OFF for Christmas!

Merry Christmas Guys see you next year!

Tree on the streets of Falmouth outside seasalt! 

Homeward Bound!

Working on this film sooo far.......

During the time working on this film. I have found it very annoying at times, as it feels like I need to be in so many places at once. It is making me feel like I'm playing a co-director role at the same time, as being a director because Connor is not the best at naming things or getting people to turn up to meetings. I am having to keep on reminding people. Connor is brilliant with doing the email side. Hopefully, he understands what he has actually to do after Christmas. I also wished I had more time to focus on the sound side of things. I had very little time to spare, on it because at the start I didn’t feel like I could not be there, in the studio all the time, as I was being asked so many questions at the start. After Christmas I will be making the sound, one of my main focuses, as the group now knows what they are doing and I have faith in them to achieve it, without me being around all the time, and I can get into the dubbing theatre loads instead and achieve some really lovely Foley for my end of year showreel.

Graffiti seen while out walking around.
Me by the end of the project!.......

Film Didnt get cut! yes! whoooo.....

Wifflegif.com

The film did not get cut, I am so glad, we can carry on, come on guys! We did it, whoop. We had a meeting with Kathy today which was very useful; she went through the conditions our film had been given and was helping us to come up with a new style for the animation, using inspiration from her books. It was quite annoying we were not told earlier they did not like our style it would have helped. We were also told that the film was to completed and they were worried, as we had backgrounds that were coloured, so we are going to do everyday pencil storyboards instead next time.

Push to the Milestone

We all have been taking a very last push to get to this cut of Milestone. We split it up between the four of us; I was creating rough sketches of the scenes, then working out rough layouts (see figures 20/21) for Cery’s who went on working on the layout/Backgrounds in colour. Ourania was then taking her expression poses and placing them on top of the background and adding in the water, on top. There was only one problem; I had to keep on reminding people where our camera was (see figure 22) when we were creating the different scene for the animatic, it took a while for people to realize, we go there in the end.

Connor was taking what we had completed and was creating a new animatic, for this milestone today. I managed to complete the slice, and have it wholly coloured for today; it was arduous work to get done in such little time. It’s not as brilliant as I would have hoped for, but I was running out of time and spent most time on the first part, if I had longer the walk would have looked way smoother, unfortunately, I didn’t, so it meant it looks slightly doggy in the middle part of the coloured slice. I hope I get more people on the project that can animate adequately otherwise I am gunner be soo stuck. When we showed the animatic, most people were laughing, so I am hoping it was for a good reason, at the jokes and not because we are doing bad.

SoundLists & ColouredSlice

Dani, unfortunately, has decided she is not up for co-directing anymore, as she wants to focus on what needs for her showreel, so she is working more on her other 3D projects and taking a step back, and just working on backgrounds if needed. I understand why she’s coming from, but it is still a bit last minute to do that to us. I’m just gunner carry on and try my best, it is all I can do. We were still struggling with storyboarding and since Ourania had finalized our character designs, and she had the best grasp of how they moved extra, I roped her in to help out with the storyboards, so our designs would be more transparent in the animatic.

As we were struggling a bit Connor set up a meeting with Derek and Andy, to help us out and they told us to look at more gags which weren’t useful, as I had already looked at so many, and it was hard to find new gags, the meeting was sort of helpful, but not really just felt like they hated on anything we did. But I decided to go and work on the Script to adapt it to the changes we came up with after the meeting, I also booked out the dubbing theater, create sounds for our animatic (see figures 15/16) this would be the fourth time I have had to create a sound list for the animation. I have also made a start on the test shots, and so has Connor, however, he’s not used TVPaint for a while, so I’ve had to teach him TVPaint as we go.

Despite this the coloured slice is coming on along nicely, I had a checklist (see figure 17) for our test shots to make sure we were on track and had 30 seconds and a slice like we needed. We also made a checklist (see figure 18) for the different changes, that would take place in the scene, with Ourania’s help to work out, different pacing. Another thing I had to do was to create a small PowerPoint for getting crew and Musician, for the film, I could have made a better PowerPoint (see figure 19) if we had more concept art by then, however, we didn’t have much as we have been focusing on the story and the test animations the most.

Skyped with A Large Evil Corp

Today we finally had our first Skype call, with A Large Evil Corp, where he gave us some beneficial information regarding the film. Despite this it was not till after the Skype call had ended that we all realised we had just been talking about the old version of the script, which was utterly gag-based, I doubled checked afterwards to make sure I had sent David the new script. I had sent it, so it was a mistake on their end when I realised this, I got Connor to send an email saying we just realized David had been looking at the wrong script and gave him the new script again, so we were all on the same page. Unfortunately, they loved the gag version we had before, so that is a bit annoying we did not see them before the first Milestone.

Can't Eat your lunch in Peace!

Can't eat your lunch in Peace, them dam seagulls, well that's cornwall for you! HAHA!

Rough Thumbnails

Had a meeting with Kathy today, and she told us that Ourania designs for Vincent, our pirate, were near but not quite fearsome enough for a pirate. Luckily, she loved Cery’s backgrounds, and her only thing was to add better light and shadow, into the backgrounds. I had also looked back at the very rough thumbnails I did the other day and over the weekend, created new ones (see figure 13/14) for each scene using the template I made the other day. 

Guy Folks Night

Hope You Enjoy the fireworks tonight if u went to see some!

Thumbnailing

We all put so much effort into, getting to today’s milestone. I was the one who edited the sounds on the animatic. However it was so frustrating that we had four styles going on in the animatic, it made it very hard to follow, luckily the sound I placed around it helped to bring it to life a lot more. On the contrast when we finally had another meeting with Kathy, because she missed the last she let us know that the pacing was not quite right, so we were able to adapt it a bit before the viewing. We finally reached our first milestone. However, we got mixed reviews from the animatic. Some of the lectures though we should have more story, and others realized where we were getting stuck between ideas. Lectures did not like it at first, then they went back on themselves to say it was not that bad, so it mixed up my emotions, flipping stupid, either like it or hate it, not both. Dani could tell that I was struggling, so offered to be co-director, which I was thrilled with and made me feel so much more at ease having someone else by my side to help. Between Dani and me we are looking at how to fix this story, to a more less gag based film and a but still a slightly gag-filled story at the same time, we are finding it quite hard. We can do this guy! I decided just to create some thumbnail templates for us to use when creating thumbnails, so I started to create some rough thumbnails just to get us started (see figure 12).

Gag Lists

Once again we did not get to have a meeting with Kathy, this is not very helpful when we need a bit of guidance. Luckily Derek was available, the other day to help and we realised we needed to make it more gag-based. So, after that meeting with Derek, we went to use a lecture room to sit and watch a few films, with the whole group. Unfortunately, we had to change the script up again, and add any changes to the storyboards we had. We are stuck at a crossroads do we choose to go wholly gag-filled or do we keep it the same but make it melancholy? Connor has taken over doing storyboarding; he is doing very well. Ourania has finished with the character designs, for Vincent, despite this it has taken awhile for one character, so I hope things start to speed up or I will have to give the job out to someone else. Cery’s has happily been creating some lovely background designs. Dani is doing well on the script; we just need the ideas to keep on coming. So, I have been watching loads of Looney Tunes animations, and others. All relating to water, and making a massive list of gags (see figures 10/11) to help us with the jokes needed in our film. The only problem is after a while the set up is similar, and they have been used loads, of times in other animations. So it is hard to adapt it to what we want them to be like in our animation. I have also been working out what body parts they might use and if we had placards what they would say to them. I have also made a start on the tests shots, currently the bubble titles. However I wish the whole film was, further along, we have had so many roadblocks in the script and design, which has been annoying.

Hiking in Dartmoor

Went Hiking in Dartmoor for the weekend, was very challenging but worth every minute for the views we got! We even found a Sherlock Filming location on the way. See if you can spot it!

Storyboard panels

Today we brought together the storyboard panels (see figure 9), and had a meeting to see what everyone had achieved; we did not have fantastic panels as any of us are storyboard artists. However, the story was readable through the images. Connor then started to create a rough animatic, with our storyboards. Unfortunately, when put together they were not all the same size, as we did not use the same size paper as each other when drawing the panels, so the animatic looked a bit weird. We are still slightly behind in character design, Ourania has not quite got to a finalized point yet with the designs. Booked out the dubbing theater, for doing sound will be interesting to see how it goes, with the new sound desk. In the meeting we had, we also worked out the best way to change the flashbacks of the Kraken seen at the start of a shadow looming over the boat. Want to make a start on the test shots, but I am still waiting on finalized characters from Ourania.

Split up Script

We have not been able to find anyone to be our storyboard artist, as everyone is working on significant rolls or is already working on another project. So, we have had to resort to splitting up the script (see figure 8) between the 4 of us to start storyboarding, the film, even though none of us is keen at storyboarding, we are giving it our best shot. Meanwhile, Ourania works on character design for the story. We also gave our mentor person, so Connor emailed them to get them up to date with where we are at and to give them a version of the script, to look over before we have our first skype call.

Made a new Friend!

ThumbNails/Storyboards

After a few thumbnails... Dani and I have been working hard, on getting the script completed. We have been working out an ending for the film, we are on the second draft of the script and have started work on doing very rough storyboards using what we have of the script, we are looking for a storyboard artist to help. The script is coming along well, but the ending needs to be better. Crews are getting along nicely. I have started to create a voice Actors script (see figure7), for use when in the dubbing theatre.

LandLubber

Work started on Landlubber, which was called pirates code at the time. Since the film was greenlit, I managed to get together a lovely crew together formed of Connor Schrader my producer, Chandani Parekh my scriptwriter, Cerys Mees lead background artist and last but not least Ourania Markou my character designer. It is not a very big group, but we are getting on well. The first thing I did was to go and create a post on the Actors page to get voice actors (see figure 1), I ended up getting much interest of people, even people who were not at the university, but were on the voice acting group.

We decided to come up with a new name for the film, as the current name Pirates Code just wasn't working. So we came up with LandLubber.Which we found out means: A person unfamiliar with sea or sailing! 

 It fits brilliantly with the film, as it's about a pirate learning to swim! in a children's swimming class. 

I am currently working on editing the script I wrote over summer, with Dani who has helped to add a better flow to the story, together we came up with a better script. Alongside i have done some research on water seen in animation and backgrounds using watercolour (see figure 2-5).

I also created an Instagram account for our group (see figure 6).

My Catus Mascot

Tim My new Mascot! 

YESSSS!!!!!!!!!! Film Just got Green Lit

I can't believe it ooooooh im lost for words............

@#@*******# 

AAAAAAH! Its Done that was Very challenging!

The Stage was sooooooooooo, big i felt quite lost!


                                     
                                But i made it through, hopefully my film gets green lit fingers crossed!

Pitching my film today scared

Pitching in the Poly today, my film! AAAAAH!

So Scared! :(

New DAWS SetUp

Sound Inductions on the new Digital Audio Work Space (D.A.W.S) Set up at University, decided to show us a new feature called Elvis or DJ something or other. 

Can't wait to get my hands on the new setup and use it! 

Positions 2