Animation- WIP

DM Test Scene from Doug on Vimeo.

 

 

Sh 23 Blocking from Doug on Vimeo.

I took 2 of the most challenging/most fun shots to tackle first to set the style of the motion and get a feel for drawing the character. I was also thinking if the project turned out not to work or if I couldn't find time for it at least these would look good on my showreel as standalone pieces.

Production Folder Structure

The whole production for my short film is on this card that's smaller than my thumbnail! If that idea doesn't make me back up files I don't know what will. I just spent a couple of hours building the folder structure of the project and copying the pre-production stuff into the new system.

Gives you a new appreciation of the tech guys at work doing this pipeline type of stuff :)

I found a handy program called Text2Folders which helps you setup folders/subfolders very quickly and since I don't know how to do a batch process this was a godsend.

So everthing's set up and ready to animate. Eek!

Astro Animatic

Dark Matter Animatic from Doug on Vimeo.

So this is the old version of my film. I've tweaked the story since then but I don't think I will post up the final version as I want some surprises in the final film.

K-9Lives: Episode 3

I must be streamlining my process of making these... this one took a day and a half less time than episode 2. So hopefully I can get Ep4+5 going soon and then I will put together an 8 minute film, cut together with Episodes 2,3,4+5. That's the plan at the moment anyway.

My previous experience of taking Episode 1 to film festivals was that it was too short a film to really grab people. I think the idea of K-9 takes a while to sink in with people. It is a bit weird and surreal so perhaps several episodes together will let them grasp the concept better. Also I think each of these films is improving as I go. So hopefully given the success of the first one I should get a good festival run out of the next film.

I am also busy with other comics work and preparing for a convention in May so we'll see how soon I can get going on the next episode...

K-9Lives Episode2: I thought I would post some background info on the making of this film. It has been almost a year since the first episode and that in no way reflects how long each one takes to make. But I have been busy inbetween, working on another comic strip Bloodwhat which is up to 124 strips! And The Von Spleen Experiment which is a graphic novel in progress.

The K-9Lives comic strip has come to an end in its current format. Now I'm hoping to make the most successful stories from the comic into animated episodes for the website. When I have about 5/6 episodes I will edit them together to make a 12-15 minute short film which I intend to submit to festivals and hopefully develop some further interest.

I found the work of David O Reilly quite an inspiration for this method. His film "Please Say Something" was created in 30second episodes online and went on to win all sorts of awards when the final film was finished.

Episode 2 took me 2 weeks to produce, working full time (with some late nights). I always planned for these films to be quick and simple... because I wanted to see the finish line. Rather than spend 20 years working on an idea that may have been flawed from the start, working like this lets me see my finished work and learn from mistakes and develop and progress.

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!

I've decided to do all the shadows rendering in pencils, I really prefer the look and it means I can spend more time at the drawing board which I prefer to staring at the computer screen. The comments from Sketch Tavern by Spagetthi016 and Dozer (dont know their real names!) were very helpful and I've made a few improvements on these shots.

I went off the grimy look of the previous B+W stills so I did a cleaner crisper version here. I also added colour to the yellow wires... This could be a god way of doing B+W and still having some visuals pop in colour on certain items.
I've posted my concept stuff at Sketch Tavern and just got an in depth critique on some of these stills, I'll post up the altered version soon.

I'm trying to define the visuals for the film, this is where I take some stills and try endless variations of colours, photoshop effects, chop and change different things. I'm quite likeing the black and white style.... I have always been drawn to B+W but haven't utilised it in any of my films yet. It seems like quite a big leap to take colour out of the picture. I do think it will fit the style of the story tho.

It's a bit early for poster design but I wanted to do a sorta concept sheet, with the main characters and the title. I can put this with the pitch materials but basically I'm making this without funding anyway.... so it's just for fun.

I actually started animating the first shot yesterday! It will give me a chance to try some things out and define the style, and I've picked a shot that I really like to start with and it's a lot of fun so far. I'm still storyboarding it but since I don't like getting bogged down in one area I'll move about onto different departments (storyboard, background, layout, animation, colouring etc) as and when I get the inspiration. That way I'll always be fresh.

Festival Update:
K-9Lives Episode 1 has been selected for competition at Athens Animfest in Greece! The Fest is in March, I will post more info when they confirm the full line-up of films. Hopefully the first of many, fingers crossed.

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.

Reservoir Reindeers is my first step towards independant animated film-making, a christmas card for an alternative audience. I got the idea for the card when I was in the second year of university and actually animated it back then... I didn't finish it in time and I don't think anyone ever saw it. 3 years on and I've worked a couple of animation jobs in Scotland and France, looking back it was quite poorly executed but I still really found the idea of it funny. I decided to use the project as a testing ground for some films I've got in the works and it turned out to be a good idea because I've refined my process a bit, got an interesting christmas card that can act as a sort of calling card for future projects, and I'm now starting production on phase 2 of my independant animation career.