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26 February 2010
Posted in: Animation, Short Film - Idea
Opening Shot
It has been a busy week but I managed to get through most of the storyboards for the film. Rather than try and make a series of thumbnails, a bad idea by the way, I decided to commandeer one of the sketchbooks I hadn’t used yet for the task. Although index cards are normally preferred, I’ve been running around too much to make a proper storyboarding wall. Instead I’ll scan the pages and put them into my app so I can edit the animatic on my phone.
The most difficult parts of the film to conceptualize are two “story within a story” sequences which need to be bold graphically and have very simple story arcs. The shot setup is a bit odd in that the doll has to flip the pages off then have the wind carry the pages behind the foreground so they can be framed over the doll’s shoulder. Then once framed the pages need to continue flipping through even when they are not being torn off the stack. I don’t have this sequence shown here, but I’ll make sure my animatic is shared at some point.
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17 February 2010
Posted in: Animation, Short Film - Idea
Turn Around of the “Idea”
A new website, a year, and now a new film. I realized that my previous film was far to complex to finish on my own in a reasonable amount of time. The main problems with “Riot” are too many characters and an overly realistic design. In developing my new film I have outlined a single main character with only a couple sets. By building a story on a single place and a single character I can focus on the animation rather than many different characters and sets.
The “Idea” as I am currently calling it, is about an idea come to life from a stack of paper. Simple. Probably a film that has been done many ways before. My objective to do my own take on a common story and see if it draws and audience.
Here goes. Read the rest of this entry »
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1 December 2009
Tags: Front Page Showcase
Posted in: Animatic Builder, Animation
The Redesigned Animatic Builder timeline.
During the past few weeks I have been diligently updating Animatic Builder with new features and a completely new interface. Overall the main idea of the App hasn’t changed; building and maintaining a sequence over a range of any internet connected devices. What in the release makes that goal easier? Quite a bit.
From the start the whole App has been rebuilt with an AJAX, or asynchronous, connection so the user can modify the sequence without the delay of reloading page each time a change needs to be saved. Every on page change is made once a user focuses away from a changeable element. As well, each change effects the sequence immediately so a duration takes effect right as it is made.
The playback system has changed drastically as well. The most obvious alteration is the introduction of a self-centering elastic layout which keeps the current frame in the center of a browser window and when the browser is re-sized the whole layout expands around it to any size. Read the rest of this entry »
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7 September 2009
Tags: Art, Front Page Showcase, JavaScript, jQuery, The Paperless Animation Studio, User Interface
Posted in: Animatic Builder, Animation, Short Film - Relax - On Hold
The Animatic Builder timeline.
For this update I am going to give an overview of a new online application I have developed over he past couple of weeks to aid in pre-production, Animatic Builder. If you are unfamiliar with storyboards or animatics there are overviews here. Essentially where storyboards are the first visual organization of a film idea, an animatic is the next step adding a duration to each storyboard so the pacing of a film can be developed. Animatic Builder is designed to make creating storyboard and animatic sequences easier by keeping a sequence and it’s associated content in a central location accessible from virtually anywhere within an intuitive user interface.
The core idea of Animatic Builder is that a sequence can be timed out, played back and updated from a web browser without the need for movie compression, emailing large files and maintaining timeline files. With a concept and a set of images, a timed out sequence can be arranged and played back in just a few minutes. Animatic Builder is not meant to replace a non-linear editor such as Final Cut Pro but for planning out a scene or short movie during pre-production. The functionality of the app will be focused on building sequences with only pre-production information, keeping the app lightweight and accessible from any modern browser. Animatic Builder keeps a sequence and it’s necessary files contained for easy access.
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21 August 2009
Tags: 2D CG, Front Page Showcase, Hand Drawn, The Paperless Animation Studio
Posted in: Animation, Short Film - Relax - On Hold
I have been very busy the past couple weeks, unfortunately not on my personal animation. On slow weeks such as this, rather than trying to stretch out a few scattered drawings, I will go into the techniques I am using to make the film. First I’d like to go over a recent addition to Photoshop, the timeline. It seemed rather odd to add a timeline but looking at the whole scope of Adobe’s product line, Photoshop is fast becoming the hub of Adobe’s catalog. The program you need to get any type of media done, which makes sense, the essential element of any piece of a graphic, film or software is the layout of the frame.
Down to the basics, why not Flash or After Effects?
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Opening Shot
Turn Around of the “Idea”
The Redesigned Animatic Builder timeline.
The Animatic Builder timeline.
Whitney Krape
