The final stretch

This is it, fellas... animation will be done be the end of this week, and from here on out, it's colouring, compositing and god knows what else. I'm not going to put up the animatic because most of the shots are animated, and I don't to spoil the whole thing... yet.

My brother David recorded a voice for my film last week, and here is the result. The infamous 'hit my face' shot is now complete!

Roll on, April!

Shots, shots, shots.

So, I tinkered with my schedule and decided I should focus on smaller shots this week. With March upon us, I figured it may be good to have a week where I get a lot of shots done, so I feel a little better about the amount of work I've gotten under my belt. Since last class, I've gotten 5 shots done, and I should be on track to have 2-3 more done by this Wednesday, bringing the grand weekly total of shots animated to a whopping seven! (or eight).

I do have newly animated shots, but a) they're not very interesting as standalone shots and b) they make better sense within the context of their scenes. For this reason, I'm not uploading any videos today... but rest assured that once I get back to some of Ray's more intricate shots, you'll be seeing plenty of new material!

I'll be tallying my list of completed shots later today, which will help figure out March's schedule a little more clearly. In the meantime, please enjoy this image of a real-life high-fiving cat!

More Ray!

Yeah, so, my blog posts are becoming less frequent, so apologies for all that. Here's some Ray!

Right now, I'm just going to focus on simpler shots before tackling the heavy duty animation ... I feel the more shots I finish, the better I'll feel about myself. Roll on, March! (Eeek!)

Blotto's done! (sort of)

So, over the weekend, I finished off all of Blotto's animation, except for shots in which both he and Ray talk. So I'd say his animation is about 90% complete. Hooray! Meanwhile I got started on Ray. Check it out!

 And just so you know, Kate's voice will be altered to sound more... um, phoney? I'll distort it in post-production.

Ray shouldn't take more than a month to complete. I kind of have no choice anyway... I need the remaining two weeks before the lock to animate the ending and refine some bits and pieces.

Meanwhile... I need to hire colourists and a sound designer. As a reader of this entry, it is your god-given duty to nag me into oblivion, until these tasks are completed. NAG AWAY!

A little bit overdue

Sorry I didn't have my work posted up on Monday. I wanted to finish this sequence before presenting it to the world. Behold!

Once again, the box seems to get  in the way of the animation, but this will all be resolved once the colouring begins.

Goal for this week: all of Blotto's lip-sync will be finished... though this doesn't count shots in which both Ray and Blotto speak. Oh, speaking of which, Ray is recorded, as you can hear in the clip!

Now, it's time for more working! Roll on, March 31st! (For those who aren't in the know, the 31st is ANIMATION LOCK... all of the animation WILL BE FINISHED BY THEN. Happy times!)

Heeeeyyy! Check it out!

Did a couple new shots and cut them together. Short but sweet. Behold!

EDIT: I just noticed after watching the clip that the box's colour makes it hard to see Blotto's face, especially in the first shot. Once the animation is coloured in, this should hopefully be fixed.

 In other news, we're closing in on the two-month notice before animation lock. There's still a lot of work to do, so I'm feeling a little swamped. Not to mention that I have loads of work to do for other classes.

On a more positive note, Adam Williams is providing the voice of Ray, and we'll be recording everything on Tuesday. Happy day! Also, I'm meeting up with my composer afterwards (the talented Dustin Painter) to start discussing the first pass for the film's score.

Boat Sequence!

So, I cut together a rough version of the hand-boat sequence. Some of the timing and sound still needs work, but it gives you a better sense of the complete scene.