Updated Password Protected Reel plus Why Animation Presentation Notes

http://vimeo.com/39311929

The above link is password protected. 

 Okay, so progress update for this week: 

Length of the total film: 4 min 43 seconds

Finished Key Pose Animation (need more in-between drawings if I have time): 3 min 55 seconds

Finished Sound Recording: all voice actors's voice acting,

Length of unfinished animation:48 seconds

time left: 20 days before animation due, 12 days before sound due

emergent tasks should be done immediately: animation -- Larry's drunk speech, Liya's kind offering

                                                                        layout -- Liya's family house

                                                                        Music -- a 20 seconds composition for Ethan's traveling 

                                                                        Sound Effects -- car driving and Foley sounds

Also, the below is my presentation notes on topic "Why your grad film has to animated? What did you get from the editing assignment?"

I believe that the notes below will state my points clearly and concisely. I will just write a short paragraph explain a bit more about why this has to be an animated short. First of all, I enjoy looking at drawings much more than photographs in most of the cases, and animation, which is a huge collection of drawings constructed time-based medium naturally become my favorite medium of art expression. Also, with animation I gain total control on every aspects of my film, that I can easily create or change the locations where the story happened, camera angles, weather, the outlook of my characters and visual style. Just by drawing these things out instead of hiring actors or arranging real sets or customs can save tons of money. Furthermore, I believe the great potential with animation as an art method. Animation is not a genre, and it should never be limited to only cartoons or fantasy stories. I found real life has tons of story materials worth to be extracted and presented, and I have no intention to leave these behind. So, here we are, my film, which is a story extracted from real life event, depicted through live-action-film narrative structure, animated using digital puppets, stop-motion animation process plus hand-drawn in-between, is coming soon. To sum up my film, please just regard this piece as an experimental hybrid of animation and live-action film.

              

 

Updated Grad Film Production Reel (20120313)

http://vimeo.com/38485611

Password protected again... I feel one day I will get really tired of using the "PASSWORD PROTECTED" phrase, that I may change it to funnier names or some sort. Anyway, I will write a quick report about my week's production and progress.

So far, 127 seconds which is 2 minutes 7 seconds, of animation done. Few of these animation need more refinements, but mostly ready and done.

The total length of animation is now stretched to 4 minutes 45 seconds, which is something I need to be careful of. Certain scenes needed to be shorten by the length, and I don't want it to be more than 5 minutes as final result.

Progress for this week: 29 seconds of animation produced for this week, not including 5 seconds of animation from last week that has been revised in this week. A new scene of Ethan's bedroom at Larry's house is built. Puppets in the night garden are ready for animating.

Emergent progress needed for the next 4 days of production: 1 scene of Liya's family living room must be built with polished layouts and puppets. Larry's drunk speech needed puppets and animation blocked in. I need to finish rough animation as quickly as possible before March 20th, and hopefully with one voice actor/ actress's voice recorded in sound studio.

2 minutes 30 seconds animation more to be finished. Means at least 30 seconds of animation per day to go... The positive part is most scenes are ready with layouts and puppets to launch the animation work.

Anyway, need to get hours of more sleep and then go to work!

Gradfilm Updated Reel (20120305)

http://vimeo.com/38007842

Again, sorry folks, the link above is PASSWORD PROTECTED! I feel really bad  I have to declare this each time. Anyway, hopefully there will be a trailer coming soon during the middle of March when I got official voice actor into the sound recording studio.

New progress for this week: 33 seconds of animation done. One layout done. One new scene created. A new scratch soundtrack with few corrections of dialogues created and blocked in. I missed Friday and Sunday as working days for this week as I have to submit homework for other class, too. Ten days left before my planned deadline for all rough animation blocked in.

Production speed: fair.

News: I became 22 years old last weekend. I need to present my work to three professors tomorrow. Need to go home and sleep now. Stay alive and positive!!!

Grad Film Production Reel Update (20120227)

http://vimeo.com/37569486

     Again, the above linked video is protected by my old password. All my recent updates about my grad film production videos are kept private.

     Anyway, the progress for this week is just some more images and very few seconds of animation and special effects done. I have calculated my speed of doing work, and figured out that I need minimum 8 full working days, around 100 hours, to be able to finish my animation. Then I can go to post sound production, which I am really eager to do!!! I am quite behind on my sound track work for my grad film, but the good thing is I am on schedule with my visual animation production. And there are still 17 days left before the animation deadline I set for myself. After March 15th, I am going full time work on sound track. The positive side of the story is I am both the sound designer and animator for my own film, so I do have more flexibility for editing even at the post sound production stage. Yet it bothered me when I listened to my current scattered sound track each time while working in premier. I am thinking about working on some background sound effects collection for tomorrow, to give myself a bit relaxing time.

     For people who have my password on vimeo, hope you enjoy my progress of the week.

Energy Charts for Editing Revisions Assignment (Grad Film Production120221)

     Here are three energy charts for the editing revisions assignment, depicting my practice in editing of my story.

     The first chart is a reversed energy chart created for my reversed editing cut. The exercise, as I mentioned in my earlier blog post, aims to create a different look at the story in order to inspire more insights. The second chart demonstrates my second WIP reel created from the insights I gained from the first reversed cut. The third chart is another attempt for editing.

     Along the exercise, I found myself more sensitive towards the timing of editing, and how to respect its time-based quality. How time has been unfolded in my story? Why one cut needed to be longer than the other, what has been the reason for the cut, how important one scene is for the whole story, and how much time should I leave this shot on screen, such questions and thoughts kept jumping in through the process. From this exercise, I found a deeper connection with my story than ever before. I start to keep a real close eye on every single shot for its purpose, meaning, function, the way it is represented, length, color, camera angles, and sound. I feel more confident despite the story has been broadly altered for its representation each week.

     Anyway, here are the charts. For those who have my vimeo video link password, you can compare the energy charts with my editing revisions videos on vimeo. Cheers!

Updated Reel (grad film production 120220)

http://vimeo.com/37151427

Guest editor critque session

http://vimeo.com/36521732

     The above link is my latest video of my grad film project. It is protected by my old password again. For this week we have guest editor Chritine Stewart visiting our class and provided insightful critiques. Chritstine viewed my work (the above link) and said apparently there are a lot of themes in this complex story. It has comments on classes, polictics, culture differences, races, and youth. Fluid is one obvious visual motif to pick up, like scenes with rainining and pouring tea. And my drawings have the painterly, liquidy look, which goes with the motif. Christine recommanded me to use this motif more for editing.

     She also suggested me to consider carve out certain parts of the story to strength the whole. Scenes with food and rain seemed to work typically well for the story. She asked questions about the dinner scene happened in Larry's family and asked me why I wanted to show the speech of both Larry and Lily. She also recommanded to consider show certain compassion from Larry, instead of depicting him as a flat character, so that Larry's friendship with Ethan can be indicated more clearly. Christine said one thing that was really important to me. She pointed out that the audience would only care about the later struggle between Ethan and Larry, if I show their friendship, otherwise the audience would not care about their fight at all. This is one aspect I have never thought about. I think I may do someting with the dinner scene for this week to make the story stronger. Christine also suggested that every cut must have a clear aim and it must make clear sense to me in the first place. I may need to arrange a further meeting with her when I came up with a more refined version of the story.