Thursday, April 23, 2009

GIVE ME YOUR OPINION

So, as you might know, I'm changing the middle of my film to black and white. I've got the colors down like I want them, but I can't figure out what to do with the blood. I want it to be red, but what shade? Here's a little thing I whipped up:



What do you think works best?

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Color things

Hi.

As you all know, figuring out color for this film has been a nuisance for me. Little did I know that actually coloring it would be more of a nuisance, and would take what I can only assume is years to fully complete. Averaging about 2 shots a day is not good when I have 77 to do by the end of the month. I think that math all adds up to not graduating.

So, I have a compromise: I'm going to color the two bookends of the film as planned. You know, all the stuff without zombies. Unless some miracle happens, and all that coloring gets done tomorrow or the next day, I'm going to leave the middle of my film black and white and gray. It'll be so much faster for me to just take out white backgrounds from my line drawings than to color them in fully and deal with the extra layers when compositing.

I'm actually totally fine with this - not that I'm referencing either of these films by doing this, but Night Of The Living Dead was in black and white, and Quentin Tarantino totally got away with making the most violent part of Kill Bill switch to black and white. I'd say I'm in pretty good company. The music in my film makes a really dramatic shift when the zombies come on screen, and I think the color switch would only complement that. It totally goes along with the tonal and genre switch. I think I even played with this idea early on, anyway. Let's say I did, and I'm bringing it back.

Anyway, it's almost 1 AM, and I'm about to fall asleep at my computer. This blog post is over. I'll try and remember to elaborate when I'm actually conscious.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Color Thing

Hi again.

This is just something...fun? It's just the main character color keys for the people who are helping me color my film. It was just supposed to be some stupid drawings of the characters with messy coloring, but I ended up rendering them more than I intended to. Meh, it's something to post. If the zombie skin tone is too jarring or something, post a comment. If the blood color (as seen by the "Rawhide" and Zombie Damsel intestines) doesn't stand out, post a comment. I'm colorblind, so what do I know?

Ok

I lied in my last(?) post - that wasn't the final cut of my film. I've been watching it over and over again, and the finale really bothered me with all that extra footage where nothing happened...so I got rid of it. Michael Patterson told me to do the same thing, so I'm pretty sure that was a good idea. There are other minor edits along the way, too, but nothing too drastic. Anyway, here it is. I'm really only putting this here for my composer. Hi Alex! I sure hope Bethany doesn't kill me when I tell her about this tomorrow.

Ok, the video is broken. I hate Premiere CS4!!! FIXED IT!

Final Edit, for real. from Carder Scholin on Vimeo.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Update number whatever - Compromises

Hi all,

I'm in the middle of cleaning up all of my film, and it's taking a lot longer than I thought it would. This is typical, as I generally have no concept of time. Anyway, I'm thinking of what this means, and I have two options: take longer than usual on the clean-up and don't fully color the film, or pull a string of all-nighters to get myself back on schedule (maybe). I think I choose the former.

This is actually probably a good thing considering my original idea for this film's color was to have it be like a tri-tone sepia and that was it. I tried to do that when doing my color keys, but I have limited knowledge of color (I blame it on the colorblindness), so more and more kept creeping in.

Anyway, this way the coloring will go faster, the people coloring for me will be less confused, and everything will generally be easier for me...I like it! Oh man, think about how much easier the backgrounds will be! I could even stylize the way they're colored, which sounds pretty fantastic.

Ok bye.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Actual picture lock

Here you go:


Rawhide Picture Lock from Carder Scholin on Vimeo.

I realize that the horse should turn more, and that there's a black spot, and that the sky shot should probably have birds reacting to the gun shots, and other things, but let's just enjoy this for now, shall we?

Friday, February 27, 2009

Picture locked!

So my film is finally picture locked. I'd have a sample of it up here for you, but the file is over a gig. I'll render out a new one before I leave the lab and then I guess upload it here tomorrow when I'm back down here to give my gig file to Bethany. Great! Time to start clean-up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ugh.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Animation - Done!

Remember this day, February 25, as the day I finished animating my senior thesis. Animating, not clean-up, color, backgrounds, or special effects, but animating. It's a big step. Hopefully the next portion of my life will go way more easily. It probably won't. I'm going to put up a picture locked version of my film on Saturday or something because I have to have it done anyway.

I realized Spring Break is like two and a half weeks away the other day and I freaked out. Where has this semester gone? Where has college gone? Did I live it up enough and make a decent amount of mistakes? Definitely not. This is not the place to wax about how I'd do college again, though, so let's just watch a small piece of animation I did this week instead. I realize the horse needs to turn more and stuff, but just live with it.


Untitled from Carder Scholin on Vimeo.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

February 4th's update

So, guys, here's what I've done for the past two weeks. Not all the shots in this clip are new, but maybe you ("you" meaning the zero people who actually read this) will realize which shots are the newer ones. The run time is around 3:49 now, which is great for me. Three more weeks of actual animation left!! Picture lock by February 26!!!!!!!!!!! That's going to be so hard.

The reason I'm picture locking then is because Bethany Sparks has graciously agreed to do my sound for a paltry $500. That makes me nervous, but only because I'm anal retentive and that means I'm giving something major about my film over to someone else. I'll be happy about it later. My friend Alex has agreed to do the music (with the help of our friend Duncan) for $200 (or more depending on work load). That's also great. Wowee.

Anyway, here's the stuff. Note: I realize that there are two shots where the guy puts his hand on his head (when he sits up and then the shot where he runs his hand through his hair). During cleanup, the hand won't be there as he sits up.

0204 Segment from Carder Scholin on Vimeo.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

1/21 Animatic

Here's my latest animatic. I'm not just posting individual clips because I've changed the story (sort of...not really), and I need any composers and sound designers I direct to the blog to see the latest version in its entirety. All I really did was have the cowboy grab for the hat instead of just dropping the damsel before the train wreck. I'll change his face to look less dumb when I'm doing cleanup. It's not worth the time right now.

Otherwise, I added a shot after the train wreck, too. The cowboy jumps back to the old position when the train goes by because I was too lazy to actually reshoot the entire thing (with all that debris flying around, I don't think I can be blamed), so just know that he'll stay in the same position the entire time. Cool. The transition is sloppy, but so was my editing job.

I guess I didn't export the entire thing because the last like 10 seconds are cut off from this. Oh well, all the new stuff is way earlier anyway . To any potential sound designers or composers, the last ten seconds are on the video two posts below this one. He just shows off his hat and then rides off into the sunset.

2009 Animatic from Carder Scholin on Vimeo.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Spring Semester Doings

Happy New Year, 18 days later.

So, here's what I've come up with for my schedule for the next semester:

RAWHIDE PRODUCTION SCHEDULE – Spring 2008

01/22/09
Shots 1, 3, 7

01/29/09
Shots 2, 5, 6

02/05/09
Shots 9, 10, 11, 12

02/12/09
Shots 13, 14

02/19/09
Shots 8, 4

02/26/09
Shots 15, 16

03/05/09
Clean-up

03/12/09
Clean-up, scan film, take out white backgrounds

03/19/09 (SPRING BREAK WOOOO!!!)
Scan film, take out white backgrounds

03/26/09 (SOUND SPOTTING SESSION)
Color, backgrounds, train stuff/lightning, extra effects

04/02/09
Color, backgrounds, train stuff/lightning, extra effects

04/09/09
Color, backgrounds, train stuff/lightning, extra effects

04/16/09
Color, backgrounds, train stuff/lightning, extra effects

04/23/09 (PICTURE LOCK, SOUND MIX WEEK)
Composite film

04/30/09
Final comp, minor fixes

05/07/09
Minor fixes?

05/12/09 (UPLOAD QUICKTIMES FOR SEMINAR)
DONE!



SHOT BREAKDOWN
1 – Train wreck redo, inc. new shot of him looking at wreck.
2 – Putting on the hat (2 variations)
3 – Looking up at hat
4 – Zombies walking by
5 – Feeling for hat
6 – Hat floating away
7 – Going after hat
8 – Chasing hat
9 – Successful hat grab
10 – Damsel head shot
11 – Damsel body fall/cowboy get up
12 – Raising guns
13 – Town clean-up (2 shots, all cycles)
14 – Cowboy rides by / two guys mock
15 – Turn around, tie hat, smile
16 – Various single frames/easy cycles.


That makes for a long post, doesn't it? I'm making it longer. That schedule is crazy tight. I'm assuming the scanning/taking out the white won't actually take two weeks. It took like 3 nights when Victor did it, I think. Anyway, I'll just start coloring earlier if it comes to that. Here are some things I can do to make it go faster: get someone to help me on the clean-up/scan portion (any volunteers...?), throw all my background coloring to Emily with notes on when it should get redder, and have people color for me (Lauren...Shawn?). Friends, let's come together for a goal -- helping me graduate.

Also, I've added a new shot to the list, and I think it goes something like this:


I'll try and add some kind of flair to it so it's not just him entering from the left and looking right. That's boring. It's between the part where the Damsel is hit by the train, and the actual shot of the wreckage. It's amazing how much I've forgotten about Flash. Where's my memory these days? I could also have a shot of him from the back (shoulders up) and have him turn around with similar facial expressions. I'm really trying to figure an easy fix so I don't have to go back and redraw the train stuff again. Also - I think this is better dramatically anyway.