Filed under Don’t Fear the Sitter …

Jul 27 2006
1 Comment
Don't Fear the Sitter, Sound

One More in the Can

I completed another scene tonight. I started it on Saturday, so the total time was five days. Actually, yesterday I only worked on it for five or ten minutes, so I probably could have finished it yesterday if I had had the time. But sometimes you have to take some time to have a nice evening with a friend. Life isn’t all about work, after all.

Something I didn’t mention is that a couple weeks ago I did, in fact, record my voice actress Tara. I just had to get some extra lines, alternate takes, alternate wordings, and non-verbal vocalizations. Some of the takes were pretty interesting as she repeatedly grunted or whimpered in interesting ways. We were laughing pretty hard at times because of how much it sounded like the audio track from a pornographic movie. I’ll probably only end up using about 1% of what we recorded that day, but that’s exactly according to plan. I just wanted to get lots and lots of takes so I would have lots and lots of options when assembling the soundtrack.

Tara’s great to work with. She’s got a perfect voice for the characters and she responds well to directions. Not only that, but we also get along really well. After the recording session we went out to dinner along with the two friends that were with her. I had a really good time with them, with good conversation and so on.

I still haven’t even listened to the recordings we made. If I had been a Responsible Student I would have listened to them the same evening, while the session was still fresh in my mind. Well, I guess I’m not a Responsible Student. I’ll survive.

Jul 25 2006
1 Comment
Don't Fear the Sitter, Festivals

Invitations

The verdict is that I didn’t need to worry about the binoculars. If you want proof, look at this. Pretty cool, huh? Oh, and just to be clear, the girl with the binoculars is Sarah and the voice you hear is her mom, off-screen.

So the total time to animate that scene was about two weeks, I think. It’s a little frustrating that it takes so long. I mean, it looks good, but two weeks for two seconds? That’ll have me finishing this film in like six years! So yeah, my process needs to speed up a bit.

Here’s a cool bit of news: I’ve been invited to submit Fried Ham to the New York International Childrens Film Festival. Apparently the word is getting out :) It’s not a guaranteed acceptance, but at least they’ll waive the application fee. Now I just need to get around to actually submitting the thing.

Jul 11 2006
2 Comments
Critique, Don't Fear the Sitter, Props

My All-Time Biggest Animation Rant

So that binocular prop? It looks really good animated. Like, maybe too good. Watching the animation I just did on it, if I didn’t know better I’d say it was done in a 3D animation program.

Which brings me to one of my all-time animation rants: Films should be internally consistent. The reason this is an animation rant and not a film rant in general is that it’s much more a problem in animation. For the prototypical example, watch Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. In the scene where they’re dancing in the ballroom there’s this shot where the camera circles down from the chandelier, where the chandelier is rendered in glaring 3D glory. Most people, when they watch this scene, say “ooh, look at that! Computery! Pretty!” Not me, though. I say “Augh! Computery! Internally inconsistent!”

The problem is that the moment that chandelier comes onscreen the audience is jerked out of the story and what should be a touching, romantic moment. Instead of being happy that Belle and the Beast are falling in love, the viewer is distracted by the computery imagery. It just doesn’t fit with the hand-drawn look of the rest of the film.

That’s not the only part of the movie that used computers to help out on complex animation, but it’s the only part I notice. That’s where the key factor lies: if I don’t notice then that means they did it well. I have no objection at all to using 3d software in animation if it fits in with the overall look and doesn’t distract the viewer. It’s a fact of filmmaking — and animation in particular — that much of what we do as creators is to keep from reminding the viewer that they’re watching a film. If they suddenly remember that they’re watching a film then they separate themselves from the story and it ceases to do its job of envelopment and engrossment.

Consider this: when you’re watching a live-action movie and a special effect comes on that’s obviously computer generated, do you go “ooh ahh oh!” or do you say “jeez, that’s cheesy”? For example, take the original Star Wars Special Edition re-release (please!). George Lucas was kind enough to put in several new shots that used computers to render Mos Eisley and Jabba the Hutt. Did you really believe that Jabba was there in the room with Han? To me he looked like he was slapped in with masking tape and elementary school paste. The moment that scene started, I was like “oh, they did a computer generated Jabba this time. That looks pretty bad.”

Now think back to the first time you saw Return of the Jedi. Did you think “oh, Jabba’s a big puppet”? No! He looked freakin’ real! He was big and fat and slimy and disgusting. He was a villain you could be scared of.

Again, this isn’t to say I’m against computer effects in live action movies, either. A perfect example of how to do it right is also one of the first movies to use computer effects extensively: Jurassic Park. Those dinosaurs were totally believable. In fact, the computer-generated ones were probably more believable than the animatronic ones. That’s how to use computer animation in live action movies.

So back to my original point: maybe the binoculars look too 3D. The characters are relatively flat, with no shading or anything, so it might be one of those things that’ll pop the viewer out of the moment. That would be Bad.

P.S. I assert that no matter that Merriam-Webster and the OED assert, “computery” is a word.

Jul 07 2006
Leave a comment
Don't Fear the Sitter, Props

Binoculars

I just wanted to share a little drawing I made tonight. This is the first prop I’ve created for Don’t Fear the Sitter. I think it turned out really nice, though I worry that it looks a little too 3D. Does it fit with the design of the characters? Probably a lot depends on what the backgrounds end up looking like. I still haven’t figured out the final look of the film. I suppose I should mock up a “visual style” prototype one of these days.

Jun 23 2006
1 Comment
Don't Fear the Sitter

Excitement and Distraction

The other day I brought the current version of my animatic to work and showed it to Craig McCracken and Lauren Faust. They’re the producers on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and Craig is also the creator and director. Actually, I think Lauren had a lot to do with the development of the show as well. In fact, I’ve heard that Frankie might be modeled after her. Purely unconfirmed rumors.

Anyway, I was excited and nervous to show them my work, because I have a huge amount of respect for both of them. Craig is the one who created and directed The Powerpuff Girls, for instance…. Anyway, I did, in fact, show it to them, and they seemed to have a very positive reaction to it. Specifically, they said it was really funny (they actively laughed in a few places, which is always a good sign especially in small groups of people) and that they were surprised by the twists. They also seemed very impressed with the one little bit of animation I’ve completed in Flash, which was in place in the animatic. They said they really liked the lineless look of it (there are very few outlines on my characters, which isn’t the most common thing in the world of animation).

So that was a real boost. I came away from that meeting being really energized about working on Don’t Fear the Sitter — so much so, in fact, that the next day at work I had a hard time concentrating. “I want to be at home working on my own project,” I was thinking. Hooray for enthusiasm :)

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to do any work on the project — at least from an artistic standpoint. I’ve been spending a lot of the last few days working on setting up a revision control server on my old computer. This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. I used revision control on Pink & Ain’t (my undergrad project) and it saved my butt once or twice.

“But David, what is revision control?” I hear you asking. Basically it’s software that keeps a sort of master copy of everything I’m working on and keeps track of all the changes to all the files. It lets me say “hey computer: give me the file ‘scene_12.fla’ as it was on October 19th at 2:33 PM.” Even if I’ve completely changed the file since then, the revision control software will give me the file exactly as it was on that day and time. The practical upshot is that if I ever make a mistake and save over something that I didn’t mean to, it’s not a disaster. I just go back to the last time I committed a change and grab the old file. It also has the added benefit of acting as a data backup of the whole project, in case my hard drive crashes or something (that’s why I’m using a separate computer to run the revision control setup).

Anyway, setting all that up involved first getting my old computer back up and running again (which was significantly easier than I expected), installing Linux on it (again, easier than I expected), installing the revision control server software (significantly harder than I expected — some things about Linux haven’t changed since I last used it in 1996), setting up a home network (which involved buying a new router since I couldn’t find the one I bought about a year ago for just this purpose), and finally getting the two computers to talk to each other in just the right way so that I can get my revision control up and running.

It’s been nearly a week now since I started the process and I think I’m finally finished. I got the project imported onto the revision control server and I think I’m ready to get back to work. That brings me to the next problem.

Well, it’s not really a problem in the grand view of David’s Life, but it’s a small problem in the petit view of David’s Animation Project: I’m leaving for Balkan music and dance camp on Saturday morning. So now that I’m all set up and jazzed about getting some work done, I go away and frolic in the redwoods.

Well, life goes on. Balkan camp is a Good Thing. I look forward to it all year and I’m practically bouncing in my seat in anticipation. David’s Animation Project will have to wait a week or so. It’s possible I’ll have Monday the 3rd off from work, so I might be able to work on it lots then.

One final thing. I’ve been thinking about setting a target delivery date for the final film of Don’t Fear the Sitter. Deadlines help focus the mind. So here’s my thought: the whole thing finished by Prom (the UCLA animation show) next year. That’s just under a year from now. I can do it if I set my mind to it.

← Older posts
Newer posts →