.**

For my critical review scholar and instructor: 
Current Leica Reel: Click Here as of Dec.16th 
Production schedule (including task list), Why paper, Images (Concepts, Prototypes, Reference Images): Click Here   [contact me by email/or in class for password]
  
Please look at my other blog entries for more information about my film. My WHY paper doesn't really express what my film is supposed to be about anymore. All my different images are in .pdf's from power point presentations I have done. One .pdf is the original presentation I did for my first review panel, there is one for my WHY paper, and the last one would contain what I showed during my December review panel. My included production schedule was last updated Jan. 12, 2011 so by the time you read it I will have already completed more tasks on my list.

I have a feeling I won't update this weekly...

Colouring Helpers Wanted

As promised I made a couple tutorials to explain the type of help I'm looking for with regards to my grad film. I will apologize ahead of time for the sound quality, I did not realized how much background noise my internal fan would cause. And I don't have a lot of scenes animated at the moment but by the time the end of January comes around there will be plenty of colouring work for everyone.

**I would like to have all my scenes coloured by the end of March if at all possible. So if you have a friend, or a friend of a friend who would like to help, send them my way. They don't even have to be in the animation program or at the school for that matter. Just as long as they are timely, dependable, and have a good work ethic.

*Watching the tutorials directly on Vimeo will provide better quality and a larger screen size.*

Tutorial One

In my first tutorial I talk specifically about the first scene in my film and how I want it to be coloured. So far it is the longest scene with the most complex animated sequence. I would not recommend this scene to people who think they may not have a lot of time to spend helping me out, or to people who are not very confident with photoshop CS3 and above. This scene will be very time consuming and will require a basic knowledge of proper lighting. All that being said, if you can do this scene the rest should be a breeze.

Tutorial Two

In my second tutorial I talk about a different scene which is by far one of the most simplest scenes to colour because there is not a lot of character movement despite the fact that this is more then one character present in the scene. This is an example of a scene which should not be very time consuming and would be great for anyone who does not want to take on a lot of work... but it doesn't mean you can be lazy. Even though I myself am a lazy person.

Now it's important that you watch both tutorials because I discuss slightly different things in both of them. But since I've never been very good at making tutorials, so before you start working on any scene you'll probably want to ask me to explain it first. I can either do that in person at school (if we go to the same school), by email (which you can find in my contact information to the upper right...or you can use my other emails if you know them), over Facebook (if you have me on fb), or over Skype (contact info will be provided via email). You can also ask questions here.

Another good tutorial which would help you with the colouring process can be found on my friend Betty's blog. She describes the colouring method for the characters in her film, which varies from my method....it might even be better....but she provides written instructions and screen caps to explain what needs to be done. So if you want further details it is the tutorial for you. 

She uses Photoshop CS5 Extended for her animation while I use CS3 Extended so there will be some differences simply because of the newer software, so keep that in mind when looking at both my tutorials and Betty's.

Also you may find my first attempt at making a tutorial amusing, but you'll have to follow this link: http://vimeo.com/18383881 to watch it directly on Vimeo.

And I was going to talk more about my film in general but I will leave that for another post because I would like to update my animatic again with the new ending. Talk to you guys later.

Latest Film Update

Animatic Dec.16 from Carolyn Fisk on Vimeo.

Well now should be a good time to give an update on my current progress. It's been a few months since my last post and several things have changed with my film.

The first major change is that I will no longer be using the music I mentioned in previous posts because it just wasn't working out. Which means I need to get in contact with the band again to let them know I won't be using their music. So I am now in the process of looking for a composer / sound designer because I do not want to tackle the sound for my film by myself. I am planning to contact a composer over Christmas break to see if they are still interested in helping me with my film. But if you are a composer/ or if anyone knows someone who is a composer/sound designer - please get in touch with me.

Story wise my film hasn't changed too much. I mean a lot has changed from the first animatic I made and there is so much I could talk about in relation to this, but to sum it all up basically my original idea - the one I thought up before Fall semester started - was great. But every change or adjustment I have made to it since then has backfired to a certain extent. My intention and the emotions I try to convey become muddled and confused when the blanks of my original 6 panel storyboard are filled in. One of my instructors who saw the original 6 panel storyboard saw something in it that they thought was amazing, but I obviously cannot see it. With my latest animatic (see above) I had everything working to a point, yet somewhere near the end of the story it began to fall apart. The same instructor saw this newest version and pointed out some religious aspects that I did not want my film to have. So I need to rethink the ending.

Other then that things are great.

I have settled on how I would like my film to look stylistically, I have completed a large portion of my backgrounds, and I have begun animating. Here are links to some prototype images of how my film will look when it is finished:

Bedroom
City
Train

I have decided that the fill colour for the characters will be a darker gray because I do not want the characters to stand out too much from their environment. The characters will still interact with the light and shadows in the environment. The environments themselves were modeled in 3D Studio Max and then painted over in photoshop to give them a softer, more painterly effect. But I have left a lot of the texturing alone.

The animation I have has been half rotoscoped from reference footage so that I can speed up the process of animating somewhat. It has also helped me stage certain actions and movements in a clearer fashion. The timing in my animatic for certain scenes is still off but I find it easier to time things once I start animating the scene and actually see how long certain movements take.

Anyways...

In my next post I will be explaining how my characters will be coloured and integrated into the environment because I have a few people who are interested in helping me with that aspect of my film. I am still looking for more helpers to assist me with colouring in characters so my next post will talk more in depth about what that job would entail. I'll also talk more about my film in general just to explain a few more things.

WIP Reel

WIP animatic oct.6th from Carolyn Fisk on Vimeo.

This is a work in progress reel for my grad film. It has a few sound effects thrown onto it and the music I wish to use (I have permission from the band to use it).

I've had several people look at this reel already and I have decided to change the entire first half because the main character's motivation is non-existent. There is no ending at this point and the reel does not reflect the final style.

If the small sample of music interests you, follow this link to the band's website. The song is called "Master Roshi" by Sic Semper: soundclick.com/​bands/​default.cfm?bandID=365751

Grad Film Description

So now is probably a good time to do a description of my grad film. It's working title is "Disconnect" and I'm aiming for it to be around 3 mins....but I'll know for sure how long it'll be soon because I have to do my work-in-progress reel w/ rough sound. I'll post a link to my reel when it's done....and I'll also post more visuals soon.

“Disconnect” is an animated film about a protagonist who struggles with depression resulting from his inability to find a way to connect with others. The protagonist - Malcolm - is a sad, lonely character who finds it hard to connect with others because he feels different. He lives in a grey city void of emotion but full of people. Everyday begins to feel the same to him as he struggles to find some way to identify with others and come out of his shell. 

 

One day Malcolm finds himself laying on his bed struggling with the idea of reaching his hand into the open drawer of his bedside table. When he finally works up the courage we see him holding an old photo of himself during better times. He sees an expression – a smile - on his old face that he doesn't understand. He puts the picture down and goes over to look through other drawers and pulls out more photos of old times full of expressions and feelings he can no longer place. Frustrated he starts to leave but sees a kid in the doorway of an apartment across the hall from him. The little kid is shy but waves at him. He feels an urge to wave back and when he does the kid smiles shyly and closes the door. This moment intrigues him but he continues to leave the apartment building, all the while smiling slightly. Walking down the street he inadvertently smiles at someone else coming towards him. This person in turn smiles back. Puzzled he stops smiling and watches this other person as they walk by. He begins to realize he has found a way to connect with others. When he gets on the subway train he works up the courage and decides to smile at someone again – who in turn smiles back - and eventually he gets everyone smiling with him. As a resolution, Malcolm realizes he has a connection with others and that he is not so different after all.

The ideal age range for this film would be 14 to 25 because I think the story's message will be best understood by older teens and young adults. This film is intended to function as an educational or informative story, and I want it to be thought provoking. It will convey the feelings of a depressed person but it is not intended to leave the audience feeling depressed. Instead I would like the audience to feel like they can relate to my character and understand why he feels the way he does. At the end of the film people should walk away feeling uplifted, with a better understanding of the character's emotions. 

The style of the film will need to reflect the actions and feelings of the character so I anticipate working with a very muted colour scheme. I will be using a lot of blacks, greys, and blues, but I will be introducing brighter colours in later sequences for the sake of contrast and to highlight a change in mood. The story takes place within a city so I have modeled parts of my city backgrounds in 3D. I have also modeled Malcolm's room and the subway train in 3D. I will be painting over elements of all the 3D backgrounds with photoshop to integrate them with the hand-drawn characters I have planned. Modeling the city will help me when dealing with perspective and deciding on camera angles. I would like to experiment with leaving the characters as one solid colour. 

“Disconnect” will not be narrated and will not include dialogue. I will be using music and sound effects to tell the story and create an overall mood. The sound effects will be realistic. The music that I have permission to use is “Master Roshi” by Sic Semper (formal contract pending). The sound should reflect the emotions of the protagonist.

Follow this link to learn more about Sic Semper and to hear “Master Roshi”: 

< http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=365751 >