Monthly Archives: December 2011

Quick Testshots


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Multiplane first pictures


First picture taken with the proper camera (compliments of USC) on the multiplane.
I’ve got my animating station all prepared:

Now there’s nothing left to do, but do it. Just make this:

Look like this:

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Procrastination Blog

I’m chugging my way through animating the rocket’s smoke. I was going to only do 10 seconds then loop it- but I’m going to see how much of the smoke I can make unique before I run out of steam. My home system is developing though:

On the left is my homemade light table, Katie got a new laptop from her job so I can have entertainment AND do pencil tests with my new dinky pencil test station:

It’s awful looking, but it works. I’m using a free stop-mo program called MonkeyJam. It gets the job done:

Two seconds of smoked done, 55 or so to go.

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Escape Velocity Animatic

I think it ends up around 1,740 frames. But deduct about 170 frames for the titles (that I’m going to do in the computer due to time constraints) and divide the remaining number by 2 since I’ll be shooting on 2’s, and that ends up being about 785 pictures. 785 to take from Friday until Monday. That’s only 261 pictures a day! AGGHman I hope I can pull this off.
Making the animatic has helped a lot- I feel like I’ve already ironed out some kinks I would have come across. The sound in this video is temporary- I’m going to make it a lot more interesting.
And now, mostly for myself, a list of events in the animation that I don’t really know how to accomplish yet:

  • Lens Flare (maybe pointing an actual light at the camera?)
  • Space radiation and meteorites (paint on glass?)
  • Color bands at the very end (paint on glass and colored gels? print outs and colored gels?)
  • Lighting in general

And a list of the changes to make:

  • Increase camera hang-time in exosphere
  • Increase speed of fall after hang-time
  • Fill frame completely with red for final color band
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    Multiplane Process and David Lindley!

    I’m a day behind on production but it’s been for some worthy causes. Saturday night I was able to go to a Brad Neely event at the cinefamily, and LAST night I was able to see David Lindley- which is something I’ve been waiting to do for years and years and years. So thank you dad for emailing me his tour dates.

    So my nights have been eaten, but my days were spent DEVELOPING:

    THE MULTIPLANE

    I need this for my final project. It took 2 days to produce, which is why I’m a day late with my animatic. But the good thing about cut-out animation is that most of the work is on the front end. I’m still dealing with a lot of unknowns, but unknowns tend to produce happy accidents…sometimes.  Here’s some process stuff making the multiplane:

    Thanks mom!

    For something so simple, it was hard for me to wrap my head around.

    Katie, leaving me in the dust

    I’m not allowed in Katie’s woodshop, so she had to take all of the plans and build the thing herself. Which is an amazing favor for 2 reasons: One, I was able to stay home and work on my animatic. Two, Katie is a much better craftsman than me and the thing looks amazing:

    Tonight I finish the animatic. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I start producing all of the cut-outs and other animated assets. Friday and Saturday, I animate. Then a cumulative history final. Then I’m home free.

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