midnightshowing-acm420-fall2019

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Week 16 - Main

What does the Main blog have to say, but that the crew is done with the film. Every crew member was integral to the film’s completion, and contributed to make the film what it is. Read through the 16 weeks of blog posts to see everyone’s highs and lows. To see what we have struggled with, and what we thought was simple. See what creative minds have joined together to make this film. The humor, the sass, the work ethic, the friendships. 

What more can the main blog say, but that this was a great team with great capabilities who have created a great film? Well...good luck with your next films.

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Week 16 - Sophia

It’s finally week 16 and Midnight Showing is over. Months ago, when we decided what films we were going to work on, I didn’t expect a 10 minute film, an IndieGoGo campaign, or having additional colorists. It just became bigger and bigger, until it seemed like we might not make it. But we had a good team.  

Working with everyone taught me a lot of different things. How to use Photoshop, how essential editing is, the importance of clean lines, how to work collaboratively, etc. Everyone had very different skill sets, which was helpful to the workflow and splitting up the work, but also great for teaching each other new techniques and skills. And with these people, somehow we finished the film.

No regrets, but:

If I were to change something in this process, I would try to work on exaggerating my poses more and focus more on pose to pose animation. After coloring/lining/shading other people’s shots, I saw how much further I could have pushed my own rough animation. Some of my shots could have used more of that, especially in such a comedic film like this one. ALSO I should have cleaned up my rough lines more. I tried to more at the end, but it must have been a pain for the people who had to line my first shots.

Future 420 Students:

Now, for advice...animation is collaborative. You can’t treat 420 like 320, or other individualistic production courses. You can’t just adjust your schedule whenever, or do whatever you want. If you don’t stick with the group schedule, you’re going to mess people up. It’s all about communication. When life happens, just communicate with the crew (or production manager), so the schedule can be adjusted. Nobody expects you to be a perfect working machine, or to not have any problems. But if you don’t communicate, the crew will expect you to finish your assigned work, and if you’re not, it slows down the film. It’s good practice for actual animation careers. Even professionals can’t always stay on schedule, but they’ll communicate that.

Well Midnight Showing is over, good luck with your films.

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Week 16 - Gavin - Thatʻs a Wrap!

Wowieee! Production is done!!!! Well, I’m still exporting the H.264 file, but it’s almost done.

As for what I did this week, it was all a blur. I did some shading but the last few days was all editingggg.

This semester has been so stressful, yet exhilarating, and probably one of the greatest experiences of my academic career. I couldn’t have asked for a better crew and better friends to work with to complete this ambitious film!

Jared - You were invaluable as a character animator, effects animator, and story artist. I pushed you hard, but the work you produced was so amazing and I’m glad you realize that! I think you’ve produced your best work this semester and I’m proud of you.

Bobby - If it wasn’t for you, Midnight Showing would not look the way it does! Your concept art and 3D Models were the keys to success! I also pushed you very hard, because I knew you could handle it, and your produced work came out great!

Jayme - The idea man of the crew. You came up with such great crazy and wacky ideas that I just HAD to put them in the film. Your dedication to finishing, especially in the last few weeks, was inspiring.

Kalilinoe - Your lighting effects and rotoscope tied the whole film together. You were one of the most dedicated and thoughtful people to the project, and I had a blast working with you! 

Alex - You worked so damn hard on Midnight Showing, and it shows. You took all the dirty work and KILLED IT. With sound design and editing, nothing more beautiful has ever graced my ears. I know I asked a lot from you, and you’re a very busy person, so I am incredibly thankful for your massive contribution!

Sophia - Honestly, if you weren’t on the crew, Midnight Showing would’ve fallen apart. You took charge and made yourself 100% invaluable as a producer and animator. I put a lot of trust in you, and you never disappointed. I admire your talent and dedication, which is why I jumped at the chance to work on Pua Warriors.

Chandelle - What the f, dude?! The animations you produced were some of the best I’ve ever seen in ACM, and you’re also so humble about it. Your early animation work inspired the tone and style of the rest of the film moving forward, and your voice as a character animator can clearly be heard. I’m so thankful for having such a talented crew member who threw herself at the project, eager to make it the best it can be.

Brittany - Thank you for teaching us these past few semesters and helping us through this current production. You’re a great motivator and professor, urging us to produce work that we can be proud of!

Retrospective

As for what I would’ve done differently, there’s not a whole lot. Mistakes were made, but it all came together in the end. I suppose I would be more careful with casting my animators. I feel like I nailed it with most, but people like Jayme and Alex would’ve probably benefited more from more Phantom shots. That was a missed opportunity.

I also would’ve started crowdfunding at the beginning of the semester. I had planned to, but then scrapped the idea until the middle of the semester. Getting money earlier would’ve helped. 

Words of Advice

Use everything you’ve learned, and learn even more if you’re going to direct. I always try to expand my filmmaking knowledge every day, even if it’s just for a little while. Watch videos on screenwriting, directing, animation, etc. A great Youtube channel I found is “Film Courage,” where they interview people in the industry. This is great to listen to while drawing.

Directing is hard. Make sure you develop a great rapport with your crew and have a good plan going in. I made sure to develop a workflow and have a fully thought out story beforehand. Choose roles wisely. Chances are, you know your crew from other classes, so you know their strengths and weaknesses, and also your own.

Communication is key, meet as often as possible. Start a group chat.

Use references for every shot you animated, it will only make your work better. Also, don’t have any distractions like podcasts or music while you rough, your animation needs your full attention.

In Memorandum:

Jared and Bobby’s rejected roughs.

Wave 2, version 1.

Sq9s15.

Gavin’s Photoshop.

Kalilinoe’s computer.

Alex’s sleep schedule.

We will remember you.

Man, it’s kind of sad that we’re done. Midnight Showing has consumed the better part of the semester for me, and I’m going to miss drawing Angel and working with everyone. But, we all made an awesome film, and I’m proud of everyone. ...Now to continue pre-production on my next films.

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Week 16 - Bobby Renteria

The end has finally arrived and it is quite bittersweet. I still remember 16 weeks ago thinking how fast the time was gonna fly by and sure enough this semester came and went in a hurry. Honestly, I thought that I wouldn’t really learn too many new skills but rather have to put what I already knew into practice but I was sooo wrong. I can’t even begin to cover how much I learned from working on this film. Not only from myself but also my teammates. I know everyone has been working really hard and I am really proud of the group for accomplishing this immense monster of Midnight Showing. 

This past week I wrapped up working in my last shading shots and then I moved on to help with CBB’s like fixing the door in the ticket booth and animating the kong to phantom shadow.

Things I would change:

1. If I had a little bit more of financial freedom I would have liked to not have worked as much this semester and spent a little more time on my schoolwork, and in particular spent more hours on this film.

2. Although I learned a lot this semester from my 4 other classes I think I should’ve not taken any extra classes I didn’t need to focus on this one a little more. 

3. Managing my own schedule better. Even though I did an ok job of allowing an ample time to work on this film in addition to my other classes I think I still could have a been a lot more organized and more efficient with time. I think kinda late into the game is when I realized this and got a little planner to write things down which is actually a really powerful tool as simple as that is. 

Advice for future 420 students:

1. Always remember this is a group project and not one person is should take the full load upon themselves. If I took anything away from this is, that you need to rely on your team to succeed. Likewise, this should be a collective effort, everyone’s input/work/creativity should be valued and allowed to be part of the end product, so communicate!

2. Be versatile! Be ready to do whatever! 3d, 2d, storyboarding, concept art, animation, backgrounds. At this point we should be jack of all trades and give yourself a broad spectrum of skills to succeed and to offer your team. 

3. Don’t be too attached to ideas! This whole process of making films is a complete monster and its ever changing. In all my past film making experiences what you start with is a complete moonshot from what you end up with. Also, just because you think you might have a great idea, doesn’t mean it can’t be better. Theres always room to be better and likewise allow your team to influence your own ideas. Don’t let attachment bog down a project. 

To sum this experience up, It was troubling, stressful, yet awesome. I learned so many skills this last semester and I can honestly say I feel quite confident in going out and getting a career started. By no means am I exceptional nor a master at anything yet, but thats the beauty of learning an vast amount of skills. I still have a long ways to go to master anyone skill and Im open to learning so much still. Whatever path this animation degree takes me, Im sure I’ll be quite happy bringing world to life. Im very thankful for what UH has given me and in particular this class. It has been one heck of a ride.

To everyone graduating good luck in your future pursuits and to those still continuing hang in there and good luck on your capstones! Ill see yall on the other side.

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Week 16 - Jayme Sugitaya - Finale

Reflection

at the end of every semester, no matter how hard the class was, no matter the hill I must climb I always get sad. It’s something I’ve dealt with every semester since starting college. It’s something that I am experiencing as I type this final blog for 420. I’m probably not the only one who feels this way, although, I might be the only one to express this feeling in written form. 

420 has taught me a lot of things:

Time management - Planning out an entire animation is tough and it’s something that I didn’t understand how strict I should be taking it in 320 until I had to work with a team. The aspect of having others rely on you weighed heavy on my shoulders. Even though I was busy with work I still felt like I could’ve done a better job of managing my time on this project. I did eventually kick myself in the butt by becoming more strict on myself in order to finish animating and kong. 

Plan it out first - In 320 I didn’t really have an animatic for my whole film and I feel like that’s what kept me from finishing the project. I’m really happy that we got to work as a group and it wasn’t all left up to me. As the animatic was being finished I couldn’t help but think I did a disservice for 320 and Now I have regrets of what I wanted to achieve in that class that was only realized now. 

Overall I’m really happy with what we achieved in this class and what the outcome of it was. The film is beautiful and full of life. It was an honor to work with such amazingly talented students. It makes me feel a bit out of place because I don’t feel like I’m on par with anyone I worked with, BUT I did try my hardest and the couple of shots I did get to rough I put my heart and soul into and I hope it shows inthe film. It’s a student film I keep telling myself, yet I wanted to push myself further than I have before interms of animating. . .. and I think it came out great. 

I wouldn’t change much other than maybe quit my job so I had more time to animate. Everything went very smoothly up until 2 nights ago when 4 of us tried to render out a clip which came out to 10gb uncompressed. So maybe chopping certain shots into parts for rendering sake, but other than that I feel like this film came out smoothly. 

TO THE FUTURE OF 420 STUDENTS:

create the full movie in animatic format because without it you have no idea what it’s going to look like until that’s complete. it’s a lot of work, but it makes everything run VERY smoothly after it’s finished. 

Time manage A LOT. Don’t just put off a shot till tomorrow or next week because you have other stuff to do. In your free time JUST DO IT as Shia Le Bouf says. It’s much better to have animated a shot and getting it approved by the director before it’s the last second and the director isn’t pleased with what you have. 

HAVE FUN. In a real studio there are teams that are made for a specific aspect of an animation: lighting, rough animation, storyboard, final animation. All of them specialize in something, but in this class You’ll have to pretty much do a small bit of everything. It’s not going to be easy and you’ll start to realize what you enjoy doing over what you don’t enjoy doing. it’ll help you realized what you might specialize in animation. I very much enjoy creating backgrounds and lining animation more than anything. 

On a final note I loved this class. It made me feel emotions I haven’t felt since regular high school and I would love to do it all again, but I wanted to enjoy my last semester so I will let the other students learn what happens in this class by themselves.

Jayme out *drops mic*

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Week 16 - Alex - Dénouement

--- Opening Thoughts:

Here we reach the end of the story of this project; the final knot, which took so many threads to tie, yet seemed not long ago to be little more than a tangled mess.  This week, our group achieved more than what seemed achievable, given the time constrains and pressure. And although so much could have gone wrong, this was truly a very ‘right’ conclusion to an epic semester-long project. I’m so very, very thankful, and proud, of each and every member of our our group - without whom this film would never have been possible. And I’m honored to have been a part of what may very well be one of the finest films produced here in ACM Animation since its inception. I also would like to give a huge thanks to all the colorists who made the production pipeline go so much smoother and faster - sacrificing their own time and effort to be a part of something amazing! I also would like congratulate our terrific voice actor Justin Bendo, for his incredible work as the voice of Angel. And to our composer Joshua Namba, who breathed life and vigor into our film through his music.

--- Weekly Deliverables

For my work this past week, a lot has happened, as most of our group can probably agree to. It’s difficult to bring to memory every individual thing, but the core tasks were these: Coloring Sq13s6, a shot I originally roughed for. Although the final version would go on to have some major alterations to Angel, I’m happy to see it least one rough of Phantom I did pretty much stuck all the way to final:

Colored Sq13s16; took a heck of a long time even using pre-programmed inputs for the coloring process. But it turned out good, and due to me needing to use base layers for the characters, Gavin came up with an interesting blending mode for the Old Man which we can see in the final film:

For the next two shots I finished line from last week, plus color and shading for this week. They turned out pretty good I’d say:

We ran into some technical issues when it came to rendering out certain files, and one in particular that comes to mind is Sq9s16, as imaged below.

I don’t know how it was possible to even work on a file this large on Photoshop, with the hardware we have. It was so big that most of our group’s computers couldn’t even open it. Mine struggled big time to load it, let alone render it as an uncompressed .mov. I had to clear almost all my ram, and even then it crashed before finally managing to render it, which only took around 10 minutes (for one shot mind you,) and then uploading it which took a solid three and a half hours. 

This one file almost stopped our whole production. It was amazing, kind of hilarious, and a bit scary, but we managed to pull through. I added a clipping mask to the fire’s lineart to make it orange.

The next thing which ate up a lot of time and energy this week was sound. Basically, I expected have sound done in maybe 5 or 6 hours over the weekend. Turned out it required almost two full days to finalize. Me and Gavin met up to discuss corrections and adjustments, and after some last minute feedback, all the retiming work was done, and we got an incredible audio track. Even though it was a heavy tax on my very tight finals week schedule, I think having those two days to work on it really raised the fluidity and creativity to provide something almost of a remaster to the animatic audio track we’ve been using up to this point. The premiere file itself is kind of a convoluted mess:

Nevertheless, it gets the job done, and taught me a whole lot about sound editing and design over the course of the semester (except organizational skills.)

--- Last Reflections

This semester has been such a momentous one for so many reasons. If 320 taught me “how to work on animation,” then 420 taught me how to work on animation for real. The jump is so tangible, not necessarily in a “workload” sense (although that may be part of it) but more so as an appreciation for the art of animation itself as a collaborative medium, and a visually exploratory one.  I am much more aware now of every element that goes into a piece of work, and I think I can see the great value in attempting to discerning the purpose behind everything we see in Animation, as with any art piece. While it was easy to get away with seemingly arbitrary choices of shape, color, motion and such in the past, it has become especially necessary now to be deliberate in making choice, since the workload falls on someone else’s shoulders.

- Adjustments to the Process in the Future:

Not all of this is necessarily in my control, nor should this be held against anyone or any part of the film making process here, since after all we’re learning and exploring how to work in teams with new techniques. That being said, one thing I would aim to sharpen in the future is the pre-production estimates of workload times/levels, as well as the overall film length. I think I speak for most of us when I say that the film’s scope grew a lot over the course of the semester. And I’m not saying having a large or ambitious idea is bad - that’s my favorite kind of project! But it can become a bit of an issue when it grows to such a scope that we are having to recruit outside helpers and dedicate most or all of the 24 hours we have in a day to be able to manage finishing on time. Basically, just have a more rigid plan from the start, and be very cautious towards anything that adds unnecessary levels of complexity. That’s something that can be addressed at the animatic stage. Beyond that, being more cautious with the estimates of time and energy requirements per shot would help. I noticed that some (or maybe most) of the shots required quite a bit more time than originally intended to be roughed, lined, colored, and shaded. That’s not taking into consideration all the revisions they may go through as they are reviewed, given feedback, and trade hands between group members. Production schedule-wise, it’s much better to undershoot I think, and have a lot of extra time to hammer out details, maybe refine shots, and properly apply feedback versus feeling the dread of being behind schedule and cutting years from your life due to the amount of sleep lost to try and catch up. A general rule of thumb is that specificity helps. Despite how meticulously we planned, we would still occasionally run into issues such as what color a prop might be, or how the shading might change between environments. Or another example might be how a character’s physical attributes such as stretchiness might change or remain consistent throughout the film. Although these were minor things that got addressed in the end, baring those details in mind in the future would be of great help I think.

- Words of Advice to Future 420 Students

You have three options: either become a cyborg, learn to hate sleep, or adapt to being powered by copious amounts of coffee every day. As for me, I took something from all three of those this semester. Joking aside, these are some general pointers I would give to incoming 420 students: -Choose your story and teammates carefully: This semester can be as fun (or unfun) as you make it to be. No matter what though, the people you have at your side are the people you’re stuck with. Hopefully by this point in the major you would be familiar with your teammates and their individual strengths and quirks, so if you’re having trouble picking a team in the beginning, go with the people you feel are the most self-determined, hard working, and whom you can adapt to their mold (not necessarily vice versa.) If you hate your team, you will hate your semester. But if you love your team, it doesn’t matter how tough the work gets, because you can still come to class with a smile (a very dead inside smile.)

-Come in with a strong concept: Even if your idea doesn’t get picked, being able to receive other people’s ideas and represent them faithfully is vital to the overall success of the production. The better you understand the idea you are working on, the better prepared you will be to make it a reality. Also, simple designs and ideas tend to get picked more often. Keep that in mind when developing your idea.

-Diversity is a strength: Having a broad skillset on your crew is incredibly important. Ideally, everyone can functionally perform any given task on the production. But having specialists assigned certain specific tasks is very helpful. It serves to balance the workload more or less equally among members based on their strengths, and the result is a product where you have good work reflected in all aspects of the film.

-Be prepared to change your schedule: Unless your group’s idea is ridiculously simple, chances are you will be losing sleep, possible questioning your choice of major, and being forced to change both when and how you are available to people and things you care about in the world outside the borders of your computer screen. It is not a joke to say that this course can affect your health, your diet, and maybe even the way you view other people - or even yourself! If done properly, this class should challenge you in the way you live and handle work. It should force you to adapt to an animator’s lifestyle. Not that you need to forsake life to be an animator necessarily, but to give you a taste of what the industry may demand of you through certain seasons of life.

-Be able to take a joke: By the end of the project, you’re going to be throwing shots at each other left and right. It is a crazy, whacky time - and you may find yourself forgetting this is all for a school project. Learn to enjoy acknowledging your own weaknesses, and have fun pointing out the flaws in others, when its appropriate. This makes the experience not only more enjoyable, but in a strange, ironic way it makes us become comfortable with our shortcomings, and enables/pushes each other to genuinely improve our skills, and ultimately create a better product.

-Communication is key: You need to keep up with your group. Period. If you are our of the loop for even a day, it can throw things off big time. Setup a chat group via text, setup a Discord server, or find some other means to talk to one another that is reliable. Even if you don’t always feel like chatting, just be ready when somebody needs you (which will happen quite a lot.) Also, having a system of file sharing such as Google Drive is indispensable. You may find yourself keeping certain tabs open and rarely closing them, just to check for updates and be able to send/receive files when you need them. 

-Practice makes perfect: I don’t care how good or bad you think you are at animating up till this point; if you do your best in this class, you will grow. You may find yourself drawing in a different art style than you’re used to, and implementing work methods and software that you’ve never used before. And that’s wonderful! Be open to experimenting and exploring new styles of work. I’ve found that is a big part of what makes animation enjoyable and inexhaustible. Just when you feel like you’re set in your ways, the moment you step into something new, it’s a whole other world, and you just might find something you like about it.That opens the door to not only other ways of being creative, but on a practical level, makes you a much more viable component to a team when being considered for hiring. Don’t let the early hardships bog you down; with time and practice, there’s nothing you can’t do. -- Well that pretty much wraps up this last blog post and the semester for 420. The experience has been life altering, no joke. I have no regrets, and I’m so thankful to have had the chance to work so closely with everyone. In my experience, this class has been the difference between being an animation student and becoming a professional animator. Even though it was as a real challenge emotionally and physically, I would take the class again if I could, and I very much look forward to working with you all - my fellow animators - in our continuing classes, as well as our careers beyond. You all have been my family here while I’ve been without one since moving all the way out here for school.

Thanks to Brittany for teaching our wonderful class! And to everyone who has fought through this semester together and made it something special, right up until the very end. Until next time my friends, this is the Undercover Animator signing out.

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Week 16 - Jared - Wrapped Up

We got a lot done this final week, I shaded sequence 4 along with a few stray shots in a few others roughly 10ish shots, I also did 2d hand drawn effects for two shots. This last week was crazy, and we would not have been able to have done this without everyone involved in the project, I think it was 21 crew members or so...wow. This semester was actually dare I say, kinda fun? along with being super stressful, I learned a lot while doing this film from storyboarding, rough animating, to coloring and shading on photoshop. This was such a great experience and was so lucky to have such great teammates. 

Of all the shots that I had done I can narrow it down to 4 shots that were the hardest by far, and that was the last 4 I animated. There was nothing but character acting, overlapping action, secondary motion and lip-sync. That challenged me a lot, since I'm not particularly good at character acting. 

There’s not much that I would change from my filmmaking process other than I wish I practiced more to stay on model. It was particularly hard for me because it was so different from my original style, I had done somewhere around 12-17 sketches and also storyboarded, and I thought that was enough. little did I know that I was slipping back into my style a bit and strayed from the original character sheets. I only got closer to on-model once I got to that last few shots.

My advice to future 420 students:

Get pre-production out of the way early, so production can start right away, we would probably not have finished had we not started as early as we did and this is with a larger than usual crew for a student animated film. 

Reference EVERYTHING. It speeds up the process of animating by a lot, I highly recommend taking life drawing courses before getting into 320 and 420, having skills that are developed through drawing a model does so much to help with using references. Record yourself, ask a buddy to help, get scenes from a movie, just get a reference. As long as you have that you can adjust the shot before you even start animating, pick out your keys, breakdowns and if you want and are that meticulous do the extremes too. Once it's all timed out, it is just life drawing from there. 

DO NOT PROCRASTINATE during the middle weeks of the semester work was picking up and I would procrastinate a bit instead of working right after work, I would have time to albeit an hour to three hours at best but still time that would have helped in the long run. 

Before starting on any shots, see what you are assigned and try to start with the easier ones in the beginning, assuming that you did not have enough time to get completely on model its best to get used to it on easier shots, and once you’re confident start tackling the harder, more important stuff. 

Lastly, if you want stop motion in your film take a good amount of time to research and get the logistics done early. Kong was much much much harder to build than he was to animate. It might also help to invest in an already made armature, good ones run for around $120 but it’s for the most part going make your process so much easier as opposed to just using wire. Also scale the stop motion model down, our puppet was huge, heavy, melting, stiff, and messy. Our puppet was somewhere around $180-$190 crowd funding might be an option to look into since we’re all broke. If you’re a pro at stop motion then, you probably know much more about it than I do, so you can ignore this. 

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Week 16 - Chandelle

This week I colored 4 shots and shaded 6 shots, at Monday’s meeting the team was working on CCB shots, I finished 2 of them.  This semester was the most fun semester yet, I got to work on a fun film and I’m excited to see the finished product.  I had the perfect team of people to work with, all very hardworking and good people.  Each person was instrumental in getting this very ambitious project done, we were able to accomplish a lot together!

I learned a lot this semester from working on Midnight Showing, at the beginning of the semester I thought that I was going to become a 3D animator and that this was my last 2D project for a long time, but working on this film made me realize that I love drawing way too much to give up 2D animation.  I want to focus on 2D animation and do 3D animation as a hobby.  Animating for Midnight Showing made me love 2D animation all over again!  

I also learned a lot from the mistakes I made.  Of all the shots I animated that I feel were done the best are the ones that I had used reference of myself acting out the shot.  Also studying the many visual examples of squash and stretch from the animator’s survival kit.  In the beginning weeks of the rough animation process, there were so many visual examples in that book that I kept studying.

  Also during this semester, I have been watching a few animators work as they animate.  My favorite animator to watch is Aaron Blaise, he is AMAZING!  I have learned so much from watching his streams, he teaches as he animates and explains what he is doing and what his thought process is.  I want to find more animators to watch and learn from.

The shot of Angel climbing the ladder trying to get away from the zombies was redon 3 or 4 times and I was having such a hard time with it because I was not using a reference.  Only when I finally looked at a reference of a person climbing a ladder did the shot finally start to look better.  This shot really made me realize how crucial references are.  If I don’t plan out my shots I could be reanimating the same shot over and over trying to figure out how to do it right, but all I was really doing was guessing, if I had used the reference from the beginning I would not have wasted so much time guessing how someone moves when climbing a ladder.

During the last few weeks of rough animations, I did not have nearly as much time as I wanted to plan out the actions in the shots and because of this, I wished I had prioritized the important shots to do first and have them get done so that if I had gotten short on time, at least I would be rushing the not so important or impactful shots rather than the important ones.  I was so excited that I was assigned Angel’s plead dialogue shot!  I had so many ideas of how I wanted to animate it, but I just did not have enough time to animate it in as much detail as I wanted, because of this I had to really simplify the acting in that shot.  Even though this was disappointing to me, if it hadn’t happened, and I somehow had enough time to animate the shot the way I wanted, I would not have learned how important it is to prioritize shots and learning this will help prepare me for next semesters capstone.

As soon as I had all my assigned shots I should have started recording myself acting out every shot as animation reference so that I would be prepared to work on any shot.  For capstone, I want to have all my references ready before I start working on animation!  No more guessing!  If I don’t know how to animate something, if I don’t know how something moves, I will use reference.  Even if I think I know how something moves, I will use reference.  I will use reference for everything so I won’t ever have to guess how to do anything.

My advice to future 420 students is going to be animation related since that’s what I focus on most.  

1.  Plan out your shots!  Ask yourself, do you have all the references you need to work on your shot?  If not, get all the references you need, act out your shot as well as film yourself acting it out.  If you don’t want to rotoscope over your acting you can pull out the frames of your acting reference that you feel would be good Keyframes, you can pull out breakdown frames as well if you like.  Then you can do the in-betweens the way you want.  This way you won’t have to keep the timing exactly the same as the timing from your acting reference.  And you don’t have follow your reference exactly the way it is, you make the judgment of what to exaggerate, and what you want to change.

2.  If you have the animator’s survival kit, read it.  Seriously, that thing is like the animator’s bible.  Don’t you want to have the precious knowledge of a professional animator?

3.  Make sure you know what style the film will be animated in.  Is it Cartoony?  Anime?  Also, make sure that everyone on your team is on the same page and knows what style it is so the animation will be consistent throughout your film!

4.  Lastly, my final piece of advice is to prioritize your shots.  If you want to warm up on animation you can do a few easy shots first, but after your warmed up, start working on the shots that should have good animation like emotional shots, or the climax of your film.  You don’t want these important shots of your film to look rushed and hopefully none of the shots will actually need to be rushed but if you find yourself running low on time, at least you’ll be rushing the shots that are not so so important.

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Week 16 - Kalilinoe

As one would expect we got a lot done this final week. I finished shading sequence 9 including what one may call the death shot. The photoshop file is actually three shots in one with quite a few assets and a million layers. I lined, partially partially coloured and shaded/light the shot and it seemed like every new asset needed a new layer and it kept building until the file could not render at all on my laptop. It seemed to have crashed many other peopleʻs photoshops as well until Alex was able to render it into a 10GB file. Wow.

This week I also created a bunch of light assets in after effects. Just a whole bunch hoping some of them will fit perfectly with the shots Gavin needed them for. Some did, others needed a few adjustments.

Honestly, my laptop has no storage and my files are a mess but everything was finished and I was able to wrap on Monday/Tuesday ish. I have some screenshots of the light but my laptop cannot even open the files I worked on to take screenshots or render any videos so…I guess thatʻs it :)

What you would adjust in your filmmaking process in the future?

For my jobs in particular, I think I would like to work more closely with the director in the storyboarding process. That was the only time in which I had to go back and redo my work multiple times and I think itʻs because it was early on in the semester when I wasnʻt as familiar with the story and character, and my part of the script wasnʻt as detailed as the rest of it. I think having a really thought out script helps a lot.

I discovered I like effects, shading and lighting, and (at least more than rough animation) lining. Those are the areas I felt most helpful in and would like to continue to learn about. I think schedule wise everything worked out pretty great and I wasnʻt as stressed as my 320 film.

Words of advice to future ACM 420 classes.

Everyone is trying to get their thing done. Everyone has assignments and other classes and priorities. Everyone is stressed and has too much on their plate. So help each other out. Take more shots when you can, complete things on time. Understand your crewʻs schedule, know how much sleep they are getting. Most importantly, ask for help when you need it, and play to your strengths.

Oh, and donʻt make a 10 minute film. Unless your directorʻs name is Gavin Arucan.

Thatʻs a wrap on Killanoe.

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Week 15 - Jared

Finished shading and highlighting 4 shots, waiting to get assigned more.

4x6: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PMinYfFs49Qpt77M9hfzIplznmhPB_1Q

4x11: https://drive.google.com/open?id=15TIoROQgklriQ6V9-OaaQAeQK22LgrIJ

5x2: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZuOksGb2RX0-YlEfVrhclUPVeCLcTVwu

5x3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=15-Bim9fXlVIJPlX0MkrrP4oZVfwD7NWD

tried to upload to Vimeo, apparently I reached my “upload limit” so I'm gonna have to go with links for now.

Edit: Im not sure what happened to 4x11 but its messed up I can go back and fix it soon.

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Week 15 - Alex - Firefight

This week has been such a super duper uber busy one, but I’m managing to stay on track for the most part. I had four shots to line, one to color, and my progress is very near completion.

This is the shot of the projector falling that I lined and colored:

Then I had this shot of Phantom grabbing Angel:

Next, I have two shots of Angel’s first encounter with Phantom. The first line is complete:

The second is still in progress, but I’m making good headway on it. Here’s what I have so far:

I’m positive I’ll be able to finish it by the end of the day, so I should be on schedule. Last thing I did this week was discuss sound with Gavin. He met me at my dorm and we spent a good three hours just hammering out improvements. I took notes on tweaks, additions, and subtractions to get the audio just where we need it for the film. Final timing is mostly finished, so it’ll just be a matter of finding and plugging in all the necessary sounds and alterations. That will be taken care of over the weekend, in addition to color and shading assignments. My 318 class is finished now! So I’ll have a lot more time to just fire away at this project. All in all, I think we’re doing a fantastic job! And despite all the work that remains to be done, I am feeling confident we will be able to finish the film on time. Great job, everyone! Just one more week to push through! Let’s make it happen! This is the Undercover Animator, signing out.

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Week 15 - Main

We are entering our last week of Midnight Showing, and everybody’s working hard. We’ve completed about 80 of our 126 shots, almost of them are lined now. This week will mostly be shading, with a few people coloring shots. Our additional colorists are off, but we will be receiving some shading help from Noah. 

The EPK is completed. Our IndieGoGo campaign ends today with about 89% funding. Music is beginning to be incorporated into the film. We’re almost there, just gotta keep working.

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Week 15 - Kalilinoe

Why yes, I did finishing lining my shots this week.The second video below took me about two full days. I didn't realize there was a newer revised one, so I had done the original and had to redo the first half because we added him standing up. And the one after that? Yeah that took like three weeks. But it's finally done and I only almost gave up three times. I paid extremely close attention to these lines in order to really try to bring through Chandelle's amazing rough to final. Those are my two accomplishments this week, they took so long. 

I was really busy this weekend because I had to work from 10am-11pm, my students had their Christmas performance at the NBC. And I'm sorry for that. I just started shading + lighting for my five assigned shots in sequence nine, below is the one I've finished. I have not had a chance to get to the lighting effects that Gavin needs, but I am hoping to do that after I finish these shadings. I am hoping I get close to done by the end of this class. And yeah. 

I drew this when I had nearly given up. 

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Week 15 - Sophia

Okay. Lined two shots, still working on lining the last one. Gavin had me help Noah’s film, so is that a valid excuse for lateness? ah. anyways:

Password: p

Do you like how its dark blue on black wow.

Password: p

Can hardly see it. AND ignore the jump frame, it’s fixed in the psd file.

Chandelle helped me by coloring and shading sqn7s6. So kind, but I’m still behind. I’m hoping to finish lining Sqn6s5 tonight, and finish coloring and shading my two shots by tomorrow so that I can finish whatever shading shots I assign myself. Did a really basic EPK for the film, I don’t know if it needs to be more complex and beautiful, but it’s done. This is the last week. It’s stressful.