Friday, August 29, 2008

Animation Warm up !

Hey guys,

its been a while since Ive pushed some puppets {feels like forever -2d } ......so to relieve my mind I decided to do a one evening Dialog TEST for the {mind to hand} preparation for next weeks RobotChicken work. I picked out a quick clip and broke it down.



I forgot 2 big things about stopmotion - It takes 10 times longer to set up FOR A SHOOT than I ever remember...{SUCK - I hate set up!!} I also forgot how much you have to pay attention to all the body parts not just the acting areas. About a second in I remembered that and took it into the rest of the anim. You have to track every single body parts path the whole way through the animation.

OVERALL - the TEST was a success though - due to the warmin up the hands and remembering to pay attention too all aspects of the shot. I also used an animation lunchbox - which they use on the show....so it was good to get into their workflow.{Its a great tool by the way} I can see my animation quality jump ALOT if I keep useing it. The test also allowed me to flex my improvisation muscles - A shot rarely goes as planned....I use my pose choices at the begining of a shot as a guideline....The space and physical aspects of a puppet always throw off you plan.

FAILs of the test - My Stageing was weak and my poses wernt complimentary to the stageing.....I should have set up the shot specifically for my chosen poses or....chose better poses for that stageing. - Again- I just wasnt thinking clearly - Late and Tired.

Another thing that happened that I hate to see in my animation is everything is moveing at the same time....I really hate this and when I can stop it the animation quality jumps up ALOT! I really have to be very consious in my next test to stop this from happening again.

Timeing is everything in animation.....and I wish I Got a little more fun in this test than I did. Next time.

I also shot directly onto the cameras memory card....and ran out of room by the end of the shot.
Doooghh!! I guess Ill need a larger memory card next time.

over all.....I know I can and will do better. I Will try one more really quick test this weekend to make sure Im confident mentally before I work next week.

I hope you guys enjoy it.

justin - jriggity

7 comments:

Shelley Noble said...

Great performance--but NO! to death of puppets! I guess I'll stay away from RC!

Emily said...

It looks great!! Congrats on getting the job - good luck!

Anonymous said...

You can do BETTER than that? Dude- I can't even do 1/4 as good. I think I figured something out, though. Your tests don't have a lot of closeups in them. As a result, you can make your spacing larger in the poses. Just something I picked up on.

You'll still hafta teach me how you sneak in all those 1's (seemingly at random)- I noticed Shel does it too. What have you been teaching her? j/k

So, not content with working for THE Michael Granberry, you're gigging on the Chicken too, huh? And you said YOU were green with envy that I got to test at Laika- I'm purple with jealous rage!!

Ok, not really. I'm very glad to see that you get to work for Shadow. You deserve every bit of it.

Gregory Sesma said...

Looks great, I really like your Venture Brothers dialog.

Your film looks to be amazing.

Ryan McCulloch said...

Really nice man....... I love it, you'll fit in perfectly at RC. I wouldn't be surprised if they never wanted to let you go once they got their hands on you!

Craig Harris said...

HA!!! Thats a great piece man, I laughed my ass off watching the little girl get her head lopped off. Then debated checking myself into a mental health facility for thinking it was funny. In other words...(dot dot dot) You are definitely ready for Robot Chicken. Kick some ass Sea Bass!!!

Anonymous said...

Hey Justin,

I figured out why you had that weird frame pattern on all of the Quicktimes you've posted.

It's because you're animating on 2's @ 24fps but dropping the footage on a 30fps timeline. I never thought to scrub through it before, but now I see the pattern:

2224. I multiplied that times 3 and got 30. Man, I wish I had that kind of pulldown feature in my editing software...Do you release everything in Quicktime format?