Business Card Ideas

So far this is what I'm thinking of doing for a business card. But I think I will switch the image of Malcolm to maybe whatever I design for my film poster, or just a random image from my film. Now that I think about it, the image of Malcolm does not look good and using an image from my film would be more relevant to the purposes of this business card.

But I like this design and plan to keep it:

This was the old idea from last semester.....the teacher didn't like black and white Malcolm.....so that's why I tried adding colour.....stupid idea.

Reel Update March 14

This is password protected again. For classmates, please look for password on moodle (whenever I around to adding it). And for anyone else interested in watching you can send me a message.

This is as close to a time locked version I can get to at this point. It will do for the purposes of starting sound, etc... And when everything is done and said I might go back into my film and start ripping things out of it. But other then that it's going to stay like this.

I finished off all the animation (though I'm still fixing one scene), and I've started working on my backgrounds and compositing again. Which is what I really like doing. I've never had a strong interest in the animating part of animation. But I always had fun animating the walk cycles in Darren's class.

Anyways I have just started working on the last scene and have done some experimenting with how I want it to look. Its not where I want it yet. But it's getting there because I know what I want to do.

And I really wanted to add rain to this animatic but 1) I can't get it to work the way I want and 2) I can't get it to render properly. I'll have to work on that later this week.

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.