It's All Over

That's it. She's done. The film is complete!

 

It's incredibly difficult to believe, but yes indeed it is done. Honestly, I never thought I get to say those words. Especially since it fought me to be bitter end – the very last TIF sequence had to be hand retouched in Photoshop, which was fairly easy, but Premiere refused to accept the changes. In the end I had to hand place each one of the cels.

Un-freaking believable!

Anyway, I've learned a lot from this mess. I even think I have a fairly decent piece of animation to show (if I do say so myself). Now I've got to burn DVDs and start sending copies out to film festivals. We'll see how people react to it.

Hopefully, they'll like it.

Now I can sit back a relax for a while. But only a while. I have to catch up with the real world and get a job so I can start paying for this education. Ha ha – wheeeeee!

Anyway, I'd say stay tuned, but there won't be another entry in this blog. Off to bigger and better things I supposed. Good luck, godspeed, bon chance and all that sort of stuff.

Well, maybe you should stay tuned. I may just have an idea for another animation brewing. Until then...

Nearing the End

This is it, the final week.

And as usual I have not accomplished as much as I had hoped to in the week leading up to this. I’m still struggling with relationships, possible depression, job hunt, and family. Well, at least the job search is looking brighter. I think I nailed an interview yesterday with Fisher-Price (the department I would be working for does pretty much exactly what I’ve been doing in school for the past seven years) and I have another one tomorrow. Unfortunately, that cuts into my work time on this project.

That brings us to what is left to do.

I have to finished colorizing (more specifically, gray-scaling) the Photoshop file for shot 020, and I have to colorize (actual color this time) the files for shot 021. I have a feeling that’s going to take about 12 hours. It’s boring, it’s repetitive, but it’s easy. I throw some music on and just go. As to the rest, I have about a dozen or so tweaks that run the gamut from slowing down some After Effects animation to adding a head to a reflection. With that done, I’ll be almost done.

Almost.

The final piece of the puzzle will be playing everything out as jpgs and bringing it back into the Premiere file for final output. Hopefully that will be relatively easy. We’ll see. In the meantime I really have to get back to work.

Stay tuned…

Getting There

Well, this week started out looking like it was going to be infinitely worse than the last one. In fact, it got so bad a one point that I really started to think about taking an incomplete in this class, or possibly even failing.

Yeah, things were that bad.

But, just as things seem to being going well and then bad, so to do bad things suddenly turn around and work out well. There's a great quote from “Shakespeare in Love” about this. I've used it before, but it bears repeating:

Philip Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.

Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do?

Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.

Hugh Fennyman: How?

Philip Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.

So, I've been back to work with a bit of renewed vigor. I animated the proposed “revised ending” with the zoom into the the eye of the astronaut. Unfortunately, I couldn't reuse any of the previous footage, but I sat down today and cranked it out. I think it looks pretty good, but I need to check the timing – it may be a bit rushed. Also, I started working on all the innumerable little things. Things like making sure the paper runs over the the edge of the screen in the final shot, and going through all the photoshop files to make sure that all the backgrounds are cleaned up. It's those little things that will really make the film work, and it's just plain sloppy to leave them.

Also, I came up with a final list of things to do. There are eleven little things, and four big things. Of those big things, only one is intense – the animation of shot 021 (the Astronaut freaking out). However, in the recut, I have shortened that shot so it shouldn't be that bad at this point. The other big things are coloring shots 020, 021, and the new bits of 024. So, I have my work cut out for me, but it's not as overwhelming as it has been in the past.

I'm going to get through this.

It feels really good to say that. Well, I have to get back to work. Stay tuned...

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back Part 2 (Electric Boogaloo)

Mother puss-bucket, I HATE sequels!!!

I feel like I haven't gotten anything important accomplished in the past several weeks. Even less so in the last week. What do I need to have done? I need to get shot 021 animated completely, shot 020 colorized, shot 021 colorized (once it's done), a dozen or so tweaks done, check all the SFX, export everything as .jpg sequences, and do a final render of the film. Meanwhile I'm struggling with my marriage, my health, and my potential career and at the same time I'm trying to get pumped up for an interview for an awesome job while I'm feeling really depressed.

I reiterate: mother puss-bucket!

I know I'm going to get through this. I know it. But somehow I keep feeling like I'm just spinning my wheels and going nowhere. I hate this. GAH!!!

By the way, the capper to all of this is what happened to my computer. I took a break from working to watch some television and relax, while leaving my computer on Sunday. I had set an alarm on it so I didn't sit on the couch too long, but realized after a while that the alarm had not gone off. I went into my office to find that the computer screens were blank. I thought, "huh, I thought I turned off the sleep function" and shook the mouse - nothing happened. So, I hit the power button to either shut down or reboot the system. Nothing happened.

This is when I really started to freak out.

After several minutes of frantic searching I discovered that the plug had been pulled out from the wall (the cats did this? I can only assume...). I plugged it back in and hit the power button. At this point I was horrified to find a DOS screen come up on my monitor asking to be directed to a boot drive or to insert a boot disk into the CD ROM. You don't want to know the language that came out of my mouth at that point - it was concentrated evil. In a panic I rebooted the machine and was greeted my the normal boot screen, but it immediately went back to the DOS screen. Try again. This time I hit F8 and found that both hard drives were still there, so I pointed it at the other drive and continued to boot into safe mode. It worked. Restart. Back to the DOS screen again. Reboot and point to the right drive. It works! Reboot. Back to DOS screen. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...!!!! Reboot to the Bios screen. Hmmmmmm.... only one hard drive showing up. That explains a lot. Panic starting to fade. Reboot, set the drive, finish booting and get back to work.

So, that's been my week. Oh, and I've got an interview for a job at Fisher Price AND got a call from a headhunter for another job at Fisher Price. I guess you have to take the good with the bad. Time to stress eat and get back to work. Stay tuned...

Downs and Ups

Spring Break is over, and I am SO glad it is.

Don't get me wrong, I love the concept of Spring Break. It's a point in the semester where the sun is supposed to shine, giving us a hint of summer to come. We call get to relax and sleep in for a week or so, catch up with friends, go to a party or to, and generally recharge our batteries - ready to return to school refreshed and prepared the the last month of hard work.

It never works out that way though.

I started off by getting sick for a week. Then my wife used my computer, and just like the last two times when she used my computer, my primary hard drive failed taking just about everything with it. So, while coughing my lungs out, I had the incredibly enjoyable experience of spending two and a half days rebuilding my computer and reinstalling all the programs I needed to get back to work on this animation.

I bet you were wondering when I was going to get to talking about Fleeting, weren't you?

Yes, by Thursday of last week I was once again back up and running and trying to animate. I say "trying" because I spent the next four days screaming at Maya because I couldn't get these ndynamics and dynamics to work in the three scenes I needed to get done (with being sick and the computer crash I had long forgot about getting shot 021 animated - that will happen this weekend).

By Monday morning I was fit to be tied.

Fortunately, Sarah came through. She introduced me to preset materials in ncloth, and worked out the bugs that had been vexing me. Also, for unknown reasons, the dynamics component of the shots mysteriously started to work. By late afternoon on Monday, I had most of the shots ready to render, and Tuesday I did just that I also completed and hand drawn animation of a glass of wine spilling to complete shot 015.

Bloody hell I'm tired.

Oh, and I'm Valedictorian of my graduating class. Did I mention that? So, downs turn into ups and hopefully the trend will continue. Must hard work lies ahead, but I'm fairly certain I can get it all done on time. Until next time, stay tuned...

Little Bits Of Paper

I’m back to animating.

Not much else in my life has been resolve, but I am back to animating. Well, that’s something at least.

So, this week I have started to work on the secondary animation for sequence one and five – the void. Somehow that seems apropos, but I digress. What I’m doing is filling the space with all the floating pages of the script, and honestly it looks really good (if I do say so myself).

What this entails is a lot of tedious work. I have to draw all the paper (with writing on it and without), scan all the images, clean them up, bring them into After Effects and animate them in multiple compositions (for length). If that sounds like a lot, you are correct. Every piece of paper has to move and rotate, and it needs to be the right length for the shot it goes into. Some of these shots are incredibly long as well.

It’s dull, boring, and tedious work. But, it looks beautiful when it’s done.

I think that’s the metaphor for this film. Well, stay tuned…

Triple Witching Hour

I accomplished nothing this week.

Nothing. Zip. Nada.

Why? Well, because of Murphy’s Law. Everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Oh, and it did go wrong. In the financial world there is a thing called “Triple Witching Hour” in which three very important reports all come due on the same day and that can lead to either a massive amount of new capital or – and this is how I am referring to it – it can lead to the market crashing.

In my case, I have had to deal with a crisis in my marriage, a crisis of debt, and a crisis of employment. I’m not going to go into detail here, but if you really want to know the particulars, please ask me in person. What these things have caused is a crash in me. I have been so stressed out that I have not been the least bit creative, the least bit focused, nor have I been the least bit interested in life in general. I’ve been lost, alone, frustrated, and very, very upset.

On top of that, I have a cold. So, I’ve crashed physically as well as mentally and emotionally.

Here’s hoping next week will be better. Stay tuned…

Finding Something I Enjoy Doing

Another week, another round of work on this animation. Kind of the same grind over again, or as a friend of mine would say, “same song, different verse.” Although, there was something a little different this week. I got to do something that I haven't done in years, and I loved it.

I got to work in Illustrator.

There is – for me at least – a certain thrill in using Adobe Illustrator. For one, it's the very first graphics program that I ever worked with. Way back in 1993 I picked up a book on Illustrator and read it cover to cover. I then went out and rented time on a Macintosh (that's a Mac Classic for you young ones out there) at Kinko's and learned how to use it. It was incredible! Producing perfectly sharp, crisp, clear illustrations was intoxicating – and lead me directly to where I am today. So, it was with great joy that I sat down and designed a series of posters that were to be used in the subway sequence of my film. I really, really enjoyed it.

I will definitely be doing more illustrating in the future.

But for right now, I need to finish recapping the week. To that end, I have completed all the shots for sequence three: the black and white subway sequence. I think it looks really good. The “wiggler” motion that I have added to two of the shots really help to sell the feel of the subway, and the passing imagery and posters that I put in seal the deal. I think these shots are ready for final rendering, though I will leave that for review with my instructor and peers. Hopefully everything gets their stamp of approval and I can to a final render. I would be so nice to finally gets some shots in the can.

Of course, on the same token I'm still behind. I did no work on revised animation for the pull back shot at the beginning of the final sequence. I'll bring some materials with me to class tomorrow and see if I cannot start on that, and continue it through Thursday – that should put that annoyance to bed finally. Coming up next is all the floating paper for the first and final sequences. That won't be a difficult process, it will however be tedious. I'm not looking forward to it, but I am looking forward to being done with it.

I think I can actually begin to see the end of this project.

Wow, I honestly didn't think that I'm say that. Well, at least not as of last week. I think I've turned a corner here. Hopefully I have anyway. So, stay tuned...

Another Week, Another Milestone, Another Blog Entry

You know, I really wanted to write an upbeat blog entry this week, but I find that I just can't. It's not really one thing or another either. I mean, it's late February and the weather is crap and the sky is gray, and I'm reaching the midpoint of completing the film – which means, as it usually does, that I've reach a point where I can't see the end, just the interminable middle part (that never seems to end).

Bleh.

The thing is, I've been here so many times before with past projects, that it's no longer a new feeling. Just the same old, same old. I know that in a couple weeks I'll clear the middle bits and start to see the end. I'll feel much better about everything – especially since Spring will soon be here and the world will be a brighter, greener place. It's just that right now I'm tired of all of this. I also know that I can't stop and take a break, even though I'm dying to.

Bleh.

Anyway. I've finished colorizing (or grayscaling) the last nine cels from sequence four, and reworked the Astronaut crying sequence as well. That looks pretty good. Getting approve on it, then grayscaling the shot will complete the initial animation work on that sequence. That finishes up last week's goal. As to this week, I reworked the animation for the Astronaut laughing, though it doesn't seem quite right. There is a “hiccup” in the last few frames and I'll need to review that with everyone to figure out the problem and resolve it. Also, I've colorized the cels from two of the final shots and reworked the falling away of the clock at the end to center it. Additionally, I've added a still in the first sequence for an over the shoulder shot of the paper the Astronaut picks up. We'll see how people like that and whether or not the music works with it too. Of course there is always what I didn't get done: reanimating the opening shot of sequence five where the astronaut freaks out. There's always something.

Bleh.

So, next week I have to fix the animation – which will take a bit. Do some more colorizing/grayscaling, and start to work on secondary animations for each sequence. I'm scheduled to work on the floating paper for sequences one and five, but with the additional work I think I may just do the secondary/finishing animation for sequence three (the subway shots). Those should be fair quick and easy to do. We'll see how far I get, and whether the weather and my mood improve any.

Oh, and I still have no prospects for a job. Stay tuned...

My Inner Colorist Was Run Over By A Bus

When I was much younger man, I had the dream of becoming a comic book artist. To that end, I picked up pads of paper, pencils, pens, bristol board, a lettering guide – all the things you needed to learn the trade. And I worked at it. Hard. I explored the venue, even going so far as to pick up a full set of Dr. P. H. Martin's watercolor dyes. This was important, because these were the materials that professional colorists used in the days before digital color came along.

But those days were long ago, and I remember them fondly. Now, I find myself coloring cels for my latest animated piece, and you know what?

I HATE COLORING!!!

Gah! It is repetitive, annoying, and necessary. Three things that are guaranteed to drive me nuts. Honestly, it's the repetitiveness of coloring that really makes me nuts. I spend half an hour on one cel, and there are still fifteen to twenty more to do in the set. I lose track of where I am, what color I'm using, which layer I'm on – let me tell you, the keys crtl + z have become my best friends.

So, with that having been said, project moves along at a constant pace. It is giving me considerable experience in using a graphic tablet, and the end result does have a hand-made, painterly quality to it, which was the original intent. So, it seems to be working. It's just slow and steady. That kind of makes me crazy, as I've always like “fast” art. I know that taking your time and making it right is what is necessary, it's just that once I start a project I want to be done with it. Maybe I'm just crazy.

Well, I haven't finished everything for this milestone, so I need to get back to the grind. Stay tuned...

The Light At The End Of The Tunnel Isn't Hope,It's An On Coming Train

This week I have gone from being very far behind to being on top of things, and at a very low cost in time. This is fantastic, this is great, this is wonderful.

So, why don't I feel good about it?

Probably because I don't. There are a lot of things coming together at this point that make me very unhappy and uneasy. There is the continuing uncertainty with my marriage, my lack of finding work and the impending loss of unemployment benefits, the mid-winter blues, limited money and bills piling up, and the advancement of my friends in their careers while I'm still at school. All-in-all it doesn't make me excited about this project.

And yet last semester I was stoked about it.

Yeah well that was last year. Now I see it as a long, slow, grueling, uphill climb to complete a piece that no one seems to get, no one seems to like, and may not help me in terms of my new career. I'm really worried about where I'm going here, and I really don't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In any event, I have completed the coloring of the last two shots in scene two, and all the coloring – or black and whiting, as you will – of the cels in sequence three. They look pretty good, but I'm sure they could be better. Hopefully I'll get out of this funk by March and I'll be able to look back at them with a less jaundiced eye. Now, I get to look forward to gray scaling the cels for sequence four. This will probably be just as time consuming as working on the cels for sequence two, AND I have to start reworking one of two scenes that really are very poorly animated.

I just see a lot of work right now that doesn't feel like it has an ending. That's not good. I'm going to stop now and see what I can do to pick myself up.

Hopefully I can. Stay tuned...

Buckling Down

I am my own worst enemy.

No, it's not because I'm incredibly self-critical of everything I produce. No, it's not because I think I'm a mediocre artist and animator. No, it's not because I am filled with self-loathing. Although I suffer from all of these things, that is not the reason I am the enemy.

No, I have a bad habit of letting time slip away from me.

For example, this week I was supposed to have five shots colorized for my milestone – a goal that does not seem very difficult to reach. I started off with the best of intentions, as I always do, getting the basics down on how I was going to colorize this sequence and I even succeeded in getting several cels done for a shot. But it's a difficult, time consuming, and tedious process and I hate difficult, time consuming, and tedious processes. So, instead of working the rest of last Wednesday, I took time off to relax. That was mistake number one.

Then I found out that my wife had the next day, so I decided to spend it with her. This led to a bunch of emotional ups and downs as we are still working things out. Of course Friday is my traditional night to go see friends and I just couldn't get motivated to work. After which came Saturday and Sunday which involved me having to shovel/blow out the snow in the driveway which it an incredibly exhausting thing (I have a HUGE driveway) leaving me with no energy or drive to colorize. I was spent for the weekend and becoming more and more miserable about not getting anything done.

By Monday morning, I was stressed, miserable, and extremely cranky. Not a good way to begin a week.

As I began working on colorizing again, I started to realize that this – like so many things – is just something I have to get through. Not because this work is horrible. Oh, it's tedious and frustrating, but in the end it looks really good. I'm very happy with they way it looks (which I might add is exactly how I had envisioned it, that's something that I've never experienced before). I'm also not getting mad at myself like I used to. Yes, I missed my original goal, but I'll rewrite the schedule and keep going. This animation, more any any one that I have worked on before, really means something to me. I feel different this short. Definitely different.

I'm not precisely certain what that means, but hopefully it's a good thing. Stay tuned...

Insert Commercial Break Here

...and we're back!

Yep, freshly back from Winter break and just a week into the new semester. I hit the ground running by getting everything sorted out and the dust blown off all the files before school started – I admit to having not touched anything involved in animation over break. It was good to get away and get things done around the house and just enjoy being off. I guess it's the closest thing I've had to vacation in nearly a decade.

In any event, I've created my production schedule and it feels pretty solid. It's definitely not rushed either. I have a feeling I'm going to have plenty of time to get this animation just right. I have already started basic coloring of the first sequence of the film (where the astronaut is introduced in the void and he meets the clock for the first time). So far, so good – the colorization process is fairly straight forward, if somewhat tedious. And like I say, everything is going swimmingly.

So, why do I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop?

Seriously, things never go this easily for me, especially at the beginning of the semester. There is always a crisis (or multiple crises) the rock me to the core of my being. That's how it's been since I came to Villa Maria. Nothing bad has happened yet – no illnesses, no deaths of loved ones, no deaths of pets, no accidents, not illnesses, no financial crisis, no (major) marital problems, no nothing.

That disturbs me.

When bad things stop happening on a regular basis, what does that mean? I don't know. Maybe I'm just paranoid. Maybe I'm just used to being miserable. Maybe I'm just not used to life being neutral. Maybe things are finally on an upswing, and they will get better from here on out. I am cautiously optimistic, but I will continue to look over my shoulder for quite some time before I give the “all clear” signal.
Until then, I have work to do. See you next week...