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!
