Sound Effects

We had our screening last week. I got a lot of nice positive feedback, so that makes me feel good. I've been working on this so long I can't always tell if things are working or not, so it's great to know that people like the film.

The most common criticism I got was that the ending was slow, and I agree. Also, a number of people thought that Rhonda's 'If I had a nickel' line wasn't funny enough, so I decided to just cut it for time.

My previous animatics had a pretty minimal amount of sound effects, so I grabbed a bunch of stuff off NetMix and cut it in where there weren't effects already. It makes a lot of parts run way faster.

I put this together at home in the Bay Area, with a really cheap pair of headphones, so the levels might be a little unbalanced.

The new sound ends up changing some of the timing. Tell me if anything seems off.

Line Weights

I've been thinking about the widths of the outlines for the characters' eyes. I've heard that the area around the eyes should be darker, to draw the viewer's attention to their face, but whoever's saying it is usually talking about sketching or shading. I figured I'd try drawing James' and Rhonda's eyes with a different-sized paintbrush, and see how it turns out.

 

Original widths on the left.

I don't think it works so much on James. It ends up making his face a bit busy, and it kind of looks like he's wearing makeup. But I think I prefer the thicker outlines on Rhonda. Since her eyes are smaller, it makes them easier to see.

I assume whatever's the case with James also applies to Malcolm, since their eyes are about the same size. Darby's are dots, so he's exempt.

Animatic Zero Alpha Turbo: Champion Anniversary Edition

I got some notes on my last animatic from the fantastic Mr. David Fain, about parts to change and continuity issues to fix and/or be aware of, so I took the advice to heart and cut a new animatic. After the rewrites and shot changes, I shaved a good eight seconds of animation off of this mammajamma. Then, when I went and re-edited preexisting shots to account for the new content, it ended up increasing the total run time by about seven seconds, due to lengthening some of the holds. 

So, hooray! (?)

Here's the new, full version:

(Also on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/32135922)

Or, if you're crunched for time, the new segment by itself:

It's another one of those 'more time, less work' situations. There's less action and a lot fewer shots than in previous versions. I like how it turned out.

I ended up cutting the Vertigo shot that occurs when Malcolm looks out at the door when he's landed on the couch. I actually animated a rough test of the shot, and it kind of worked. It looked like a Vertigo shot, with the truck in and zoom out, but it didn't read at all, and would have taken a lot of time to 'perfect', so I went with the tumbleweed instead. It reads much faster, it's easier to animate, and it's funnier.

In the event that I'm unable to finish the film in it's current state before the screening, I do have a Plan B. The film would remain pretty much the same, except I'd cut the hallucination sequence. Darby's hallucination is cool, and I like it a lot, but it's pretty much just for mood and humor, and I can cut it without affecting the structural integrity of the story. 

We'll see if it comes down to that. At the moment, I don't think it will.

Rolling Along

So, things are coming as they're coming.

I have my first sound spotting session tomorrow. We'll go through the whole thing step-by-step and look for what sound effects I'll need. Then, I'm showing the in-progress film for the graduate seminar on Wednesday. That should be a nice opportunity to get some good feedback.

Also, I have auditions peppered throughout the week. I'm closing in.

Right now, I'm re-writing the 'right before morning' section so that it's shorter. I'll probably have that up before the end of the day.

Animatic 3: Tokyo Drift

I've redone the 'escape' part. The original would have been really difficult to animate, considering that most of the shots had all four characters, plus animated backgrounds, since the house is collapsing around them. In addition, a lot of the shots had confusing, gross-looking silhouettes, and that needed to be fixed.

The whole thing needed more 'zazz', so I reboarded the whole thing and added some split-screens. It actually contains more shots than the original version, but the shots are simpler and will be much, much easier to animate. Not to mention the backgrounds aren't as prominent, and, in a lot of the shots, I can replace them with those sort of stylized, 'whooshing' backgrounds that are fairly easy to execute. Ultimately, this new version of the sequence should save me at least a week of work.

Also, it just looks way cooler.

I've also cut in most of the Flash layouts I've completed so far:

It's also on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/31778778

Right now, the film runs at about seven minutes. Although it's an increase time-wise, it's actually a decrease work-wise, if that makes sense. Also, some of that added time comes from added holds and the opening title.

I plan to tighten the segment that occurs between when Malcolm lands on the couch and the following morning, so the final, FINAL film should be somewhat shorter.