Birthday! MFA! Animation Reel!!!

So, today is MY BIRTHDAY and it's hard to believe this 22 year old (not my real age) was blessed upon this world a mere 13 years ago (lost all concept of time).

Not only this but after an EXHAUSTING submission process my thesis was APPROVED meaning I have now officially earned my MFA in ANIMATION from SAVANNAH COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN - ATLANTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, as a thank you to all my followers (hi ted!) here is the current animation reel for HEARD! There's still a great deal to do and one of the major critiques is that the aesthetic evolution just isn't working so I'm gonna be going back into the roughs but as far as a narrative it's pretty well all there. So, I will be finishing the animation with color and shading and then going back to the beginning to make sure the aesthetic play out as they should. Sorta finishing the end and working back to the beginning. Anyway I will be posting this on the story reel page as well so enjoy:

Shots, Shots, SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS!

I've been working tirelessly to get on clean-up and thought I'd share one big bundle of the linework.

Here Ya Go:

(more after the jump)

Update A-Coming

I haven't slept since Friday morning.

There will be a MASSIVE post later today.

Get ready for an animation overload!

Updates and Screen Effects

I've been rather entrenched in editing a story reel with animation and some rough FX. I wish I had more I could show you but a lot of stuff in simply in the middle of the process with nothing really so show. I'm nearing the end of my MFA program and though it looks like the film will not be as complete as I would hope, I know we're on track with the overall film. Actually, one of my greatest stresses is having to continually postpone updating the reel for my Sound Guru to put his talents to use. He's already done a fair bit but there's little point in creating the whole sound design until all timing is finalized.

Given all this, I spent some time working on the screen FX with the new design by Elizabeth Brockman. It took a fair bit of compositing in After Effects but I think the overall result is really cool. Enjoy!

What I'm Currently Wrapped Up In

So, these past few days I've been killing myself to get this paper edited and into 2nd Draft Mode. Just thought I'd give you a taste of my sleepless nights:

Around 25 pages plus citation, table of contents, etc.

FINALLY Clean-up Animation

I'm getting around to finally diving into linework and I decided to start with two of the more difficult and one of the easiest shots. I went back and forth on the line weight a bit but I think I'm at a comfortable spot with it.

Storyboard Test

I've decided to divide the storyboard section of the film into two sections: Storyboards and Animatic. The animatic section is all digital and looks pretty much like it would as a animatic shown to directors, producers, etc. The storyboard section looks like digital storyboards, as they are created digitally, that have been printed out and shown to directors, producers, etc.

So, I did this test where I took the storyboards from ToonBoom Storyboard Pro where I draw all my boards and printed them out. I then wrote the notes I've gotten about the boards and changes on the printed out storyboard sheets. There's actually things I didn't change in the boards but wrote the notes down as what needed to change. I then scanned the pages back in and comp'd them back together using the animatic as a guide. I originally started sticking in the 1 frame transitions as I did in the thumbnail board test but given the faster edits in sections of the storyboards it just made everything too jarring visually to follow.

Overall I like the feel of it and I think within the context of the film it will really bridge the gap between the rough, hand drawn feel of the thumbnails and the more vector-digital animatic.

Thumbnail Flip/Light Test

This is a brief test I did for the thumbnails adding a frame of transition between each drawing like panning the camera quickly to the next. I also added some slight light variation to give it a pseudo-stop-motion feel. Don't know if I like the transitions or not because it does add a bit of a strobing affect and I'm worried it will take away from the visuals.

No Twitch Tuesday

Looks like not too many people are getting much out of the live-stream sessions so they're on hiatus for a while. Should I work on something cool I wanna show you I may do another one but for the most part I'd rather put the time into showing you production you want to see. Be sure to help let me know what you wanna see via the survey on the side bar!

Late Post Today

So, I've been pushing myself to 12-hour days working on the paper and putting together this story reel. Right now I'm just getting through the conclusion on page 16 of the 1st draft so that will be around 20 pages with bibliography. It was tough laying down the basics of Postmodern theory but once I got to actually applying it the pages just came and went.

In the Story Reel department it has been a bit challenging. working with animation that relies so much on the sound syncing up has its definite drawbacks and dropped frames are becoming an issue but I'm slowly working through it and the meat of it all is there.

I had a Skype meeting with my thesis committee chair, Matt Maloney, and he gave me a really helpful set of notes. It was rather positive but positive or negative--he gave me critique that I can work with and play off which is far more important. He said that the final sequence for the climax really needs to slow down by around 30%. He also had some reeeaallly great feedback on making the thumbnails, storyboards, and rough animation really hit on mark and reflect that they represent these parts of the process within the film.

That said, I'm gonna be doing some tests this week-tossing around ideas to make these sequences really pop. Some of them will work and I expect some of them will not. Either way, I will be throwing them up this week and give you guys a look at the experimenting I get to do on this film. If something works then I'll explain why and if it doesn't then equally so. This is actually one of the more fun parts of this particular film because it's got just the right amount of experimentation while still adhering to a more structured narrative.

One truly fantastic bit of news to come out of this meeting was that I don't have to have an absolutely 100% completed film by August 27th. I still have to produce a mostly completed film but the fact that there's wiggle room is a HUGE LOAD OF STRESS OFF ME! I am still planning to work very hard right up until that deadline to get the bulk of this film done but the fact that my entire degree does not hinge on everything being pitch perfect makes my life much less stressful.

After this meeting I collapsed. It was nice. Thus the late post.

So, look for some interesting visual tests this week and thanks for sticking with me through this!