Finished Blocking Finnian & Flynn

Here's the finished blocking pass of the film. Enjoy!

Bishop Scale for Amanda (and whoever!)

Hi! This is how I turned turned AM's Bishop rig into a kid-scaled character. Not shown here is that I also reduced the hand size and foot size controls to 0.8 (under hand and heel respectively - at the bottom) and the fkspinestretch is also set to 0.8 under the body control. It's important to play with the stretch sensitivity and the stretch bias to avoid penetration of the different body parts. I'm not into splining yet but so far so good!

Good luck with this and happy animating kiddies!

Blocking Parts 1 & 2

Blocking blocking blocking. Here are parts 1 and 2 of the film in initial blocking stage. Working on part 3 next week and then onto blocking plus.

PART 1

I've already gotten feedback from Ethan on this and there are definately changes to be made, but I'm pretty happy about it. If I'm only able to work on part of the short in these few weeks then a good number of the shots I'll choose will come from the larger and smaller moments that Flynn has here.


PART 2


The dog animation was a real challenge here, but SO MUCH FUN. I'm wondering what's going to happen when I start working out the inbetweens and the splining though cause his controls aren't exactly intuitive. Every elbow and shoulder has it's own control and the paws tend to get pretty funky if you move them wrong. i have a feeling it might be a case of animating every frame.

Still haven't studied the monkey-dog reference yet, but man does it make me laugh!

Monkey Riding A Dog

Hey! Here's some awsome reference for when Flynn is riding Hobo in the 2nd act of the film. Flynn's a b it heavier than a little monkey, but I really didn't think about the ups and downs all that much. This is really going to come in handy.

Dog Motion Test 2

Another test for the dog motion. This one is without moving the body control. It makes the planning of the motion easier as well as the footfalls but it means animating the root object and having to worry about slipping and timing of the two elements (feet and body). I like the motion much better though and I seem to not be having as many problems with the copenetration of the elbows and knee joints.

In referring back to the Richard Williams stuff I also improved the pelvis movement and the compression and extension of the entire body. The back of the animal is running in a circular motion now. Much better than yesterday. I also feel like I have ALOT more control over what I want to accomplish with the movements. I still don't feel like I've sold the weight at 100% though... I'm hoping to get a bit more study in on this before the blocking.

Dog Motion Test

Here's a motion test I've done on a super simple level to try to understand the movement of the running dog. It's based on Muybridge's Whippet double suspension gallop. That means that the animal is not touching the ground twice within the gait. I'm hoping it'll be suitable for the cowboy/dog scene.

Things to remember about dog/animal motion can be found here.

Here's a 3D test of the same type of gallop done with the standard Animation mentor dog rig.

Happy 2009!

Happy new Year.

January has started well. There's alot of snow about which is definately unusual for Milan.

The house is coming along well though every time we try to fix something I get really frustrated and turn into a very snappy monster. Something I'm not entirely proud of.

I've started my course again after the break and I'm back at work this afternoon. I'm looking forwr a little bit cause with all the holiday's and breaks I've turned into a bit of a couch potato.

If I had any time I'd insert an image of a couch potato here... but I've got to get back to blocking.

Week 1 of Class 6 (11 weeks left at Animation Mentor!!)

Hi y'all and welcome back.

I did a bit of blocking in the break on the first 1/3 of the film but I'm not ready to post anything here just yet cause I'm not hyper-convinced about the posing or that it reads exactly as I want it to. Check back later in the week ands hopefully I'll have an update. Other news on the short is that I've found a composer for an original composition for the soundtrack. His name is Marius Berardinelli and he's full of passion and promise. I'm hoping that working together we can complement eachother on this project.

I had my first Q&A for 2009 this morning at 5:30am. My new mentor is Ethan Hurd. He's been working in animation since '96 and has worked on 2 of my more recent favorite animated films, Surf's Up and Bolt. Sweet. He wasn't too put off by the fact that my short is collosal in length cause I guess he's used to having a few in the class like that and knows that I'm not going to kill myself animating the whole thing in 12 weeks... if it comes to it the rest will be my after school activity from April onwards.

Ethan's blog: http://persistenceofvision.blogspot.com/

It also seems that the graduation is not going to be until the summer months. I'm not sure exactly yet on dates, but everybody is saying that it's looking like we'll be having the ceremony around the time of Siggraph (cool). It might mess up my summer holiday plans and some other things I was banking on for the spring, but there isn't much to be done about it I guess. It makes sense that they don't do a ceremony every 3 months.

That's all for now. gotta go comb out those poses and upload my progress reel to the site so Ethan can have a look at it before the next Q&A.

Finnian & Flynn Work In Progress

I'm working on shortening the entire film while also starting the blocking and completing the scenery and props.

Been reading some fantastic and wonderfully amazing books on production design and styling of the whole film.


Dream Worlds By Hans Bacher
This is a great book on production design. The illustrations and advice are awe inspiring and also just plain inspiring full-stop. Hans Bacher was one of the great Disney production designers in the Golden Nineties.

The Visusl Story by Bruce Block
A real manual of all the hows what's and whys about creating a visual story. This is the dictionary for visual composition.

The End of 2008

Christmas and hannukah ahve come and gone now and reflections on the past year and cristal-balling for the new are underway. It's a shame really... the calander has to be thrown in the bin (this past years' bought from a street boy in a small run down ex-tourist town in India... 2007's was my fave... illustrations of birds fromt he erboleria - or is it erbolaria or erbolaio?), at least a few weeks need to be spent getting the date wrong on anything and everything and people resolve for things they want to do to change themselves. They never do, so the end of January is always full of disappointment.

I've noticed that this month there's been a push to sell lottery tickets... even I tried to buy one... they were all out. Why does everyone think it's easier to win the lottery in the holiday season? Good on the marketing staff though. I bet they made a fortune.

And everyone's talking about the financial crisis. I feel so stupid and ignorant. I have no idea what's going on and I'm sure it's something simple like 'Oh, everyone just spent more money than they had and now they need to pay it back, but they don't have any.' or 'Some guy did something bad and robbed some other guy, but that guy was already robbing someone else and that guy was too... and in the end so was the govenment and even little kids with the toothfairy money and now everything's all tangled up and no one knows what to do.' but the truth is I don't know if that's what's going on and there's no one who's talking clear in the way my first-grader brain can understand. Oh look! A shiny rubber ball!!

Got lots of booka dna DVDs for Hanukmas... all animation related. Yay! Everything's connected... and I know this cause Giulio and Alessia bought a picture book for Fabri for his birthday and it's by Shaun Tan... and then watching the credits of 2 of my new movies (Horton and Wall-E) I glimpse the guy's name again... and then reading my new book on animation Production Design by Hans Bacher Shaun's name comes up again. Anyhow, needless to say he was already becomming one of my new favorite illustrators/artists/industry dudes. This is one of his paintings.

Shaun Tan 'Footpath, Fifth Avenue' 2004, oil on canvas, 110 x 120 cm.

Stairs Project for the New House

These are examples of the new staircase we'd like to build int he house. Underneath the stairs would be storage.

I like SketchUp.

Finnian & Flynn Layout

Finnian & Flynn Animatic

Maccaroni

Pre-Pitch

Mr. Goldshoe's very standard and non-personal room on the 28^th floor of an old people's nursing home on a very small island in the middle of a river, about 300m far from the mainland.

Mr. Goldshoe is 102 years old. His hands shake and his back is not so good but other than that he can't complain. The doctor says he's going to live to be 200.

Pitch

INT. GOLDSHOE'S ROOM – DAY

Mr. Goldshoe retires back into his room crowded by birthday balloons, streamers, confetti and noisemakers. He waves to the other partyguests he squeezes the door shut, kicking a balloon out of his way.

As he turns to his bedroom the smile runs from his face. He shuffles over to the desk while taking off his party hat. Placing it carefully on the desk he gazes over to his collection of photos. Nestled in the middle of the photos of his 70^th, 80^th and 90^th birthday parties at the nursing home is a photo of MARGOT, his wife, when she was young. She is beautiful and smiles coyly at the camera.

Lightly, Mr. Goldshoe touches the edge off the frame.

Grabbing a box of maccaroni from the desk and a bottle of white glue he scurries on his hands and knees out the window.

EXT. NURSING HOME - 28^th FLOOR LEDGE – DAY

MR. GOLDSHOE's POV

Mr. Goldshoe's hands flutter at an amazing speed as he glues pieces of maccaroni to a giant maccaroni structure. On his ring finger he wears a wedding band. On his pinky he wears the matching, female band.

ON SCENE

Mr. Goldshoe continues his backbreaking work glueing the pieces onto the structure. It is a ski-jump poised for a launch over the torrent river below.

INT. GOLDSHOE'S ROOM – DAY

Mr. Goldshoe inspects himself carefully in his mirror. He wears a navy suit and formal bow-tie. He plucks the flowers from the vase on his shelf and turns nervously towards the window. His movements are restricted by the plywood skiis he has attached to his feet.

EXT. NURSING HOME - 28^th FLOOR LEDGE – DAY

At the top of the ski-jump Mr. Goldshoe is waiting with anticipation in position. His face is tense with nerves. He has a brief look around and checks his skiis. He's full of concentration. With one deep breath he lunges himself down the ramp.

His small form gathers speed with surprising ease. Mr. Goldshoes' teeth are clenched with fright and determination. The end of the jump approaces and he becomes airborne. His form is perfect.

Relieved his face changes from distress to delight. His eyes are fixed tight forwards but his gaze is glazed with anticipation. A tear is sweeped from his eye by the wind.

EXT. IN AIR – DAY

Mr. Goldshoe speeds through the clouds. As he begins his decent he checks that the flowers are pert and fluffed up to perfection and smooths his hair.

MR. GOLDSHOE'S POV:

The cemetary appears in a clearing of white fluff an approaches rapidly.

EXT. CEMETARY – DAY

Mr. Goldshoe is 60 years younger and shares a stone bench with Margot. He takes her hand and they sit in silence, both contented. Suddenly Mr. Goldshoe realises he hasn't given her the flowers and reaches down to grab them.

They're on the ground, behind the tombstone the couple are sitting on, still clutched in the hand of his dead & squished old man's body. He prys the corpse's hand open and snatches the flowers, presenting them to his wife. She blushes and recieves the flowers with glee.

-END-

The moral of this story is that true love never dies.

Finnian & Flynn

Pre-pitch

Small condominial block of houses in small suburban neighbourhood in mid-1970's Montreal, Canada. Mid to late afternoon.

Finnian & Flynn, twin boys, infants and later, toddler age. Finnian has blonde hair. Flynn has red hair. In all other ways they are identical except for slight alterations in colouring of their clothing.

Pitch

We open to a shot of a nursery with two identical blue cradles as our focal point. It is snowing outside the window. The boys names are written on the wall above the cradles. Finnian & Flynn. This should also be the title shot of the work. Our camera dollys in towards the cribs until we have a medium shot of the two babies.. They are both sucking upon their pacifiers. Flynn sucks his like a normal baby, but Finnian is sucking like he's just drank 12 cups of coffee. Flynn looks over at his brother nervously.

We fade to a shot where the two boys are on their playmat. Finnian no longer has the pacifier in his mouth. He's already grown out of it however Flynn has not. The twins are having their first attempts on learning how to crawl. Both boys are a bit wobbly at first but then Finnian is up on his hands and knees and speeds off out of the shot. Flynn is can only stop and watch. He collapses to the floor, unabe to crawl, desperate, left behind and alone.

Fade to the boys on the playmat again. Finnian is happily playing with a racecar, zooming it back and forth with gusto. Flynn's only toy is a wooden duck, he trys to speed it along the ground like a racecar, but one of the wheels is broken and it just wobbles along the carpeting. Clunkity clunkity clunk. Almost frozen with boredom, Flynn watches Finnian have all the fun, again. He sucks his pacifier.

Fade to the front door of the house opening and the boys, a bit older now, rubbing their eyes to the sunlight that hits them. In the courtyard are a brand new radio-flyer tricycle and a pink plastic pully-worm toy. Flynn sees the toys first, does a quick calculation in his head and looks over at Finnian who's grin has just begun to crack with the prospect of playing otside. Suddenly, Flynn shoves his brother off the step of the house into the bushes and rushes over to the tricycle... he hops on and begins to peddle around and around the flowerbed, his little grin peaking out from behind the pacifier. Finnian meanwhile is crying in the shrubbery. Shortly, Flynn realises that he's been cruel and pulls up alongside Finnian, dismounts and helps his brother up onto the bike. He sits himself down on the stairs, and feeling like he doesn't even deserve his favorite thing, his pacifier, for the way he behaved, soberly takes it out of his mouth and places it beside him on the step. He kicks the pull-worm and has an idea.

Cut to Finnian driving the tricycle at top speed with all the joy in the world. Zoom out to reveal the worm pully toy being dragged behind, and atop it, bouncing up and down like a rodeo rider, is Flynn with the same expressiong plastered all along his face.

-END-

The moral of the story is that there is no reward in acting upon envy of other people's talents. The real route to happiness is in developing your own.

Well Done

Pre-Pitch

Suburban backyard, late afternoon when the sun is turning everything blue and orange.

Jim is a big, heavy beer drinking-kind of guy. He overexaggerated in everything he does. He is selfish and arrogant. Sparky is Jim's dog. He's quite afraid of Jim's authoritative nature, but is not in control of his actions all of the time. Especially when he's hungry.

Pitch

We start with a bbq. Jim walks into frame followed by Sparky jumping and yapping and trying to grab the meat. Jim scolds the dog violently several times until Sparky cowers behind the BBQ sits down and behaves. Jim places the meats on a shelf beside the BBQ out of sparky's reach and smiles at him cruely.

He starts to squeeze out lighter fluid onto the coals. He struggles to get out every drop. He goes through multiple cans, dropping them onto the ground. Sparky notices the cans, and looks up at Jim with concern. Does he know how much he's using? He begins to yap again, trying to get Jims' attention. Jim ignores him, scolds him, then kicks him away. Sparky has a short attention span and his focus keeps switiching back and forth from the mounting danger to his desire for the meat sitting on the high shelf.

Jim goes for the matches now. Strikes one, but it doesn't light... tries another and another, gets frustrated, then he finally gets one. Sparky's attention turns back to the impending explosion of fire... he backs off a bit.

We get close ups of Jim's eyes, the flame, the flammable warning on the discarded bottles.

He drops the match onto the coals and it lights it perfectly, no explosion. He throws on the meat. Sparky sits down patiently now, relieved. His tail is wagging happily... maybe he'll be offered some scraps.

Suddenly an anvil falls from the sky and lands hard on the ground barely missing the dog. He jumps up in alarm. Jim and Sparky look at eachother confused and concerned. As Jim looks back at the anvil another one falls from the sky and crushes him.

Sparky is shocked and confused. He makes a motion towards his dead owner and quickly realises that without his owner, he won't be able to get the meat. He looks back up at it with longing. It's so very far away.

And then the bbq blows up. Plates, bbq tools, meat, veg, etc. get thrown up into the air.

-Titles-

The mess lands and as the dust settles we see that all the items from the BBQ have landed perfectly on the anvil in front of Sparky in such a manner that he now has a gourmet meal in front of him cooked to perfection complete with a vegetable side dish and cutlery. He eats.

-End-

The moral of this story is that good things come to those who wait and are in the right place at the right time.

Maccaroni

Pre-Pitch

Mr. Goldshoe's very standard and non-personal room on the 28^th floor of an old people's nursing home on a very small island in the middle of a river, about 300m far from the mainland.

Mr. Goldshoe is 102 years old. His hands shake and his back is not so good but other than that he can't complain. The doctor says he's going to live to be 200.

Pitch

INT. GOLDSHOE'S ROOM – DAY

Mr. Goldshoe retires back into his room crowded by birthday balloons, streamers, confetti and noisemakers. He waves to the other partyguests he squeezes the door shut, kicking a balloon out of his way.

As he turns to his bedroom the smile runs from his face. He shuffles over to the desk while taking off his party hat. Placing it carefully on the desk he gazes over to his collection of photos. Nestled in the middle of the photos of his 70^th, 80^th and 90^th birthday parties at the nursing home is a photo of MARGOT, his wife, when she was young. She is beautiful and smiles coyly at the camera.

Lightly, Mr. Goldshoe touches the edge off the frame.

Grabbing a box of maccaroni from the desk and a bottle of white glue he scurries on his hands and knees out the window.

EXT. NURSING HOME - 28^th FLOOR LEDGE – DAY

MR. GOLDSHOE's POV

Mr. Goldshoe's hands flutter at an amazing speed as he glues pieces of maccaroni to a giant maccaroni structure. On his ring finger he wears a wedding band. On his pinky he wears the matching, female band.

ON SCENE

Mr. Goldshoe continues his backbreaking work glueing the pieces onto the structure. It is a ski-jump poised for a launch over the torrent river below.

INT. GOLDSHOE'S ROOM – DAY

Mr. Goldshoe inspects himself carefully in his mirror. He wears a navy suit and formal bow-tie. He plucks the flowers from the vase on his shelf and turns nervously towards the window. His movements are restricted by the plywood skiis he has attached to his feet.

EXT. NURSING HOME - 28^th FLOOR LEDGE – DAY

At the top of the ski-jump Mr. Goldshoe is waiting with anticipation in position. His face is tense with nerves. He has a brief look around and checks his skiis. He's full of concentration. With one deep breath he lunges himself down the ramp.

His small form gathers speed with surprising ease. Mr. Goldshoes' teeth are clenched with fright and determination. The end of the jump approaces and he becomes airborne. His form is perfect.

Relieved his face changes from distress to delight. His eyes are fixed tight forwards but his gaze is glazed with anticipation. A tear is sweeped from his eye by the wind.

EXT. IN AIR – DAY

Mr. Goldshoe speeds through the clouds. As he begins his decent he checks that the flowers are pert and fluffed up to perfection and smooths his hair.

MR. GOLDSHOE'S POV:

The cemetary appears in a clearing of white fluff an approaches rapidly.

EXT. CEMETARY – DAY

Mr. Goldshoe is 60 years younger and shares a stone bench with Margot. He takes her hand and they sit in silence, both contented. Suddenly Mr. Goldshoe realises he hasn't given her the flowers and reaches down to grab them.

They're on the ground, behind the tombstone the couple are sitting on, still clutched in the hand of his dead & squished old man's body. He prys the corpse's hand open and snatches the flowers, presenting them to his wife. She blushes and recieves the flowers with glee.

-END-

The moral of this story is that true love never dies.

Progress

Things are going well with the house. If I could find the cables to download the photos from the camera I'd post them, but no one knows where they could be. I'm sitting in the empty rental as I write this surrounded only by the 50 year old modular furniture we have to say goodbye to this weekend. Even my primary computer is pack and away.

In the new place there's a mountain of stuff in the middle of the downstairs space. Everything we have. The move went well and in the truck from one place to the other we smiled knowing that even without all that stuff behind us banging around the cabin it wouldn't matter. Takes the pressure off. I dropped the bed down the stairs in the main hall here and broke the wall, but the bed seems to be ok.

We had an IKEA fiasco which ended in our defeat and a change of tactic. We were loading bits and pieces of the far too large wardrobe I planned onto a zillion of those pushy carts when we realised that we couldn't possibly navigate the cash area and all those people who stand far too close to you. We asked to have it delivered. We left the zillions of carts in the middle of those sky-scraping aisles and ran away.

Ale & Ele came to help with the move, and so did Max. Max had to head off afterwards, but we went with A&E to eat at a crazy dark trattoria, (or is it osteria?) around the corner when we were done. I had cornetti, which I've never had before and really liked, and cotoletta... which I should never have and hardly ever like. The owner/cook is an old bearder beer-swilling guy and even though it's just turned autumn there was a raging fire in the fire pit. The service was angry-family-biz style. The son wore a cape and squeezed glue and sprinkled packets of sugar into the fire.

The floor downstairs won't be arriving till the end of the month and therefore we're delaying any of the furniture we've bought. Most of it comes from our weekend hunts for 'antiques' from the turn of the last century. I believe it's called liberty style here. I'm mostly attracted to it's sturdy, durable, lasted 100 years and still going nature. I just really like the idea of wood.

The harmonica playing is going ok. I'm a little diappointed in myself for not practicing everyday and I think I'm using the move as an excuse. The truth is it's not taking up so much of my time and the not playing is down to my laziness and non-commital nature. It's one of my 'shoulds' at the moment. Yesterday I woke up early and then worked on my short stories for the short film I'm starting and then went back t bed at about 11. I stayed in bed till after 2:30 and had to rush to get ready for work. How can anyone sleep that long? Today I have a few more things to do for the final move, but before I'll practice for a half an hour.

The stories are coming along great. I'm going to upload them to the AM site and talk about progress there.

Links to Resources for Learning

IRA GLASS ON STORY TELLING:
http://www.yourdailyawesome.com/2007/03/02/ira-glass-on-storytelling/

ILLUSION OF LIFE (Disney Special 1981):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFhqEupQviU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCMyRtLfhag&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iin1q7MjyXw&feature=related

Class 5.1

Heya! Started class 5 today... managed to get through classes 3 & 4 without writing anything here... but oh well right?

Ok... so let's start with IDEAS:

Everyone is unique. All ideas are valid. Following ideas will take you someplace, and hopefully to a place where a story can grow from. What if factors. There are no bad ideas.

My mentor this term is Jed Diffenderfer. He works on story at Dreamworks and did loads on Kung Fu Panda. In the Q&A today I was in the dark, no because I didn't understand, but because I had no lamp. Next week (lamp pending) will be my big reveal... bear head or lamp itself are 2 ideas that Jed came up with right away. I need to find a bear lamp.