Film 4: Pre-Production Part 2

 "What is Film 4 about?"

Good question. When I figure that out I'll let you guys know. :)

So last weekend was supposed to be a production weekend, but I got a nasty virus and was out for the weekend. Which I guess was a good thing because I didn't have anything to shoot.

Tonight I'm ironing out the details of the story and emailing out to see if I can get actors. When I have an actual story, I'll post it here. I've got an inkling of an idea, but we'll see how that goes. 

Parameters for this film: less than 8 minutes (I'm aiming for a four-minute film...I'm really not into making masterpieces, just into getting through this class), and we can now use sync dialogue. Sooo...yeah. 

Hopefully this weekend a guy in my group won't need the camera all weekend and I can get it for a day, thus shooting.

Film 4

Can you believe it, after all that work I have to make yet another film. 

So this weekend was supposed to be pre-production for Film 4, but I was too exhausted from my last film to do anything. So this week I have to plan it all and then shoot this weekend. Ugh. Life is just peachy, isn't it.

Expect a more comprehensive update for pre-production on Film 4 when I actually get around to working on it.

To keep you entertained until I update again, click here.

Film 3: Hat Trick

It's here!! AT LAST!!! Are you excited? You should be.

I'll be posting comments my classmates made later. But it went over really really well in class. 

Film 3: Post-Production

I'm slaving away! Don't believe me? Check the time stamp. Monday night I was up until 2 and slept for 5 hours. That means today I've been up for 20 hours. Ew.

D-Day is Thursday. Wednesday will be spent finalizing music and sound effects. As you know, everything in an animated film has to be created. Images and sounds. Lucky lucky me.

Film 3 by-the-numbers:

38 hours spent animating (drawing the frames, moving them little by little, and importing the images into iMovie, adjusting the length of the clip, etc.)

663 individual frames

8 hours spent editing, figuring out music, etc. (so far)

Daaaaaang. Even I'm exhausted looking at that. 

Final update on Film 3 should be up Thursday, along with the film! Get excited.

Film 3: Production Part 2

Still animating. So far I have 1:30 out of (at most) 5 minutes. Quite a tedious task.

To give everyone an idea of what I'm doing, I draw the basic scene in Adobe Illustrator. I make minute changes to the image, then Save As another document. Then convert to a .jpeg file. Then import into iPhoto. Then import into iMovie. Then edit the length of the frame and make sure it fits with the rest of the project. On average, one second of film is taking about 6 separate frames (remember, normal film has 24 frames per second). So far I have around 275 frames in the film. This means I have personally made minute changes to 275 images. 

It's a painstakingly slow process, but it's actually quite a bit of fun. And it's really cool to see the film in progress, to see all these separate images coming together to form a moving image.

Back to animating...

Film 3: Production

I made my first bit of animation ever!! I'm actually quite pleased with how it came out. So pleased, in fact, that I'm sharing a scene. It's just the video track, audio track will be added later. But hopefully you get an idea of what I'm trying to do.

Film 3: Pre-Production

Yet again I have to make another film. So not fun. There's no break with this schedule! One film every three weeks. I feel like an assembly line.

Anyway, I think I'm going to try my hand at animation!! This might be biting off more than I can chew, but if I don't make it now I never will. We shall see how it goes.

Inspiration: Man in Black Hat from online comic xkcd. He. Is. Brilliant. And well deserving of a film. 

A quick look at some of his best moments...

And now the inspiration for the story. The comic did a brief mini story on how the Man in Black Hat met his match--in more ways than one.

So yeah. Basic plot line for Film 3: Girl steals Man in Black Hat's hat and he has to get it back. While realizing she is his match and equal. This should be interesting...