Graduation Film: Making the puppets

Okay, so this was supposed to be one of the preliminary posts this year. Yet here it is, the final post before submission.

In the beginning, there was another set of puppets. They fell over unexpectedly, so they had to be remade. The proportioning was inverted to before, and they stood tall much better.

Even if only on two feet, but then I didn't need any run cycles or such, so that worked out okay in the end.

I took a tower of foam to them, with latex.

Here they are at the different stages of their  creation: frame and foam; frame and foam with clothes; frame and foam with clothes and skin.

Once they were done, the eyes added, hair stuck on and styled...I put them in their set.

And so it was done.

I had many photos of the process for the first set, but I seem to have misplaced where they were stored...I feel it's a bit irrelevant now, with the newer ones and such. This will do.

Graduation Film: Half Awake and it's Socio-Political Undertones

The film "Half Awake" denotes the struggle family and medical personnel face with a vegetative patient.

That the main character whom is the patient is a child, marks the innocence the patient holds in that state; completely dependant upon those around them. They are helpless to their decisions and actions.

Commonly, as such, medical euthanasia comes into play. The question, in some cases, "When will they awaken?" becomes, "Will they wake up?"

As such, there are other things for them to weigh up: if they never wake up, how many other patients will be unable to receive treatment if the equipment and bed are taken by what is in effect a living corpse. Further, those in relation to the vegetative patient can suffer from emotionally and may incur mental health issues when the situation  is prolonged interminably.

However, when a patient cannot survive off of life support, or brain activity can no longer be detected, there is a possibility to turn off the machines. But only with the patient's immediate family or guardian's consent.

This is what occurs in "Half Awake". The doctor explains it to the parents; they are saddened but give consent.

Meanwhile, there is the internal struggle of Emily. She seeks solace and a sanctuary from what has presumably put her into the state she is in. However, noises from the hospital and her trauma keep catching up to her.

Finally, she overcomes it, and is about to exit her dream. Simultaneously, the doctor is reaching for the kill [off] switch.

Here it ends, the answer unclear. It is for the viewer to decide whether or not she wakes up.

Did she? Or didn't she?

Possible Distribution Channels

The film as it will be marked has finally been completed.

The film as it will be distributed, however, has about a week more to go.

Once it is then done, I will release the film to various film festivals.

After a period of a year, then I will upload the film to various online platforms; vimeo in particular.

Look forward to seeing it~

Graduation Film: Progress Update! ♥

Oh my days! This weekend, and until then, is all of the remaining time to work on this film.

I have sacrificed so many nights sleep for this, I just hope my effort is worth it and the film looks well at the end.

I have sent off an updated version of my film edit to my sound designer, and I have roughly 2 scenes, 16 slides and 1 background to complete.

Then once everything is coloured and assembled, I can consider adding in more frames here and there to make the movement even better.

I have other writing and stuff to put up here, I just hope I will have time for everything...

Graduation film: Stop-Motion Sequence Wrap!

Today marked the completion of the stop motion element of the film.

It consisted of a short, 3 second sequence that will make-up the ending of the story, should I choose to leave it unambiguous.

Even with the bed and puppet fixed down, the dolls and bedding and such made these 3 second quite a challenge, even though the move itself is quite simple.

There is a high probability that it will not be used in the film, as even without the technical challenges, this section of the film made itself a little awkward. An open ending seemed to fit it better, as I have been told by various people on separate occasions.

Hence, taking this advice on board, I have chosen to drop it, and instead include it in a separate version, entitled: "alternative ending".

Making of: The 10th Background

Okay, so we are skipping ahead a bit and making the 10th background now.

As always, I played around with the composition and angles.

Graduation Film: Review on Cultural Context

Originally, I am not very good at positively analysing my own work. As such, I struggled to find the correct way to identify the cultural context of my film before hand and would now like to look at this more casually now.

There is very much an overtone of inexperience within this production. This can be seen as both refreshingly raw in the film, as well as something to develop and improve upon in the producing department. A struggle to flow with the original production schedule can be felt in the worry-toned posts of earlier months. Tables and databases which were to be filled out over time have been left abandoned.

Thankfully, the official university documents have been consistently kept up to date.

I previously wrote:

In the Small Hours of a Wednesday Morning...

Woooooh~~~ the midnight hours...working at this time can be quite fun, and ideas can be caught and harnessed that would otherwise turn into dreams...Maybe.

Currently, my work is going through a cycle of editing, making more work to be edited, chopping that into the first edit, rendering and sending off somehow to a sound designer to be magicked.

And then I've been repeating this cycle, a couple of times, these past few days.

Right now, I am uploading a compressed version of the most recent edit, #07, to give the link out and such...

So, while I am waiting for this to upload, I am going over this blog. Hopefully I can straighten it up properly and add in the things that this should contain whilst I am waiting...

Sweet dreams ♥

Graduation Film: The Length of "Half Awake"

Today, I was going through all the scenes and takes of the stop-motion part of my graduation film. After locating the takes of scenes that I wanted, I exported them and assembled them into a mini edit.

After doing this, I not only found that I really enjoyed editing it together, the footage was more than respectable when put together.

Putting together the footage is highly rewarding and  really good boost to moral.

Here is a sneak slide from the film...

Graduation Film: Update!

So this past 10 days have been particularly busy: the entirety of the stop-motion section of the film has been shot.

The Making of: The 4th Background

Apparently, every few backgrounds there is one which doesn't wish to comply with a straight forward composition.

It's all in the angles: this one seemed dead set on being another jump cut. And I just wasn't having that. Although, now if I have time, I can insert a wee bit of a pan. But it really isn't needed, now that I have the composition looking okay.

And, here is the trail of trials and errors leading up to the almost-complete fourth background.

Making of: The 3rd Background

Another couple of hours go by...and another background is made.

I wasn't sure whether or not to put the path along the upper peripheral, but decided against it as it isn't really needed. At this stage, if it is not needed but means extra work, then it is being cut from the production.

I love putting in the grass. Sure, it's a brush effect, but that doesn't negate that it both looks good and fun to add in.

I didn't think too much about creating the bird's body (I haven't quite finished tidying it up yet...) but remembered to put at least the beak and eye in different layers, so that there is something to animate without cutting the bird up.

Also, I decided that the bird in the film is going be a robin. Why? Because robins are cute, adorable, and fit in this warm toned garden much better than, say, a Blue Tit.

The Second Background Take 2

Hmmm...

Roughing out some character movement lines, and then I put those and the new background together to test how it looked once rendered.

I was not certain myself, I thought there was but then as a bit of a perfectionist there was the slight possibility that I was making more work for myself.

As such, I decided to get a second opinion.

Making Background #02

This morning I finished off the second background!

To get it right, I had to strip the thought process right back. First, I drew a rough plan view of this part of the dream world, as well as the direction of movement. Once I had marked that on, I added in the camera, and the limits of it's view.

This made everything a lot easier. Once this was clearer to me, I then sketched in the blocks of the environment, as well as a rough outline of the character as it will move across the screen.

I just hope that the camera switch is okay, and not too much of a jump...either way, here is the final background, background number 2!

Experimenting With Camera Angles

Today I am waiting with thinning patience for some of my materials to show up. In the meantime, I am working on the 2D part of my film.

For the shot where the character runs across the screen, I have been playing around with some perspectives.
This is one that is looking down a bit, but it is hard to fit the house in as well:

 Here, is an experiment with having the camera at ground level looking up:

I think it looks quite good, and as such I should be able to throw a bit of the ever-present house into the shot as well.

I added in the environment:

But somehow it is at odds with the perspective of the person:

And then there is this one, which is similar to the angle used in the animatic:

Unfortunately, though rough, this angle doesn't quite work either. They are all close, but appear to be wrong in some ways.


As of yet, I haven't found the one to use, but I am going to keep working at it until I can get the angles and proportions right.

The Day of the Power Cut

It started out as any other weekday morning. Begrudgingly acknowledging my alarm's insistence that it was time to get up, I crawled out of bed only to find that there were several lights not turning on. Having had such problems before, I opened the boiler closet, ready to reset the fuse lines which may have gone down in the night.

Much to my surprise, they were all okay. But everything in the flat was off. Thus began a day of no power which lasted until almost midnight. Unable to open the fridge, or the freezer, and with no power to cook any of the tinned food, it was biscuits for breakfast.

To make the day worse, the fix-by time was constantly being pushed back. With the front door being operated by pin, one could get out, but once out, there was no getting back in. (If that makes any sense...)

In short, my day was thoroughly turned upside down. I managed to pre-order a take away before my phone died. I was not impressed.

Unfortunately, I was supposed to meet Emma Caulder in the studio today, but I couldn't. Hopefully I can get some extra time with her next week, but she is a very busy woman.

Hence, today has been quite busy, trying to make up for lost time, and re-purchasing food I had to throw away.

Woe was me.

Production Time is Running Out....

Over time, this blog is supposed to have developed from a semi-personal student blog into something with enough depth and good content as to become part of a portfolio. A portfolio with the aim of being presentable to an employer and thus garnering some lovely jobs upon graduation.

Hence, it feels stickily unprofessional to have to admit that I am perhaps 100 miles behind schedule. Clearly, I do not quite cut it as a producer type.

However, I feel it would be even more unprofessional to try to cover up such a big whole in the production stage, especially with the month of April - designated to post-production - coming up.

In order to remedy this poorly looking situation, I have had to first define the parameters of the problem.

Hence:

Time remaining: 8 weeks

Scenes which theoretically (by the original schedule) should be done: 5

Scenes scheduled to be done: 2

Total to be completed: 7

Theoretically, this equates to one week per scene. However, I really feel that post production will need a whole month to itself. Hence, I have had to come up with a radical solution to resolve this situation.

Solution:

Time remaining on schedule for production work: 2 weeks -> 10 work days

Work days are from 0830 until 1830 -> 9 hour days

7 scenes / 90 hours = 12 hours 51 minutes per scene.

Theoretically, I should be done with the production should I be able to follow this. However, it is quite unlikely but that is okay as at the very least I will be 80 miles closer to where I should be come April. 

It is always good to have some kind of plan arranged, not matter how realistic or achievable they are.

As they say: aim high and hopefully you will land somewhere around the middle.

Graduation Film: Background Image #01

As I have been very split between the two aspects which will make up my graduation film, I am currently working on a time map of the coming week, to show when I will be doing what. I will upload this at some point tomorrow.

I have been working, as I am sure I have mentioned before, on the 2D aspect this week. I do not wish to leave my original schedule in the dust, so I am trying to work in parallel to it. This means I am trying to work on my original scheduled tasks for the week, as well as trying very hard to catch up on the things that should have been done already: the stop motion element.

I do not have any animation to show you for the 2D aspect as yet, but all will be explained if you would look at the map I am going to be posting here tomorrow.

What I do have to show you, however, is the background-in-progress for the opening scene. I hope you like it, and if you have any feedback on this please do not hesitate to leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Thanks.

Throughout my work thus far, I have had the light constantly coming in low, and from the left. I really like this look.

My worries about this background are as follows:

Graduation Film: Week #20

Good morning~~

Ah...I was hoping to be lazy today and have a lie-in. That was successful up to 8AM. Now, I am up.

Today, I was thinking of just working from home in the morning. I definitely have to go in this afternoon, though, as I am expecting a large piece of wood to arrive today around 5PM.

So, more work on my puppets for the next few hours...

Maybe I will post (finally!) the making of the puppets ... today?

Maybe not.

Have a good Monday~!

The Set Last Week and the Set This Week~~

Happy lunch time~~~

Despite my thoughts on Saturday that this week I would instead be working on my 2D section of my film, I am still working on my set. Just the finishing touches mind - it is mostly finished.

Today, while working on these final touches, I have added some alterations to the look an style of the 2D section in order to let them sit better together in the one film. A good thing I haven't started that bit yet. It should be in keeping with the art style of my set and puppets, as best as I can, at least.

Here is how the set for the stop motion bit looked last week: