I Tried, and Now It's Bah! Humbug!

It officially set in last night. The holidays have severely slowed my progress on the latest installment of Really Bad Movie. It was at that moment I sunk back into my loathing for the holiday season. Till then I was doing great. Listening to the obligatory Christmas tunes, downing some egg nog when the chance presented, and shopping like a trophy wife with sugar daddy's credit card.

In the past I had been spoiled with numerous 1 day, all cast included recording sessions. This time around I've had to work within everyone's schedules, not to mention the holidays and set multiple sessions. I am VERY thankful for the wonderful Chris Kooreman at Beat Royalty who has already given up his studio space twice so that I may have cast members come in when time permits. So far the cast has performed with perfection and I look forward to getting the rest of the gang in to do their thing in early 2011. To that note I also have a theme song in the works and it's coming out great! Much thanks to my composer Ryan Brawders on that front! Next year is gonna be a lot of fun and I look forward to sharing my progress with you all.

Merry Christmas, Happy belated Hanukkah, Funky Kwanzaa, and Happy New Year to everyone.

When Fall Hits, It's Always Complicated

I honestly don't know what it is about this time of year but everything, and I mean everything about my life just wants to hit a wall and stay there till temperatures get back to normal. I'd equate it to depression, and in the past I believed it was because it has all the same traits; But this year has me very confused. I know I'm not depressed because to put it quite simply, I'm not. I can't even wrap my head around what this is, but it's seriously messing with a mojo I was gaining back in a major way.

Adding to the complication, this situation has me feeling guilty about the lack of progress on Really Bad Movie. 2 weeks ago I would work for hours, now I just pick at what I need to be doing like the carcass of a post-meal Thanksgiving turkey.

Needless to say, since the animation test below, I don't have much work to show for myself and in my mind and in my bones I know this means trouble if I do not act immediately. This weekend I will focus on getting my head back on straight. This can not stand and I need to get back to work soon.

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!

Where The Hell Have I Been?

I took my crap and went home! That's what I did! When I say home, I mean I moved back to North Hollywood and boy does it feel good to be back! I'm in a neighborhood I know inside and out, and more importantly I'm within blocks of nearly all my creative cohorts. Needless to say I have had quite the full plate over the last 2 months, but on the plus side I did manage to get a hell of a lot of work done on the current Really Bad Movie while maintaining a workout routine and dealing with a pretty hectic professional workload. Mind and body seem to be in tune right now and I'm feeling as productive as ever!

In trying to maintain a "by the book" style of production on this one, I completed an animatic with temporary audio track. With this I did some re-writes and adjusted my storyboards accordingly. My next to last test before recording with the cast comes Sunday when a group of my trusted few will view said animatic and provide notes. Barring any blaring issues with story, and the adjusting of a joke or two, I should get an idea of when I can record very soon. From there it's timing sheets (my least favorite part of production involving lots of math) and onto animation!



The picture at the top of the post you ask? Well that happens to be my new loft/home office in my brand new 2+2+loft! That's right for the first time in years I have NO creative work related paraphernalia in my bedroom, living room, or dining room. What has this meant to me? Well I have started reading a bit before bedtime again, and I have been getting solid nights sleep. Both of which do wonders for a guy who can only be described as "not a morning person".

All in all, things are good and always getting better. Now all that's left is to live up to my end bargain with the universe and finish this cartoon over the next year!

Scanning? What Scanning?

It took me longer to set up the new scanner, than it did to scan the ENTIRE FREAKING SHOW!

What I thought was at least 2 days worth of work turned out to be about 40 minutes worth, thanks to my brand new Brother MFC 7340.

In a word, I'm shocked. This machine made all other scanners I've had till now look like steaming piles of crap!

(Cue the cheesy announcer voice) That's right kids, the Brother MFC 7340 not only scans at lighting speeds, it can also print 21 pages per minute at a whopping HQ1200 dpi (laser) and fax those important documents with the same precision and quality you've come to know and love in the scanner you've had for all of a week. (clears throat)

Honestly I can't say enough about this machine so far and tonight was it's first night out of the box. It's going to make things move a lot smoother in the weeks to come, that is for sure!

Now we're on to cropping. Time to limber up those old key pad working fingers!

This Is How We Do it!

8 weeks

3 acts

459 pages in total

310 scenes in total

2 weeks ahead of the goal

Right hand, right thumb completely numb

Feels good. As a matter of fact, I'm going in for more! Next stop, ANIMATIC!