HERE WE GO!

all six wall frames are done!
i’m gonna do a test assembly tomorrow to guesstimate some camera angles,
i wanted to do it but i just didn’t have the hands

also, my fur arrived!! 

WEEK FIVE: MORE AND MORE

hallway assembly is under way!! i just have to skin the rest of the boards, and then i’ll be good to paint!

they sent out all the winning emails to the wrong people. i did not win.

testing out some fonts!

final fonts
header: altivo black
body: ruddy regular
_{(both are adobe fonts)}

i’m having cam do all of my headers using oil pastel, so i had to create some templates for her to trace.




since i want the scale of the pastel to change, but the font scale to stay the same, i’ve created a after effects document to re-align all the shots and make the fonts the same size. i based it on the “special thanks” font size, as that’s the smallest size text that i used in the scene. i’ll use the rulers to align everything and make sure they’re a consistent size. 



my sound designer got back to me with a wip version of the audio! it’s not perfect, but some of the parts are Great + i sent off my feedback for the first version :) 

(the best part is at 2:36 - esp if you need music to dance to) 

WEEK EIGHT: 2 SHOT
this week was getting a lot of my background animation done so i would have something to put in the 2-shot. i made a little plasticine snake and shot it swimming in circles on a bluescreen! i used the macro camera lens to try and get as much detail as possible, which i think worked. it looks so crisppppppp and soft and edible i love it. 



this is just a render test that i did specifically for the 2 shot, the final arc will have the snakes come on screen and then loop in place so it forms that larger ceiling above the hallway. i built all the after effects projects intentionally so that i can quickly update the individual snakes and it’ll carry over to all of them, which makes my life a million times easier for compositing everything!


in the process of arranging all of the different snakes i accidentally overlapped them to form a big spiral, so i used that for my other 2 shot. it’s not going to be in the film in the state that it is (i added some extra camera movements to keep composition looking good through the clip),  but it does look nice.



im really happy that i decided to make the film in 4k rather than 1080P, i can always do 1080P exports of the larger files but having such large files has really come in handy when i’m compositing - for example the background is on a 600% scale in the beginning of this shot and it’s *just* starting to look a little artifact-y because the raw file is 8K. with files this big, i build my after effects projects in a way that allows me to quickly swap in proxies and edit using proxies. but yeah! 

 

im looooving this dust and fuzz that stuck to the clay, i wasnt expecting to like it as much but i think it just gives a little more texture? there was a large speck of dust on it that was messing w/ the color key, so i did go in PS and edit that out. but again easy peezy to replace the raw animation precomp and it immediately updates all the other comps! also the shine on the clay reflecting off the fingerprints in the clay is so beautiful 

WEEK NINE: FINALIZING THINGS


i forgot i had this camera lens filter from my great uncle’s film camera setup!
i’m going to use it on a couple shots to add some more fun effects + b-roll :)




SONIA AND MARINA ARE VISITING!!

while they’re here we got our audio recording done for the dialogue portions, + they helped me paint the walls! 





HEADSHOT + FAMILY PHOTO


SCRATCH AUDIO - SECOND PASS

WEEK TEN: THINGS
finished marina’s puppet and shot the first of the close up shots on marina’s face! 


tia’s props are done + delivered - need to shoot them still



WEEK ELEVEN: COLA FRESCO
had to finish the shot for andy’s film!



it only took like a day to fully animate, but i got injured on friday + i wasn’t able to work
 on things other than digital stuff over the weekend.



had a meeting w/ my cinematographer about how to add visual interest to different parts, she had some great ideas that wouldnt take too long to film! the main notes are 
- establishing shot for the first act in the hospital room
(also for the first act, we talked more about the light in the room and i’m gonna reshoot with a more sterile light)
- show the “live view” of the paparazzi cameras shaking around and have flashes of light blinding the camera

audio v2



WEEK TWELVE + THIRTEEN
IN REFLECTION
the last two weeks went by in such a blur that i dont really remember a lot of them time wise, so i just am gonna reflect on it as a whole here
one.
i am so so grateful for the support i’ve had from friends/direct anim faculty + wouldn’t have been able to make it through this film without everyone. i think the main thing i learned is that when i have too much time on my hands to make a project, i shoot for the stars and burn myself out before i’m able to get working. i’ve written in my blogs in the past about how around 6 weeks is a good timeline for my projects, it allows for some wiggle room but also 6 weeks is a good constraint that keeps the scale of what i’m thinking more reasonable rather than... “im gonna make the most of the time that i have”

i think that was one thing that i could’ve written into my film better, like intentional mixed media segments that allowed me to do different things that were whatever i wanted throughout the school year, that all came into the final film. because i just felt so constrained in the end by narrative style and by everything, i felt like the only thing i could productively make was live action media, so i was always trying to jump my creative process back to the right track. because ultimately, i dont really care about the filming of things it’s more of a means of getting my point across. 

two.
i love set design and set building. figuring out how to build things, needing a prop and having to figure out how to make it, that was SO fun and i loved every second of that. that being said, maybe a 24 foot long hallway that was on screen for a minute max wasn’t neccesary and i could’ve figured out another way to do that section (especially because what i was originally planning didn’t work in the end*). i think the set was me proving to myself that i could do it, and I COULD, so even though i may have outstretched my means a little, i see it as a major success in my book and i’m very very proud of the set that i’ve made. 

three.
compositing and rendering took way longer than i was expecting, even with proxies i just was using layers upon layers upon layers of effects that my computer started giving up at some point. after several premiere/after effects crashes i was able to get together something, but its unfortunate because i did have more layers of animation that didn’t make it into my final edit simply because the renders were taking too long. i shot myself in the foot here!! i even jinxed it into existence, but i’m very used to stop motion compositing and having just... less frames to work with. 

*elaborating here further of what i can do better for the future if i want to achieve the same thing.
- have a more intentional/consistent camera choice for the entire thing (ie, handheld or mounted)
- MORE TRACKING POINTS!! like tons. i couldn’t get consistent enough tracking points on my footage + the ones i made appeared too small on camera. 
- more time for trackers to generate!!! roto brush and tracking points were helpful but just took 40000 years to render
- also on that, do rotobrush effects LAST because every effect or change to the timeline will make roto brush re-render
- i have no idea how to do this lighting wise, but maybe try greenscreen behind lights?? idk on that one
- render out a layer of just the room w/ no roof, and then use that file to comp rather than having it all in one ae project thats always kickin 

four.
overall thoughts on the film? idk.. i see myself very critically and hold myself to high standards, so i view it as kinda boring and missing a lot of the essential parts that i advertized. which is kinda a gut punch! but also, in the grand scheme of things, the goals that i had for this film were to explore live action media, see if i was capable of set building + set design, and make a fun film that showcases that. which i think i did! and while it’s not perfect, it’s rougher edges make me more cognizant of the key parts *to me* that i would want to make sure to bring for the next film that i make. 

also, i think that while i was going through a lot this year, i also think poor time management was a big fault of mine. i naturally go through periods of working really hard and.. not, and i think i didn’t organize those peaks to benefit my film most + also planned to just. not have any off days and always be working and always be at 100% efficiency which is not realistic. 

and i think the confusing part for me was that, working at 100% efficiency is Something I AM Capable of. my best example of this is the restaurant industry, i’m very comfortable working on the same organized set of tasks for long periods of time. i see serving/baristaing as almost a game now, because it’s just such a second nature. so that might be a big part of it, i’ve done both of these things for years and have learned the best way to do things but with this film i felt at most times i was just. every time trying to figure out the most logical way of doing things as i went? which is fun, it’s just time consuming.

 i also get distracted easy, the rush and demand of service industry work is enough to keep me focused but with this when it’s just my own free will keeping me focused? not enough. so i think in the future more of a throughline of collaboration would’ve been a better way of organizing production. like having specific shots that other people were doing that were important to the film, so it would require me to shoot things. but i think towards the end i felt like it was just too late to ask for people to do things, which again, my fault, and i just decided to do most of the things myself. which was not a great choice, because if the only one being affected by my poor decision making is me, i’ll toootally punish my future self. 

five.
drying times. and set build in general
just again everything took longer than i was expecting, paint actually dries pretty quick but joint compound depending on how thick it is can sometimes take up to 2 days to dry. and if you try to sand it before it’s done drying it’ll clump and crack and look bad. drywall tape! bad! or i think i’m just not skilled enough to use it, but i had more success with just painters tape in making it blend and look like One fake wall rather than two fake walls.