Cotton Woolage

Here are a couple of clips of what I've been working on this week. Some decent progress, I reckons, despite wednesday being wiped out with stupid after effects problems. All sorted now though...


Cotton Wool from Retchy on Vimeo.


Cotton Wool - Take 2 from Retchy on Vimeo.

The shot's not finished yet, but it's nearly there - just need to sort out the colliding cotton wool movement and tweak the camera move a bit.

New Transition

Just been re-working the transition that I was unhappy with. I've decided to keep the whole film grounded in the hand drawn ink style, with various other medium working alongside it, as opposed to the distinct differences in style I had originally planned for each section.


Better Transition from Retchy on Vimeo.

Rubbishness

I've just wasted a week working on stuff that looks shit. Oh well. I'm referring to the bit, in the clip below, with the string, before it transitions into the phone. It just looks too out of place and breaks the continuity, as well as making the whole sequence too long. I think the transition from hand drawn pigeon to scratched film works pretty well, but the string bit is too detailed, complicated and generally shit looking.


Transitions from Retchy on Vimeo.

The annoying thing is that it's not even a particularly important bit of the film - I should be worrying about other stuff. I think I'll keep it hand drawn and similar to the previous transition now, which should take far less time to sort out.

Frank's Finished

We installed it at the bar last sunday and it's already been taken down. Bit of a short run, but it all seemed to go down quite well, with lots of positive feedback from the bar. Unfortunately the cool balsa wood TV frame that David made was too small and the projector too far away for the image to fit in the screen, so we just had to use the pull down projector screen that was already there. Bit of a shame, cos it would've tied it all together nicely, but these things happen...

Here's another bit of animation from the project, all cut out by hand and animated by David - I just did the speech bubbles.


Frank's Cut Out from Retchy on Vimeo.

I won't bore you with all the other bits, as they're kind of only relevant if you're sitting in the bar they were made for. Don't worry, you're not missing anything particularly amazing.

Proposal Re-Write

Here it is again. It's pretty much completely re-written, which I wasn't really expecting to have to do, but it was probably worth it really - it's much more focused and actually states what I want to do properly this time. I think. I think I thought that about the last one though, until my tutors got hold of it.

Mr. Pigeon

I've been putting this together today, just thought I'd post it to prove that I have actually been working. It's not the finished shot yet, but I reckon it's looking ok - just need to sort out the previous scene so I can work on the transition, which will involve trees and something or other happening with the negative spaces in between the wires...


Pigeon Test from Retchy on Vimeo.

Got to re-write bits of my proposal now. Oh happy joy joy.

16mm Film and Sound Test

Just put together a test for the telegraph wire abstract bit of my film. I just did a bunch of different tests with various inks and pens and stuff and combined a few of them in After Effects to see which ones would work best. I think the sections where there are more clearly defined lines, where I used a comb to scratch away the ink, work best with the twangy sounds I recorded today - a Slinky stretching and dangling in front of the mic.


16mm Ink Test from Retchy on Vimeo.

The final version will have the film going horizontally from left to right in HD format, which will involve scanning the film at about 1800 dpi, as opposed to projecting and filming it like I did here. I'm working (very slowly) on this at the moment, and I'll also put some more controlled hand drawn animation over the top.

CCTVs In Love

Another little bit for Frank's TV. I'll probably add a title to clarify it a bit more. We're definitely getting there now. David's sorting out all the wiring for the buttons - Tim ended up lending us his dvd player that is already wired up, which makes things a lot easier.


CCTVs In Love from Retchy on Vimeo.

My Masters Proposal

Here it is. A few more adjustments may need to be made, but this is the general idea. I'm working on a script as well to clarify exactly what happens, and then I'll move on to storyboarding, animatics and stuff. Here's a rough, unfinished version of the script too. I'll update it once it's finished.

Pooing Birds

Just uploaded another bit for Frank's TV. Some birds pooing. It may seem a bit random, but these are pictures they have hanging around the bar so it'll make a bit more sense when you're sitting there watching. Hopefully.


Birds. Pooing from Retchy on Vimeo.

We're meeting Tim Hunkin tomorrow to talk about technical stuff. You may have heard of him - he used to do stuff on telly and cartoons for the Gaurdian or Observer a while ago I think, and also some crazy arcade animation simulator type things that are on Southwold peer which he gave us a talk about. Tomorrow's meeting will hopefully clarify what needs to be done on the technical side of things for this project, as up until now I have been fairly clueless.