t plus one minute and counting

Finally passed the minute mark. Today I animated Lefty being pulled down to the floor. It's the move I was most worried about getting right which is why it took so long to do. It wasn't that it took long to animate but I spent ages thinking about it, putting it off until I got up the courage to at least try.

After all that...it looks alright. I now have my next big obstacle due to the fall, some rigging that needs compositing out. I know the theory but not the practice, and the HD aspect scares me a bit, but it can't be that hard can it? Surely it's just a big pixel jigsaw where you're allowed to force the peices together.

drunken monkey walking

56 seconds completed.

In the original animatic that would be almost two thirds done. As it's going it looks more like half done, which is ok because today is half way through filming.

I held off on using the rig today to see how the walk would look without it. It looks a bit ridiculous from this angle but in profile it's not so bad. A bit shuffly and uneven but I can get away with it because of the puppet's shape. He has to hurry back on set in a bit though and I'll probably need a rig for that.

A problem I didn't notice 'till it was too late is that he's casting a shadow as he gets closer to the fill light, and then when he gets to the end of the set i take him off and the shadow dissapears. It's gonna annoy me but I can't afford to re-shoot it. Hopefully the audience will be watching Lefty and not notice the Houdini shadow.

a day of three parts

Only managed 2 seconds today. Partly because I spent 4 hours trying to edit what I have together for the project deadline, partly because I'm animating my first real walk (which I'm struggling with), and partly because everyone else's relief at finishing their films just brought me down.

I made the deadline with what I had, although I'm still not sure it's in 16:9, it kept on squashing it when I rendered it. In the end I'd spent enough time fussing and just handed it in. The walk is looking bad, very uneven as you can see in the video, and I may set up the rig tomorrow to try and salvage it which will of course take up more time than it should. And I have no-one to blame but myself for not being finished today like I should've been.

Extra focus is needed tomorrow to try and make up the seconds.

shooting after the fade

I spent some time this morning re-hanging the backdrop as for the rest of the shoot the shot is continuous. Hopefully it won't sag too much.

The poses of the puppets needed some fiddling with to try and make them look as if they are leaning on each other. Shot 8 seconds today which I'm quite happy with. I should've finished earlier and edited the footage into the animatic ready for the hand in tomorrow, but I felt like carrying on, so I'll have to do it in the morning.

sunday is always a bank holiday

The first section of the film is done. In the animatic it's 30 seconds. I've filmed 42 seconds.

I animated the two puppets being pulled together by the strings and then the string wrapping itself around them. To contradict my previous post I'm so far quite happy with the way the string is working.

bright light, bright light

I tried a new angle for the web cam but it hasn't been very successful.

Almost 6 seconds done today. I am on track to finishing off the first section of the film before Monday, which is a bank holiday, so the studios are closed. I can then begin the second part on Tuesday, so even if the camera falls over and the set fall down it won't matter.

The image is quite plain so I've been thinking about how to make it look a little more finished. So far I'm considering some sort of border around the edge, like a picture frame, maybe made of a tangle of wool or lace edges. I may not have the time, so perhaps just a simple vignette effect will work.

pinch, punch...no returns

Another 5 seconds done. It was a slow day again but I think I found my animation groove today. I'm pleased with the quality of those 5 seconds. I remembered how to animate and so I enjoyed doing it a lot more. So far the string isn't causing any problems but it's still quite short at this point.

I was fussing with the camera this morning and managed to knock it. The onion skin tool on Stop Motion Pro was very useful for fixing it.