Moving the blog

Have moved my blog over to my own domain.

Sound

The more I learn about Audio, the more worried I am about recording the dialogue and SFX. I've joined a few online forums and made some contacts. The consensus is that I have acquired a good lightweight setup but the advice I am getting about processing is using terminology and jargon that is foreign to me.

The general advice is that I should only record one character at a time. So now I have a spare Mike stand and Pop filter - anyone want to buy some as new gear off me :)

More changes

Heavy on the critiquing, I have had lots of more detailed feedback from various sources including the author of the original story. Yes - more changes - not huge, but they do make sense. (Well this is a learning experience for me).

One of my mentors (Chris) has strongly advised that I actually complete a storyboard BEFORE completing the Animatic. It appears that I may have got lost in camera placement and timing before sorting out what it was I actually wanted to capture. Chris gave me some of his ideas in storyboard format for the first and second scene and I will try to emulate this effort. I didn't bother with the storyboard because of my drawing skills (I had thought I would be concentrating more on the drawing that what it was that I wanted to capture) but Chris showed just how effective they are even with very basic drawing.

Wordpress and Blogging

I'm in the process of setting up Wordpress on my own domain so may move this blog over to my domain. I'll keep you up to date as this occur.

Animatic - 2

More work on the Animatic and have completed Scenes 1, 2 and 3. Packaged, uploaded and off to my Critics for review. The process is getting a little easier and I finally (hopefully) know what I am doing :)

Animatic

Spent all yesterday trying to add rough sound to my animatic in progress. The software I was using either didn't offer any tweaking to the sound or didn't allow real time playback.

As it turns out, ScreenFlow, the screen capture software I bought for the Mac, does all this and what took me 7 hrs with the other software took only 15 minutes with ScreenFlow. Good job I found out now and not at the end of the process!

Sound

OK, just gone the 'whole hog' and purchased some 'lower end' recording equipment for dialogue, foley and SFX. What amazed me was the RRP/list price for all this equipment. A recorder and microphone for over $1300. What further amazed me, thankfully because my boss at work is a musician, is just how much the equipment prices are marked up. In the end I got $700 off the list price..... Yes, I paid less than 1/2 the list price (that's also the manufacturers RRP/MRP).

So what did I buy? Well I have a Zoom H4n recorder and a Rode M3 Microphone.

Zoom H4n: http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h4n/
Rode M3: http://usa.rodemic.com/microphone.php?product=M3

Originally I thought I would capture my sound via the iTouch. The iTouch is a digital recorder and my tests were promising but when you compare it to the 'proper' gear it is chalk and cheese. I test recorded my dog barking indoors in a noisy lounge room with TV on, A/C and noisy water pump going and human voices coaxing the dog to bark. All that I could hear in the playback was the dog barking - even between barks the recording was quiet and at 24bit/96khz, the playback freaked out the dog :)

Animatic

Revisited Scene 2's Animatic. It just didn't feel right so I did what I should have done right from the start and acted out the scene with a stop watch. Well the initial 34 seconds turned out to be grossly short (probably why it didn't feel right)

New Laptop

AM is a little graphics heavy so I needed to update to a PC with a reasonable amount of Graphics memory. Came across a cheap Acer Aspire with an i5 chip, 4gb (expandable to 8gb) RAM and a 1gb ATI video card (that can borrow more - up to 2.5gb) from the main RAM. Seems to wizz along with AM and I can get virtual real time playback in the Chor or Action windows - will save me all that rendering out to see my progress.

Working on a Scarecrow of Oz scene to hone my skills and determine the best screen layout and setup before moving back to the Animatic. My Mentors and Critics still have some changes for me (Script and Scene 2) so I want to iron those out before moving to the next scene.

Animatic

As I previously mentioned I am bypassing the storyboard and going straight to the animatic. That work started a couple of days ago and is progressing well (I think) but I am going to have to rely on my mentors to keep my camera movement and timing on track.

The movie will essentially have 6 sequences(The Opening Sequence, The arrival, The Journey, The Main Event/Climax, The Ending and The End Credits) and I have finished the first cut of the animatic of Sequence 2 - The Arrival (~34 seconds). Most of the movie is taken up in Sequence 4 - Main Event/Climax where the dialogue alone runs to ~ 2.5 minutes.

Anyone know any good free voice talent :)

Project Planning

Busy building the Project Plan for the movie. Nice package available for Windows (and OSX I think) called OpenProj (and it's free) that mimics MS Project (which I am used to and use daily at work).

The worrying fact is the end date keeps moving to the right.....

Island (Working Title)

It Starts:
I’ve waited a long time to get to this point. The script is almost complete - a few tweaks and then it’s off to the Mentors again for a final critique. The main character has been designed and I am currently constructing him in A:M. I still need to design the second character but I have some ideas. Work on the animatic has started. I will be bypassing the storyboard phase and plan my shots directly in A:M with stand in characters.

Paul S, my boss at work, is keen to get the animatic so he can start work on the music score. He is really excited to get this opportunity but he will have to wait till March before it is ready. He’s already given me snippets of the style of music he was planning and thankfully it matched the type of music I wanted.

I’m still in a quandary about which software package to use - A:M or Blender. I know that I will need to use Blender for my post work but I feel more comfortable modelling and animating in A:M. I know I have more support if I use A:M, particularly code/software wise. The biggest drawback with Blender is that it is a juggernaut that just forges ahead and runs over little users like myself.

At present I will be using:

• A:M for the animatic,
  
• VUE (8 Infinite at present) for my background plates including animated landscapes and clouds,
  
• A:M for modeling and animating,
  
• AMPaint for Texturing (with assistance from Paint.net, Photoshop, ArtRage and Gimp depending on which computer I happen to be using at the time),
  
• Blender for Compositing and post work including editing.
  

Project planning is being done with OpenProject, this web site is done with iWeb on a Mac. I am using various iMacs, PC’s and Windows based Laptops. I will have 3 iMacs, 3 PC’s and 2 Laptops to support my work (including Rendering). I have so many computers in my study that I have to run a portable air conditioner to ensure that the iMacs don’t over heat.