Sugar High, you know, from Empire Records

So it's Saturday night, and the current "shots left" count for the new animated short is 29 (+/- 3) out of 47.

Today I cracked open my new Pro Tools LE and microphone to record some voice over action. Luckily the heat is rarely on in my apartment, so it was relatively quiet. That is aside from the Fast & Furious III: Astoria Drift drag racing that takes place on my street.

My work flow is definitely out of order. If you're going to independently make a hand drawn animated short, or a "drawie" as we call it in the business, then you should really follow steps similar to these:

1. Buy Richard Williams "Animation Survival Kit" to make sure you have some back up help.
2. Skim through the cool drawings, then put it down and write a script.
3. Storyboard the script.
4. Look at "Animation Survival Kit" again, be surprised at how heavy the hardback version is and how it knocks over all your other books like dominoes when you try to stack it on a shelf.
5. Record and mix a rough audio track.
6. Make an animatic (a video of your storyboards cut to the rough audio).
7. Send your friends an mpeg of the animatic, and when they don't get it tell them they "don't know shit about structure" and sign off IM immediately.
8. Animate.
9. Pencil test your animation.
10. Fix and clean up your drawings.
11. Steal Adobe Photoshop and After Affects.
12. Scan & Color your drawings.
13. Sequence and composite the drawings in Adobe After Effects or some program and sync them up with your sound.
14. Get a final audio trizzack.
15. Wonder why you've gained so much weight.
16. Output your shots and cut them together to make the final product.

Obviously, I barely know what I'm doing, but usually you record the audio before you animate so the drawings fit the acting. Der.

Since Matt and myself wrote the short and are also doing some of the voices there haven't been too many problems. Though the past few days of looking over the script and recording have added almost a page to the script.

No problema because I cut corners by using replaceable jaws for lip syncing. But more on that later.

Until then, here's a couple drawings. Also, my mom noted I spelled phoenix incorrectly in the last post. I apologize to all of the mythological fire birds and Arizona for my ignorance.

Knowing is half the battle.

Robot Rights.