Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Shakey Ground - Intern FIlmaker

Hey guys,

Been a bit Crazy at work{my day Job} this last week.....Our projects Unexpectadly on shakey ground and I have had to think of new options....
this has made a shifting in priorities and I have been a bit distracted.

Even though....I continued work and have managed to get 3 good shots out.

Dober's starting to work on the engines first.....welding away....I used a mini flash light to do the
flashing effect illuminating the engine{sparks} area as I animated. I started with a white type of light but then realized that it took on a bit too close to the blue screen color.

I then put an orange gel on the light to make sure my KEY didn't get confused....this worked nicely. This was a 10 second shot and got me through this last weeks Quota.

After a few nights of fixing and maintaining Dober's Heads....{they are all beat up and I have been putting it off}....hes been back to acting and telling our story.

I also had to do a P.O.V camera move that worked out pretty well with my trusty Manfrotto geared head. With some eyeballing and Dragon Stopmotion software I was able to do the animation fairly cleanly.






Shel putting the first Hole in the fleaship for upcoming shot.In Proving that GLD still has legs.......I'm glad to announce that GLD was accepted to its first London festival as well as Its first Russian{Moscow} fest. This is very cool to me that its reaching so far. We are Planning a weekend at Lake Arrowhead Film fest in a few weeks as well. This should be fun!

in our continuing stop mo adventures -

We took a trip over to our Intern's {Justin Connelly}FIRST FILM production over at USC.

Justin Connelly has had an Incredibly Hard deadline to make over the last weeks and has been working Nonstop to make it. He created 2 foam latex puppets One clay cotton puppet for gang of kids leaving school.
Eyebrows, eyelids and replacement horns-bells...a Full Set and lots of props on his way to telling a one minute short.
We were very excited to see his set and Puppets Painted and the very begining of the first animated shot. He is also geared up to when finished get his film scored by our own Robert Litton. I have to say that Robert has 3 stopmotion short films he is scoring soon and he seems to have cornered the market in Stopmo Music!

Its exciting times for all involved....and Its really thrilling to watch justin walking on his own in the early parts of his stop motion Journey.

Shel's Still working the Special features and We are getting CLOSE...

more to come.

jriggity

19 comments:

Alonso said...

hope everything shakes out okay at work, that kind of thing is always stressful.

Ha, I love that you're training your interns in the art of how to make every second productive :) Justin's stuff looks great.

Speaking of lights, I've been curious what you learned from Alia Houser? She's helped you on both stop mo projects. What were the professional tricks you guys learned from her?

When is Mr. Litton gonna add "puppet pusher" to his ever growing list of titles? Shel was animating a bit during GLD, isn't it time Robert took a try at it :)

Yaz said...

Yep, I know that shakey ground at work very well.. It has been similar here lately.

Looks like Dober is making a great work on the engines.

Colors of the Justin Connelly's puppets are very eye-cathing. Nice work on foam latex puppets there. Cartoon look and stop motion blended well I guess.

Shelley Noble said...

Shakey at work work? or on the film?
That pov shot looks fabulouso!

I need to mosey on over to that there USM film School (a mere minutes from my set <;^)) and git me wonna them Interns! STAT!) Man, do I need talented help.

Unknown said...

Awesome camera move, that tripod head looks like a monster. The 'stampede of kids leaving school' puppet is hysterical. Will we be able to see his final one minute short when it's finished?

a guy in a gorilla suit said...

all the best for the project !

and the shots look all so very promising... amazing stuff, for real !!!

And for the shots of your intern's first film - looks really great and makes me very curious about what the whole thing will look like ! Woooot !

Again: all the best for training on how to walk on shaky ground...

JON said...

I really dig that POV shot! Giving it that slight bounce back at the end of the zoom makes it feel very hand held. Good luck!

rich said...

awesome, Justin's film looks really cool. Can't wait to see it.

Dude nice cam move man. That worked nicely. :) and gratz on more film fests!! Look forward to seeing the trip out to Lake Arrowhead Film fest. Have fun!

Jeff Lafferty said...

Great update, thanks for sharing
Jeff

Grant's Animation said...

Excellent POV shot. Great post!

Anonymous said...

Great stuff and way to go Shel on the Dvd special features!

Emily said...

Hope things balance out for you - the film is looking amazing as usual. Wish I could animate with your skill!

Justin's piece looks great as well - love the bright colours, I want to see it move!

MT said...

Brilliance. It really is my most anticipated indy coming out of anywhere. Having so much fun with the constant updates. Have recently found I will be doing some stop motion of my own, may be calling upon you for some advice within the next few months.

Joel Brinkerhoff said...

Wow, pretty scary about the quake! Glad no one was hurt.

Just wanted to wish you a Happy Easter!

Anonymous said...

I didn't know about the POV, I really like the final movement.
Great work Justin and team :)

jriggity said...

Alonso} Yeah man....It shook and it ended up shaking all of the enployees right out of the building.We all got layed off last week.

Yeah..We are very proud of Justin's work....he really busted ass to make it happen.

We really didnt learn anything from alia except for cool technical names or lights and she introduced us to gels.

We only had her over once to set up the lights and then we are pretty much on our own from then on.

Ha!Puppet pusher Litton - I doubt that will ever happen.Hes more likely to push us puppet makers into moving faster.....than actually animating.

Yaz}Thanks....yep...hard times all over.

yeah...justin did an awesome job on his puppets....I cant wait to see the film.

Shelley Noble}At work....my day jobs been rough....and I am officially layed off this friday.

I am sure there are tons of kids who would wnat to help out on your film.

Give it a shot! We get contacted almost every other week by people who would like to help out.

Emily Tomasik} Thanks ! and Yes....I bet he would share it with the public. In fact I might post it here if he would allow.

Ill ask him.

michael} thanks man!..Hope to share his film here when finished.

and thanks for kind words....luckily I am pretty employable...

JON}thanks dood....I have to do another one tonight too.

so Ill share that as well./

Rich Johnson} thanks man! Ill cover the trip to the fest for sure....


Jeff Lafferty}well...thank you too man...love your work and am always honored that you follow the blog.

Grant's Animation}thanks man!

HwangNguyen}thanks man....shes's workin hard...cant wait to send one to ya!

emmyymme}thanks emmyymme!...Ill be sharing for along time comin...and your animations looking pretty rockin too!

Mattson Tomlin}oooo....cool...
possible stopmotion in your work!! Thats exciting!!

and thanks a bunch for coming over and supporting the blog man!

Joel Brinkerhoff} Happy Easter to you too man!!

jmanu}thanks man!! more to come.

jriggity

Ryan McCulloch said...

Justin, I'm so sorry to hear about your job, that is rough. But sometimes a cataclysmic event like that is just the first step in getting you somewhere better. And obviously you are going to be a hot commodity. We'll be keeping you guys in our prayers, as I know this is a tough time, but there are only better times ahead.

Rusty said...

Very cool stuff! I love reading your posts!

Ângelo Carvalho said...

Hi,
I'm brasileiro. Eu love to see your work is very good. this is my blog (http://horadoangelus.blogspot.com/). and today is the International Day of the designer. happy days of the designer for you!

Abraços!

Dan Metalmadcat said...

m_) Keep working hard, I love coming back and forth here and seeing an entire family devoted to the arts.

m_) Also, thanks for the support with my art.

m_) I keep working on mine, little by little.

m_) Updates take a while to arrive but they do, so feel free to come by any time.