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.