This is a frame from one of the shots I've been working on this week for IIUM/KUS. Probably the most effects heavy shot of the whole short. I've said it before, but the whole short doesn't look like this, I don't want to do any false advertising. Well, really I just don't want anyone to be disappointed, and be like ". . .oh, I thought this was going to look different when it was moving and stuff. . . stop IMing me all these links."
This whole week I've been fixing and rendering out what are hopefully the final shots for the short. I'm sure I messed something up though.
We decided to make the short HD or make it IN HD- how would you phrase that? The reasoning was that it would look nice if it were ever projected for a festival or something. But I don't know if this short would really interest festival programmers, I think it's better suited for an internet audience who's avoiding doing work/homework/socializing at all costs. I wonder if there are laurels for that I could put on a poster.
Anyways, being primarily viewed on the internet (and this is assuming people don't gouge their eyes out in the first 30 seconds) means that the majority of viewers are going to watch this short mildly compressed at half it's resolution. This on top of the hard drive space and render time makes you start to question things. Why we tried to meddle with HD in the first place!? Who were we to play god!? You at least need to go to grad school for that type of thing.
Wow, it's been a month since I last updated. Well, I've been working my ass off and I've got the pictures to prove it. Any photographic evidence you see otherwise is a blatant Stalinist forgery.
We're in the belly of the beast right now, three projects going on at once, so first things first. The pick up shots for the new nerdy ass short, codenamed: IIUM/KUS, are done and should be cleaned and colored by tomorrow. So hopefully a shit load of After Effects work will get that thing to picture lock either this week or next week.
Next up at bat is the music video I'm animating for the Ben Weasel song "Got My Number" off his new album "These Ones Are Bitter". If you like Screeching Weasel and/or pop punk tunes go here and download it.
These are some of the more interesting storyboards from the animatic.
Can you figure out what music video is about? Get out your special Ben Levin decoder rings and mail in your theories to :
"The Astounding Confounding Storyboard Mystery & Great American Anal Portrait Contest" c/o The American Family Association PO Box Drawer 2440 Tupelo, MS 38803
Finally, my partner in crime, Matt, and I finished storyboarding a short we're working on with improviser/comedienne extraordinaire Jackie Clarke. We've learned from our sins with IIUM/KUS and are making animatics for everything now. It's really crucial to storyboard AND make an animatic because it helps to see how long to hold each shot, how angles pair up, and if you've got everything running smoothly with your dialogue track- blah blah blah.
Thus we've started this system of buying stacks of blank index cards to storyboard on. The theory being that we can in turn use these cards as rough layouts for the actual animation and that the smaller size of the drawings will help us cut down on pencil mileage. Plus it's nice to hold a fat stack of smudgy cards strapped together with rubber bands and feel like you actually did something with your life.
Here's what the stacks for the Ben Weasel short and the Jackie Clarke short look like:
And in an effort to make this post ridiculously long- my old short, "She She She She's A Bombshell", got a mention on this podcast GeekNights. Check it out:
The first run of DVD's of my documentary on the ska band The Slackers- aptly titled The Slackers: A Documentary- arrived this past week. It's a feature length documentary I directed slash produced slash edited slash carried around a golf bag of tripods and mic stands doubling as light stands for.
The DVD's will be going on sale online soon, until then the Slackers will be selling them at their shows, so check out their tour dates section of their website.
I also whipped up my own site- www.theslackersdoc.com- for the documentary, and a little trailer for it. Check it out.
Anyways, I'll have more info about where to buy it when it becomes available. But in the meantime thanks to everyone who helped me out on it. I'll give you all copies of the final product because gratitude isn't tangible. But seriously I owe you all. Thanks.
So, we got a rough cut of the new animated short- code named IIUM/KUS. And with the rough cut I now realize we need roughly 10-12 completely new shots among other little fixes. But it's looking good. And it might be funny. I can't tell. Being with the same script and jokes for over 4 months is like saying "spaghetti time" over and over again. Eventually, the words lose all meaning and you never want to see a Sopranos episode again.
In the meanwhile, two other projects are in the works. Here's a rough storyboard from a music video I'm going to be animating for Mr. Ben Weasel's new upcoming solo album.
She's holding a cell phone. Yeah, that's right. I'm storyboarding and making animatics for my shorts from now on. Leave me alone.
Oh man, so I had all these awesome blog posts planned, but shit got crazy and you know what they say- the best laid plans blah blah blah don't play Sun City.
So, almost all of the shots are in After Effects and everything is starting to come together. Here's what it's looking like so far.
Most of the shots aren't as fancy as these, I was just trying to impress people. The majority look more like third image. Man, I'm really kicking myself for not making an animatic. The shots are individually looking ok, but will they piece together well? Probably not.
Oh man, did my computer just make a goat noise? Dude, I gotta get out of here, it's 2 AM.
So a while back I had this contest asking all of my fans to submit a color scheme for the characters in my new short- the winner would actually have their scheme used for the final animation!
I only received one submission. I blame poor advertising, which consisted of a sticky note I put on a stray dog- hoping he would you know, wander around a lot. Nevertheless, that single submission was great, though I could have done without the mockery.
Anyways so I started coloring in the characters, ran it through a bunch of filters and stuff in After Effects and this is what I got!
JK. These are the swatches I made in Photoshop to help me color, but it would be kinda cool if they looked like this. Probably would have made the past 4 months easier. . .
Anyways, being primarily viewed on the internet (and this is assuming people don't gouge their eyes out in the first 30 seconds) means that the majority of viewers are going to watch this short mildly compressed at half it's resolution. This on top of the hard drive space and render time makes you start to question things. Why we tried to meddle with HD in the first place!? Who were we to play god!? You at least need to go to grad school for that type of thing.
