Posters

Milestone 09 -Stamped Shots

This week I made great progress on animating the three most complicated
shots of my film. I had boxed them off on my schedule as what I referred to as
my “Stamped” shots. I also pushed to finish up in-betweens on some other
unfinished shots.
The stamped shots include: Shot 03A (where a cat chases a bird up through a tree and the bird
flies away for dear life), Shot 17A (when
the squirrel realizes his acorn isn’t actually an acorn, but that it can fly,
he quickly runs in his house to check his other acorns. As he’s making sure his
other acorns aren’t sprouting limbs, the “eggcorn” is flying in the background
outside the house. The Cat pounces onto the branch and swats the eggcorn to a
lower branch. The squirrel is oblivious to what’s going on behind him), And Shot 18B (Where the firefighter gets
the cat out of the tree).
Shot 03A- I modeled the tree in maya and rendered out a
camera that panned through the tree. I ROUGHLY animated how I wanted the
character’s actions to be choreographed in the shot. Then I printed out all the
background cells, and keyed in the cat (hand drawn) based on the rough
animation I had already done.
Shot 17A- This shot was complicated just because it has
three characters in the scene, and the timing has to be just right for the
audience to see all the actions that are going on. I keyed the squirrel
already, and animated the acorns that he’s interacting with.
Shot 18B- This shot included a human character. I was
dreading animating the fireman, but the character design went really smoothly
for me. I got the character animated. Now all I have to do is animate the cat
squirming in discomfort as the fireman goes down the ladder.
If I’m able to get the animation in these shots complete by
this Wednesday (4-4) then I should be able to go back and get the squirrels
tail animated. The cat might have to go tail-less for now but of the two
characters, it was more important for the squirrel to have a tail. The cat is
kind of a stray, so if I don’t finish its tail animation, hopefully the audience
will just assume the tail got cut off at some point in the cat’s life.

Milestone 08 -THREE WEEKS LEFT!!!

As of Wednesday March 21^st I noticed that we only had three weeks left… This was a severe reality check… Not sure if I have enough time…

I still have a couple shots that need inbetweening. None of my drawings have: Facial Features, Tails, or Ears. And most of my drawings still are just circles. This leaves me with only a few options as to what I can do with my remaining time.

Option one: CUT my film to be half the length. This would sacrifice the story and character development, but give the film a “FINISHED” look.

Option two: Seeing as just about all the animation is complete, I could attempt to go through and spend the rest of the time drawing the character’s tails in and ears. (Probably won’t have time for facial features.) This option saves the story/character development, and would have really solid animation… Though the characters would look only slightly better than circles that move like the animals they represent.

Right now I’m leaning toward option two. I think what separates my animation from other animations is the story. I have to tell the story. I also think that with smooth animation, the circles will be enough to convey the idea. All I have to do is get those tails drawn in. I won’t worry about facial features for now, unless it’s a close up reaction shot. I’ll keep the line quality sketchy and add color under that.

My plan for QUICK coloring: each character will most likely only be one color (Except for the egg with the acorn hat on it and the acorns [both of which will be two colors.])

ACTIONS in Photoshop: I’ll set the drawn layer to Multiply (so all that’s white will be see through).

I’ll select the drawing (by selecting a top corner pixel, then inversing the selection),

Then create a layer under the drawn layer, and fill the selection with the foreground color (which would be the color of the character)

Then I’ll merge the two layers so that the color becomes part of the drawing.

Reselect the top pixel and delete all the white around the character.

It will be tough, and it's a race to the end, but I'm doing my best. I'm rolling with the waves as they come.

As for capturing my drawings into the computer: I have access to a feed-scanner. But if that fails, I’ll just capture them into the pencil test station and lowering the opacity of the tests over my backgrounds (But that’s WORST case scenario and would only take me a couple days to complete.)

I haven't lost hope or confidence that I'm able to complete this film. It might not be to the quality that I had originally imagined, but I keep chugging along!

Milestone 06 & 07 -Finishing Up Animaiton

With exception of three shots that are particularly difficult, I have most of the animation done. The next step is for me to finish the drawings (over the construction lines that I have made). I’m behind my original schedule that I had made at the beginning of the year, but I think I’ll have enough time. I have one month left before I have to be completely done, so I checked where I was a month ago to see how much I had done over the previous month. It appears that each step of my production “Process” takes me about a month. It’ll be close.

As for week 8, we had off of school for spring break. I continued working as much as I could manage, but after being completely burnt out, I felt that I had earned at least a couple days to recoup. Hopefully this will recharge me for the second half of the semester. I did manage to finish painting all my backgrounds in Photoshop. I’m happy with how they turned out.

It’s going to be far from easy, but I think there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. If I can make it through a tough month, then I think it’s possible for me to make the film.

I definitely “bit off more than I could chew” but I’m willing to make it through as much as I can. We’ll see where it gets me.

Milestone 05 -Catching Up

This week I was just powering out more in-between drawings,
hoping to get caught up to my schedule. I’m keeping a good pace I feel, and
should have them done by Wednesday the 7th.
I’m starting to consider that maybe I should do the fourth
step of my original production schedule, and do another pencil test after I get
all the in-betweens done. After I have the in-betweens done, the timing won’t
change for any of my animation, so I’d be able to get started on sound effects
at that point.
I’m continuing to work on finishing the in-betweens and will
start FINAL DRAWINGS after this. I feel that I’m still just behind being caught
up to where I had hoped to be, but two things should help me in weeks to come.
I’m working less over the weekends, and I cut the inking phase from my
production schedule.
After spring break I’ll make the call as to whether or not I
need to edit together a shorter version of my film with all the NEEDED shots, and
go from there.
For now, I got this.

Milestone 04- The Resons That Drive Me and What I'm up Against

The reason I have to do this is because I’m ridiculously ambitious and I actually want to complete what seems to be too much. When I was eight years old, I watched Toy Story, Antz, and A Bugs Life, and I realized that animation was a job field that I could become a part of some day. I said “I want to do THAT when I grow up,” (THAT meaning I wanted to be part of creating something new and something that was out of this world!) As I grew older, I began to realize that Pixar, Disney, and Dream Works happened to be the most coveted/competitive jobs in the animation field. I realize that I’m ambitious, but I’m still going for it.

When I graduated high school, I wanted to go to Savannah College of Art and Design for Animation. At the time, they were 3^rd best in the country for that major. I got accepted, but didn’t have the funds. It was (at the time) the most devastating thing I’d ever gone through (not being able to go; because, that meant I probably wasn’t going to ever get to the animation studios of my dreams). Now I’m a senior in college and I’m realizing I’m venerable to the same let down that I faced back in 2008. I told myself that there’s only three months left of college and that that’s a short enough time that I can survive going ALL OUT.

People doubt my ability. Sure I have an ambitious film to accomplish this semester. I told myself that I’m not going to let anything stop me. My older brother has asked me what I’d do if I DO get hired at Disney right out of college, but aren’t experienced enough to keep my job there. My dad has made comments that make me wonder if I'm good enough, and he's said I need to cut my film in order to pass senior year.

I’m sick of this uphill battle against what used to be my support group. I think they might be starting to convince me that I actually can’t accomplish this. I’m starting to just want to prove to myself that I can do it to keep my child hood dream alive. I need to do this! Against all odds I WILL NOT CUT MY FILM, unless it’s the last effort I make before failure. I need to prove to them that I can do this. I need to re-prove to myself that “I got this,” as I keep telling myself.
If I have this film at the end of this semester, it will be the strongest driving force behind all I do for the rest of my life.
It’s not easy going “uphill” against what others keep telling me. I’d like to prove to everybody that no matter what, I’m unstoppable and when I set my mind to something that’s important to me, then nobody can tell me I’m not good enough to make it.

I GOT THIS!

I will complete this film by the end of the semester. I’m still racing the clock (which tends to go alarmingly fast), but I will win in the end.

I didn’t make my milestone that I had set at the very beginning, but I’m adjusting to the facts. I think I’m going to cut the inking phase of my Production schedule and clean up my pencil drawings instead. Then I’m going to color the entire film over the two weeks I would have been inking. I also split my film up into individual characters that need animating per shot, instead of just splitting my schedule up into Shots that need animating. Originally I had my schedule composed of just shots that needed animating, and then I’d get frustrated when some shots had three characters.

One more battle against time was that I was working 15-25 hours at my part time job over the weekends. This was preventing me from putting in the hours I needed on my film, and also causing me MUCH more stress. As of Friday the 24^th, I asked for fewer hours so that I could focus more on my film.

I feel that I’m making appropriate adjustments to the problems I’m experiencing/foreseeing, and I WILL accomplish the film I had envisioned at the beginning of the semester.

As far as week 4’s milestone, I didn’t accomplish it. But seeing as how much I faced, I think I’m making the right decisions to overcome the obstacles at hand.

Milestone 03- The Catch Up Plan

This week I had scene 6 and 7 to do from last week. Then Try to accomplish all of the inbetweens for scene 1 and 2. It took me through Sunday night to get finished with scene 6 and 7. That only left me with two days to animate all the inbetweens for two scenes. I obviously couldn’t do it. I think that would have been imposable to pull off. I managed to get all of scene 1 done though, and one shot from scene 2.

I have to think of a way to save time and get caught up. I went through my film, listing each shot, and each character in each shot. Then I made a “Catch Up Plan”, scheduling a day to day list of stuff I had to get done. There are about 5 to 6 characters on each day that I have to animate. This is still ridiculously ambitious, so I gave myself 4 days into March that I could use for catching up to the “Catch Up Plan.” I also decided to eliminate Phase 4 from my Production Process. I feel that the pencil tests were taking quite a while to accomplish, and if I could cut any of the pencil tests it was for the inbetweens. So I’ll go from inbetweens to final drawings, then if I need to pencil test at that point I will.

From Monday the 6^th to the end of Tuesday the 14^th, I worked 55 and a half hour. Though I didn’t make my Milestone 3 check point, I’m closing the gap from how far behind I fell on week 2.