I finished shooting 3 sequences last week and I now have 12 new shots that I can animate.
Some of them are quite scary...
This one for instance, each drawing is a proper a4 drawing... shaded and all.
I made it into a kind of zoetrope gif, for fun. So that's 9 frames out of the 26 the shot needs...
I've now finished animating everything I shot a will back, so today and probably tomorrow will be shooting live action again. It's quite a pain in the ass, but it has to be done... the bigest trouble is that, since last time, my hair grew quite a lot, and I'm gonna have to shave my beard... What a drag!
Here's another little GIF, enjoy:
I'm a bit out of Ideas on what I should post, Do you have anything you'd like me to explain about animation, or anything you'd like to see?
Let me know HERE.
First of all, sorry for not posting yesterday. I'm sure the 2 visitors that were eager to discover more about the making of DeadMan's Reach were very disappointed, Mum... Conor... sorry.
Anyway.
I didn't post because I was going to post a video that I filmed with a GoPro stuck to my head. I thought it would be fun to see how I shade animation...
Turns out it took me more than 16 hours to shade the 33 frames of the particular shot I'm working on, and because of that:
1) I couldn't draw with a GoPro on my head for 16 hours, I had to stopped after 8 hours... Neck fixing is not included in the film budget.
2) Even speed up 3000 time, the video was extremely boring.
So, I decided to post a GIF instead. It's crazy how gifs are more popular than video, maybe its the equivalent of Disc/ CD but in the 2010: GIF / Vimeo
Anyway, here is what took me 16 hours to draw, color and shade...
And I'm still working on it... I'm now thinking "Summer 2016" is a good release date.
I'm seriously considering putting DeadMan's Reach on KickStarter. The main reason being that I'm starting week 23 of a production that was suppose to be 24 weeks. And I can't see how I can finish 7 mins of animation in 1 week... So I need to extend the production quite dramatically...
So what's this Kick-Starter thing?? Well kick-starter is a founding platform for creative projects.
Basically you pre-sell stuffs before making a project, and you use the money you got from the sell to actually create the project. i.e. For an album, you pre-sell your album, then make the album, then send the album to the people how pre-bought it.
It's a one month process where you need as much word of mouth as possible to reach the amount you need to do (finish) the project. It's a all or nothing. If the amount is not reached you pay nothing and the project get nothing!
It's kind of what I started doing with the sell of the DeadMan's Reach sketch book, but on a completely different scale. (I would have done a Kick-Starter straight from the start but It wasn't available in the UK at the time).
For all of you who bought the book already there will be special, cheaper stuff!
Here are the products (Rewards) I would be selling:
The book, obviously:
T-Shirts:
Original Animation Drawings, like this one:
Original BackGrounds, like that one:
And some more surprises!
I finished the pencil animation for the Bedroom sequence, Those of you who bought the book had a preview of what the film animation will look like, thanks for your feedbacks!
I switched back to shading for a few days before starting a new sequence witch involves a different drawing technique...
Here is what 3 hours of shading looks like:
[vimeo 51915738 w=500 h=281]
This week I'm planing to finish one of the sequence (BE) in line test. It should be quite doable, but I'd like also to finish the shading on this sequence...
It's quite exiting to see a sequence build up shot by shot. It's the moment where you have to hope that the edit is right!
And because everybody like them, here's a GIF:
Last week I started animation, I did 200 drawings in two days, tough. I'm probably going to finish the sequence I'm working on and then change a little bit the technique I'm using.
I will try to find a way to make animation a bite more... expressive, by animating straight with a pen.
It's going to be harder, but will save tones of paper and hopefully will make the drawings look much more "alive".
In the mean time let me introduce you to my LineTest, it's a setup that allows you to take pictures of drawings with a consistent lighting and framing.
You can check your animation much more quickly then when scanning drawing. When I say my line test I mean the one my friend Lucas lent me, thanks mate.
I'm using a D80 to take the pictures and icarus camera control to control the camera from the computer (Tethered)
Here it is in action: [vimeo 50990280 w=500 h=281]
I finished the new animatic, and it's getting somewhere now. This week i'll try to shoot as many live action as possible and shade a few backgrounds.
This week-end, Ben Franklin Jr is coming to London to record the main character voices. Fun times!
So far I only have a TASCAM DR-07 to record, no extra mic, so if anyone as a good voice Mic I could borrow that would be awesome!
For this week entertainment here are some title designs I played with:
[vimeo 47525090 w=500 h=281]
Let me know wich ones you like:
The Backgrounds being almost complete, I spent last week working on the animatic and script again. I added a few shots, changed some timing, and started working on the voices. I'm going to keep on this week.
I'm recording the main character's voices 2 weeks from now, and i'll need everything ready.
I'm using an A/V script, A for audi and V for video (Duhh). Really useful:
I have now drawn 56 Backgrounds. I have a few left and my goal is to finish most of them this week and start animation next week.
I will need to make a new planning obviously...
There is a few POV in the film and I haven't decided if they will be fully animated backgrounds and characters or if it will only be a big background with pans.
Anyway, here's what it looks like when I try to review most of the BGs:
Well done to everyone that participated, and got it right
The answer was a Night Sky but Inverted.
You can always buy the book here to help me add more production days, and actually let me finish the film.
Here is the Sky, inverted this time:
I just finished this background, and it's quite weird, so I thought it would be fun to give a book away to someone that manage to guess what it is.
Like the facebook page (Deadman on facebook) and then Send me your answer HERE (quentin.vien@gmail.com), and I'll randomly selected the winner on sunday night,
and announce it on this page on next monday.
You have until Sunday midnight!
The winner will get the book number 99, signed with it's donkey post card and access to the deadman's mailing list that gives access to special secret shit.
Spread the word, on facebook, twitter, google + (do people use that?), smoke signals, etc...
And if you can't wait until monday, because you really really need to have the book, you can buy it here: Help Finance the film.
Or simply read about it. (you should buy it though)
For those of you who already have the book, It would make a good present for your grandmas, so I'll be happy to send it to whoever you ask me to.
I finally got around editing that "making of video" I was supposed to last week. It shows the different steps I go through to make an animation.
1) Shoot live action.
2) Choose only the frames I need for the animation.
3) Time them and place them correctly.
4) Rotoscop them.
5) Clean the drawings and shade them
6) Place the animation on the Background.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, especial one of me moving in slow motion in my living room, there you go:
[vimeo 46986044 w=500 h=281]
music is "RoadTrim Part 2" by the dead pirates
My computer died last week... This is not a good news, I'll have to get a new one, which is not going to help the finance of the film.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to edit the little making of I wanted to show you.
I got some secondary characters animated last week, and I was aiming at comping a shot completely, in order to have an idea of the final look.
All this is going to be postponed until I get a new machine. I'm going to focus on backgrounds again.
This is a good opportunity to get lots of them done.
Here is some background characters animation.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/46446181 w=500&h=281]
This is the week 12 starting, already, Damn, that's stress full. And look at all this sun outside, it doesn't make any sense!
Last week, I managed to finish the animation I wanted. I can tell you it's gonna be tough.
This week I'm back on backgrounds for a few days and then will animate again.
Next week post will be a video showing the process of how I animated this first shot.
Including an amazing video of me stumbling in my living room!
But for now Enjoy the film first animation:
[vimeo 46141401 w=500 h=281]
Last week went well, not having any distractions really helped. I have now 14 Backgrounds completed, and I'm feeling a bit more confident.
This week I'm gonna keep on drawing as many backgrounds as possible, but I'll leave the Shading for later.
I'm also planing to finish the film first shot. The background is ready and it has 3 characters to be animated.
Good challenge!
In the mean time here is a finished BG, a RANCH:
So last week I did a proper schedule, and as expected, It freaked me out... It came to 45 days of work at a pace far from the one I'm at. So I had to re-think the way I work.
I was drawing one Background at the time. The process was, Print the storyboard on an A3, look for references, Draw a detailed pencil drawing, Ink It and then shade it.
Each process is fairly easy and relatively efficient. However by working this way I was loosing a lot of time, wondering what to do, looking for things on the internet, getting distracted by facebook etc.
I would also lose time in between each steps, out of procrastination or lack of motivation. If It was 8.30 pm and I wanted to work till 9, I wouldn't start a new drawing, other wise it would easily end up being 11...
Plus It meant that I needed to finish every background completely to be able to animate every shot.
The new plan is more efficient because I have lots of task to choose from, and I can turn off the computer during a whole day if I want to.
The new process is print lots of BGs (maybe 10), look for all the references needed for those BG, then draw and ink all those 10 BG. I keep the shading for later. The shading process will run until the end of production.
This way in a few days I should be able to have the outlines of all the background, and so I will be able to start animation at any time.
My animators friends also recommended to keep other things to do while animating, to have something to relax my head with.
I managed to do 8 backgrounds in one day an a Half!
This week I'm in the contry side, without electricity, internet, or even cell phone coverage, so I will focus on shading those 8 back grounds.
Hopefully I'll finish all of them!
Here are this week 8 inked Bg:
As always feel free to comment HERE
Last week was a bit slow, mainly due to the fact that I spend 5 hours colouring A THIRD of an A3 in red. Using a O.4 mm pen... Bloody Diner sits. It felt like Math lessons all over again!
Anyway, I'm one background behind, I will catch up somehow this week.
Mooe sent me the first draft of here Harry Nilsson's "One" cover, and it's brilliant,
I can't wait for you to hear it!
Mean while listen to here other songs, HERE. They're perfect for a monday morning. Or any other time!
This week plan is a bit serious... Apart from the thursday afternoon Old Fashioned Stroll.
I need to sort out a proper PLANING for the backgrounds. I've finished 6 of them, out of 60 and I only have a few weeks to finish all of them.
I started by the hardest ones, yet I need a realistic schedule. Today starts the 9th week. It needs to get a bit more intense.
Any one care to Produce me?
The great news is that I am 20 Books away from adding 1 more month to the production! Making it a proper 6 month production.
Here is one of the new BackGrounds, a Motel Room:
Feel free to leave comments HERE
I've finished 3 backgrounds: a London Tube Station, a Diner and a Saloon so far. And I need to start working faster now, I should draw at least another 4 Backgrounds this week.
I'll need to take a day to set up the animation tools (Line test and animation table) and scan the final drawings.
The sales of the book have dramatically slowed down,
so I'm just dropping a few lines to remind you that you can help finance the film
by buying a Deadman's Reach book HERE or by making your friends buy it!
Thanks!
And Here is the Diner:
You can let me know what you think of it, here.
Exciting post today as I finally have a drawing that will appear in the final film! I finished a first background and did a little animation test last week.
Here is me drawing the BG:
[vimeo 44107554 w=500 h=375]
I have to animate up to 6 minutes of animation in a very short time,
this is equivalent of 4320 drawings in pencils and 4320 in pen...
Lets say A LOT. To be on schedule I had to find a quick method to animate.
Since I'm not a proper animator it needed to be easy enough and reliable.
The obvious choise was rotoscoping, i.e. Drawing on top of video.
The problem with this technic, is that it doesn't feel right, you're missing the artist interpretation.
I decided to tweak this technic. I needed the Rotoscop to be able to draw easily, not to guide the movement, i needed only the poses and not the timings.
So this is what I do:
I film the subject in slow motion (this is usually me moving slowly), with very specific poses.
Then I re-time the animation by keeping only the frames that are relevent to the animation I want.
Giving you a video close to Pixilation. But with the ability to film it on your own (quite important in my case)
Finally I trace the drawing on top of the video.
Here is the result, obviously a drunk skeleton:
[vimeo 44118553 w=500 h=281]
This week plan is to start the bigest BGs, and maybe animate a background animation to a final state.