concrete floor + 20 hours of animating = foot pain

So this is from today and yesterday, which were sort of continuous because I didn't go home. I have now experienced what it is like to sleep in the studio and be woken up by a cleaner emptying the bin.

Not fun but it was productive.

I spent 28 hours in the studio, 5 of which were sleeping, and shot 28 seconds. Some was of good quality, some was bad, and at one point in the early hours I became like Mr. Clumsy and kicked the camera tripod. It's at around the 11 second mark in the timelapse and it took my sleep deprived head an age to re-align it, I almost gave up and went home to bed.

As long as I continue to not fuss around with it, I'll have the rest of the animation shot by Monday. Then I can rest my poor aching feet.

these are the good times people

This is the work from Monday and Tuesday. It took a lot longer than it looks but I m not sure why because it's quite simple stuff. It could be because it didn't go very well, and the computer crashing caused me a 2 hour delay so stopped my animation flow. With 5 days left to shoot I'm starting to worry about finishing, especially since I won't get much done on Friday, due to Barry Purves visiting the uni, which would be stupid to miss, and the studios being closed at 5pm for the uni ball.

As I feared, I might have to rush some of it, but it's better to get it finished than to fuss and have it unfinished.

Good times.

banjo music rocks

Animated a lift today and it was easier than I thought it would be. I think the puppets took pity on me, came to life and held each other up. Unfortunately they weren't so helpful with the subtle movements that followed. Some days are just bad animation days where you just know you wouldn't get director approval. Lucky I am the director and I say it will do.

In more exciting news, I had first listen to the music written for the film from Gareth Bonello, a very talented and helpful musician. The feedback was that I love it and grin like a particularly amused cheshire cat on hearing it. I've edited it into the animatic and posted it below. I asked for a simple bit of banjo which would tell the story from the string's point of view. Gareth has got what I wanted completely and other than a little tweaking I'm more than happy with the storytelling. Once the filming is done he'll rewrite it to the animation and I will have an awesome score.

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.