New Animatic

This week I took the footage I have so far and put it into an new animatic. I did this mainly so I could find any faults, mistakes, or errors. It's been helpful, and now I know what it is I need to fix. I guess the biggest fix would be to hold each shot just a bit longer and cut them down accordingly. I'm still looking for other possible fixes, but I'm not too concerned about the film overall.

Oh, and there's no sound in this one.

Second Semester In Progess Animatic from Tyler Sandifer on Vimeo.

just an effect shot

This week I tackled one of the most important shots of Act 2; when the book is shot in mid air. I had it roughed out before I worked on it this week, but I didn't like the way it moved so I redid the whole thing from scratch. It wasn't that bad,but it did take longer than it probably should have. I think the lesson to take from this is to not get to caught up in details right away.

I'm also hoping to get a new animatic done this week before class. I don't know if I'll get to it, but I'll try.

Once again, blogger has cut out a portion of the video so you'll want to go to Youtube directly to see it. If anyone knows how to get videos on here without sacrificing the picture please let me know.

This week I had a lot of really short shots, so I'll compile them into a video later. A major chunk of my work this week was for the scene when the bad guy walks into the main characters art studio. Luckily, a good portion of that scene is told through POV still shots. If you can't remember what I mean, check the animatic and you'll see what I was going for.

I don't know if I'd say I'm done with these just yet, but for right now I can plop them into the scene and they read okay to me. They don't stay on screen for that long, so there isn't much need for absolute perfection. However I'm still thinking of what else I can do to make them just a little bit better.

Book shelf shot: colored

One of the shots I did for the week. I like the colors but his arm holding the book is bothering me. I guess the only thing I can do is go back in and adjust it, but I've gotta figure out how that motion would work first. I'll come back to that later when I'm getting other my revisions done, so for right now I'll just sleep on it.

More Act 1 Shots

Here are two of the longer shots I did this week. The one with the statues arm getting cut off has a temp background and I'll put the final one in later this week. For the paint tossing shot, the PNG for the BG seemed to get rid of some detail so I'll just go back and make sure to get it right before exporting it again. I also know the bad guy's buttons flash for a frame. That's an easy fix that I'll do very soon.

As always, I would advise going directly to Youtube to watch this because Blogger seems to cut the frame in half for all my videos.

Some more BG's

I thought this week I might upload a few backgrounds. I haven't put them in the film yet but I'll get to that tomorrow and see how they turn out. These come from the second act of my thesis.

Nothing too remarkable

Here's a couple of the shots I worked on this week. I forgot to put in some back grounds, but they are getting done. I intend to enhance the first shot with an After Effects shake one I get the other assets in there.

Oh, and make sure you go to Youtube to watch an of these clips. Blogger tends to cut off a good portion of the image when I embed anything.

More color tests

Here's a group of some of the many shots I did this weekend. For the most part these are in sequence, there's just a shot missing in there. Overall, I'm liking the colors and they seem to work well off the backgrounds. My only concern is the sketchy quality of the art and trying to find a look that's something clean readable while maintaining the stylistic artifacts. I guess I'll figure that out as I go along.

First color shots

This week I got around trying to color my shots. So far they look pretty close to how I pictured them in my head, and I'm pretty satisfied with the results. They aren't quite finished and I need to put in some backgrounds, but so far they're looking pretty good to me.

Mid Year Animatic

Pretty self explanatory. My animatic combined with my rough animation so far.

Paint Splashing scene

Here's a rough version of the shot where the bad guy splashes paint on a painting. I may hold the end or beginning a little longer, not sure yet, but at least I have something to look at in the mean time. Once I get the backdrop in there I may re-size the characters. Not sure really, I'm just thinking out loud.

Grad animatic + sound

Here's my grad presentation animation. Nothing too different, but with some sound unlike the one I put here before.

Animatic with some rough animation

I decided to try and piece together an animatic with some of my rough animation, just to see how things were shaping up. There's no sound yet, but I'll try to get some soon.

Overall, it's looking pretty close to how it did when there were no moving pictures. I just need to hold some shots longer, and that's not too big a concern for me. I also realize it moves a lot faster than my old animatic, and that's due to there being less holds. Some of the action is a bit faster than I anticipated as well.

I'm not worried, but I'm definitely keeping things in the back of my mind for later.

Animatic + rough animation from Tyler Sandifer on Vimeo.

Hallway explosion: rough cut

Last week I lost a couple shots that I clearly remember saving, but for whatever reason vanished into the ether of the computer. I ended up having to do them again, but they look better than they did before, so I guess it's all okay in the end. Anyway, I took those shots and put them with the hallway blast I did last week as well.

I'm glad I'm getting more shots done in order now, because I can see how they play off one another and see if I need to hold anything. I think I may add a bit to the shot where the flames consume the bad guy, and I think I'll hold on the main character a little longer too (maybe a quarter of a second or so, just enough to let it register in the audiences mind). I should also point out this isn't how the scene will look in the final movie. The order I have it in in my animatic is the same, I just don't have those shots in the middle yet.

Phew! Well, now that you've climbed this wall of text please take a look at the scene. As always, questions and comments are appreciated. Oh, and you may want to go right to Youtube instead of playing it here.

Really, Really Short but Sweet...I think.

This week I did a rough pass at the big explosion in the guys house. My main goal was to just try and feel out the path and curvature of the fire and see how it looked and felt to me. Come time for the final animation, I think I'll add some more sparks and embers and what not, just to give it a bit more detail, but we'll see.

Another rough test sequence

Put this together from a couple shots that I did this week. It's nice doing shots in order sometimes because it really helps to give me a sense of the timing, seeing what works and what doesn't. Even in as rough a stage as it's in now, it's pretty neat getting a glimpse of my film.

*edit* Oh, and you may want to go directly to youtube and watch it. For some reason blogger cuts off part of the video when it's displayed on the page.

Technical Difficulties

Well, for some reason ToonBoom seems to just refuse to work properly. Everything I export comes out at 24fps, regardless of whether or not I had that in the settings. This is a huge problem because now everything looks wrong and there doesn't seem to be a way to fix it other than going in and changing the exposure manually on all of my shots. This is doable, however, it's far from ideal, and way too time consuming to do right now. If anyone knows how to get the program to cooperate please let me know. The last time I presented work that I exported I didn't have this problem, so I don't know what happened between then and now.

Rough Shot: POV bookshelf

Rough Shot: Taking out a book from Tyler Sandifer on Vimeo.

New post incoming

I'm going to post later tonight. I'm just waiting for vimeo to render out my clip. I didn't clack off, promise!

Another Animatic

Okay, I know I'm late getting this onto the blog, but this week hasn't been very kind to me in terms of work I needed to do, and After Effects decided to be really fussy on top of everything else. That being said, I still managed to get a new animatic out. However, it's not that different from my old one, so don't feel crazy if you can't spot that many differences.

Oh, I also made everything darker, so hopefully it wont look so washed out on your computer or on a projector.

Animatic 2.0 from Tyler Sandifer on Vimeo.