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.

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...