With wonderful timing, the day that our animated got selected for the Animated Exeter ident, I got sick and spent the next week in bed feeling very sorry for myself.
Now I have returned to college, everything has changed. It is odd, because I know it is only becuase of the timing of my absence, but I completely missed the transition from this being mine and Ben's project to it becoming a group project. Ben is now art director, Adam and Holly are producers and I have been marked up in the whiteboard as comp'ing.
I have no objection to this (although have added myself to SFX and post-prod sound), but it is very weird to find so many people now involved in a project that I have already spent so much time on. I suppose on one hand I feel a little defencive, on the other I feel a bit bored by it after spending so many hours on the animatic!
The advantage to being post it that I do have more time now for our other project and I can rescue Will a bit. I have started some R+D too, with further experiments in 3D space ready for the compositing. Luckily I have already discussed smoke trails and fireworks with Pete Felstead, when it was still at animatic stage. Again, I feel a little defencive about other people working on it, whilst at the same time I don't want sole responsibility for anything on the final film! Grrr... I can't have it both ways! Don't know quite what's wrong, I've just lost a bit of my enthusiasm, which is a shame cos I thought I was doing ok so far this term.
Thursday, 20 November 2008
Animated Exeter: A pitch and a win!
We had to give a little presentation of our idea, which essentially consisted of Ben pressing play.
The end result? Our idea was selected! Ben is stepping into the Producer role, which is a bit scarey, and I have offered to be his assistant producer. I don't really have any desire to be a producer, but Ben and I have worked together on this for so long I don't want to abandon him!
The end result? Our idea was selected! Ben is stepping into the Producer role, which is a bit scarey, and I have offered to be his assistant producer. I don't really have any desire to be a producer, but Ben and I have worked together on this for so long I don't want to abandon him!
Animated Exeter: The Animatic
OK, this Exeter project is taking up all of my time. Ben completed the storyboard and I was able to scan it in on Saturday while I was at work, ready to start putting it together as an animatic this week. We have spent every day working on this now, which wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it wasn’t for the fact that we have completely abandoned Will on the pitch project! Hopefully once this is finished there will be time to fix that! In the meantime, I have been having a go at using 3D space in After Effect, to give the animatic more depth and movement. The part where we pan in through the clock face and past the cogs into the interior of the clock now works quite nicely, even though it flies past and I doubt anyone will notice the effort that went it! I guess that’s the whole point really: if it’s done well, no one really sees it because they are too busy watching the story! Ben’s little duck creatures inside the clock were much more work than they should have been! And although I mocked up a spinning floor which I think Ben quite liked, it wasn’t as good as it could have been because I was just exhausted by that point (and the end was finally in sight!)
Mike has been working on some sound, but it’s been tricky for him because I’ve spent longer on the animatic, which means he’s had less time to prepare it. I suppose at the end of the day it is only the animatic, but there is a real sense of competition in the group now and I am torn; part of me wants to win the pitch, the other part really hopes we don’t because then we have to make the thing!! Either way, I want to do the best job I can because despite its sometimes-tedious nature, I actually just really enjoy working on this. It’s tricky sometimes not to be too much of a perfectionist and just let it go...
Mike has been working on some sound, but it’s been tricky for him because I’ve spent longer on the animatic, which means he’s had less time to prepare it. I suppose at the end of the day it is only the animatic, but there is a real sense of competition in the group now and I am torn; part of me wants to win the pitch, the other part really hopes we don’t because then we have to make the thing!! Either way, I want to do the best job I can because despite its sometimes-tedious nature, I actually just really enjoy working on this. It’s tricky sometimes not to be too much of a perfectionist and just let it go...
Animated Exeter: pre-production continues
So, I seem to be getting into this pre-production stuff. I have done concept art and a storyboard. Now, I can’t imagine that either will actually be used, but I’m not sure how much I care. I’m just kinda pleased that I did it. Also, my idea of having a clock that only goes to 10 is being used in the final idea. I quite liked a combination of the oddness of a 10 numbered clock, plus it’s Exeter’s tenth anniversary of the festival AND of course the roman numeral for ten is an X. Neat, huh?
Kathy has suggested that maybe we have too many people all working on this stage of the project and that the storyboard should really be one person’s vision. Ben has been nominated for the role of storyboard artist, which I think is definitely for the best; for one thing he is very good at it, plus he has the strongest ideas. I think I will probably be involved in the next stage of transferring it from storyboard to animatic as I am a little more familiar with the computer stuff than Ben. But as I have mentioned before, Ben and I have worked together quite a lot so I think it will be a team effort.
Kathy has suggested that maybe we have too many people all working on this stage of the project and that the storyboard should really be one person’s vision. Ben has been nominated for the role of storyboard artist, which I think is definitely for the best; for one thing he is very good at it, plus he has the strongest ideas. I think I will probably be involved in the next stage of transferring it from storyboard to animatic as I am a little more familiar with the computer stuff than Ben. But as I have mentioned before, Ben and I have worked together quite a lot so I think it will be a team effort.
Pitch project: Sound workshop and voice trials
Steve Carter – the audio technical instructor – has given us an induction for the radio studio. The timing of this is just right for our pitch project, as we have been discussing how we can best use sound. It is pretty much settled that we should have a voice over. Kathy helped us out by recording a child reading from the script, but it just didn’t work. I think it might be the timing, but the bottom line is that we don’t have access to a 11 year old actor and we can’t expect to just ask a child to perform for us.
Meanwhile, in the sound studio, Ben put on a wonderful voice, which has now been named Professor Piddle. Will and I were both thrilled by Ben’s performance. To be honest, I don’t know how happy Ben is with it, but I genuinely believe it will work. The next step seems to be to finalise a script and continue creating artwork. The art side of this project is being totally carried by Will as Ben and I are being distracted by the Exeter project, which is very time consuming at the moment. I hope there will be an opportunity later to rectify this imbalance, especially if Ben is going to be our “voice artist”. It’s really starting to feel like I’m just not pulling my weight. Ahh, the guilt…
Meanwhile, in the sound studio, Ben put on a wonderful voice, which has now been named Professor Piddle. Will and I were both thrilled by Ben’s performance. To be honest, I don’t know how happy Ben is with it, but I genuinely believe it will work. The next step seems to be to finalise a script and continue creating artwork. The art side of this project is being totally carried by Will as Ben and I are being distracted by the Exeter project, which is very time consuming at the moment. I hope there will be an opportunity later to rectify this imbalance, especially if Ben is going to be our “voice artist”. It’s really starting to feel like I’m just not pulling my weight. Ahh, the guilt…
A quick word about Maya...
...I hate it.
I just do. I can't help it. I don't know what to do about it. Maybe some kind of psychological help is required.
I went along dutyfully to the first 3 or 4 Maya sessions, but I can't keep my mind on it, my brain just tunes out after about 15 minutes and I suddenly find it's coffee time and I have no idea what's been going on for the last hour.
What now?
I just do. I can't help it. I don't know what to do about it. Maybe some kind of psychological help is required.
I went along dutyfully to the first 3 or 4 Maya sessions, but I can't keep my mind on it, my brain just tunes out after about 15 minutes and I suddenly find it's coffee time and I have no idea what's been going on for the last hour.
What now?
Soundscape! A Lazlo Woodbine thriller!
Using a basic digital recorder and library sounds, create a soundscape no longer than 3 minutes that captures some form of story…
For my soundscape project, I wanted to begin with a story and try to communicate its atmosphere. I am a fan of the fiction writer Robert Rankin. Although he is usually to be found in the scifi section of the library, his style can be more accurately described as preposterous-fantasy. I find his writing style to be very visual – I know exactly what his nonsense world looks like – and I wanted to see if I could recreate one of my favourite characters through sound alone.
"Lazlo Woodbine is the undisputed master of the 50's era American detective genre. With him you always get what you pay for, when you pay for the best private eye in the business. He doesn't come cheap but with him you can expect a lot of gratuitous sex and violence, a corpse-strewn alley and a final rooftop showdown. No loose endings, no spin-offs and all strictly in the first person.
Laz only works the four locations: his office, where his clients come to engage his services, a bar where he talks a load of old toot and the dame who does him wrong bops him on the head at the beginning of the case, an alleyway where he gets into sticky situations and a rooftop where he has his final confrontation with the villain. No master of the genre ever needed more."
When Rankin writes the character of Lazlo Woodbine, it is an obvious pastiche of the genre. By creating a soundscape for the office of a 1950’s Private Eye, I suppose I am doing the same. I hope that the ambience conjured up by the sound effects are “visual” enough for the audience to recognise the genre, even if (or probably because) they are such stereotypes. I don’t think for a moment that a listener will pinpoint my soundscape as that of Lazlo Woodbine, as in actual fact he is a fairly unknown character to most people. But I think the point is to leave no doubt in the ear of the audience as to the genre of the scene and where possible to give further clues to its location, period, time of day and general mood of the scene. The main theme I wanted to get across was that this was a lone charecter, thoughful, possibly weary. I am not entirely sure, with the phone ringing in the background, whether this is the beginning or the end of a story (or case).
My sound effects were: clinking glasses and the glugging of whiskey being poured from the bottle, rain, ticking clock, blinds closing, footsteps, the lighting and first drag of a cigarette, telephone ringing. Apart from the old-style telephone ringing (which I got from Steve Carter's huge collection of sound effects) I recorded all of the sounds myself. Special thanks to my housemate Susan who kindly lit-up for the sake of my homework.
I had in my mind the idea of using music to add to the atmosphere. My plan was to have saxophone but as I listened to various jazz cds from the Media Centre’s collection, I found a piano piece that seems to fit the pace rather perfectly. Mind you, I had to listen to a lot of inferior jazz before I came across something that worked!
I also had a last minute panic about the timing. I spent some time with Ben showing him how to use Audition and how to find additional sound effects and music from the ones he'd recorded. Having played my project to him, it suddenly seemed far too fast and I wanted to go back and re-edit. In the end I think I only added about a second between the phone and the glass, but it was very difficult to let it go; I could have continued editing for many more hours.
Hmmm…. I think I like sound…
I hope to upload my soundscape here, once I’ve worked out how…
For my soundscape project, I wanted to begin with a story and try to communicate its atmosphere. I am a fan of the fiction writer Robert Rankin. Although he is usually to be found in the scifi section of the library, his style can be more accurately described as preposterous-fantasy. I find his writing style to be very visual – I know exactly what his nonsense world looks like – and I wanted to see if I could recreate one of my favourite characters through sound alone.
"Lazlo Woodbine is the undisputed master of the 50's era American detective genre. With him you always get what you pay for, when you pay for the best private eye in the business. He doesn't come cheap but with him you can expect a lot of gratuitous sex and violence, a corpse-strewn alley and a final rooftop showdown. No loose endings, no spin-offs and all strictly in the first person.
Laz only works the four locations: his office, where his clients come to engage his services, a bar where he talks a load of old toot and the dame who does him wrong bops him on the head at the beginning of the case, an alleyway where he gets into sticky situations and a rooftop where he has his final confrontation with the villain. No master of the genre ever needed more."
When Rankin writes the character of Lazlo Woodbine, it is an obvious pastiche of the genre. By creating a soundscape for the office of a 1950’s Private Eye, I suppose I am doing the same. I hope that the ambience conjured up by the sound effects are “visual” enough for the audience to recognise the genre, even if (or probably because) they are such stereotypes. I don’t think for a moment that a listener will pinpoint my soundscape as that of Lazlo Woodbine, as in actual fact he is a fairly unknown character to most people. But I think the point is to leave no doubt in the ear of the audience as to the genre of the scene and where possible to give further clues to its location, period, time of day and general mood of the scene. The main theme I wanted to get across was that this was a lone charecter, thoughful, possibly weary. I am not entirely sure, with the phone ringing in the background, whether this is the beginning or the end of a story (or case).
My sound effects were: clinking glasses and the glugging of whiskey being poured from the bottle, rain, ticking clock, blinds closing, footsteps, the lighting and first drag of a cigarette, telephone ringing. Apart from the old-style telephone ringing (which I got from Steve Carter's huge collection of sound effects) I recorded all of the sounds myself. Special thanks to my housemate Susan who kindly lit-up for the sake of my homework.
I had in my mind the idea of using music to add to the atmosphere. My plan was to have saxophone but as I listened to various jazz cds from the Media Centre’s collection, I found a piano piece that seems to fit the pace rather perfectly. Mind you, I had to listen to a lot of inferior jazz before I came across something that worked!
I also had a last minute panic about the timing. I spent some time with Ben showing him how to use Audition and how to find additional sound effects and music from the ones he'd recorded. Having played my project to him, it suddenly seemed far too fast and I wanted to go back and re-edit. In the end I think I only added about a second between the phone and the glass, but it was very difficult to let it go; I could have continued editing for many more hours.
Hmmm…. I think I like sound…
I hope to upload my soundscape here, once I’ve worked out how…
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