Tag: show and tell

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Journals Stuff I made

Dance cocky dance!

This is my phone background now.

It’s been 6 to 12 August 2017. I made some progress on Shot 3 and cocky is now dancing!

In my head this sounds like “AAAAAA-ZWHOOSH FWSHwhshwhsh. (beat) .. AAAAA! woobh-woobh-woobh-woobh..”

In terms of timing and action beats, this shot feels good to me. I’ll polish up the animation and maybe fiddle with the materials a bit more before I render it out, and then it’s onto shot 4.

This is my phone background now. It can be yours too!

I wanted to produce AAAAAAAAA on a two week schedule per shot, but that momentum is hard to maintain alongside the modular synthesiser stuff, getting an adequate amount of downtime from the day job, etc. I’m still doing a ton of things by hand though – rigging/skinning, materials, modelling, etc. There’s almost certainly some workflow wins to be had by using resources that already exist. Rigging and materials in particular come to mind – it’s not like I haven’t got Blenrig and Cycles Material Vault sitting there idle. Something to look into!

That’s all from the world of AAAAAAAAAAAAAA this week. (Truly, any amount of As more than eight is fine.) For synthesiser-related bits, stay tuned! 🙂

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Journals Stuff I made

Big week, little progress

That was 25 June to 1 July 2017.

As feared, this week completely wiped me out and left little time for making the funnies. To top it all off, it’s very cold and rainy this weekend.

But I got a little bit done. Here’s a work in progress pyramid worshipper. This little person is a replacement for the stick figure from the original part of the shot. (I think I might have another shot at making the triangle.)

“Hello. Do you know where there’s a pyramid around here I can worship?”

Next week should be less hectic and see the completion of Shot 2. See you then!

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Journals Stuff I made

You spin me right round, AAAAA, right round…

Welcome to what was 18 to 24 June 2017. Scene 2 has begun in earnest. This scene establishes level of general silliness.

AAAAA runs past a mild-mannered cube with such force that the cube gets violently lathed into a pyramid. The pyramid is roused from its dizziness by a pyramid worshipper that’s arrived from nowhere. The pyramid does not know what to think about this.

Here’s the first attempt:

This pyramid has so many questions…

It’s a beginning, but there’s definitely room for improvement. (Mainly I’m thinking “How would this scene unfold if Terry Gilliam were directing it?”)

The little worshipper doesn’t instantly read as a worshipper. The audience needs to be able to recognise the character instantly for the shot to work because everything happens so quickly. I showed it to a workmate and they confused the worshipper for AAAAA himself!

To fix this, I’m going to switch the stick figure out for a small group of monk-like characters instead. Monks are obviously there to worship something, moreso if they have little pyramids on their robes and if they’re wearing pyramid hats so it’s obvious that they’re pyramid monks. Sound will definitely help with making the gag work too.

Meanwhile, the day job is ramping up again for an emergency project and I just took delivery of four DIY synthesiser kits from Befaco which I’m itching to put together. If I still deliver this shot despite all that, I’d consider that quite the win!

If you’ve got any other feedback on this shot, please do me the honour of leaving a comment. 🙂

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Journals Stuff I made

The rules of the game

It’s been 11 to 17 June 2017. It’s been a soldering-heavy week! In fact, I burnt my finger doing some soldering last night so typing is an annoyance.

But here all the same is shot 1 of the new short in all its goofy glory.

There he goes. A high-powered prototype never intended for mass production.

Here’s my draft “constitution” for this project:

The basics

  • The goal is to produce a comedic narrative animated short.
  • The narrative commences with a vaguely A-shaped creature (the AAAAA) going AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA while running.
  • The narrative shall be constructed of reactions and consequences of AAAAA running around going AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
    • AAAAA’s running/going AAAAAAAAAAAAA should not be explained or rationalised. It is not something mundane like a prickle in his foot. AAAAA does not stop running or going AAAAAAAAAAAAAA because it is AAAAA’s intent to do it as long as AAAAA can. Think of it as an endurance exercise that AAAAA is the champion of the universe at.
  • The project begins on the weekend of WA Day and ends on the Queens Birthday weekend (2 October).
  • The expected running time is.. not very long. Three minutes would probably be pushing it considering someone will be going AAAAAAAAAA although who knows what that could precipitate.
  • This project is intended as a learning experience and ultimately a stepping stone towards finishing larger more complex projects.

Production stipulations

  • The film is to be produced from start to finish in running order, aside from titles which are fine to put in during post-production.
  • Music and sound can also be retouched in post-production.
  • The narrative shall be entirely improvised during production:
    • Planning ahead before the current scene is completed is forbidden.
    • Planning ahead further than one scene is utterly forbidden.
  • Any attempt to brainstorm in advance how the movie ends before the actual final scene begins its planning phase will result in the instant forfeit and blacklist of that idea.
    • The blacklisted conclusions currently include a resolution where the AAAAA trips over, notices their group of followers, encourages them to continue after him like some sort of single file AAAAArmy.
  • Absolutely no 2D animatics – this is explicitly not that kind of project.
  • Limit the use of planning tools like storyboards except where they do double-duty as character and scenery design.
  • Going back and redoing footage is forbidden except to fix technical errors which cannot be fixed at composite time (animation glitches, etc).
  • Scenes should be simple enough to complete in two weeks alongside rest and relaxation, etc.
    • Time spent should be logged.
    • Late nights are strongly discouraged even on weekends.
    • Production pace can be slowed in case of mitigating factors like injury, fatigue, day job being extra-demanding, etc.

Scene guidelines

  • Scenes should contain no more than three shots – action, reaction, another reaction. Hopfrog‘s minimalism is a good guide here.
  • As per all narrative movies, scenes should continue on from one another logically. Scenes may refer to previous scenes.
  • Each new scene should introduce a new place, character and/or action.
  • Any single scene should present a single idea or gag. Scenes can carry ideas and gags from previous scenes but only secondary to the scene’s own gag.
  • Each scene should also contain a surprise.
  • The film will contain no dialogue or written material. Where words are expected to appear visually, e.g. the title of a book, a nonsense script should be substituted. Where dialogue would be expected, substitute lively gibberish or suitable sound effects.

Design and tone guidelines

  • The general tone should be giddy and fun, for kids of all ages. This is a happy place.
  • Given that this is a sweet and merry little refuge, it’s fine for characters to disapprove of AAAAA but it’s not fine for them to get furiously angry or terribly sad or agonisingly hurt. The standard-issue supporting character is friendly and calm and approachable.
    • Sad characters are ok but cheer them up!
  • It’s fine for the humour to be a little bit naughty but not outright rude. Again, consult Hopfrog.
  • Characters/scenery should be unlikely in some way or another.
  • Keep the designs colourful and fun to look at, and don’t make them too detailed. Go easy on stuff like greebles and cracks.
  • No need to do everything in geo! Non-pixellated textures are fine but keep the surfaces simple.
  • At least one character has to have fur at some point.
  • Design-wise, sharp angles are fine this time but tend towards roundness. Try for a general stumpiness, stockiness and broadness in the proportions of the designs. Allow for some contrast too.

Technical guidelines

 

  • If Eevee gets production-ready, use Eevee. Otherwise, use Cycles.
  • Using DASYRAC for the sound and music is strongly encouraged. There is no explicit budget for extra Eurorack modules though.
  • Use of third party time-and-effort saving plug-ins (e.g. automatic rigging systems) and other resources is absolutely mandatory. Use them! They good!

That’s it for now, so thanks for reading and I hope to see you with something new next week!

 

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Stuff I made

With the cold comes a small green shouty thing

It’s been 4 to 10 June 2017. Things have turned chilly here. We were forecast for 9 degrees overnight on Friday morning and got 1.6C instead because the rain we were expecting didn’t pan out. Brrr! Still, Perth winters are pretty bearable once the overnight cold goes away. Like the sound of 25 degree fine winter days? Perth has you covered.[1]

Perth: Where winter typically only happens at night. (Source: bom.gov.au)

Meanwhile, the new movie project has something to look at. Last weekend was a three dayer so I rigged the title character and sketched out some animation. Here’s “Take 1” of shot 01, featuring the central anarchist of the piece:

 

Best title shot ever?

It’s promising but a long way from where I want it to be. I wonder if it all goes by a little bit too quick, not letting the character’s weird/cheeky nature shine through enough. There’s some undeniably good stuff in there too – the goofy run at the end feels spot on. Then there’s points of ambivalence – maybe the zippier pacing is what I should aim for? And should I stick with the snappy stepped animation?

I’ve got some of my own notes to work through and I’ll see where I end up by the end of next week. But what do YOU think, dear reader? 🙂

[1] Of course the flipside of this year-round sunny weather is being short on water. The Water Corporation both desalinates the Indian Ocean and recycles our sewage into drinkable water because there’s nowhere near enough rain to fill our dams anymore. Yay.