{2 minute mark} and The Set Turns

Hey Guys,

Finished a shot sunday night....which put me over the 2 Min mark...It seems that Im moving really fast....but I sence a slowdown a comin.It has been nice x ing off finished shots from my boards.

We officially Turned the set around for a big series of people POV shots. These are really important and really challenging shots.I am very Excited! It reallly felt Like I was turning a giant stone wheel that was opeining a new exciting tomb that is full of treasure waiting to be discovered. A turning point indeed.



I will spend this entire week sculpting dog heads. I set my goal of 3 heads a night.
This should set me up for a few tests next week. A prance test anim for the dog and a few tests with the Gate technology. I'll be picking up the fence and replaceing it every frame for some pretty big shots....so its got to be real solid.This I am appreciatively leaving up to shel to solve.{Im very Lucky}

so.... a few weeks ahead till I get a new shot for the Film....but it will be a Huge step taken when finished....Plus a good 7 or 8 seconds of footage.



jriggity

ANIMATION EDUCATION -- RUN RICHARD RUN

shel here: our son shamus is between shots (he's been using our extra set up for a school project) so i borrowed the rich guy (richard wealthington) to do this quick run test. so fun to get my hands on a puppet again!






run test from handmadeheros on Vimeo

learned alot about posing this time around, and the timing part is getting easier so that's cool, and i'm starting to "sense" when a frame is right, still don't always know when they're wrong but there's a feeling when the balance and the pose and placement is just right that goes "AHHHH, YES!" those frames are so satisfying to click!

ANIMATION EDUCATION Try Try Again

SHEL HERE with my latest test: the assignment was to make a ball jump generating it's own momentum while paying attention to the arch of the jump, easing in and out, and squash and stretch. (for some reason the last four frames got cut off when i put it on vimeo, he actually zooms off screen at the end).






squash and stretch ball jump test from handmadeheros on Vimeo

this was my 3rd attempt. the first test was pretty good (got a B) but the arch was off a bit coming down and the green guy just jumped and zoomed off (and i thought, hey, wouldn't it be way cooler if the orange guy would follow him off?). the second one was much better (A), except i added that rocking part but didn't use enough easing in and out at the ends (and i realized, hey, wouldn't it be way cooler if the little green ball would actually bump into the big orange ball?). it was interesting to notice that while each attempt was getting better than the last in form (and way cooler), i found that they were diminishing in charm. i'm very familiar with this phenomon in dance performance so i'm assuming that's what true there will be true here too, by learning and honing the basic animation skills, one can get to the point where it works the first time out when it's got that fresh, improvisational, we're all discovering it at the same time feeling to it. that's my goal, to get to a place where i have the skills to improvise good animation.

all three tests were really fun to make, i'm loving how malliable and alive the clay feels compared to the foam puppets. and even though it wasn't as fresh feeling to me, this last test got an A+ and that's super inspiring, cuz even though my teacher does in fact like me, he's a hard ass (i mean, he has very high expectations!) so an A+ means something.

Edwardo Action Figure!

Hey Guys,

I was visited this last sunday by a friend and obvious character inspiration {G money Vera}.He is a Powerfull Game designer for videogame companies all over california.

G, me and shel.....have plans of doing a project together after My film is finished....starting next year.....aftyer our meeting we sent him off with a gift from {Stunt Puppet Pictures} His very own G money action figure.

I though it was a cool pic.....

I also finished the Touguy Exit....which turned out really cool...I definately think its my best yet.....

For this sunday I have been resculpting the puppy from the little girl sequence. I will reshoot this due to some rethinking of the motives of her charcater...This will be the last shot with this camera set up. I am then moving into the Dog cage soon and Im excited about it!!



jriggity

ANIMATION EDUCATION - tail test (and a rubber duck just cuz)

okay, i think my teacher might like me or something cuz he gave me another A (yeeehee!).






tail test from handmadeheros on Vimeo

this is my most recent test. the instruction was to do an ease in and ease out test with a tail. i had to do it blind again (son shamus is still working on the set to finish up his stop mo school project) but it's not that many frames so it wasn't a big problem. i'm very much looking forward to getting back to pushing some puppets and using a frame-grabber again though!

i also made some set props for dressing the dog set: ducks, electric box for the wall, dog bowls (one strong one for sitting there and one malliable one for Gerald the dog to chew up), another padlock for the gate, etc. i love sculpy, so much fun to play with (and we discovered something called "sculpy clay softener" which makes the old dried up or too hard sculpy soft and mushy again and makes my fingers happy.)

FUEL TO THE FIRE inspiring new friends

justin and i are headin into this week fat, full and happy. we filled up on INSPIRATION sunday when the amazing Shelley Noble http://notesfromhalfland.blogspot.com/ with her guy Paul and Michael Granberry http://www.redhatchetfilms.blogspot.com/ came to play. OPEN, FUN, LOVELY each of them (not to mention 3 of the nicest people you're likely to meet). though we met online, it felt like old friends walking in the door. we showed 'em our sets and puppets and shots and kids; took 'em down in the "hole" where we all worked up an apppetite by sword fighting, boxing, climbing, bouncing, bungeeing, swinging and such; we ate grub (didn't taste so bad this time, so we are improving on the hospitality front); we watched Suzie Templeton's Peter and the Wolf (which was insanely inspiring and especially fun to watch with other stopmo freaks); but very best of all was the conversation that wove through it all. it's so exciting to hang out with people who "get it". we talked about puppets and sets and stories and and how we all got started in the first place. we talked about motivation and balancing real life with stop mo schedules. we talked about theater and musicals and pakour (google it, it's pretty damn cool!) and life and art. we talked about how stop mo is addictive and meditative at the same time. sharing the passion with these guys just fueled our fire. justin and i often talk about how grateful we are to the online stop mo community for all the friendly and generous support they've freely given, so i guess it's no surprised that as we begin to meet them in real live person it's just like meeting up old with friends.

HANDS AND A BOWLING BALL

Shel here: It's been a fun day.....made a couple hands.....




and dropped a heavy ball. (Almost forgot to pick up our daughter from her playdate though.....this stuff is dangerous!)






bowling ball drop test from handmadeheros on Vimeo

ANIMATION EDUCATION - the dreaded ball bounce

hey guys, shel here--posting my second assignment from the justin rasch school of animation.






ball bounce test from handmadeheros on Vimeo

i was dreading the ball bounce so i'm relieved to say that it turned out to be pretty painless. very nice to do a 20 minute animation actually!! i did it twice, my first test i took about a million too many pictures (very slo mo bounce). i'm getting squeezed out of stage space here with justin shooting the puppy in the garage and our son shamus in the office (crunching to finish a year-long stop mo project for school). so i shot that first test blind with our little family pocket camera and edited the frames in stopmopro. after many deleted frames it turned out to be a pretty good bounce, editing so much felt like cheating but i definitely learned alot about timing that way (my head spins when i try to comprehend what it must have taken to do this stuff before computers!). the good news is some of the learnin stuck, cuz when i went back and did this second test i didn't have to edit any frames at all! i passed and am now on to balls with tails..... i don't think i'm going to get my hands on a stage big enough for puppets for quite awhile but when i do, ya'll will be the first to know!

TENNESSEE AND SARA BETH IN THE HOUSE

As relative newbies to the stop mo world, we were super excited that pros like Tennessee Reid Norton and his wife Sara Beth took us up on our offer to come over and pow wow at our place. And though they stayed a good long while, it turned out to be not nearly long enough.

They are GOOD PEOPLE, chill, open, friendly, together, very professional, with great energy and so much talent, skill and experience…..

We totally bombarded them with frisky puppiness. We showed them our set up, puppets and some of Justin’s unedited shots (and almost all of our brilliant children’s art as well-- which they were very gracious about). We also gave them the rundown of our story and got some great advice about lights, cameras, puppets, etc. (not to mention picked up on some very cool stop mo lingo….like “sticks” for tripod for instance. wow.).

We cooked some pretty bad food which they politely ate anyway (it takes a special kind of talent to make bad food on a grill!).

Our home tends to be fairly bouncy with bodies simultaneously ricocheting through space on multiple trajectories which can be very distracting (and a bit overwhelming) but Tennessee and Sara Beth took it in stride and even gamely joined in (Tennessee has a pretty mean front flip on the trampoline by the way!).

Justin’s best friend since Jr. High was here, and two of our 3 kids. My folks stopped by (who coincidently met Tennessee and Sara Beth before we did because they live in a retirement community with Tennessee’s folks--and Christina Cegavske of Blood Tea and Red String has family who live there as well--go figure!?!). But somehow amid all the friskiness and chaos we managed to hear about some of their dreams and goals too….

INSPIRING!!!

That they are working together, dreaming BIG and MAKING THEIR DREAMS HAPPEN is particularly exciting, especially since their dreams aren’t so different from ours…….

We feel so fortunate to be able to connect online with the StopMo Community. We’ve been able to pick up so much info so fast mostly all because people online have been incredibly open and generous with sharing what they know. Tennessee has definitely been one of these people and meeting and hanging out with he and Sara Beth was definitely an honor. We’re hoping we can do it again, only next time maybe we’ll get a baby sitter, put on our big kid shoes, and find a quiet restaurant somewhere…..

But wait!..... that’s not all! Check it: We have a big date next weekend too, with two more super stop mo online community rock stars. Check it out here in a week to find out who/how/what and whatnot.

A NEW PUPPET and an ANIMATION EDUCATION UPDATE

hey guys, shel here, i'd like you to meet the beginings of my first puppet..... i don't really know entirely who she is yet or what it is she needs to do but she is most definitely what came out when i sat down to make my own puppet to animate. i'm pretty sure that she has some super powers (or at least she thinks she does) but they haven't revealed themselves yet (maybe by the time she's been molded, armatured, foamed, painted and clothed this will become more clear).

one thing i'm planning on doing differently with her (than we have done with our past puppets) is to give her real cloth clothing, so that should be fun to play with.

in the mean time, i'm still intently pursuing my animation education. i decided to ask justin to teach me how to animate (which he kindly agreed to do). i had put this off until now because i wanted to feel it out on my own (of course i've been incredibly fortunate to have him helping me while i've been "feeling it out on my own" with all the tech stuff and good advice and support and info on the actual animation, but he was really good about not telling me what i should do or how i should do it--he knows me well!). our plan is that i will do one animation exercise that justin will assign and then one fun shot of my own, back and forth and eventually they will maybe start to integrate.

so now that i'm officially in the justin rasch school of animation my first exercise was to move an object across a straight line showing easing in and easing out. which i did and i got an A! this means i'm on to my own shot this weekend, and next week i'll do whatever he has up his sleeve for me next (i'm afraid, though, that it's going to be the dreaded bouncing ball excercise!).

{Shot 6} All keyed out

Ok .....so tonight was spent Gearing up for my next dialog sequence...{tough guys Exit}

I created my exposure sheet with key poses and moments mapped out for a map through the animation....I hav'nt been doing this my past few shots due to feeling a bit too planned or stiff in the process....its always fun to do a shot not knowing where youll end up....

but , I decided to go back to planning keys and offsets on this one because I really want it to look good and I want to know exactly where I want to go and what Im gona do before I start...

so heres a bit of process for the pile....I hope to start tomorrow in the very late hours of the evening.

over an out.

jriggity

RESHOOTs HAPPEN!

justin again....

As yesterdays work day went on....I bubbled inside with unsatisfacsation.....I felt without even looking at the shot that it needed to be better... I got home from work , we had {family Movie night} put the kids to bed.

Then Shel looked at the shot} She thought it was good but maybe I should go back to it after another shot.....She also didnt like how the Fat Toughguy characters face was being sliced by the bars.....This was enough for me to know I needed to reshoot.

I now clearly could see it wasnt good enough......as small a shot as it is {4 sec} it was missing some anticipation that could really sell the visual.....It just plain wasnt good enough.

I practiced coin magic for an hour and then into the {Hot} garage I went.....mind made up and clearly understanding where I went wrong on the previous nights work.....I poped in some seasons of FUTURAMA..... and off to the races.

I am so glad I did....The animation is 100% better now.....I gave the Fat Toughguy some tall shoes that got his face out of the bar.....and inproved the animation and timing all around.I am super happy I did it.

Its much easier to do reshoots with 3-4 sec shots....as apposed to 10-20....Ha!

Another thing I wanted to write about is how I'm animating through a fence.....im using dental sculpting tools to do alot of long distance adjusting...This is wild but........I hardly notice anymore when Im reaching over it , through it or around it....its quite a funny way to work.

I was a little worried when I first started that it would drive me crazy .....but shels sturdy construction allows me to lean on it , bump it and not even worry about things moving.

Powerfull shel !!!

now on to the Trash talking Toughguy sequence...should be really fun!

I LOVE Carlitos face in the bottom pic!! Hes like.....whos this fool think he is touchin my dome???Ha!!

jriggity

Shot 5 Finished{I think}

Well , another late night and another shot in the can.

I did a short reaction shot for the toughguys last night and finished it.....its one of those shots that Im not sure how I feel about.......I dont like it but I dont dislike it either...

Its a small reaction but Im a bit picky ...... I would like to not have a shot in this film that bugs me every time I watch it....so I ll have to decide soon.

otherwise its on to another marathon Toughguy shot . It should be funny if I animate it right....its gona take a full week of evenings ......so I got to get my beans up for this one.

In the mean time....heres some more early sketches of the Gerald character....he had alot of different shapes from when he first was invented to where he landed.

jriggity

Shot 4 Finished {Toughguys Entrance}

Hey guys...

another shot finished.......Pfffeeeewww...This was supposed to be an easy shot....maybe 10 seconds long I thought {19 in the end}jeeez!!

. It was so much more work than I would have guessed.......I thought it was going to take 1 night....maybe 2 TOPS. It ended up being 5 nights of work.

One of my issues was back tracking..........My first night of animating was a total fail...2 attempts at the {Skinny toughguy-Carlito} walk didnt work out...

Night 2 I finally got the walk right but felt one of his moves was a bit too quick....so night 3 had more back tracking. NIGHT 4 I finished the animation....but I HATED {Toughuy Fat- Mannys}

walk......so.........

again....Night 5.....and sucess! It was all worth it because the puppets look great on film and the animation is clean and appealing...{I think at least} Ha!

well Im going to reward myself with a double feature Friday night.....and Sunday I start a New truly short shot ....3 sec maybe 4....Tough guys giving a reation to what they see in the cage.

also here are some of the early development sketches to find what these characters were born from.....I had these on my hard drive so I thought Id post a few.... to celebrate the finished toughguy entrance.

over an out..

jriggity

An Animation Education HEAD SCRATCHER

http://www.vimeo.com/clip:181833

Hi, Shel here, and up above is what's left of the animation test i did this week. i felt it was a fail (though Justin kindly said he thought i was making improvement in smoothing most of the the archs out in the walk i deleted). i wanted to do a push test (cuz you know, i've got walking, jumping and pulling under my belt now....HA!). so i had the big guy here walk up to a box to push on it....but when he got there i realized that i hated his walk (i think a zombie bit him while my head was turned) AND the the box was way too small for a hulking stud as himself......big sigh.....so he just stood there and scratched his head, as perplexed as me and said, "Waa doo wa ma duuuuh wid leeeee baaa?" which of course is zombie for "What did you want me to do with this little box?" So i cut out the walk, but i kind of liked the head scratch so i saved it, you can see it on vimeo if you click the link (but don't blink!). I'm not sure what I'm going to do next, I'm as perplexed as my poor zombied puppet, i think just keeping on trying out new moves is a bit silly cuz i have so much to learn about every move, and really just the basic principals of animation..... but on the other hand, just by moving stuff i'm getting good experience...... so i'm trying to decide whether to push forward and try new moves or concentrate on actually learning the stuff i've already played with. justin says a bouncing ball is a good excercise, but then he also says do something that's fun.... I'm planning on another practice test tomorrow night, so i'll have to figure it out soon!

JUNK MAIL!

HEY, CHECK THIS OUT, MAN!


It's Stunt Puppet Pictures first piece of junk mail! (Or any mail for that matter).