Red or Dead Meets VFX

So Most of the first section of our Red or Dead short has been animated.  I'm feeling ok with the speed at which we're going but I would like the other guy to move a little quicker...

Anyway on Tuesday the group banded together and we filmed the live action. We had one prop which was a dignified, scrappy make-at-home space ship...on strings! The intent was to make it look as home made as possible and make it move with all the grace of Thunderbird2. (I remember it had a tendency to wobble a little on takeoff) Once we'd got all the footage I sifted through it on Premier to yoink out the best bits.

Look! It's Awesome!

The good bit is we managed to get all the shots we wanted, exactly as we wanted...the bad bit is our lighting was a little poor (and as evidenced above the screen was kinda on the crinkly side) so, as the compositor I found my self having to rotoscope.

I don't mind so much. It's quite a simple shape so I'm able to key a fair portion without having alter too much and its simplicity also makes it easier to spot any inconsistencies with the outline.
Anyway, I've finished one shot so I'm eager to get at least three more done by the end of the week.
Sweet.

Next project...

So seagulls and stuff out the way I'm now currently working on my next project: Read or Dead.
Read or Dead is an alternative fashion brand which we have been tasked with creating a short for which captures all they're about. Oh and we had to incorporate a space baby (in astronaut kit of course) and also intertwine live action.

Ok so the boring bit. Research showed their shop and sight had a vintage and improvised appeal, which incorporated the use of a lot of retro print (although the company was founded in 1982 their print is very characteristic of earlier decades) so after some debate and discussion the group and I decided our short would be styled as a vintage toon from around the 1950s to 70s. UPA animation would be the ideal match.

This time I decided I would refrain from directing as I wanted to simply see how I would take to orientating the piece as a group. So far we have a finalised animatic, character designs and backgrounds are done and now I'm animating. I've done three shots in two days so I'm pretty pleased with the rate at which that's going but I haven't seen any animation from the other guy.

Animating again...

 



Next week I'd really like to start merging some live action footage as the sooner I can start the more time I can place on it which should mean I can make it look ok...

Chip is finished!

I got a project in on time! Yay!

I don't feel like doing much typing because I think I tend to say too much excess stuff plus I've come to the conclusion that a lot of the stuff I type ends up just sounding pretentious. So then, here is  the finished short I directed and animated. This project went smoothly, just as Project cheese started, but this time things continued at a good pace and I made sure I was constantly aware of the group's progress and made sure there were frequent updates. Anyway here it is.




Over all I'm pretty pleased with it. The only part I'd like to change would be the moment their eyes meet and the background goes red. If I ever get round to tweaking it I would make their eyes "slide in" over the previous shot. I think it would simply look smoother.

Anyway thats, that. Boom.