Schedule... Again

I needed to re-do my other one because obviously, its not going to be in 2D anymore...

Week 7 (this week) - Review went well. Do new storyboards (final). Practice Maya.
Week 8 - Storyboards and Maya practice.
Week 9 - Drawings for the animatic, and edit with Ste (add to his group hours). Maya practice.
Week 10 - Same as "Week 9"
Week 11 - Have Chimi modelled, and start practicing with him. Dissertation.
Week 12 - Sort out Concept portfolio (all prep should be complete) and Chimi practice. Plus Dissertation.
Christmas! - Relax because it will be the last time to do it 'til May hand in! (Could do some Chimi practice though)
Week 13 - Start animating the film!!

If I do, on average, 2 seconds of animation per day, and work for 10 days out of 14, then i can get 20 seconds done every 2 weeks. That means, by week 8 (Semester B)I could have 1 min 40 seconds done - this takes me up to Easter. I then have the 2 weeks at Easter, and 4/5 weeks after that to edit. (need to find out exact hand in day)

Not yet sure how long my film will be (its 1 min 10 at the moment, but I need to stick in an extra scene at the end and add some more to the Stop Motion section for Claire) but 1 min 40 should allow for any extra and the work for Ste.

Could also do with thinking about the titles and credits - would someone else want to to it for me as group work? I think I know what I want, but I'm open to other ideas.

I could do with some more name ideas too, "Door" sounds so boring. "Spyhole" sounds... well it sounds wrong, just wrong. "Chimi"... no. "Stuck in... INFINITY" (I'm not very good at this) "Infinitaaaaah"? like Cartman and "respect my authoritah"? "Infinitargh!"-'cos Chimi is stuck there, and he gets mad, and... no, not quite there yet.

CG Monkey

It has happened! I have moved over to the dark side (CGI) and started learning Maya. Some people will never speak to me again because I have betrayed them.

After the first few hours I felt like I was in way over my head, and that I could never pull this off, but after a couple of days and lots of help from Laurie, Paul and Simon, I think its going to be O.K.

Practicing with one of the free rigs at the mo, going to redo the walks and runs from last year (if they are good enough I could put them in my showreel), and then, once Chimi has been modelled, I can start practicing with him for my final film, and get animating!

Meanwhile, I'm still going to be keeping my eye in with 2D, Ste's doing a showreel and I'm going to be animating some bits for him (more stuff I can put into my own showreel), so that's alright.

Its going to be a hell of a lot of work, but its managable.

Rough Animatic

This animatic was compiled from my thumbnail storyboards, to give me an idea of timing and flow of the film.

CGI Debate

I got to thinking last night (which is never a good thing) and I think I should learn Maya *hiss!*, because, lets face it, without any experience with CGI there is no way I am going to get a job out of this. So, my plan is to talk to some people on Monday and find out if I can get someone to teach me how to use it, from scratch. If things go well then I might just do my whole film on there! People keep telling me how easy it is, and how I could work so much faster. If this is true then I could make my animation really good!

To do my film in 2D is going to be a nightmare (we all know it deep down). For one, I have, in the past, preferred to work at home (I have my own lightbox, and I can control my entire environment), which means going into Uni, test it all out on the line testers, go home and make the changes. For this year, the work has to be completely polished, so that means after the thousands of tests, I have to have my sheets of paper perfect, then i have to ink each one, rub out all the pencil marks and put it all back through the computers to colour it in - that is, if the inking is spot on, and I don't have to redo some frames because i messed up.

There is also the matter of getting the work into the computer in the first place. After inking, if I use the line testers then I'm not going to get my paper perfectly black and white - it will most likely be yellow, or even blue depending on the bulbs. That is not good, and means more work. The ideal way would be to scan the sheets in - we do have an A4 scanner that feeds the paper in, but that would take hours to do, where I am sat waiting, doing nothing. It also means that I have to work on A4 paper, which is thick and small - I am used to 12" field, proper animation paper, which is nice, and I have lots of, and cost a bloody fortune. To use my paper I would need an A3 scanner, something which the course cannot afford, and I certainly can't.

Once my work is in the computer, and all ready to colour, I then have to colour each frame, individually, in Photoshop - mega pain in the arse. I heard that ToonBoom might be a possibility, but I have no idea how to use it, and heard it was limited.

So, at the moment, doing it in CG seems like the best option. I might be completely naïve, and it could be even worse than 2D because I have to learn a program completely from scratch, and get good at it, but if I spend this time before Christmas practicing and doing tests then it might just work. I can animate, and I have good marks so I must be competent, so maybe it will be O.K. to cross over to the dark side? Sean mentioned a render that makes it look 2D, so it would still have the quality and look that I was going for, but just doing it a different way.

We'll have to see. I am saying all this without talking to anybody else about it first, but I am worried that the response I get will be biased towards CG, and I will be told it will be easy when in reality it's not right for me.

Colour Debate

This is the orange and purple version. I like how the colours complement eachother, and they stand out nicely against the black background. The orange is also a wild looking colour, but can be interpreted as positive or negative - it's the colour of the sun, which invokes good feeling, but also is the colour of the amber traffic light that signals there could be danger. This would (hopefully) make the audience unsure how to feel about it, and could almost lead them into a false sense of security.

From the very beginning the door was ALWAYS orange, but it took me a while to make Chimi purple. I ended up going with complementary colours (not very original, but I didn't want them to clash). I did try out many, many different colour ideas, but they all looked horrendous (apart from the skin-like, peachy colour).

This is still my personal favourite palette, but I had to take on board some of the comments people made. Some people preferred this, but others said that they did clash, and that they were all too bright and competing for the audience's eye. I suppose Chimi could also look like an alien, which I didn't want, that is why I tried the orange door with Chimi a skin colour...

He does look better in skin, but now the colours of the door are too similar to him, and it washes out a bit. He also looks human, rather than like an alien, which means that he is naked... there are no "distinguishing features", but some people might find that a bit awkward.

HOWEVER, with him being naked, he is vulnerable, and that is good, because this door is screwing him around and he has no idea where he is or how he got there.

So, then I thought about changing the colour of the door, and I tried some more colours for Chimi. I randomly coloured him blue, just to see the effect (purple complements the yellow on the door, and blue complements orange), but he looked too cold and didn't look right against the black. But, I tried the blue on the door with the yellow, and Chimi as skin, and came up with this new palette, the bane of my life...

And so, here it is. It does look nice, but I'm still not entirely convinced. I guess I have a problem with moving on, and like a dog with a bone, because i still prefer the orange door.

I want the door to be orange, and I want Chimi to be skin, but I just don't feel it when they are together. I think I'm going to have to do a line test and see them in the different palettes, just to see how it would work when they (or Chimi at least) move.

Someone suggested having the door change colour, but I think that might be a bit much, and it might not be clear that it was the same door, and there is no real reason for it to change colour.

Gar! I am so annoyed with this now!!

Other Colour Tests

These are some of the experiments I did with colour, but I feel they did not work. I wanted bold colours, but not garish
like some of these have turned out.

















I tried out a few poses, and put colour onto them to get a better idea of how the film might look. These are my favourite colours.











When Chimi shrinks and is on the giant Door, the key will be this size compared to him. This way he can drag it and use it to smash the slyhole without much difficulty.

Poster

This is a copy of my poster for the film. I think these are the colours I will go with, after so much disputing. My original idea had the door being bright orange instead of blue, and Chimi was going to be purple. I asked around and showed various people my different palettes and this is the one that got the most approval, although it was very close. I may still change it back to orange and purple, but for now at least, this is it.