How I feel about my film

Week Q: Color test

I'm not sure when the color change should happen - when Rose peaks in through the door or when she actually steps inside. Opinions?

Week 8: Mar's Water Cycle

As promised, here is the full version of Mar's lecture!

Since I uploaded it to youtube already anyway, here's my animatic too.

Week 7: Numbers

My blog posts could get very repetitive from here on out since I'm going to basically be doing the same things up until the end. I'm going to try to break it up some though. Have some numbers!

I'm done with 95% of the backgrounds, 100% of the rough character animation, 88% of the rough effects animation, and 49% of the clean up. This doesn't take coloring into account since I'm getting help with it.

I've got 33 shots left to clean up. My goal is 10 shots a week completely done. I managed to do 10 last week and I've done 5 since Wednesday but I doubt that I can keep up this pace once I get to the more complex shots. Wish me luck.

Week 6: Clean up and colors

This week was about organization and clean ups. A lot of my PSD files were mislabeled because of the changes I made over Winter Break. It's not completely fixed but I've got a strategy down now.

As for clean ups, it's slow going. I've been focusing on effects shots for the most part since those are fairly easy to finish up. I want a break after all the group shots I did recently! I've also been working on figuring out the coloring since I've got someone lined up to help me with that.

The old colors for Rose in the real world were too grey. I still want them to be dulled down but it was too much. I've increased the contrast there and made her bow a slightly different red.

You can't see all of it but I also designed the magic door. It's mostly (but not entirely) bamboo.

Since I'm not very smart, I've decided to do colored lines on the effects. I like the softer look and never plan on seeing sunlight again.

Week 5: Establishing Shot

This is the shot when Rose first peaks into the restroom. The slow, even paced pan is going to change. I just did that to test how the character animation would look while the background moved. Later, I'll change it so the camera darts from one character to another. But, for now, enjoy!

(The headless blue guy is going to be chasing a snake.)

Week 4: Victory and Defeat

Rose's victory over the toilet is all roughed out now. It's .... something. It'll be much less "awkward" after I clean it up and fix a couple issues but, for now, I'm happy to check this off my to-do list.





I've only got 8 shots left to rough out, which sounds like so little until I remember that 5 of them are group shots, 4 have the tikbalang speak, and one is Rose laughing. My schedule has me finishing all my rough animation in week 5 so I've set myself up for quite a work week. I can do it though!

Update:

I wanted to work on the big establishing shot today but, when I looked at the background I drew at the start of last semester, I hated it. The perspective is wonky and everyone'd be so spread out.

Option #1 for the new background is a tweaked version of the sketch I use in my animatic. I'm not in love with it since Rose would have to be really really really really tall in order to see the bathroom at this angle.

Option #2 has a much lower horizon line. Rose would have to be a midget to see things at this angle but I justified it by saying this helps highlight how intimidated she is. The sink looks much bigger than the stalls though.

I'm not in love with either option but I don't know if it's worth it to draw another one. It's an important shot but it isn't the only big one left. I'm going to take a break for now and try animating something else.

Week 3: Lip sync

At long last, TALKING appears in my thesis. Once Careen helped me out, it turned out to be a lot of fun. I'm still intimidated by the tikbalang but a friend suggested studying Donkey from Shrek. Hopefully that helps.

For now, though, I'm just enjoying listening to Rose.

Week 3: Even MORE Water Effects

I've been working on Rose getting blasted with rainbow water for the last couple of days. I'm not done yet and I'm waffling about whether or not my latest bit works.





I am worried that, because the splash is so big, you won't be able to see Rose once I color everything. I tried having the rainbow narrow because, in my head, it was concentraiting in one place. However, I'm worried that it actually looks like the rainbow is slowing down and about to stop. Opinions?


If it helps to see shot 52 alone, here it is.

Week 2: Rough Animation

Earlier this week, I made a rough schedule. However, over the weekend, I finished almost two weeks worth of work so it clearly wasn't an accurate schedule. I'm going to make a much more intense one to help me push myself. Aim for the moon and all that jazz.

Here's what I completed this weekend.



They are some of the easier shots but, even still, I feel pretty good. I'm expecially proud of the "water" animation.

Hopefully, the monsters won't be too hard, although I am still a bit nervous. If anyone has references on how to animate a horse's head or a bat's wings, I'd appreciate the help.

Edit: Oh man, guys. The begining of this shot isn't good but I'm SO PROUD of the ending.

Week 1: Animatic

Since I've switched the order of a lot of the classroom shots, they don't quite line up. I'll fix that during clean up. I'm also going to go through all my audio again and pick better/the best lines. These are just the ones I threw in there as place holders.

At the end, Rose starts laughing at how ridiculous this whole situation is. I'm open to suggestions for better ways to show this.

Winter Break: Pee Pee Dance

Over the break, I've been very passively animating. My brothers started school today so I'm going to try to get more serious about my animation schedule.

Since I've been back, I've shown my animatic to people who hadn't seen it since summer. They had a lot of good suggestions so I'm going to switch some shots around and tweak the ending. The big after effects file with all my shots in one place is on my school computer though so I've been working on more rough animation instead. I'll make an updated animatic first thing once I'm back in LA.

A lot of people didn't understand that Rosalinda has to go to the bathroom during the classroom scene. Hopefully these updated shots will make it clearer!

Faculty Review

Good luck, everyone!

Week 14: Pee Pee Dance

Tonight has been dedicated to the art of the Pee Pee Dance. Sadly, my attempts have been less than successful. It's such an odd motion!



Since this didn't feel right, I decided to do some research.



I watched several other videos and sketched out poses as I noticed them.

While these are an improvement, I'm still not happy. I might have to reframe this shot in order to make it work. A lot of the pee pee dance has to do with foot placement. A full body shot of Rose might have more impact.

Never did I think I'd put THIS MUCH effort into mastering the pee pee dance.

Week 14: Clean Up

Happy Belated Turkey Day! I hope everyone rested over the break. We all needed it.

Since the semester is ending soon, I've decided to focus on clean ups. My main goal is fixing up the classroom scene. Rose isn't twitchy enough right now. I want her to look INCREDIBLY uncomfortable for the faculty review.

Shot 3 was the first shot I animated this semester so Rose varied a lot keyframe to keyframe. She's much better now!

Shot 21 is after Rose sees the magic door and before the boy's bathroom is revealed.

Shot 69 is after the magic door melts away and before she walks off screen for the last time.

Week 13: Cutting Down

This week, I met with Trixy. I'm not sure what I expected her to say but what she did say took me by surprise. She felt that the bathroom scene was too long. In hindsight, it was obvious.  I've been lengthening my animatic every time I touch it. My week 3 animatic was 3:34 while the week 12 one is 4:36!

Based on Trixy's suggestions, I've redone the bathroom scene. The rainbow sound is, of course, temporary. I just needed something BIG for that moment.



In case you want to compare and contrast, here's what the bathroom scene looked like for seminar.



The short version drops 6 shots, making it 13 seconds shorter. Of course, shorter doesn't necessarily mean better. If I want to, I know that I can finish the longer version. This is all about what works better as a whole. I do like some of the new gags but part of that might be the fact that they are new.

I'd really appreciate some feedback so that I can nail down my game plan. Should I stick with what I had before? Switch to the short one? Mix and match? Do another even shorter cut?

Edit: Last night, before I went to sleep, I had the two videos "race" each other. It was gave me a better sense of how the edits effected the overall timing but, more importantly, it was funny.

Week 12: Animatic for Seminar

This is the animatic that I put on HAL for seminar. There are a few whoopsies like a frame disappearing or the sound being too loud that I'd like to tweak tomorrow if that's allowed. If not, this ought to be good enough to get a critique. I just don't have any more time to work tonight.

Edit: Updated it!

Week 12: Entering and Exiting

When I finished roughing out Rose entering and exiting the bathroom, I realized she is really small in the frame. I'm not sure if I want to reframe it or if her tininess is okay.



The smirk at the end was added in last minute. I like it but I need to tweak the shots after it to match her new pose/attitude.

Week 11: Test Colors

This picture begs for a caption but I'm not feeling witty enough right now.

Week 11: Animatic

Next week is a real beast for me in terms of schoolwork so I wanted to finish this ASAP. I don't know how much else I'll be able to do for Tuesday but hopefully this is enough to get a good critique!



Now that I've listened to my thesis, there are a few rough shots I want to tweak. The way Syr delivered Rose's lines doesn't always match my rough take at Rose's acting. However, I am REALLY happy with the way the teacher and the mermaids create atmosphere. They crack me up.

Rosalinda and the mermaids have their actual voices. Mar agreed to be the teacher at the beginning and I'm actively questing for a man with a deep, booming voice to be the tikbalang. I have tons of other little sounds (grunts, screams, grumbles, heavy breathing, etc.) that I'll probably add in at some point but, for now, I'm happy.

Finding all those sound effects has convinced me that I need professional help. My brain just doesn't do audio. I'm still devoid of ideas for how the rainbow and magical door should sound. Suggestions are much appreciated.