Groovin'

Here's the poster I made for the screening. Woo!

Anyway, thesis is coming... I've been shooting a lot of things under the oxberry. I've composited a first pass which I still have to roto. But I think it's looking okay. I think the roto will make it less chaotic. I will have to take care of that transparency problem. The pink dude is going to turn into the 2D boy when he fades. I'm contemplating flash more and more. I have more assets I have yet to composite... like the running scene in the clouds. We'll see if I can get it up before tomorrow's presentation.

I also fixed the light pops here and composited a background on the green screen.

I work best with blasting music cause then I don't think about my distractions and can just paint forever. So yeah! I'm stoked to keep going.

PS I hate these blogger columns that don't show anything fully.

Stop-Mo For You

Here's all the stop-mo approximately timed in After Effects!

Still working on oxberry things. This week I've had trouble getting to work because I've been trying to take care of job stuff and the application to stay in the US post-graduation. Also, I've been running a mile and a half every other day with my roommate as a pact. It's a lot of time and energy... I don't know if I can continue cause thesis is already such a huge commitment.

Anyway enjoy these goodies:

Oh hi again, Oxberry.

It was a slow start on Tuesday... I guess because it was hard to just dive in again. I forgot how to set-up quickly like before and I forgot my ipod speaker system which helps motivate me. It took almost 2-3 hours to get going... and start loving it again. But once I saw one thing start moving, I felt a bit better... yessss! Self-preservation.

I got the majority of elements of the first scene animated. It was a brain cramp to figure out how the transition should go on the fly but I feel that my animatic helped a lot. Also breaking down each element to the smallest possible movement.

A problem has come up though - someone booked the oxberry for 6 hours every week on Tuesdays - MY BEST DAY TO WORK! So I'm going to have to figure out a way around it. I'm thinking Monday and Wednesdays.

I'll post some tangible things soon but I'm having exporting issues left and right.

STOP-MO DONE!

I was up til 7am animating yesterday but it was all worth it. Everything stop-mo is done. All that needs to happen is compositing and tweaking and eyes.

Problems I had was that the set kept moving around, and also setting up always took a long time. One thing that stressed me out was my puppets were getting destroyed. So it's a relief that I no longer have to take care of them. The heads and paint are cracking and the cloth is getting ripped...

The footage still needs to be uploaded but I think I'm on track.

Now, onto oxberry times!

Dadada DAA! transitions are thought out. also, list of bg and chars.

transfer
bg: base color, exploded brain

chars: blob guy, music notes, clouds expanding

transition - blob guy turning into boy

intro

bg: yellow? and clouds

chars: boy, rooster

transition: pan up, clouds turn weirder

cloud pass

bg: blue, clouds slow swirling
chars: man running, rooster running, boy running

transition: man runs into ape mouth, eats, grabs his tongue and pulls it out. monsters join the fun slowly.

tongue

bg: plain yellow

chars: ape, ape's hand, ape's tongue, blue happy tongue, big green tongue, big beard, john lennon, big green's hand, boy, rooster

transition: tongue slowly forms into stairs

stairs

bg: watery dark paint

chars: falling fire men, blue leafy things, maniacal dog, rooster dog

transition: rooster disappears, boy flies and lands on a spikey thing

desert

bg: yellow

chars: lizard body, lizard head, mud monster, mud monsters arms, spikey walking things x 3, boy, rooster, shadow

transition: rooster flies away, mud monster picks up boy and throws into air

flowy test shot

bg: yellow

chars: boy

transition: the blue flips over, starts walking, cubes start falling

juggle walk
bg: yellow subtle

chars: arms x 3, box head, feet/legs x 3, cubes with roosters x 5, boy

transition: zoom into cube head's arms, change colour and folding hands then, tiki face build opn top, then the hands open for the chase

tiki

bg: light green or none, subtle

chars: teeth, hands, faces, tiki hair, tiki eyebrows, silhouettes of rooster, silhouette of boy

transition: follow into the mouth of the right tiki face and the boy trips and falls

lose rooster
bg: canal

chars: boy, rooster

transition: LIGHT fills the screen (like realization)

last rooster shot pan out

bg: swirling color, another layer of splash

chars: lots of blobs, rooster's beak, roosters monster hairs, boy, wattle

Importance of Story

Break was not productive!

I had a slight breakdown first week coming back. Really felt the pressure of making this thesis. I kept saying to myself - It's ALL dependent on you! YOU need to get your stuff together. No one is waiting for you to go to the lab and whipping your back to get working. You are your own enemy. YOU need to graduate and get a job, not get deported etc etc.

This drained and intimidated me. But I realized through wise words and encouragement that I'm not only doing this for myself and my graduation. It is dependent on more people than me! I'm doing this for my friends and family... I wanna make them proud and excited by the end of all this and show them why I came all the way here to LA! I want to inspire even beyond that. People are rooting for me... so I'm not alone.

Thinking about it as a huge blob is intimidating... but breaking it down into small tasks makes it manageable. It's refreshing doing a production schedule because I can really start organizing my time. It's hard to know how much I'll finish every week and how to pace myself but to write it down is the first step.

This week I focused on completing more shots in my stop-motion segment. I managed to finish 3 shots with the worm. Some problems I faced was keeping the worm standing without any rigs. Also light pops were a constant issue. Apparently, if I kept the camera running too long, the light stops going into the lens as much. But these things I will fix in post.

I also asked myself: What is the most important part of my film that I should concentrate on?

The answer? The middle. That's where all the fun stuff happens. There was way too many distracting, confusing bits in the beginning so I cut them out and decided, all he really has to do is smoke the pipe and the brain explodes so why all the fuss with the vines?

So now, the worm just becomes the brain and the boy picks it up and smokes it. In the end, I'm keeping the dragonfruit head and all the vines covering him. It still makes sense!

I think I will end up using Photoshop to animate the middle just because I'm familiar with it already... even though it's not the best for efficiency.

I plan to finish my stop-motion entirely by next week and then the 2D excitement begins.

Stop-Mo Stills Animatic!

What I've realized is you just have to dive in and stop stressing. I was so hung up about a ladder that in the end i just scrapped it. The eye compositing has turned out nicely so far... haven't refined it fully yet... my friend Dan Chen helped me shoot the two animated shots with great lighting. I hope to shoot the opening pan shot before next Tuesday! And have transitions and better 2nd section done by Wednesday. Keep you all posted.