Something's brewing

It's been a little over a month since I finished Jane's Brain and already I'm thinking of entering another competition. This one is being run by NickToons and has a grand prize of a commission for an original animated short to be broadcast on the network. As usual, though, I've left myself very little time to do anything.

I've been through a few ideas over the course of the last week or so and I think I've settled on one that has potential. It'll be set in a non-specific era of the middle ages and boasts a cast that might be good for a few more stories beyond this one. Can't really say much about it at this stage or it'll spoil the surprise. If I hit my deadline, it should be done by the beginning of September, so not long to wait.

Now to go and build a mediaeval walled city.

Finished!

It's all done. The billboard shot ended up taking about eight hours in total, not counting the endless rebuilding of the set yesterday trying to get it looking right. Once that was done, I had to do a quick and dirty mouth animation, some spinning wheels, and a bit of correction to some wobbles where I knocked things that weren't secured properly.

Now I just need to convert it and upload it and I can sleep for a week.

Billboard hell

I am trapped in a hell of my own making. When this is finished, look out for the billboard shot. 24 frames long and I think it's going to take me a whole day to do based on how long it's taken so far. It had better end up looking good.

Home straight

The end is in sight now. There's 24 frames left to shoot and although it's taken me most of the evening to set up, I think I've got the set ready for the last shot. Just need to work out some of the finer details, reinforce everything so it doesn't move, then start filming. That's a job for tomorrow though.

Once the filming is out of the way, I need to do a bit of digital fiddling. This change to the final shot means I need to spend a bit of time in Photoshop making things looks pretty.

Hopefully still on track to finish tomorrow night.

Finally!

After three evenings of fiddling about building this city street set, I've finally done the shot. It took twenty minutes to animate and lasts two seconds.

Part of the reason it took so long to build the set was that I had this idea for the next shot that would involve driving a car through a shop window, shattering the glass, bits of glass and wood flying out, etc, etc. This meant I had to design a building with a wall that could be swapped out and replaced with a broken one. The broken one would change with each frame, and would be swapped back and forth over and over. Only it turns out that's really quite time consuming. I gave up on the test shot I was doing when I realised it had taken me over half an hour to prepare the first frame. And I hadn't even finished it.

So the city street is only used once now, although I have to say it's a pretty nice street. The Cafe Corner makes an appearance, which is almost obligatory in these situations, but you probably wouldn't notice if you weren't looking for it.

Now I need to work on my new idea for the shot to replace the smashing glass one. To do this, I will be looking on youtube for Burnout Paradise videos.

City streets

I've spent the last couple of evenings building a bit of city street for the last couple of shots that I need. I'm having to build the whole thing with the camera set up in order to make sure all the lines of sight work and it's tricky because there's some technical stuff that I need to get right - there's a whole section of wall that will be swapped out part way through the shot and I have to make sure everything else stays where it's supposed to be while I pull the old switcheroo.

Also, it turns out that it's almost impossible to remove double-sided tape from Lego bricks. Something to bear in mind.

Almost there

Three and a half seconds left to film. I almost hit my target of filming the whole thing in a single weekend. The only thing is, that three seconds mean another big set I have to build, and this one needs a bit of thought. I've got an idea for a practical effect that could either turn out looking really cool or really cheap. I'm hoping for cool because I don't want to have to rethink a load of stuff for the sake of one second of footage.

Things that I've learned today:

1. Always stick everything down, even if you're sure you won't be going anywhere near it and there's no chance of nudging it.
2. It takes a lot longer to build stuff out of Lego than you think.
3. Putting things back where they came from makes them a lot easier to find when you're in a hurry.
4. Homegrown radishes are like a little peppery slice of heaven.

No photos today because they're all give a bit too much away.

Progress

The supermarket interior shot is done. That's another three seconds. There's a couple of things I want to add to it in terms of post-production effects but otherwise it's finished.

That leaves about eleven seconds left to shoot, of which six should just be static or minimal movement shots, so I might be able to get them done today. Then there's just the shot of a car driving through a plate glass window. Right now I'm thinking that I might need to come up with a backup plan for that one.

Building again

I hate my stupid brain. A scene in a supermarket seemed like a really good idea before I had to stock all the shelves with products. I've had to dismantle some of the other sets to make it, so the whole desk is now swimming with bricks.

I made a nice Coke fridge, but I doubt you'll even be able to see it in the final shot.

Final tally

Sixteen seconds filmed, tweaked, and in the can. Some minor post-production to do on some spinning wheels, otherwise only fourteen seconds to go. Too bad a couple of those seconds require the building of an entire city street.

I've been sat at this computer for the best part of seventeen hours today, apart from breaks for lunch and Doctor Who. Time for bed, I think.

Photos!

Before I pack it in for the night, here's a handful of photos that don't give too much away.



This is what my studio area looks like when I don't give myself enough time to build everything beforehand.



Some intriguing bits. What's that writing there?




The box of delights. This is where I put the stuff that's going to be in the film so I don't trip over it.




The car that I took apart and attached to the baseplate. The shot didn't end up being used because it looked rubbish.




These school pupils are only shown from behind in the film. It amused me to use all my Harry Potter heads. It's been a long day.

Simple vs complicated

I had this idea for a practical effect. It was quite an elegant idea and I was pretty pleased with it. I spent a fair while scrabbling around looking for the right pieces (hint: don't set a film predominantly in a grassy area if you have no green Lego), then set it all up so that I could work it with the minimum disruption while I was filming and did some quick tests and everything looked fine.

Just as I was about to start shooting, I had one of those "hey, I wonder if this'll work" moments, so I added an extra little bit of business to sell the shot. Turns out that extra little bit of business is amazingly effective and I bet a lot of people won't even notice the original, more complicated effect.

Car maintenance

Taking a break while the camera cools down. I don't think they're designed to be just left on all day. I've taken some behind-the-scenes photos as I've been going along and I'll upload some of them later.

I'm busy dismantling a car at the moment and fastening bits of it to a baseplate to stop it wobbling about. Fascinating stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.

I just looked and it's sunny outside.

Timing is everything

Still on that first shot. 210 frames, 14 seconds. I finished the animation part of it about an hour ago. I'm now in the process of adding and dropping frames in order to get the timing exactly right. It's a music video, you see. Has to be on the beats and everything.

17 seconds to go.

Hints and tips

When filming a shot that requires extensive movement of set elements, many of which cannot be easily set back in their exact position, always consult your notes on a regular basis. Never imagine that you can remember the sequence of activities that are needed for a scene.

Sigh.

Fun with computers

I've been planning this film on and off for a couple of weeks. It's only going to be thirty seconds long but there's a lot going on in it and it needed a bit of pre-production work. I only really have this weekend to do the bulk of the filming, so I'm on a pretty tight schedule.

During the week just gone, I built some sets, made a video storyboard and worked out what sequence I was going to shoot everything in. This morning, I got up at 7 and was at the computer ready to begin work by 8. First things first: I grabbed some of the set elements I'd built and laid them out in the "studio area". With that in place, I set up the tripod, attached the camera to it and switched on.

"USB device not recognised"

I switched the camera off again and started up Firefox to see if I could find any information on the web. Typed "google" in the address bar but nothing happened. The keyboard was dead.

I did what every good pc user does in these situations - I rebooted. When the computer came back up, the mouse was dead too. No way to actually get in to Windows at all. Switched off, disconnected all the USB devices, plugged the mouse and keyboard direct into the main USB ports, switched back on again - nothing.

So now I'm starting to worry. A couple more reboots for luck don't do any good, so I break out my girlfriend's laptop and look around on the web for answers. USB problems, it turns out, are pretty common and extremely varied in their causes and solutions. In the end, I opted for about the only answer I could find that didn't involve a working keyboard - took the back off and systematically disconnected and reconnected every cable in the box.

And what do you know? It worked.

So that cost me a couple of hours and a few grey hairs. Once I got the camera working, I then realised that I hadn't planned nearly as much as I needed to and I've spent the rest of the morning blocking one ten second shot. Just stopped for lunch, and then the filming starts, five hours later than planned. Might be a late night.