DONE!

The Prize is done! It feels so good to be done. I am rendering out the final Quicktime as I type this. So much work and I am happy with the final product. When I started I wasn’t to sure about going with the cut out animation style, but now that it is done, I am happy I made that choice. I think it lends itself to the story and makes it look kind of childish but still has creepiness to it. I think what really holds it all together is the sound. The sound makes such a big difference. I have watched it with and without the sound and they have completely different feelings to them. Without the sound it is just a kid in the woods winning a bear and then at the end bear attacks him. With the sound the walking now was a little bit of tension and the bear at the end carries more weight and ends the film on a high note. I cant wait to have a few days off, but I am already looking forward to my next film…

Almost Done.....

The race to the finish line is a stressful one. But that being said I think that I am in good shape. All of the main animation is now done. I added the things that were talked about at the critique. Crits are important at this point because I have been looking at this film for so long now that I can no longer look at it objectively. At this point I am working on leveling out my sound track. This is a part of the process I like. Being a musician mixing music is something that comes naturally to me. I think it is working, but I have to find a balance between the main themes and sound effects. I added in a lot of sound effects and it started to sound weird, and lost some of its creep factor. I think it works better if the theme is what drives the film. I also am working on the credits and opening now, and that is also coming along and I am happy with the results…

Sound Editing:

The movie is coming along. I am working on the sound track now. I am looking for a track that has a dreamy but still creepy vibe. I have most of my sound effects but I am just trying to fit them in and get the levels right. Some of them are too loud at this point, but the mixing is coming along. While I was doing the sound track I found that the zipper sound effect that I have been using form the beginning rough track doesn’t really make sense the way it is now. Hearing the zipper while the screen is back doesn’t really read the way that I was hoping that it would.  So, I had to add a shot of the boy zipping up his bag when he is in the tent, and use the same sound to tie it in…

Scary Clown:

Making a movie is pretty stressful, but I think I am getting used to it. You just have to keep working and eventually you get where you need to. I am happy with the scary clown scene and the idea of the silhouette was a great idea. It lets me keep the scene dark but you still know that the clown is dangerous. Everything is in place and it doesn’t seem like the cuts that I had to make effect the film at all. I thought that I couldn’t cut anything else out and have it make sense, but I was wrong. I think now that I cut out some of the walking, that movie flows a lot better. I am going to start working on sound this week and I think the music will hold everything together…

Festivals:

This week has been a reality check. I am not even close to where I should be when it comes to my film. As of right now I am looking for away to condense some of my shots while still keeping the story intact. I am also looking of a way to make the clowns more menacing. As of right now I am stumped…

 Looking festivals is a welcome distraction from the stress of getting my film done. Its weird to think that my film could be screened at a festival. I just hope the finished product is worthy.

 Here is a list of some of the festivals that I am looking into.

Buffalo Screams Horror Film Festival- September 15^th, 2011

Chicago Horror Film Festival -June 10th, 2011

Fear Fête Horror Film Festival- June 1, 2011

Eerie Horror Film Festival- July 2011

Atlanta Horror Film Fest June 13, 2011

New York City Horror Film Festival -Sept 15th, 2011

Horror Quest Independent Film FestivalSeptember, 20, 20111

Fright Night Film FestAugust 12, 2011

Ottawa International Animation Festival.-May 20th, 2011

Buffalo International Film Festival- June 30, 2011  

Rough Main Character Animation:

The last few weeks working on my film have been rough. I seem to be in a slump, and everything I animate seems to come out messed up. I have also had a lot of work due for other classes. I am going to have to set aside more time for my film each week. Now that the semester is half way through I am starting to stress out more and more about the movie. I did get some work done that I like. I started working on some of my animation for my main character. It is still rough and the eyes slide around. That should be an easy fix. It is coming along. I am working on breaking this animation into its parts and adding the boiling hold. This part is very tedious but it has to be done….

Rough Cut 2:

This week we had to have our second rough cut done. This movie is a lot of work but I think it is starting to pay off. It’s a slow process but it is all starting to come together. It has been a problem free week for once. I have got a lot of work done. I am planning on finishing all of my puppets over the weekend and then I will be on to the animation phase of my movie. There are still some small things that I have to make, but for the most part all of the graphics will be done very soon. I have starting doing some layout stuff and some small animations and I like the way that it is looking. I see now that I am going to have a lot of work ahead of me in getting all the shots to flow. Right now some shots are way to fast while others drag on and on. The timing on my animatic doesn’t work when the actions are actually being played out…

Bear...

Just finished working on my evil teddy bear. For such a simple character it took a lot of time. I think I had such a problem because I never did any real sketches of him before. The bear was always something that I would get to designing later, and I didn’t give it much thought before now. Another problem was the bear character was from an assignment we had in pre pro where we had to look at these sheets of characters and pick one. Then we had to write a story around them. I had to shake that character design from my mind and make my own evil teddy bear. It was hard to balance the creepy features and still make the character appealing looking…  

Boy:

Today I started working on my characters. I am going to do them in a cut out style with some puppet pins. I started with my lead character the boy. His design has changed a lot over the pre production process. He started out looking like a zombie child, but that didn’t really work. Then I made him look like a normal chubby little kid, which would have worked if the story was longer and you had more time to develop the character. But, I didn’t have that much time so I am going somewhere in-between the 2 designs. He still has his black eyes and looks a little weird but is mostly normal and unthreatening looking. The fact that he looks a little “off” is going to work pretty well. My movie has a lot of walking with nothing happening, so I think that it is important to tell the audience form frame one that something weird is going on…

Rough Cut:

This week we had to have our first rough cut together. It is a little stressful. But now that it is done, and I can look at the film with the new backgrounds in place it is all starting to come together. I wasn’t really sure of the style I was going for, or how it would all fit together, but now with all the art placed in the rough cut I can see better that It is going to work. I even but in some of the boiling holds in just to see what my character will look like when they are done. I think it looks good, but I am going to do a few more tests with the line tool to try and see if it comes out cleaner. If that doesn’t work the way I am working now is looking pretty cool..

Have to keep organized...

I am so glad that I had that file system assignment. The amount of files that I have now is just ballooning, and with out some sort of system I would never be able to find anything. I even added more folders than I thought I would need. So as of right now I am pretty organized and everything is moving along. I have finished just about all of my background images and have stated to place them in their own AE compositions. This is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. Making all of the folders and naming everything is very tedious but necessary. I am still on schedule and am happy with my progress…

Keeping everything organized:

As of right now everything is going well with my film. The graphics are coming along nicely and I am happy with the work that I have done so far. In last class we talked about how to keep are files organized. That isn’t something I have given much thought to but I would see have files all over the pace could be a bad thing. I am planning on doing a lot of work in After Effects so I will need to know where all my files are so that I can reference them in. I think that coming up with a solid naming convention will also be very important. If don’t keep everything organized I will end up wasting time looking for a file.

I am taking a break from drawing my background and I am going to start shading and texture some of my images:

The beginning:

Started working on my graphics this week. It is a little overwhelming at this moment. I have so much work ahead of me. I am working in flash and am feeling a little rusty. I can’t really remember exactly what I did for the test scene. So, it’s a little bit of trial and error, but it is starting to come back. At the end of this work session, I started to move a lot faster and I got a good start on my background images. They look pretty plain right now but when I take them into Photoshop and shade/texture the images they will fit what I am looking for. I did run into one small problem. I am going to have to keep track of the colors I used somewhere so I can make sure that the continuity stays the same throughout. This is something that I haven’t even thought of until this point, but it is going to be very important.

Week One:

The hard thing about making this film is going to be managing my time. I will make time to work on my film in between my classes and try to work on it every night. At this time I am working a lot. I know that I am going to have to cut down and only work on the weekends. I plan on doing most of my work at home. It is easier for me to focus on my work when I am alone. Aside from this class I also am taking 4 other courses, so this is going to be challenging. I want to make this movie in a 2d style. I am not ready to make a film in 3d as of this time and 2d will give me the look that I am going for. At this time I feel comfortable with the software that I will be using to create my first movie. I feel confident is my skills. If everything works out I think that my first film will be very successful.