The Case For "Paper"

Taking the time to ponder other contributing aspects of this new short film version of Really Bad Movie while awaiting opportunities to record with all my actors; I decided the updated version of this project needed an equally updated version of opening credits. So when our gifted new composer Ryan Brawders signed on to help transform the musical side of this short film, I took many angles into thought. Since this short is a celebration of the classic 50's b-movie, I wanted to incorporate as many b-movie monster scenarios as I could. Alien abduction, flying saucers, giant sea creatures, zombies, giant robots, slime creatures are what I set on and in passing this information onto Ryan I was totally blown away by what he returned with. Instantly I set to storyboarding and what I ended up with is far better than what I had envisioned. Still 2 weeks after completing the animatic I watch over and over in total amazement.

That being said, I must now set out to establish the visual aspects of my new credits. Currently I take inspiration from the classic early 60's paper animation credits from directors Bill Justice and X. Atencio. Their work can be seen in the opening credits of such Disney films as "The Mis-Adventures of Merlin Jones" and "The Parent Trap". Their style has come to find new found popularity with kitch artists of today.

Now there is no way I will have the time to do old school stop motion animation because, well if I'm gonna make 2012 film festival deadlines I've gotta have this thing in the can by December at the latest. What I am considering is using bitmap fills with my already constructed Flash animation character components. I played around with this idea all morning today and this is what I came up with:

Not finalized yet, but most assuredly in the running. Flash hates working with bitmap fills, and animating with them would prove to be a program crashing nightmare. The image you see above as a matter of fact is a second attempt as Flash crashed on my first attempt. Small update, but an update none the less. In a few short weeks I should have all my actors recorded, and a locked animatic in place. At that point it will be onto animation. A process that will consume at least the summer.

Shaking Off the Rust

It's been a few weeks since I've updated, I know. At least this time my disappearance has been for pre-production reasons. Since finishing the first pass animatic about 3 weeks ago, I've been taking some time to A) Try out, develop and continue honing some new techniques, and B) shake off the rust that's accumulated over the last couple years in which I have been damn near close to inactive.

This is what I consider the fun time, all out trial and error. I touched upon it in my last post with that 10 second video of the scary, disembodied head of Professor Waxington: Now I get to use what I learned from those series of tests and apply them to actual character animation. This is all on a practice level of course, as I have not gotten my cast together to record just yet. (Though I was fortunate enough to have one of my cast members offer their services by way of crappy quality recording session on my MacBook Pro. Thank you Carlos!) Nor have I gotten my crew together to start animating. Before I can do either I have to figure out exactly what I want this show to look like. What to do, what not to do, and how to do it, will be much easier to explain to those involved once I get a clear understanding of what it is that I want this to be.

The video clip below has been how I've spent the day. It's not without it's issues, I know. (And yes the background I used is from the show "Archer". I in no way intend to use it beyond this test footage, nor do I claim to have had anything to do with it's creation.) All in all it's a very solid first attempt, and man does it have me excited to try out more things!

Again, it's not a finished piece, it's just a test. A very sexy test if you ask me!

Slight of Hand, Foot in Mouth

I'd be lying if I said the initial rough animatic editing process is moving along right on schedule. Fact of the matter is it's starting to drag on longer than I had hoped. I guess it's the way it goes when you've got a small handful of gags and one-liners to rework. Don't get me wrong, this is a solid project. Though like any project, some of my jokes just did not work in front of an audience. With rewrites and their corresponding storyboards behind me, I can at least say progress has been made in the last month. For the time being it's about as tight as it's gonna be till I can get my cast in the studio. It's been a bit of an internal up hill battle, and fatigue is setting in. I am very anxious to get onto the next step, but alas once the final dialogue track is recorded I will have a whole other edit to get though. The one edit I quite frankly hate the most. The final timing edit, and all the math and frame counting that applies.

As with all my posts I try to provide some eye candy. Though I don't have much by way of entertaining tidbits of production work to show quite yet, I have been playing with some new techniques in Flash.

Above you will see the quite stylish head of Really Bad Movie's very own Professor James Waxington. (Though his design may change in the months to come, lets just use this as a teaching example.) Subtle head turn not that exciting you say? Well you're right, BUT! This simple head turn will do wonders for the previously VERY limited animation I once used while pushing out past incarnations of this project. See, when doing limited animation, subtle usually translate to uncreative suit and money bozos as "time consuming" and therefor, expensive. Not so much here though! Notice the head never actually changes shape, but still gives the illusion of movement. That is because there are 4 moving parts that force your eye to think that the character is ever so slightly turning his head. In reality, it's only one drawing. Therein lies the magic of the whole thing. 1 drawing broken into multiple parts, moving together to give the illusion of full and subtle movement. I know it's not much, but damn it has me excited to get onto animation!