Dream # 507: See our film on the BIG screen.....

.........CHECK!

shel here:
(the pics with Gerald stuff in them are photoshop fantasy----but the reality is not far away!)

Justin and I just got back from the "beautiful and historic Landmark Rialto Theater" in South Pasadena, CA, where we will premiere our film for friends and fam on JANUARY 18, 2009 @ 5:00PM (save the date cuz you are all cordially invited--official invite to come). We met with manager Jeremy Willis to check out the space and see what the DVD quality looked like on the big screen....

For some reason neither of us was prepared for how EXCITING it was. WOW!

Just walking up to the theater got us all dancy happy (well, justin managed to contain the dancing part).....first of all there's the marque, just waiting for Gerald to light it up.....and then all this spanish baroque/egyptian detail carved and painted everywhere,

a sweet little ticket booth, grand sweeping stairs when you first walk in,

a charming little consession area...

and then the theater itself,

so over the top and huge inside with red velvet chairs and chandeliers and even a gargoyle with glaring red eyes guarding over the screen. Grandiose!

Jeremy was very generous with his time and offered to play the whole film, for some reason we hadn't expected that and soon found ourselves picking 2 of the 600 seats to sit down and watch our film.

Justin had huge goosebumps on his arms and a smile to match that was visible even in the dark.

I laughed out loud when first thing, our little 4" poodle bounced onscreen looking about 5' tall!

The sound was awesome...the picture looked great, no grain, which was such a lovely surprise.....in fact it was just un-high def enough to not show the cracking paint and flicker that makes us cringe everytime we've watched it at home. I found myself FEELING GERALD'S STORY, not just seeing the nicks and scratches (though the foley track felt a little too high to me.....) But the best part was hearing Jeremy LAUGHING and "AWW"ing.....so satisfying. He asked for a copy "My girlfriend's going to love this" he says.

Wouldn't it be fun if you all could come to the premiere (we have 600 seats)....it'd be so cool to meet you all in person.

Either way, you know we'll post about it!

{Geralds Last Day } The Poster

Hey guys,

me and shel have been hard at work on the Last bits that go with the release. The DVD Box cover - The Poster - The Trailer and Website.


We finished the DVD cover and the poster...... shel has about three different versions of the Trailer....and I am tonight and the rest of the week building the Geralds Last Day website....as well as my Animationrasch website of general artwork.

Heres the Final Cover.



justin

Post it note -Rich Animatic

Hey Guys,

another blast from the past.....i took the old 2d animatic {Rich Sequence} and threw the final music on it to see how it worked....well this one wasnt as clean but it works well in the films final version. We discovered and invented alot in this sequence on its way to being clear and fun.

I was personally the most concerned with this sequence at the editing stage....it was one of my favorite but It wasnt communicateing what I wanted.....after playing with it and adding some 3 shots or so it all worked out well.




I also found these crazy pics I completely forgot about.....jeeez....a 3d mockup of the Pound exterior set. I knocked this out in 20 minuets or so to get an idea on the actual layout of objects.

you can also see some pics of the first test images for the comp.

more to come!

jriggity

DONE.

SHEL HERE...

NOVEMBER 2008

DECEMBER 2005








2 years and 11 months later.....

• a few winters, summers, springs, falls
• countless nights of justin animating when he could've been sleeping
• [11 seasons of south park (twice over), 8 seasons of sienfeld, 4 seasons of futurama, 3 seasons of american dad and 2 seasons of duck tales playing in the background while justin animated ]
• over 10,000 photos
• 9 characters drawn, sculpted, sculpted again, molded and armatured
• many yards of armature wire
• over 40 puppets foamed and painted
• gallons of foam latex
• 4 sets
• hundreds of bricks
• thousands of tie down holes drilled
• 10 drill bits
• 3 cameras
• pounds of clay
• an entire jar of museum wax
• many bottles of paint
• bottles and bottles of zap a gap
• dozens of glue gun sticks
• rolls and rolls of duct tape
• hours and hours of editing
• 24 musicians
• 1 amazing composer
• tons of lessons learned
• 32 gallons of love
• 50 gallons of passion
• the perfect amount of helpful and friendly advice
• lots of new friends
• a whole new life focus
• 1 story told
  
  DONE.
  
  wow.
  
  whew.
  
  YAY.
  
  i've been sending out practically finished versions to lots of fests....and we should start hearing back in 3 or 4 weeks....
  

another fest blast:
and here's the sick part (especially considering we haven't officially celebrated yet): now, we are all super pumped up about our next flick. we've been working out the story on long hikes in Griffith Park and i like it. i'm itching to start figuring out the new puzzles, it's going to be a fun story to make. we are really close to putting our thoughts and images on paper. we've learned SO MUCH from Gerald (i was looking over an old production sched i made in early 2006 and noticed i had given us 1 month for post production---HA!). it feels completely different going in now with a sense of what we are up against. and like justin said earlier, we are trying to keep it really simple in terms of sets/characters/length.....no dialogue this time. so hopefully we can do it in a year. that's the goal, we'll see....... in any case, i'm definitely looking forward to the new journey.

we'll keep ya posted (of course!!)

Looking back.....Post it note Story Board INTRO

Hey guys,

I was going through some of my old files holding the special features in mind.....and I came upon a few cool things.......My original 2d animatics.....and a bunch of early concepts for the film.

I thought this might be cool to share with you guys....

Heres the intro with the modern music and some sfx.......It actually works pretty good. I did all the post it note story boards 2 plus years ago and I'm proud to have accomplished what I set out to.



Many things have changed....and some insert shots were added to clarify elements and make it all more entertaining...but the Core is all there.



Ill share all of the old animatics from this film so you can see where we added and where we strayed from the original designs......

also.....since this film was my first real experiance in stop mo....i thought I would post my very first gerald tests....I did these when I was decideing how I was going to tell this story...I just used my webcam and monkey jam....You will find every single beginner mistake in these tests...but I was havin FUN!!!



the animation is pretty horrible....but I had never moved clay or a puppet before..... It wasnt long after these simple tests that I was able to incorporate some of my animation skills into the medium....this is also when I decided to DIVE in and commit to telling the story in stop mo.

So near the end.....I think the film is looking great guys.....and I really think your gona like it.....looking through all the old pics and files its all that much YUMMIER remembering where it all started and seeing the Quality we Ended with..... THE LONG ROAD....

WHATS NEXT-?

Now that we are on the Cusp of finishing this film.....we are looking toward the next project...We are excited to say its going to be very different than this film but hopefully just as appealing. It is Cartoony and FUN....incase you thought we were straying to far from our roots.

We are going to use this next film as another training ground to improve the areas that we will need to be strong in to make our feature film. We will be Focusing on Cinematography , Lighting and ofcourse CLEAR Storytelling.

I look forward to shareing another films progress with you guys....but on a much more sane schedule. We are shooting for one to two sets....and 3 minuets in length.

jriggity