Meetings, Testing Clips, and Music

Hello again!

So just a little update today.  We were due for a meeting to plan our 'This is Not an Exit' show at the... [insert correct combination of words here] cinema so that was something interesting to do yesterday, though I apparently missed the first meeting (oops!).  Unfortunately, only 4 of us turned up, so I'm feeling a tad concerned about how smoothly this organisation is going to go, but hopefully we'll be able to get everyone together and have a more focused meeting on what we all plan to bring in and the like.  It was a big space but kind of run down, with random bricks missing and pipes sticking out and I'm pretty sure most of the lights were out of action.  So we might need to think about better lighting too.

In any case, that'll be something to think about.  My job today is to continue to work on my animation, order myself some business cards, try to take over the world and think of interesting things we could do for the show.

So I sort of lazily arranged some of my new clips for my revamped opening so that I could get a better idea of the flow of the opening and length; obviously this isn't final at all so there are going to be a few changes/additions/polishing-up-enings here and there.




Also, lazy rain in After Effects is lazy.

Next is my progress so far on the fight scene, which I really just started a short while ago.  But I'm fairly pleased with it so far.




I don't know what it's called, if it has a term at all, when people draw the blur into the picture like that.  But I'm going to dub them Lazy Lines.  That accurately describes them!

Edit:  I forgot to talk about music.

So I've been trying to save Paul a job because I know he's going to be doing loads of people's music, so I've been looking for major tracks myself, like for the battle sequences.  That means he won't have to make big tracks, just ones for when things are calmer (much easier I think!) if he has time for it.  Mostly I've fallen in love with Shockwave-Sound.com which has lots of royalty free (but unfortunately not free) high quality music.  Go take a look!

Light Experiments

Hey there.

So as a part of my rethinking the opening scenes I've also been remaking some of the environments and experimenting with light in After Effects.  Here's some of my results.  Anyone who's reading, your criticism and suggestions are welcome! ...and needed.


   

Reworking the Opening Scenes

Hey there!  I know what you're thinking; 'Two posts in a week?  Oh no the sky is falling!  AAAAAARGH NOOOOOO!  Oh no, now giant cracks are appearing in the ground and molten lava's melting my house!  EEEEEEEEEARGH!  Oh no, now Voldemort is marching on the last bastion of humanity while giving the Grim Reaper a piggy back and shooting lasers from his eyes!  NYAAAAAAAAAARGH!'

Don't worry, the apocalypse hasn't arrived yet.  So in the meantime, I have some new bits and pieces to show.  I decided that my opening scene (arguably one of the most important scenes in any short!) was far too brief.  I've decided to rework it a bit, and here's what I have so far.  Mind you, these are just line tests and have a lot of tweaking to be done.

Ralla'ool searching for shelter.



She spots a small cave and flies back; a fade out to the same scene during the storm hinted at beforehand will follow this along with a slow zoom-in to the cave.




I also have some test walk cycles of Okri and Taln:




As you can probably tell, they're both based on the same cycle to save time.  The scene will be fairly brief, so I'm hoping with the background added and Ralla'ool included (her walk cycle is still in progress) I can just make sure that the two are out of step with each other and it shouldn't be too jarring.

And to show myself up, I have a present to leave you all with!  Watch this; it makes my innards churn with hate and envy.  That means it's awesome.

Final Show

Well, Final Show's come and gone, just like that!  But no worries, we essentially have another one.  Well, some of us.

As for the Final Show itself, it was a great time.  My classmates' work was top notch and it was really interesting to see what everyone had been up to, and more than a little humbling too.  As for my work, I wasn't really too happy with it... My board felt a little lifeless next to everyone else's, as did my portfolio and... well, I sort of felt like a bit of an underachiever, definitely.  It was an odd contrast of feeling shameful of my own rubbishness and impressed by everyone else's work.

I mean, really, really deep shame.

It's sort of sad.

But despite it all, I've got a good idea of what I need to do to stop being ashamed.  I need to get smart now; I need to get smart and organised.  There are lots of options I hadn't even considered before - I mean c'mon, Paul's portfolio was a book!  I wish I'd gotten a book made.  It looked awesome!

Then there were postcards, business cards, t-shirts...

Well, time to stop mourning my incompetence and get on with working to overcome it.  Here's the trailer I submitted:




I have some pictures too, but I took them on a dying phone that seems to hate my computer.  So those'll have to wait.

Next stop, Shadow and Star Moon and Shadow Star and Moon Star and Shadow That place that we're doing Final Show V2!

Time to prove I can be competent!