Storyboard Comparison (read bottom to top)

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I thought it might be of interest for some people to see the story sketches I did for the animation below. As you can see I work very roughly, on various scraps of paper. I find it is easier to get ideas on paper if you are not feeling too precious about the result, It doesn't matter how it looks to me... so long as I have the idea. Then if it needs re-working I do that when I approach the scene in animation.

I chose this shot as the first animation test because I was happy with the shot, I knew it would be in the film.... wheras some other things in the film are shifting and changing still. I have probably half the story worked out, with the rest roughly mapped but needing some things adding. At the moment the story reel is running about 6-8 minutes and we're about half way through I think. So probably it will end up being about 12-15 minutes. I have about 1 minute of finished animation, so we're on our way!

Animation Test second pass TVSE from Doug on Vimeo.

I have been working on this shot for a while, trying to get the visuals to my taste. It takes a long time cleaning each frame of all the dust and debris that the scanner picks up. I need to see if there is a quicker way but for now I think this is how the film will look.

This is a pencil test for a run cycle in my new film K9-Lives. It's based on my webcomic of the same name. You-tube doesn't seem to run it very smoothly but you get the idea. I will post some other tests and frame-grabs as I go along. I have almost completed the animation of the short....I am editing together the animatic so I can decide on any changes before I start colouring. I am going for a very limited style of animation because I feel that I can create some nice films in a short amount of time and really develop my film-making skills. I have been working in animation for almost 2 years and I'm finding more and more that the endless refining and tweaking to get full animation is a rather dull business. I prefer dealing with the broader strokes of storytelling, cinematography and gag writing, letting the animation be rough and less developed. At the end of the day the only way to become a good film-maker and to learn the elements of good film is to MAKE films..... make mistakes and move on to make another film where you will make one or two less mistakes. So this is the first film since my graduation film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVW-zaY1Tbw&feature=channel and I plan to make many more.

I thought I'd share some of my influences and go through my most "Influential Moments" in film.

Fritz the Cat: This crow character is introduced to us in a seedy bar room. He's a pool shark (actually he's rubbish at pool) but the way you introduce a character is very important in films.... and this pays off big time later on.

About 20 minutes later Fritz is leading a revolt in the streets and gets the pair into a riot with the police. Shots are fired and our crow friend is hit in the chest. The gun shot is replaced with a shot of the break on a pool table. We see him bleeding and kneeling on the car, then cut back to the pool table and the pool balls bouncing represent the beating of his heart slowing down until the black 8ball which cracks and we zoom out from his black pupil.
This moment had a profound effect on me and I have been constantly thinking of ways to bring this approach to film-making into my own projects.