My Journal 2007-2008

Getting into the Illustration!

2008-06-24T01:57:00.000-07:00

I am going to kill this Blog as soon as I have received my grades, one that doesn't have to do with college work but my work. But, until then I am going to write some more. I was a lazy butt last week, I worked everyday but all I did was in slow motion and not very good so I realized that after these 4 years maybe I should take some days off and watch films and get out of the house - so I did and took some pictures of texture wile I was at it;

Not going to write much more - this week I am making my portfolio, my website and I am going to help Aminata with some compositing for her film so I am busy!

peace n luv,
asa

Life after college - week 1

2008-06-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

Today its Wednesday on my first week off college and I have decided to rest from Monsters Spa for a week. I am happy about that I did it in the amount of time that I had cos it was not just animating ( as I am veyr bad at doing) it was developing environments and most of the characters. I am not happy with the end result though- the Spa section still looks shit and the massage scene as well so I will rip it up and change it, probably have a Monster with a face mask and hair rolls looking in to the spa room and animate Ruth better. The flickering of the text at a section in the end has to be sorted as well and some other details. But right now I need a short break from it and is planning my showreel instead. Jared is right. I should show that I can build stuff in 3D, cos I can, I am not brilliant but thats a choice that I made, 3D doesn't interest me, drawing and art work does. What changed my mind was two things, 1) i know that Jared is right and working with 3D is definitely better then working at Tesco, 2) I saw Kung Fu panda and screamed loud! Dreamworks has after years of shit films pulled off something that is, together with Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, the best CGI film I have ever seen! No desperate jokes, really cool character designs and the animation is brilliant and the environments and the story as well. It made me want to build an environment in 3D again. I have five already- but I have developed a lot and don't want to have them in my showreel.

My old fish designs from 2006

While taking a rest from Monsters Spa I finally know what to do with my fish designs that I wanted to animate for my showreel last year but never really knew what to do with, now I know. I think I might change them do,either I go for my cartoonish fish or I go for fish that actually exists and turn them cartoonish. I think I am going for the second option.

I want to create a coral reef but in 2D, with the help of the 3D space in after effects, depth of field, shadows and caustics I want to follow some of my fish fora couple of seconds. As always I like my work to be colorful but I have learned from most 2d films now that props don't have black outlines. The water is missing and seashells and details but I like what I see so far.

I choose to do a reef and salt water fish cos they are more color ful and crazy then other fish,

I wish I could draw fish like this..

I worked a bit on Superintendent Claude and the mad painter and I kind of knew it already- Claude's police car is to long and narrow while claude and his dog are so short and squarish...i do love that car..but if they are going to be in it then the car has to change..buhuuu buuuu..

Now I am going to make coffe and learn more about how to use the camera in After Effects,

peace n luv
asa

THE LAST WEEK!!

2008-06-09T12:43:00.000-07:00

Yes, I actually cant wait to finish college now!!

Anyway, I have been struggling with the Spa scene for a while, re -drawn the environment about 6-10 times and tried to give it depth by adding plants in the foreground- which just looked mad - and the monsters in there didn't fit together so I made two new ones and then i changed the action of the scene and tried different kind of animation etc etc. Today I am ready to give up, I just want to hand something in on friday and then I will improve this and add other work and make I show reel when college is done.

different characters in the spa

and decided to go for these two characters and changed his hair to brown,

making fonts for my "film",

Now after effects crashed. Fun, Gat to go.

The teachers has said that they will read our blogs and that that will help them to mark us, I don't believe that they will read our blogs, I just can't see them having the time. Maybe they scroll through and see how much we gat on here, anyway. I was not chosen for the second exhibition but I don't have a film so that fair enough, the fact that industry people asked for me last year is good enough for me :)

A shame our course missed out on Computer Arts graduate issue- they are showing showreels from people they consider the best graduated this year- Jessica Do, Adam and jessica S should have sent their stuff in and they would have been mentioned, but we missed out on that.

My film is rendered. Could still do some small changes but I really just want to add sound and render it out so I know that I have a version for friday - then I can do more after that, still have to finish the cafe idea and Superintendent Claude. Right now I am adding and editing sound to a ruff version while i tried o fix mistakes and improve the film on another computer to see if i can render and stick in changes in time - if not, then atleast i gat a ruff version to hand in.

Editing and adding sound effects, had to look for a long time for a sound that would fit the animated star. New ideas on how to improve this piece appears all the time but I will do that later. I think the green snail in the spa pool should be there alone floating on a bath-ring ( or what they are called in english? ). Would be more fun I think. My housemates loves the octopuss but I hate him, to simple and random, no fun. The postcard is some problems, was going to do it in maya from the start but my version of maya is a little cunt so I ended up doing it in After effects instead so sometimes it flickers- need to fix that.
Still confused about the rendering cos last year when I, Jessica Do and Aminata sat down together and followed Sean's out put instructions we where the ones who had handed in films with wrong settings so this year I am sticking to DV PAl and is trying to change and render it out widescreen afterwards. When it comes to the soundeffects they are all from www.soundsnap.com - briliant site- I don't know this new version Premier Pro very well so I cant figure out how to edit the sound that good but as an old musician I know how to cut soundwaves, change their volume and put on delay and so on - but it would be cool if the sounds could grow higher and bigger the closer we came to the object that make them but i dont know if premier is that good for sound editing? Will ask some friends later. Like the sound in the office in the begging- would like the schoolyard sound to only come on the right spaker so that we'd imagine the schoolyard is somewhere on the right..but I don't know how to do that in premier- maybe i have to edit the sound in Logic or Cubase first and then import it?

Today its friday and I am going to hand in my little film and my folders. I should be happy today, a part of me is, its been a long time but another part is disappointed and sad and can't help thinking about what I could have done if the teachers would have let me go term 2 instead of in the end of term three. I have payed a lot of money and time to be here - I should have been more stubborn term 2 - or maybe I should have taken the Westminister offer cos they would have let me do my own films and I wouldn't have to give up what I want to do for some group work and for being in a class and year where everyone wants to do 3D - and I don't. I don't give a shit about that the industry wants 3D work- I don't enjoy it and I don't find it creative but technical. I like Ravensbourne but did not fit in there - I don't want to work with Maya and I thought everyone wouldn't have to cos thats what I was told every time I had doubts about the course and was thinking about changing. Anyway, it doesn't matter if I am angry, sad, disappointed or happy. I can't change anything now, its to late and I can't do another degree so this is it. I'm not going to think more about it cos there is nothing I can do about it. The only thing I can do is shape this monster Spa short up and sit down and do more shorts! :)

Thats it! Four years at Ravensbourne and now I am done!!

peace n luv,
asa

Week 23 - only two weeks left to go!

2008-06-02T07:24:00.000-07:00

Today its Monday and I am very slow. Did a new environment and some new characters this weekend though and improved the shower scene- changed the environment so that shower curtains don't cover their heads, improved and added more animation to some of the characters and etc - still the scene doesn't want to render and Alex hasn't gat back to me since friday so I am going to mail him again, I am also asking friends that work with After Effects but no one seems to know what is cosing this fault, ofcourse it makes me nervous but there must be a solution!!

Here are some pics that I am very happy about - my illustrations being sold on a gallery in Munchen :)

Today was the last day that people could vote for the Skillset exhibition - it's obvious that people has voted for their friends instead of thinking about who could make an nice exhibition- Aminata only gat two votes and she is one of the most talented students in the class and Jessica Do who also is brilliant wasn't even on the list!! I gat three votes so I am happy that someone voted for me, I had two industry people interested in my work last year - but now I don't know if I will exhibit, anyway, I just hope that chosen students don't stick A4 and A3 prints up on the walls with blue tag as on our fist year "exhibition" cos that is so lame.

Yes, its Monday and I a grumpy cos my files aren't rendering..and cos it doesn't look the way i want.

anyway, I am changing environments and details back n forth as I am trying to get the style and look i want and as i am not happy with how things look- there's a difference having stuff looking funnily drawn or looking shit drawn.. I am now changing massage Ruth's animation for the 25 th time and I DO HATE HER and the spa is re drawn- again. But its worth it, its small small improvements every time so atleast its improving so its going to right direction but a little bit to slow for my liking.

I have done lots of new monsters as i would like to have s gym in there as well but i am leaving them and is trying to get the spa and the massage scene better first. I can't wait to finish college now, I am really tired of it.

this monster looks like i feel

peace n luv,
asa

Week 22 and counting down

2008-05-26T09:57:00.001-07:00

pic from animating the fly/bee for my intro

Monday and I haven't done as much work as I planned this weekend, I have re - done the massage scene 3 times, so many layers and keys that it has been two days work, sorting out her shoulder, her hair and then her hands keep moving although i keyed them and the puppet pin tool that i used to animate her hair affected her eyes so i have gone in and tried to sort that out. I am exporting a version of her now that i hope is the last!! I don't really like massage Ruth any more..

Been looking at animation show reels online and that put me down a lot, how the hell should I be able to do so much in just 2-3 weeks? Naa, not possible, but I guess my project will not be shown at RSA as its not a film, so then I can carry on and work on it until the exhibition and give it away on a dvd. So much I want to have in my show reel! I know that making 16 mm films wont give you a job but still I would really like to stick my old 16 mm film in from foundation as a lot of people really liked it - BUT - Brian who helped me shoot it on film shot it in a to small size and i don't have a projector and the equipment to re shoot it so I don't know.

Madness, madness. Started my own website and will finish it off before the exhibition so that I can have a link on my business cards - that I also have to do before the exhibition :) But right now I have to stop hating my work and trying to be a bit more positive cos it not getting better then this right now - atleast I am much better on after effects and drawing then i were a year ago so that feels good to see that atleast I am developing!

Here is the spa so far, NOT happy, will try other floors and walls.

Wednesday and today I had fun looking for sound effects online, i dont want to spend time on recording them myself, rather improve my work instead, i found really good shower sounds, burps, farts, drinking, jacuzzi sound and brush sound so that will be fun to add in the end!

After Effects had been a real cunt. All of a sudden it changes the content of locked layers- so I spend time animating and then when i start to pram preview - some layers has changed so all of a sudden i have five shoulders but no legs and feet..hmm.. i start wondering if my computer gat a virus or if my version of After Effects has a fault- its like with the rendering as well, same fault no matter what composition and what files that has been used, shouldn't really happen.. I finished the new Shower room yesterday and started to import the monsters- realized that i wanted to animate toe room a bit to make it more interesting so then I needed more Monsters to put into more booths so I created Flexter and the tale of another monster.

Flexter and annoying after effects- i need to change his belly so that he don't have a gap between his legs. I animated him today, put some animation on a shower curtain and animated a candle ruffly, I wish i had another computer to work on while waiting for renders cos my renders take loooooong time, anyway, tomorrow I 'm going into college to give Mike a heart attack.

Shower scene in development - need to add showers, fix the walls and shower curtains so they dont cover characters heads, need to delay animation so that we actually see it and the candle stops to early, to floor is moving etc etc but atleast I finally like the environment so I need to adapt the other ones so that they have the same style as this one and give all props watercolor textures.

Friday and I am tired after few hours sleep. My After Effects files still don't render- spent hours with Alex in college yesterday trying to sort it out, now i have renamed and replaced all the layers in ALL the monster files so last time I tried, the green monster, the brush monster and the monster teacher rendered - but still not the massage and the shampo monster so i am trying to figure out why the hell not right now while waiting to get locked out from my house so can get on a bus and see Alex again. If this doesn't work then its just my computer that can't handle the big files- but I have a killer computer now, 2.83 processor, 2Gb RAM- should try and get 4 I guess. Anyway - I still have environments that needs changes, animation that needs improvement etc etc so ofcourse I am a bit worried of all this. I will export the film and hand it in if worse comes to worse but hopefully we can sort it out. I can't see how I would fail if I did not hand in a finished showreel- I have still done more work this 5 weeks then some have done in an entire year and they will not fail.

here's the monster with the tail added, showers and candle fixed, bench added - needs much more improvement and I am working on it. Here are some stills as the resolution of the films is so low to be able to upload;

I created another new character, Olga, will show her later. She's a bug monster.

Here she is in the reception lobby, gave her a rocking chair;

peace n luv,
asa

Week 20 - getting all the monster scenes done

2008-05-19T03:33:00.000-07:00

aaaargh, she was going to be the easiest monster to animate haha, but NO, I will try and sort this out, slow it down a bit, make it smoother later - but there is so much stuff i want to stick into my reel - and ITS NOT ANIMATION - so I don't want to spend to much time on it, I am having lots of fun though :) Unfortunately the plug in for soundkeys didn't work- it doesn't install properly, will ask Aminata if she knows some tricks.

I have developed my idea quite a lot - but I don't know if I am being realistic and actually can do it in time- but I am really trying to. Started my intro sequence yesterday , I LOVE after effects!! Trying to animate a bee now, I wish there was a shake effect so that I didn't have to go in and key every frame cos the be should move up and down as well as forward.

Well, I am getting back to work.

Started animating the Smoking Monster - he is really really boring but I do want him to be arrogant and just smoke so I changed the rest of the scene instead of him and added the Dog Monster that will stand by his side and be afraid of getting in the water, started animating him,

Would be fun to add a fat little Monster jumping up and down on a trampoline and make the Dog Monster + the Smoking Monster cue for it - but I don't know if I am realistic and can do that in time - we'll see, still have problems drawing the shower corridor and the pool room as my perspective drawing is really bad. And none of the Monsters animation looks really good so maybe I should focus on shaping it up - BUT - why? I have tried for hours and days, I AM NOT AN ANIMATOR.

Hmm,for some weird reason Blogger doesn't want to show my films anymore... weird, hope that its just temporarily )

Today its friday, went in to college yesterday and did absolutely nothing- I can't work in there, prefer to work at home. I have realized that I have to change the Spa scene completely, the pool that I planned to had look really bad and i have tried 3 other designs but it doesn't look good so I finally decided to go google and find what I was looking for;

Tried to draw it yesterday but messed up the lines several times so I will have to re do it today. I want to try and make a nice tile texture for the pool as well. The octopuss, the Dog Monster and Smoky did not fit together - my housemates really like the octopuss monster but I don't - I have decided to slaughter all of them and stick the Sleepy Monster in and make a better octopuss. I want it done this weekend. Or I NEED it done this weekend.

Now I am fixing ( hopefully for the better ha ha) the massage scene - you could hardly see that the monster that is being massaged is breathing so I need to over exaggerate it more and her arms, shoulder, body and head as well. Thinking about having a monster moving the curtain and looking in - will see if I have the time.

I didn't explain my new idea... but I can show it very ruff here - in my title sequence there's a fly/bee, we will follow it to a coffee shop and circulate around the tables and peoples food until we come to the girl with the glasses who is reading a magazine that has an image that brings us to the monster world. Thats my idea - but I am finishing the Monsters Spa first to see if I have the time- I really want to do it though as I want to show something that feels like me and that I think represents me. And I will do as Jared said and stick in some 3D environments, he is right- I don't think it is very fun with 3D but I should show that I can do it. I will do that this summer though, I have some old environments but I feel that I have developed a lot and rather would fix them up or do something new. Anyway, I did some of the cafe characters last week;

need to give him separate forks and pieces of food so that he can eat properly, you'll never see his mouth - only his mustache moving cos I didn't like him when I gave him a mouth.

I took a look at Tripplettes de Belleville and all the backgrounds, props etc are very nicely textured with watercolors etc but the characters are actually in solid colors- so I want to do the same thing and make the environment and props in watercolors.

I am happy with the hat shop - but the cafe could be nicer. Need to make the back street that you would see through the tunnel as well. But first- the Monsters!

I am going insane, trying to design the spa and the shower rooms and the corridor- it has to fit with the other designs and the postcard - a 4 window postcard would be the nicest but do i have time to do a forth window? this is just ruff- the showeers and the receptions should NOT look like that - just a test so i know where I'm going, i will use more watercolor textured things from now on, gets boring when everything is flat colors and its not illustrator but hand drawn stuff. I

peace out,
asa

Week 19 - trying to animate..

2008-05-13T15:04:00.000-07:00

Well, I am not really an animator so what I am doing now is trying to animate and it looks quite shit so this week is dedicated to changes and tweaking and being stubborn - after this week, fuck it, the animation will be what it is but I am trying to sort it out, to start with,

The green monster farting - had to re do this animation and the brush monster from scratch - atleast AE renders the file now but the animation needs work, the only interesting part of this scene is these few seconds where he is farting - the entire scene is actually 10-15 sec longer but it wasn't very fun watching him sitting and eating in a bathtub so i have to make something more with it so I think I am going to make him Smeagol from Lord of the rings and give him a precious plastic duck that he can play a bit with in the bath tub, just to try to make it more interesting cos there's not much happening right now as I don't want to take on to much animation as I am not a strong animator. I have found the Puppet Pin Tool though and is doesn't work for everything but it is a brilliant tool in After Effects that I love!

Here is the new Horn Monster animation and after it is the old, i have animated the arms completely differently and on the new one the head is animated as well- but i hardly see any difference and almost like the old one more..

problems with the uploading of the films - soooon - i hope.. )

Testing how the shower room should look like - i will go for the new blue and purple one but will change the background to orange cos now it has the same color as the postcard. I want to use the receptionist as well but i don't know where to stick her in cos i want to keep the card quite graphic and not to messy.

I am not happy, will sort out the perspective on this one so that its shot more straight on. Need to ask Alex about maya, when i came up with the monster spa idea like a year ago i did a quick test with 2d in 3d in maya 7 - it looked great- so what am i doing wrong now when it looks shit? anyway- i have already done most of the environments in 2D but it would be more fun with my original idea and would save me animation work. Oh yes, the blue monsters eyes decided to change anchor point eventhough the layer is locked so - no, the eyes should not float around like that and etc - this is just a test to see what shower environment i should go for.

Gave the green monster a ugly bird, was thinking that he could eat it for a while but I don't want to get stuck doing to much animation, anyway - i don't like this, its more fun when he just sits in the bath tub and looks stupid, atleast I tried.

I am trying to get the shampo monster right, lots of tweaking to get the outlines right as i have cheated with the animation and used the puppet pin tool - i have done lots of changes, tried to have him feeling the beat with his feet but it was to much and just gat messy but i changed him and made him start of with a closed mouth.

As this is not a film but more a showreel and its short, gat cut down from 40 sec to 22 now - I need something more to put in there so I want to put in two of my favorite characters, Super intendent Claude and his dog and The Mad painter and have Claude driving fast in his car as he is answering to a call - he comes to the crime scene and there is the mad painter, caught in action. I started doing all the cut out parts, trying to do parts so that the dog nervously can turn his head in the car as well and look at the driver and the road constantly but I am really bad at perspective drawing but I am trying.

and here is the car ( if i don't change my mind) - I am not sure about the backseats though, looks better without them I think.

I tried to record the shower sound and did the brush sound with a ( NEW straight from ikea ok? ) toilet brush but I live on a high street now + the heater for the shower sounds like a nuclear projector so..it didn't work. Will try and brush with a real bathroom brush and brush furry fabric - OR - save my self the hassle and look for sound effects online.

trying to animate haha..

Asked Aminata about something she told me about long time ago, that there is a plug in for After Effects that helps u animate to sound, that easily helps to key your objects to a certain part of the music that u have chosen, she gave me this link and here's a good tutorial so I am gonna see if that can help my monsters to move with the music:

http://trapcode.com/in_action/soundkeys_intro.html

When I finally gat her hands to work alright and gat started with the left side- all the LOCKED right hand layers have chosen to change their anchor point..so about 85 hands are now floating about that took me hours and hours to set up. So, I have to re do it again..

Anyway, finished it now and animated her hair - can't render it, same fault as always, makes me a bit nervous, there is no time for me to re do all this animation. I will go in and see Alex next week, he knows about this problem.

peace n luv,
asa

week 18

2008-05-05T09:28:00.000-07:00

I am going back and forth between not giving a shit any more and giving up - or struggling and working really hard these last weeks, for me- I will work hard, but this year was really shit, so I need to make this happen for my own sake so that I didn't waste a year. Waste and waste, I learned a lot but at the end of they day its about what u have to show. Anyway, not much to do about it now but ofcourse I am disappointed about it.

This week I will animate the green stinky Monster, the teacher and the postcard and the HornMonster who is brushing himself. I have started all of them but can't get the animation smooth and natural so thats what i need to sort out this week, add frames- maybe even 2d animate it frame by frame. Testing things now to see what i need to change with layout and environments,

Wednesday: trying not to panic, I am moving house this week and it all happened kind of sudden so I am trying to pack while rendering maya on my lap top and AE on my computer. I didn't like the look of the class room so I added corners on it and has animated the real postcard and rendered it out in Maya so I will finish the teacher sequence hopefully tonight. The animation of the horn monster has taken much more time that I could have imaging- his eyes are a fucking problem so i have re- drawn the in-betweens several times and tried different timing etc in AE but he still looks really weird when he blinks, blinking is fucking simple to animate though so I am well annoyed - another mission for tonight :) I had this idea of making Wunderbaums out of three of my Monster designs to give away on the final year exhibition so I did some research online and found the biggest producer of Wunderbaums in Sweden, Yngve Niklasson AB - I called them but they don't have time to produce other designs then the Wunderbaums- they have been asked this question many times. I then found a company in China that does different kinds of car fresheners BUt their contact detail website is not working..hmm..well, I am not giving up on the idea yet but I will make sure I have a film first :) I have asked to meet Jared tomorrow and will see if I can meet up with Dan as well to see what they think of what I have done so far and my idea etc, I would like Alex or Dan's animation help as they might no some AE tricks that I have missed out on. I designed an octopus for the pool area last night that I want to animate with the puppet pin tool cos I watched an tutorial about how to use it and it looks really fun but doesn't work for all kinds of characters and animation.

Finished the Horn Monster - just ONE problem, it doesn't want to render the file.. it always does this around 9 minutes, I will e-mail Alex about it. I am using quite big files so i am making a smaller version now but it i think it might be something else.
Annoying.

Okej, After Effects doesn't want to render my Horn Monster file - it always stops at the same place so I booked an appointment with Alex, his suggestion was that I render it to other locations- I have tried that and it doesn't work. No file is missing but it doesn't want me to render one of the files- now I need to test about 600 layers of shower drops and shit to see - what layer it is? Hmm..fun. Did a quick test of my shower corridor - I don't like it, I want the monsters to be bigger on the screen so that u see them better so I will do more test - but this is how far it lets me render.. I have e-mailed Alex about it again to see if he has any other suggestion about how to find the fault.

I had a chat with Jared yesterday, wanted to talk to Dan as well and asked him if he had time, stayed and waited for him but he went home so I didn't see him, will try again next week. Checked my moodle and I haven't gat any feedback from my summative yet so I think I have to remind Mike about that. I asked him before if he wanted me to do more for my folders OR do this showreel, he said I should focus on this. Well, now I need to find that fault so I can move on with the rest of my work!

Started the Shampo Monster, need to fix it - timing is wrong - the back hand is wrong cos i wasn't going to use it like this so i need to change that + u can see the corner of the body sticking out sometimes and i need to smooth out between face expression, another hour or two and he should be done. Unless something goes terrible wrong..should never say never..
I'm gonna make a test when he moves the boy more as well. But now I am going to move house..

Peace n Luv,
asa

Week 17, Okej! I start my Monster film

2008-04-28T07:47:00.000-07:00

Well, Mike and I had a meeting last friday and Jared also showed up. We talked about the film and so on and decided that the best thing might be to drop it. So, its done. I really liked the idea, I loved Aminata's model of the girl, I liked how the dead world was coming together, I didn't want to do another 3D gag comedy film- use the software and the medium for something different and mix it up more - any way - it didn't work.

No..he doesn't have three heads -its parts that I will animate in AE )

Time to make a ll the cut out body parts to joint in after effects and animate. I don't have time to write now if I am going to make this, so ciao bello, later!

Technical things- how to render out a film from AE so its remains an alpha chanel. Will try the puppet tool in after effect- might be helpful with the animation.

Made some props for the spa and sticked them into the maya file. 2D and 3D is hard to mix nicely, i just want this colorful and wacky so I think i will keep the spa in just a solid color, no tiles or any fancy 3d texturing cos that just wouldn't fit.

Started to animate the horn monster who will just brush his back and put soap on the belly - have problems with his front arm, it doesn't want to joint and i cant put the anchor point where i want so i can't make it move naturally right now. His eyes are also a pain in the ass, want to animate everything but the front arm today so that i easily can do the arm later.

Will meet up with Alex tomorrow and hopefully solve why I can't upload my avi films on planes in Maya, do the films have to be something else den DV pal size? I know he gat some After Effects tricks as well then he can enlight me about. I did everything wrong with my showreel last year cos i refused to do tutorials n started working and learning - and making lots of mistakes- instead..hehehe..i didn't even parent my characters last year, - or use joints hehe..so that surely didn't help the animation haha. Anyway, u live and learn.

AAAAARGHHH! Tuesday today and my scanner just died - very bad timing - gat to go n get a new one! later!

Wednesday : new scanner and a new receptionist that I can't choose between.
My maya file is acting really weird, wanted to stick 2d textures on the spa walls to see if that could be the solution to the 2d and 3d not looking good together- BUT, maya sometimes has its own life, this time when i high light a face and add a texture to it- it adds the texture on everything thats NOT highlighted! haha I love this software, it does have its own life! Anyway, maybe i do it all in 2d.

The Receptionist - two different versions and some color tests.

..and if I get the time I will animate the Teacher down below cos she should be the receiver of the postcard.

I went for the orange hair for Ruth,

I have started to animate the Horn Monster and the Green Smelly Monster in After Effects - BUT - when I think I am done with the green monster, all of a sudden his parts starts floating around - they have anchor points, they are not parented, they are keyed in position and the layers are LOCKED! So how the hell can they move?? Very irritating. Have to find out what the hell it is cosing it cos all my work is for nothing right now as long as that continue to happen.

I think this will do as the massage scenery? I tried to give the massage customer different colors as he shouldn't have the same color as Ruth, but, i liked him the most green..

Working out how the shower room and the waiting room could look - need to add the room itself -

Peace n Luv
asa

Week 16

2008-04-21T06:44:00.000-07:00

Josie found new faults on the girl so I sent her back to Giles again and asked him to try and animate her a bit this time and play around with blendshapes so that we hopefully dont find any more faults and can get started - he fixed her really quick, hopefully she works now, i have passed her on to Raphael, Wan and Josie and will start playing around with her, hopefully there are no more faults.

Made some more test for Jess and passed her a folder with them all so that she can get back to me with fedback and hopefully i can wrap it soon, the funny thing is that when i freestyle and do something silly that i think Jess is going to hate- then she actually likes it so she likes the silly ones when he is dramatic and stands up on his toes and wave with his arm and when he poses as in a musical, so I will develop them, find the tweaking hard, hard to get the natural look, very stiff cos its just a few keyframes now so I am playing around with it. Jess asked me if I wanted to animate some other small scenes- would have been fun but I honestly need to focus on mine now eventhough I find it fun to animate - I just wish I knew more about the tweaking cos i think thats what makes the difference, adding those extra keys and tweaking them right- i am trying now but damn, we dont have time to learn to much new things this year- i am busy reading about after effects and trying to figure out how to do with the composoting, need to find out how to export films from final cut as alpha channels if i don't want massive and messy aftereffect files.. Found this site that has some very good tutorials:

http://www.layersmagazine.com/aftereffects-tutorial-draw.html

Honestly, the film idea is good, it's different and could have been something really nice, but I have been drained out of my motivation long time ago and have had meeting with both Jared, Mike and Dan about the film and that I don't know how the hell we are going to pull it through. Different people in the class has popped up and said they would like to help - I sent them info and so on- nothing ever happened. Yes, I was stupid - I should have pitched a film with more elements that I could handle alone and not so much 3D characters as I rather sell my kidneys then get into rigging - but I didn't, cos in this class the majority is 3D people so I thought I do just like the teachers said: pitch something that a lot of people could work on and that required different skills. I did. I worked my ass off the first term and was really really stressed out. This time I have decided that it is not worth it, I am not letting my group down but first of all - I am not letting myself down. My film would have needed a director that is better on 3D and compositing I think, and someone with more patience cos I loose mine all the time and i want to give up. Because the grades don't mean that much to me- but my showreel surely does, will i even have a showreel now? Well well, lets try n do this n stay positive. So..here are some test for the shadow character done in Corel painter, started with crayon, didn't like it, water colour wasn't that nice either- charcoal, the last test is my favorite, will have to edit it in final cut n change the pace.

Now the question is how to make films from final cut alpha chanels?.. I need coffe

new problems with the girl rig AGAIN, i asked please please please try to animate her so that we find all the faults in one go, but first thing that happens when we get her back is that Wan finds new faults.. i am loosing my hope..

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Giles and Wan are working on it so that good but I am getting really stressed when it never stops and we always find new faults who makes it really hard to start animating, hopefully we will sort it out this week - WE HAVE TO!!

Raphael cleaned up his file, good, went down from 3000 Kb to 1000 and now i cut it down to 780 kb, i didn't clean my hospitalroom up cos i wasn't happy about it n wanted to go back n change more things but fuck it, Wan cleaned it up and i sent him some changes that i had done with some texture settings for bumbpmaps, Eva's trapetzez etc.

This is what happens after 4 years of studying animation fulltime sitting on you ass 24 7 drawing or working with the computer..u develop extra sections of fat and between the different sections u can stash pencils, erasers etc, very handy!
In a couple of more years I might be able to stash my sketchbook some where between them!

Anyway.. :) went home to Jessica's house o friday to do the bus scene together with her so she can get one scene done and render it, I hate to animate - it's fun to try and give an object life and character but I am to impatient to do it and I go crazy with the hypergraph cos I never get it the way I want - anyway, we gat that scene done now, she asked me to do another small scene and thats nice that she asks me as I am a shit animator- I said yes but then when I started thinking about my film situation I told her that I changed my mind cos I am so behind with my own work.

Weekend work:

I don't want cute Monsters - i want silly ugly and funny monsters.. i am happy about 3-4 of them but..hmm.. i am not giving them any shadows now..too much work for quick color tests.

Time to pick the best characters for the film.. I need ten of them.

Quick test to see if maybe the characters would be nicer with water color textures

..here's a ruff sketch of the idea and here is the first camera test of the shower corridor environment, almost 40 sec.

Peace n Luv,
asa

Week 15 - start animating

2008-04-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

Monday: Started with a small scene for Jess. I need to go back in time and get into tweaking and blendshapes again that we did in our first year cos I don't remember where to find everything. Have been rendering different kinds of fog and clouds for my film all weekend so now I am going to play around with compositing - have e-mailed my group about the girls textures, Josie came online and received the file but Raphael don't have internet access at home so I will have to wait for him or meet up some where - but he can start animating without them. Made a schedule for this term - very simple one.
Anyway - Jess's scene, have to ask her about if the bus and the owl should bump n shake a bit - if that will be done now or in compositing afterwards and if he is suppose to look straight into the camera or where the bus is going, here's some quick tests:

I wanted to know what jessica wanted with this scene- should he blink, look into the camera or look at the view from the bus, look to where the bus is going and so on - so i did some quick tests and showed Jess, this top one was more a joke but she actually liked the idea of him closing his eyes and enjoying the sun so i will develop that one. I want to upload the other tests but, what is the point when they are so small and is so low quality that u cant really see what happens? anyway..

I want to finish that scene for Jess this week and start with my scene for my film, I noticed a faulty with the girls neck and found t hard to control her arms so Giles was changing the rig last nite and I will get a new version of her today so that I can get started. Wan noticed a faulty with his blendshapes - I told him to talk straight to Giles about it and then I said that we will find away around it as there's no time to re- rig or re-do blendshapes, we just have to get started now. I also want to make that sky for the first and the last scene - maybe I should sit down and learn shake, the sun is alright in maya put the clouds looks to much like computer games clouds for my liking but maybe thats just because I haven't found the right setting for them yet?

Been sending the girl rig back n forth with Giles this week as I find new faults here and there, i have asked everyone in the group to let me know if they found any as well but no one has which makes me worried cos then maybe they haven't even touched their scenes yet? Anyway.. Giles is on the case and works very fast so that is very good!

CHECKLIST:

* animate scene for Jess
* get train from Josie and the traintracks from Raphael and put the deadworld for the last scene together and pass to the rest of the group
* new girl and rig from Giles - pass to the rest of the group
* start animating my scene for my film
* render out mist and sky for the first scene
* would be very nice to 2D animate the shadow with crayons, but I will have to see if there's any time for that

I want to have some butterflies in this world so I made 2 simple ones that I will animate on planes in Maya,

and just mess around with watercolor n make a quick texture. Made some simple creatures that could be transparent silhouettes in the deadworld. Work i will do if i have time in the end - gat problems with the compositing and it is driving me Maaaaaaaaaaaaad.

Week 14 - back to college

2008-04-08T11:44:00.000-07:00

Monday: Applied for a workplacement in Stockholm, illustration place. Online meeting on skype, Raph couldn't be online but i texted him n he gat all the info in a mail. We looked at the blockout again, cut it down more so its down to 4:02 now, passed the new version to Emmet and Wan and Joise. I played around with the dead world, still don't know AE so well but i am slowly learning. Rendered out tests, still think its looks SHIIIIT. I am loosing hope in the mixed media idea cos the 2D clouds does not look good in the deadworld, anyway, I am rendering out mist and clouds etc from maya so i am trying different things, hope i can upload the tests now! Trying to make mist and clouds in After effects as well, the kind of test i wanted and thought that Patrick was dojng for us the first term, i like after effects though but it doesnt feel as if there's time to sit and watch tutorials and look for tutorials, well.. lets see how many hours it takes before i can upload some tests..

not the film but a still, the deadworld all in AE - mist looks shit in 2D though so i will try to make AE mist and watercolor 2D mist again but with texture so its less flat

playing with layers in AE and learning effects, not there yet, just playing around trying to figure out HOW to do it :)

Not happy with the tree trainstation, will add more branches and ask Alex why the mesh doesn't go together eventhough all vertices are merged, weird. Might look better with a bump map, will do a quick test.

I always have problems with uploading films, anyway- low quality as hell but thats the only way i can get films up. I prefer 3D mist and clouds - look spoky in the end, don't want it to look like a ghost film so i will work on the background there and render animated light.

I built more branches to the tree and moved them around to see where i could add them- they looked weird where ever I put them..we dont have time, Wan loves the tree and Jessica likes it to, Mike hates it but, we don't have time - and i kind of like it to - and its my film moahahahaha, ( evil laugh) but he is right, how will people know its a tree? i will add a bump map n play around with textures.

Week 13 - back from Sweden

2008-04-01T10:02:00.001-07:00

Yes! Gat my lap top now and maya is running on it!! Puuh, been awful not being able to work at home!!
Not a word from Caspar about the train, Giles about the girl, nothing about Wan's Bobo or Raph's creatures since last week when we had a meeting. I need to edit the block out and put it up and have a last look at it- Emmet has e-mailed me some suggestions for sound that I have to listen to, i need to get the train from Caspar so I can size and texture the tree station and i need to hunt people and nag and ask where their work is and then I need to do some more tests for the dead world and then I need to rig the Dr and animate a scene for jessica and after that I will shape up my CV and my portfolio...yeaaah..not long time left now.

I changed the textures on the Dr that Josie textured, the eyes and the coat and the trousers and put a phong on the shoes so that they shine. I think I need to change the tie as well cos in a distance it looks weird as I think the UV's are wrong. Now I am going to rig him...think i should add color under his eyes first so he looks more tired...don't know how to manage and do everything. The Dr's eyes are way to far apart, I don't like it at all, but there is just no time to fix it, I already asked Jess to put them closer once so it might be a bit tiring if I ask again and again just cos my concept was to 2D and baaaaad.

I don't have photoshop on my pc so i cant do print screen and my camera is shit but, this is the train station as it looks right now. Want to try a more brown yellow texture as well before I decide which one it should be. Put the texture tests up on the group blog - need to get photoshop cos u hardly see anything with these pics, anyway..

played around with the credits n subtitles n so on..looks shit when its so small.. but it has to be to be able to upload. I want to animate the cloud background and the frame aroun it, the frame will be easy, just turn and change in AE, but the clouds will be another ball game.

received more sound examples from emmet but we still haven't nailed it so I asked him if he will be in on Monday or Tuesday so that maybe we can sit down together and look at the blockout and listen to sounds and try to nail it and get it done. The group work thing about asking everyone to report their work on the blog every friday didn't work either, Josie is the only one who did it, I didn't do it last friday when i was in Sweden so shame on me but otherwise I have been doing it.

Today, friday I gat the train from Caspar and he says he hasn't have tome to finish it and apologies, I would love to texture it, but i don't have time so I just put up a request on the group Blog to see if Raphael or Joise can do it. I'm missing one small changed sequence from Josie to be able to finsih the blockout, but Josie is always fast and reliable ( i love u joise!!) so I will get it soon, and then we'll have a last look at it and hopefully its done. I asked Wan and Raphael to look at it and leave feedback.

About rigging the Dr..I have started, gat a tutorial from Jared which is like a bible from hell, i think i am dyslectic, i cant read that much text i need images!! So i found my old rigging tutorial which is very basic but it doesn't explain how to do everything, it just says " go to IK handles and connect the..bla bla" but..where the fuck is IK tools? And what am I suppose to connect? So..I am stuck there and will need to find another tutorial or commit suicide, cos thats how much i hate rigging.

and editing the blocout scenes and sound effects to it

I just gat a mail from Giles and something was wrong with the file he gat from Wan + he said there was problems with the model but he still did it in just one week, but its a shame that it was so much hassle with getting her finished and sent to him, he waited like 3 weeks. Anyway, the vains in my brain are hurting, i think they might burst cos Giles also told me that Ben G had called him and asked to rig another character for our film, WHAT?? I have mailed him and told him that we are thankful for him trying to create a new bobo but that we are sticking to the old design as Ben never changed the characteristics that we didnt like and made him less cartoonish and maleish as we wanted and also from the start made promises of texturing the character and then later told me that he doesn't want to texture and doesn't like texturing - and now he have asked Giles to rig and weight him? I wrote to Giles and said sorry but i dont know what Ben is doing, maybe he is using the character for another film? But not in mine.

Anyway, I am glad to work with Wan and Josie and I am glad that Raphael came back, we might be a slow group but people are nice to eachother and everyone is trying and is also trying to stay positive although we had so much tiring shit happening and so much disappointments with other members and people promising to help us with things that they never do. Now there's only few weeks left so now everyone has to get into hardcore work mode.

Jessica sent me this one, nice to see how they looked in frames in the end and which ones Jessica choose

piiiiiiiiiiiiias

Week 11

2008-03-18T11:16:00.000-07:00

Spent Monday and today going mental in college, I have deleted everything but two files now from my college folder- still I cannot work or save..so I spent two days working while maya just crashes crashes crashes and crashes and my work disappear over and over again. Hate working in college. I can borrow Jessicas lap top so maybe I drop by her place tomorrow cos in college i cant do shit. Made a new bird for Jessica. Is copying After Effects tutorial from friend so I am learning AE slowly. When it comes to the compositing of the deadworld, will work on that tonite but I am still so f upset about wasting 2 days trying to work in college, will go to Sweden and get my lap top next week- then i dont have to work with fucked up college computers n systems anymore and wast tiiiiiiiiiiiiime!

Anyway, did more bird portraits for jess, cant really say I am proud about them, but this is what i can do in a couple of hours, there is just so much to do.

Wednesday: Jess said that I could come to her house and work on one of her computers so I did and halleluja, finally I could scale the hospital room and I think this time the re-texturing of it might have solved the old texture problem ( atleast i hope so), so now I could finally import Josie's and Jess models and change more details. I forgat to take pictures so I will do that next time I have maya, i have changed the room a lot form Josi'e original design, changed the warddrobe, the bed, added a window and curtains and details on her bedside table etc etc. Will e-mail ross now and check if he is in on Tuesday or if he gat skype so i can pass him the room for lighting. I can't finish the blockout yet cos I noticed more changes to it, like why is the Dr leaving the room and the mother who just lost her only child? What an ass! He should go up to her and try to comfort her instead so we will have to change that. Scaled and fixed the hospital room, added lots of changes from the original concept from Josie- a window, changed the design of the wardrobe, added a window on the door, curtains, a plant, drawings etc.

week 10 - Easter break!

2008-03-10T15:12:00.001-07:00

Monday: Easter break.
Asked Josie to make the same kind of list fro the block out scenes that she did and divided the blockout into more scenes, it was 4 from the beginning, now its 7. Hope it will give us a better over view and make sure everyone knows exactly what to do and what camera to use. We still have A LOT to do. I want to focus on the dead world environment now but there's a lot of work to do and I don't know how to get time to focus completely in one thing, I will do more change sin the blockout tomorrow cos the films I did today are impossible to upload on the blog.

Bobo is not done - Ben has called me many times and I always say the same thing- e-mail me the concept so I can say yes or no, nothing has happened so far, I will wait until tomorrow.
E-mailed Caspar about the train today + posted info on the group blog as I want that train very very soon now, it has been a term so it should be finished soon. Josie will texture the Dr, I posted a request to her and Raphael yesterday.

Tuesday: A bit grumpy today, hate repeating myself, have texted Raphael as I miss his work from last week and everyone should know by now that every week they are supposed to give their work, on a meeting or on the blog or via mail, and how many fuckin times have I told everyone to read the blog?? Should I get an electric chock gun to get my message through?
Anyway, texted Ben and e-mailed Caspar, I need the train and Bobo NOW. Will go to college now and do some more changes in the blockout and mail Josie to see if she has done her changes.

Wednesday: Blockout: Gat it down almost a minute, still needs work and minor changes here and there. Trying to upload it on the group Blog and is rendering out scenes for compositing reasons.

Thursday: Portfolio work. Illustrating stuff for my portfolio.

Friday: Finaly gat the blockout up on the blog and Emmet our soundguy is informed and can look for more music and sound.
Will do changes next week as my Premier doesn't work so I have to do it in college. Put in credits and the sounds we have so far and etc and update the camera/animation lists with all the changes. No train from Caspar yet, have e-mailed him again about it.

Saturday: To Jessica, send u the rest on skype;

some of the different birds I am working on for the portrait wall in Jessica's film.

piiis out,
asa

Week 8 - making the blockout and blendshapes

2008-02-25T06:46:00.001-08:00

..and ofcourse the dissertation.

On Monday Josie and I meet up in college to do the blockout, I met our sound guy Emmet in the corridor and we discussed sounds for the film a bit and I told him that finally he would get the block out today. Moahaha. Never say never. Ironically everything that could go wrong did go wrong and even more, images from shoots appeared as the background on the timeline so I almost thought the computers graphic card was about to die and all the 2D art work went made when I tried to make playblasts out of the animation. Josie and I chose to laugh about it. We tried different solutions from ten to 4PM and then we gave up and called it for the day. Aminata meet us and heared my mental laugh and decided to come to my house on Wednesday and try to sort out my Maya and save my mental health :)
Ben in my class came and asked me for work so I told him that I, Aminata and jess all needs help with various things. He was interested in designing a new Bobo as I told him that we had problems with him - I also told him that I had to discuss it with Wan as he already is working on Bobo, but maybe Wan want time to work on his dissertation as I know how much work he has done for me and knows that he is a bit behind with dissertation work? I also wanted to make clear to ben that if he wants to do this it has to be done in a week or maximum two. Ben called me the same night which made me happy, he seems really up for it, nice not having to hunt people all the time. Talked to Wan about it on skype and I told him to keep all the work that he had done but that I was not happy with Bobo still and that maybe fresh ideas from outside could help us, right now his legs looks more like human legs then toy legs and there was no development done from the ruff maya Bobo that I had done to show Wan how we might make Bobo more like-able by giving him more shape, rounder belly, more bottom, details on the then very flat ears etc. I need new concept or a modeler who is familiar with character modeling who can do it. And do it now. Did not want Wan to be disappointed or angry with me so we talked about it and he said that he actually much rather makes blendshapes so then it was all for the best for both him and Ben. So now Wan will work on his dissertation and the both of us will make blendshapes for the girl and if Ben doesn't do it then we use Wan's version but we decided to give it a try.

Tuesday, easier to write what I do everyday cos I noticed that otherwise I forget a lot. Dissertation meeting with Mike.H, waited for him for an hour and was so tired when I could see him that I don't think I made any sense - BUT - I did borrow him a digital recorder from college so that he could record his daughter and / or his sons voice for my film :) Told Wan that he could stay home tomorrow and work on his dissertation as I feel responsible for the bad concept work with Bobo. Ben was in and had two Bobo sketches, I told him that i really liked his drawings but that they felt both a bit to comical and that we wanted a fairytalish, sad and beautiful film so that Bobo could not be to cartoonish. Wan was also there so I asked him what he thought and he thought the one we liked the most could work but that it right now looked more like a boys toy and I could see what he meant when he said it so I asked Ben to give the toy a slimmer and less masculine body and try to make it more like a girls toy. I need to discuss the ears with him as well as the long ones he had now would be LOTS of animation work..dont want that eventhough it could be really nice. I hope that Ben is serious cos I am so tired of people saying they will do things n then disappearing.

Wednesday, I can't work anymore. I try but nothing comes out of it. Can't wait for the easter break!! Worked on the dead world, changed a clip in sequence 1 in the first scene n came up with some much better camera angles then the ones in the animatic which is good. Can't stand the playblast problems with maya anymore and the look is not what I am after either so today I imported the animated girl into After effects, cut the background of n started with scene one that also would define the style. Looks so much better in After Effects! need to sort out the clouds and the background so that they follow the 3D camera though. Couldn't finish as Aminata was coming over to fix my maya. Don't like working in college so it is so frustrating not to have maya at home!! We worked about 5 hours on it...doesn't work on my Intel computer. Nice. Oh yes! Raphael showed up today and he also e-mailed me a couple of days ago so it was nice to see him again. I told him that we have a formative next week and that he actually has nothing to show for as he has done nothing for me this term. I asked him to get images that could work as the view from the hospital room and to develop the white flying creature that he should have done when he disappeared, we discussed if it should be 2D or 3D and decided to go for 2d as it would fit the dead world much better. Had a meeting with Mike and told him about our status and what we were doing.

We are behind but I feel more positive then before.

Now I just need to get:
a really good blockout done with Josie
do blendshapes for the girl
finish my dissertation,
make sure we get the train and has everything finished for the easter week with scene/camera/mood and animation list for all involved. Less then two weeks to go!

Week 7 - uffie, peaches and coffee

2008-02-18T03:12:00.001-08:00

more grey colors

testing the color schemes for the dead world, the grey scales are to depressing. Need to make the dead world a nice place.
Most of it will be 2D so we discussed it today and there is no reason to do it in 3D - waste of time, we should animate all the characters separate - everyone gat the size scales today via mail - and then we put the animation in in After Effects and add clouds, mist, fire flies, ray of light etc.

I am trying my best to stay motivated but lately I have been very down, will try and change it around. Have been talking to Aminata about the Eiffel towers, clouds, backgrounds and textures that I have done for her and have told her that I can make more and make changes if she wants ( i think its fun ) but she said that its alright at the moment and that she only has a problem choosing clouds and that she will merge and mix textures in Photoshop.

Giles will help us and rig the girl so I have posted the last changes to Aminata as I still think the girls ears are to small and round. As soon as they are done Giles will get the file and can get cracking.

Painted the lip texture for the mother and passed to wan we have been in contact daily on skype as he is working on the blendshapes for the mother. her face is so narrow that it makes it really hard for her to look happy and show a big smile, wan has been working really hard on it for days now so I told him that we should leave it and move now, its not possible i think to get the look I want with her face so - just move on and get her finished.

I have done my won personal timetable and I have asked my group to do the same as we need one for the easter break but it might also help planning our time better. No words from Raphael yet. A bit pissed off, can't be that hard to send an sms or an e-mail?

Sketched on more different flowers, these ones are more simple then the other ones and suit the new color scheme better.

Talked to Aminata on skype and she said that she needs some more textures so I am quickly trying to paint more tonite as I want to work with my dissertation. Or..actually i don't want to but... guess I have to.. :)

test with my textures on Aminatas buildings, I like it a lot!

I thought that Wan's eyelids with the box in the end wouldn't work but both him n Mike said it was good at the last meeting so I was thinking well, what do I know? But they didn't work so now poor Wan has to change all the eyelids. I asked him if he ever checked how the other modelers done their eyelashes and we did a quick test with alpha channels but it didn't work so I said that we have to leave it and move on, she will be alright without eyelashes- we just need to finish her now - I want Wan to get time to work on his dissertation as well cos he has been struggling with the mothers hair texture, blendshapes etc and has done A LOT of work. We have been talking a lot on skype this week, sending files back n forth and trying to get the mothers happy face and smile to work but she has such a narrow thin face that it is hard to make her laugh and make it look good. Anyway - I AM doing work, producing and directing takes some time eventhough you might not think so, looking through everyones work and trying not to miss out on something essential, making changes, plan this n trying to hold it together, make decisions etc. This is how Wan and Aminata and I have worked, sending files with feedback and comments back n fort to each-other via skype, really handy with skype!

E-mailed Caspar about the train, need to make sure if he will texture it or not. I want it in cream white with gold details, looked for textures earlier this week and sent some to Caspar:

Josie and I will finish the Block out on Monday so that feels really good! Then I can pass it to our sound guy.
I hope that Mike.H is back this week as well cos then I can give him a digital recorder so that he can record the voice for us.

Promised to animate a scene in Jessica's film during the easter break, that will be fun! So I will add that to my Easter schedule when I know more about it. Will make a schedule for the rest of this production as well.

Size referance of sophie that i made with wan and e-mailed all the modelers as she was to big for the train and the nenvironments couldnt get nice depth with her that massive.

Peace n Luv,
asa

Week 6 - and I wanted to put this film down

2008-02-13T08:56:00.000-08:00

I had it the other day, so today I really wanted to put this film down and was very certain of it. I feel that I am getting my degree, my showreel and final year fucked because I was stupid and pitched a film with both 2D and 3D that I couldn't make by myself cos I am not good with 3D, rigging, modeling etc. But that was the point I remembered - we should pitch a film that a lot of student could and would like to work on that wasn't to long and complicated and didn't have to many characters in it. I did that. It took weeks to figure out the dynamics of the group and realizing that actually some people don't do shit but is bullshitting me week after week. So I started loosing hope. I am probably a shit producer- probably a shit director. But I work try to do my best.

The same week as we are warned about always fucking up deadlines - deadlines get fucked AGAIN. So, how long should I let this repeat itself? Can we do it? Mike is probably thinking about what is the best for the course and what is best for the majority of students - but I actually have to think about me. I am not leaving this college without a showreel. Fuck No.

I felt more positive after the meeting when Giles said that he could help us and rig the girl, maybe even help us with some blendshapes. Sarah and Rob also offered to help with modeling props and characters. I will ask Sara to help out with background paintings and the deadworld,

a lot of people were doing concept on it but actually all I gat was two drawings, one from Eva and one from Josie and it is not enough. I sketched some on it as well. I will give this one more week, then I don't care what anyone says. This is about MY future. I don't live with my parents. I am not 18 or 20. I am 30 years old and gave up a flat and a good job to go and get a degree.. even if I am not an animator.

Anyway, here is the hospital room. Will fix the duvet and pillow when the girl actually is in the bed so I can shape it after her body. The lamp needs another texture and the plant in the window is not done.

lets not mourn or get depressed about this shit, lets try and make the best out of the situation.. lets design the Dead-world!
I kept this image that I found online since last term, and it gave me an idea.

maybe we should have some weird plants/flowers in the dead-world? I started sketching on some weird flower growing on roots.

and then this was the colors we wanted to use;

and I'm not longer sure about if they are "happy" enough. Testing color combinations.

Week 5 - finishing of environment 1: the hospital

2008-02-04T07:57:00.001-08:00

Sunday, talked with Aminata and Wan on skype. Told Wan to hold it with Bobo, that he should finish the mother first, arranged so that they use the same hair and skin textures. Asked Wan about the mother, if her clothes are cloth or not and if the have fabric bumbmaps. I want at-least 2 characters finished by Wednesday. E-mailed Sophie to Caspar so that he can get the size reference and get the scales on the train right and i can get the scales for the hospital room right as I want to finish it tomorrow. Tried to find textures online. Changed the girls eyes to brown and it looks so much better. Sent Aminata the last textures and some Eiffel towers and clouds. Asked Josie to send me the toys tomorrow so that I can put them in the room. Told Patrick that he should focus on the Dr instead of the Deadworld environment as the Dr is scheduled to be finished this week and Patrick worked on the Deadworld during the x-mas break and I only seen one test. Now I am going to sleep. Tomorrow a new week begins.

Today is friday, I have been coughing up my lounges for three days but I am going into college today to finalize the hospital room:

* put some bumb maps on,
* find a more typical hospital floor texture,
* put cloth effect on the pillows ( wait with the duvet until Sophie is finished as she will lay under it)
..and as Raphael has been gone for 2 weeks without sending us any work or saying why, I will take over his job and texture the heart rate monitor. I want to find the typical texture for the window to their room as well, maybe I will call Lewisham hospital and ask them if I can take a few pictures of there floors and windows haha.

and then home and finish chapter 1 in my dissertation and wait for my boyfriend to come and make a pc part on my mac so that I can install windows and get Maya to work hopefully, cos in college u can only work until 9 at nite, I prefer working at home so I need to get my computer sorted out. It ois really weird that it doesn't work, we have tried for 4 months, Jessica has tried as well..grrrr, hopefully it works today cos I need to do some nite shifts.

During the week:

The last thing I did was plain grey walls, not what we decided but I like it the most. It makes the room completly sterile and soulless. Will finish it tomorrow and ask Ross if he wants to do the light. Now I have to write a chapter on my dissertation.

green yellow painted walls

watercolor walls

started texturing the hospital room and its really hard to find a nice floor texture so it looks as if I will have to paint it. Tried real wall textures and this watercolor one and I prefer watercolor and Josie did as well. Now I just need to make a nice floor.
I am not happy with the wheels and will add wheels to the hospital bed as well. The room needs to clearly show that she leaves there and has done so for a long time but also that its not an environment she wants to be in. Josie is making two toys and Raphael is texturing the heart rate monitor. I want a pair of slippers on the floor by the bed as well, fluffy ones, Sophie's ones.

yes, more textures... no point for me to post them up here cos so far I have painted 43 different ones.. still 2 color schemes left to do then I am really looking forward to see how it looks on all the Parisian buildings, think it will be really nice.

Aminata asked me if I wanted to make clouds as well - and actually that is exactly what I've been thinking about and looking into for my film.. this is from Persepolis that Mike showed me.

and this is how they made them in "I lived on the Moon",

I have looked at all kinds of illustrated and painted clouds but these 2 examples are the ones I like the most so...back to the bath tub with all my paint! Want to make my own kind of clouds so this will take a while..lets get started.

water color and photoshop clouds

painted water color clouds

and some more..

I have been looking for more textures for the hospital room as I want to make a little test and see and compare how it looks with "real" textures and how it looks with watercolor textures. Think it could look even darker and more unwelcoming with green watercolors - will try today. Have to go to college to be able to work with Maya. It sucks.
Did some more textures as well, try to draw like a kid - I worked with kids this age for 4 years but can't really remember how much your drawing skills has developed when u are 7.. probably more then this..

Sophies drawings

Week 4 and counting down!

2008-01-30T07:23:00.000-08:00

Okej, so what did I do this week?

I e-mailed Ash and Samir to double-check if they are still on and will help me out with animation, they haven't reply so I think that they maybe don't check their rave e-mail that often and will write to them on facebook as well. Patrick had misunderstood and not checked the blog so he started modeling the Doctor, but Jessica already did that so I asked him to check his mail again as the 3D model and the color-scheme and everything was sent to him earlier on. I sent the mp3 and the script to Mike Hirsch so that his daugher and son can play around with it at home and record - would be really good if it worked cos then I gat Sophie's voice for the start of the film right there! So thanks for that Mike H! :)

I messed up jessica's bathtub with black water color as I have done lots of test for the character "The Shadow". I liked the result but think I want to do it again as there is a reflection from the lamp in the bathroom that we couldn't get rid of. I have tried to get that test up on this blog for HOURS!! And in 4 differnt small sizes but no...fuckin hell, will try again cos I think it looks cool

I painted more ugly houses for Aminata's backgrounds and here are some watercolor textures for her film, I have a bout 32 more to paint...

I have re isntalled Maya about 4 times but no, it doesnt seem to want to work on my copmuter and it is stressing me out cios I really need it and have been struggling with it for months. If worse comes to worse then I will have to do the texturing in college. I am missing concept for the dead world and I am also missing test for the dead world but I can't be bothered asking for it any more so I will do it on my own with help of After Effects and maya.

I did ugly concept for Bobo's blendshapes and we discussed how he should be Animated and how he can be more expressive at the last meeting. Josie and I did and put up the new schedule and I put some backgrounds I painted up on the group blog and is waiting for some fedback, will make more art work during the weekend.

I found this art work online and I love it - it goes together with the creatures Raphael had come up with for the Deadworld. Would be nice to adapt the idea of using akvarell and pens to it so the creature could be 3d but textured 2d and have a 2d effect. Raphael is working on it.

Have done some texts with the Shadow using Corel Paint and Final Cut Pro- I don't really like the look I get with Corel Paint though and would rather just 2D animate it and draw it and paint it for real instead of digitally. Played around a bit and last night I did some tests in Jessica's bathtub. Will post the film here later on, just need to make it smaller first. Showed it for the group today anyway and they all liked it so thats good. I like it. Still think I want to add something to it. Messy charcoal maybe.

Had a meeting with the group today and Mike joined in and gave us an ultimatum. 2 weeks.

Aminata seem to have liked the new backgrounds, I told her that if she wants changes or more then she should just let me know and I'll do it. I think its really fun :) She wanted some more really ugly houses with boring ugly colors s I will do that tonite.

Beautiful animated films:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNF6zH3pjDU&feature=related

and i gat this one from Aminata,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecI-ApTJPKI&feature=related

Peace n Luv and I am out.
asa

Week 3 - fed up with college

2008-01-21T03:01:00.000-08:00

Playing around with the Shadow Character and how he should appear. I wanna do some test with 2D animation and After Effects this week so that we can decide how this character should look and be animated - I want him very 2D and organic and probably more as bleeding ink.

Some of the Backgrounds I drawn for Aminata - to put on layers for more depth - 2 Aminata

I feel like I am getting fucked on my final year and it is not a nice feeling. Should I skip this year and come back next year and re do it? Would I actually come back? I worked really hard these years - I think I deserve to work out with a showreel.

I have a group meeting tomorrow and I will try n speed things up n try to get everything moving forward but I am seriously tired of it and don't want what I had last term, stress and worries. Will have a meeting with Mike tomorrow as well so that's good. Cos I am probably a bad producer as well as we are such a big group but always is behind, will try and change that.

Work that has to be done for my FILM;

- more concept for the shadow character
- test 2D animation and AE animation for the shadow character
- model and rig the girl model
- texture and rig the Dr character
- rig the Mother and the Bobo Character
- Blendshapes for Bobo, the girl and the mother
- changes to the animtic ( that i gave everyone during x-mas but no one gave a shit about )
- sound effects and music
- the girls voice
- finalyse and create the dead world environment

Work for Jess FILM:

- Owls portrait color and texture tests
- maybe paint the backgrounds ( wait for more info )

Work for Aminatas FILM:

- Paris backgrounds in layers

Well time to stop the holiday blues i guess and get back to work!

Found this Blog online from another animation student who is doing more art oriented animation, really nice style and animation.

http://lindescharacter.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html

peace n luv,
asa

Week 2 - back to reality!

2008-01-15T02:03:00.000-08:00

Bird nr 11 color test for Jess

To make the textures fit in really nice I would need much more time, so this is just a test and not the final ones. I like soem of the hair though.

Bird nr 4 color n texture test for Jessica

Thursday and I have been thinking about if I should jump off this course and take a one year break, but I am not sure if I would come back and a BA is good to have - but not if I don't have a portfolio or any good grades? So, hmm, lot's of stuff on my mind right now. Will talk to Mike on Tuesday. Painted some Buildings for Aminata in that style that she liked, sent her different buildings in different colors as a pdf so that she can use the ones she like, put them in different layers the way she want etc. Jessica liked and picked some owl's so I will make texture and color tests for the ones that she choose and present it on Monday.

Need backgrounds for the dead world. We still don't have any concept or any tests but I hope I will get some on the next group meeting, meanwhile I am playing around with watercolors as I want the sky to be made out of watercolors but maybe be slightly animated in after effects and be in layers. Will make tests when I have time.

I am really unmotivated. Came back after 5 weeks n nothing has changed.

During the X-mas I had promised to sketch on Owl's that Jessica can use as family photographs on the walls in her film - and here they are but I still feel that they look like chickens and that I have problems drawings owl's.

Talked to Aminata the other day and she actually likes my Paris background but want the buildings to have more the typical Paris style ( that I find it hard to draw ) but I am really surprised and glad she liked my silly ugly style so offcourse I have to do it! Will get into it this week. Now internet is working again in my house so that's good!

Otherwise? I feel a bit unmotivated, might be cos I just came home from paradise and is in a rainy grey shit hole where people wear expansive brands n look very unhappy - but it might also be that I feel a bit lost on my course, I love the fact my film is in the making but..I don't know, I am not a animator, not a rigger, not a modeller...so what am I doing at Ravensbourne?

I know that I have to be more direct when I produce, I think load and is wanting other peoples opinions all the time when I should actually just know and just go for it, so I need to improve that this term.

peace n luv,
asa

X-Mas Holiday work

2007-12-30T06:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went jungle trecking on elephants but the coolest thing was feeding the elephants and then swiming with them! Really fun! Less fun is having to work on a holiday in paradise - but I am working. This is the first draft of the hospital room and I just posted these images and info about changes I have done, what else I will add etc on the group Blog. I will build the heart rate monitor and the drip stand and fix some details this week pararlle work with the trainstation as I also started . I have also e-mailed everyone in my group as only Josie and I have posted our developing work so far and we decided before x-Mas that everyone should- so..that makes me a bit worried. I asked Kaspar to post his train work as well and gave him the log in details so I hope stuff will pop up soon. Jessica e-mailed the the model of the Dr weeks ago already! And it looked really good.

Happy New Year everyone!!
asa

I don't know what week it is! And I don't care!! :)

2007-12-20T23:26:00.000-08:00

Here is some images for Jono and his film straight out of Cambodia and Ankor Wat. We gat 400 pictures or more so we do have lot that I can show you when I am back in UK- I will just put up some stuff here. Ankor Wat has about 200 temples, some are hindu temples and some temples are buddhist temples so the ones with Ganesha ( the elephant) etch, more indian style - are hindu temples. I can write more about it later on, I am in a expensive internet cafe right now and wanna get back to the beach :)

peace n luv,
asa

Week 10 and I am off!!

2007-12-06T01:41:00.000-08:00

One and a half day in Bangkok, the city took me by surprise, much more laidback then I thought it would be, a lot of polution and tuk tuk's which are extremly fun and cheap to go around with! I can only upload low resolution pics now so they are a bit shit, when I get more time I will sit down and do it properly - I have filmed a lot as well! :) u can hardly see it but behind that tree is our bungalow - we live at "Porn Bungalows" haha. They have the nicest food I have had so far - for 80 Bat u get an amasing Thai meal...let me explain..100 pounds is like 10 000 Bat..so the food is very very cheap :) our beach in Koh Chang well well, fought that i could breath out now but appearantly not, just gat an mail from Mike and my submission cd's did not work so I have asked jessica for help to hand them in again as I did shit loads of work, I have e-mailed her again today so hopefully she gets back to me or I will have to call my housemates. Now Im gonna go and have some amasing green curry though! peace n luv asa

Week 9 - get the shit done!

2007-11-25T00:23:00.000-08:00

Checklist:

Animatic
Essay Garteh
Essay and presentation Mike.H
Modelsheet, Character Desecription, Character Sheet : Sophie
Modelsheet, Character Desecription, Character Sheet : The Dr
Modelsheet, Character Desecription, Character Sheet : Bobo
Give 4-5 frames illustrations to M for the market in Germany
Final trainsstation - interior + exterior
Soundeffects from soundguy in college
ANI 303 DVD to Mike.S. ( Journal and folders )

Had a meeting with the group today, some of the old changes wasn't done and my scene needs speeding up + that Mike and Mike didn't think that I established that Sophie was lost and happy to meet Bobo strong enough so I am trying to change some of her face expressions now so that hopefully it becomes more clear and establish their strong relationship better. Don't want to add to much as our film already is up to 4.20 minutes...way to much! Trying to keep a complicated film simple..how is thats possible..? Well, have to try..
Nnamdi didn't show up to this meeting either and I still haven't gat his two week delayed finalized train design so I am not very happy about that and e-mailed him today and apologized for not being able to call ( as my phone is not working) and I thanked him for everything that he has done for the film and told him that this is not working out, can't always be late cos then we all get late, so I asked him to focus on his other groups that he is working with instead. I gat the sound-effects from Emmet today! Wicked! He was so fast and I am so happy about it! Gonna put them on the animatic tomorrow!

Tuesday: Patrick stepped in like an rescuing angel and helped Wan re do a lot of the scenes of his part of the animatic, they both did a really good job and Josie as well so now atlast we have that done- but I told everyone that its still some changes that has to be done when it comes to timing and camera work like when Sofie gives Bobo to her mom it first looks like she gives it to her moms belly, i wanna see her face in that shoot as well and in my scene maybe we have to be clearer and the girl happier when she sees Bobo etc etc, will make a list on the Blog so that we all can get on it during the x-mas break. Josie is making a x-mas work schedule. Raphael didn't come in today so I didn't get his creatures of the dead-world or thumbnail sketches, not very good as that is what he has done for me this term, I know that he gat problems login into the college network and I told him to talk with the tutors about it.

I am never ever ever in my entire lif going to do fuckin modelsheets, NEVER!!! Waste of time!! Someone else who CAN do it should do it!! Struggled for hours n hours n it still looks completely wrong and as if i 5 year old drew it - NEVER AGAIN haha, never! I gave Josie a modelsheet a couple of weeks ago but I thought that it was rubbish so I have tried to improve it since then, Josie haven't had time to model so it as okej for me to work more on it, this is atleast better then the old one..

...soon I am off to Thailand!!

My to do list for X-Mas:

* Develop the shadow, I imagine him ( yes its a him for some weird reason ) as bleeding black paint with lots of layers of bleedoing grey scales and black just eating up the screen with the color shaping up like massive claws..hmm
* Update the script and the animatic ( i change stuff for scene 1, josie 2 and 3 and wan and patrick scene 4 )
* not get malaria
* get maya and model the hospital room and the trainstation
* give the animatic to Christina and Emmet so they can help us work on music and sound
* color mood boards
* finished bobo - what textures should he have? The ones we liked we need to paint in photoshop as its to small to use
* Backgrounds for environment

Did some watercolor backgrounds today while working on bobo and collecting work from my peeps for tomorrow on a cd.

need some yellow and pink with all the grey in the opening scene to keep it slightly "happy" - black and blood dark read and dramatic when the shadow appears

new ruff mood board

shit i need to sleep, so much work left to do and i am trying but damn it is overwhelming and i am getting slower n slower..i havent even started gareths essay..cant work on this anymore..zz

final Bobo, looks a bit better then the old one - dont have time to develop him anymore. Wan has the mothers modelsheet and this one and Josie has the girls so they are both ready to go - I have added things to Josies X-mas timetable as Jessica. S, Caspar are working for us as well and we all get quite a lot to do during X-mas as I wanna catch up and not be this stressed out next term n get my essays fucked. Put a list of changes to the animatic on the Blog as well so everyone knows what to do during the X-mas. I really don't like the girls modelsheet but what to do? There is no time. I have asked both Wan n Josie n everyone to post developing work on the group blog so if she starts looking really weird in 3d we fast can fix it.

WEEK 8 and I am tired

2007-11-19T03:42:00.000-08:00

Aminata inspired me - its quite good therapy actually :)

I am letting my group work more independently today, feel a bit tired of all these long meetings that we use to have so today we have an online meeting and everyone is just supposed to upload their work so that they fast can get fedback and go and do the changes and give fedback to everyone elses work. I need to take some shots for my Cambodia trip so I will not go in to college today, have a Dr's appointment and quite a lot of shots, malaria pills n stuff to sort out.

New trainstation sketches from the weekend :

I prefer the old sketches though. I did a lot of weird backgrounds for Aminata during the weekend as well:

And started on Character Sheets for Sofie:

I have been asked to sell some of my illustrations on a German Christmas market for charity that loads of famous designers are involved with, offcourse I want to do that so I have to get started on that as well and shape up my work and wrap it up nicely and ship it of to Germany :)
..and now the Dr is finished.

Well letting my group work independent didnt really work either. I am really tired and stressed. I find it weird that we are supoose to pitch group films and projetcs for our final year - yes I know that we are supoose to get ready for the industry but so many that I have talked with have problems with their groups. People that doesnt do any work, dont attened meetings and some just simply disappeared and are not even picking up the phone or answering e-mails. Surely hard working students shouldn't pay for others lazyness and get completly stressed out and not get time for other college work as they have to cover up for lazy ones? I have had two meetings now where some people hasn's presented ANY work. Next meeting I will fire those who repeat that. I am not on this course to baby sit. I pay a f lot of money to be here and I gave up a good full time job and an apartment in sweden for this course ( even if I don't want to be an animator, i came this far and now I want to finish it ) so people better be serious about my time. I am really tired of it and don't know what to do. I will see if it repeats itself on tomorrow's meeting, then I might ask some people to go and do something else some where else or shape the fuck up. I rather work with a small group then a big one that stresses me out. I noticed that the drawing skills in my group was low very early and thats when I approached James L, Aminata and Becca and asked them for concept help. We all don't have to be good at drawing- I am not that good, but shit I tryyyyyy!

Aminata has been a star so I am trying to give her something back for her film. Jessica S is considering modeling the Dr during the X-mas break and Caspar the train so that is very good. I gat a third year sound student who is really hard working who is interested inhelping us out with sound effects so I ahve e-mailed him some concept work to get a feel of the film and a new script that I wrote quickly, he also has the group Blog link and a list of the kind of sound effects that we need. Sound makes such an massive difference! I have been on different websites with classical music but not found anything so I asked my friends and that started e-mailing mesome stuff and I might have the music for the beginning for the film when the girl is in the Dead World.
Wednesday:
Didn't like the old cut outs of the girl so I made new ones, want a nice animatic if possible. Painted to different background just to try n show the feel of the film some how. Started my scenes of the animatic. Shit if people did their shit we sould have been done with this weeks ago..

Thursday: Okej little miss asa..now its gonna be f hardcore work for u!

* Last meeting protocol on Blog]
* Fix scene one and make my own version of the entire animatic for meeting with Mike on Monday ( jesuuuuuus, no i am not doing that, this year is group work so i am not gonna kill myself )
* Finish Mike H's essay and hand out and prepare presentation
* Go through all the sounds I gat from Marcus and the sound guy from college
* Gareth's essay
* framed illustrations to sell on the design market in Germany
* New Mods/UK gangster pigeons to Jessica
* More Paris backgrounds for Aminata, less abstract, bigger buildings infront and more typical french buildings ( haha, how am I gonna draw that, I am so so shit in drawing buildings hahaha! Betta go to Catord and get some crack or speed or something cos I will not get any sleep this weekend..)

Had a meeting today, the protocol is on the group Blog. Talked to Patrick on the phone and said that I cant have it like this and that he can work on other films instead, he was really sorry and said that he done loads of work but have had massive problems coming into college. I said that he doesnt have to come in all the time but he has to communicate and show us his work so that we know where we are - me and Patrick will have an online meeting tonite. Nnamdi was a week late with his train that he has been workig on for a month so i told him not to bother any more and that I will let someone else do the train. When I came home at nite he had sent me really nice drawings so I said okej, u still gat the train but stick to deadlines.
So I am straight on point and I have given them a new chance but its the last one cos I can't stand being this stressed.

Sketched on Mike's lecture, I always sketch in class, might look bad but I focus and listen better when I sketch some how.

Friday: Jessica is trying to get the final pigeons done so I asked her if she wanted me to do some even though I don't work on her film any more, I did some really fast today but I can do better, just need some more time so I will sketch on them tonie.
Had a very good meeting with Mike H about my film but Mike S has his visions of it, Dan D has his and Mike H has his - I am listening and discussing it with my group but in the end of the day its my film. So we did two changes today - Sofie will say good bye to Bobo before she leaves and gets on the train cos I realised when I was talking to Mike that it is really weird that Sofies best friend and companion isnt allowed to foolow her so we need to do soemthing about it and this is the solution that we came up with. Sofie will suddenly stop and turn around and put her hand as a stop sign towards Bobo so that he also stops and looks at her, she looks seriously at him (. Mike H wanted dialog but I want to do all that I can to aviod dialog and I discussed this with Josie and Wan and they agreed.) and we paus while they seriously look eachother in the eye in a way that u understand tat this is good bye, then they hug and say farwell, the train whisthe blows so they have to run and catch it as in the old version. We will also make the shadow look more like the Dr. Mike H had really really nice ideas that made the film more positive and the environment of the dead world warmer but me, josie and wan want to keep the mysterious feeling and the conflict with being draggaed back to the hospital. But we will add that little toy cat ball that I found, it will boune by in the dead world cos even if the dead world is a bit mysterious it is still warm and nice happy and friendly. Now I am going to go and record my voice for the animtic. Yeah, I talked to Aminata today about her background, should do it in layers to get more depth and she liked that Idea. I asked what colors she wanted me to focus on and she said yellow and pink.

One more thing, Josie and Wan - I am so happy to have u on my team! Thanks for all the hard work!! :)

I like the top ones but the polo pigeion is a bit shit, need some more time.

I am not happy with the old Bobo design, think this one is sligthly better but I am not sure its teh final one. Nnamdi are working on it as well but the drawings he gave me looked to much like he drawn of famous characters as Winnie Pooh etc so I asked him to draw his own way and not copy things as I want this film to has its own style.

I am thinking about the hospital room. Hving a birthday image in there that shows that she celebrated her birthday their ones is good, then I was thinking a bout some more toys like that horse that Josie did that was really nice, a game that she can play with her mom and others and some drawings. I worked with children in this age for 4 years haha, but can I remember how an 7 year old in general draw? No I don't. And it can vary. So I tried to find some stuff online and tried to make my own 7-year old looking drawings. I have e-mailed my old colleges at Alviskskolan in Sweden- they could probably get a bunch of 7 year old girls to draw for me.

from internet

and from me..

What I have learned this term? Loads!! I was to democratic and nice in the beginning of this project, I thought that if everyone felt important and that I really listened to their ideas etc and not just threw out orders then it would be more fun to work on this film and motivate people more.. I was wrong. I was alo a bit insecure I think and really felt that I wanted more fedback and point of views to be able to make a good film and make the right decisions. Vey nice people in my group, we have fun together, but wokwise shit is not really happening. We just gat delayed and delayed and I tried to point out how much we had to do and that everyone must read the blog and stick to their deadlines etc etc. Josie and me just gat more and more tired and talked about it and I said that we had to be tuffer and make clear limits. It is only one week left now, I dont want to write to much on this Blog but this weekend I seriously had enough. I am a student who wants to make a film. I am not responsible over people that doesnt show up, dont call or e-mail and say why. I have been very stressed about these things - more stressed about the group the the actual work. I am not gonna get stressed out any more. The entire concept of group work and having a meetings where u decide things and write them up and some students go and do something completly different is really tireing but thats just what group work is, now i know what to exepct from people and know who does their work and put effort in it and who's bullshiting and always being two weeks late. So next term will be different. I am just a bit angry about it cos this was my term, I love doing concept and need to improve my drawing skills, now I had to stop working for jess and is not doing very much for Aminata cos I havent had time cos I had to jump in and do work that others was supposed to do on my film. Grr. Well well, enough about that. This term felt like the basic of the film though, feels like if we are behind now - how will we catch up? I dont have a lap top but will have to try n sort something out so that I can work in Thailand.

peace n luv and one week left to survive and then I am off to Thailand!!
I have asked Wan to produce and direct n keep an eye on things while I am gone.
asa

Week 7 - finishing concept!

2007-11-12T00:37:00.000-08:00

new research on Paris to Aminatas film

I'm gonna help Aminata with her film tonite and maybe tomorrow, she have asked me to help her paint Paris backgrounds, that will be fun, I have never done backgrounds before! A bit afraid that I might be real shit at it but I will try, Aminata has helped me a lot with sketches and concept work so I really feel I want to give something back. I don't know if we eill see the door to the apartment in any shoot but I found this door sign that I really liked, have passed it to Aminata.

Today we will pick all the camera angles for my film and tomorrow hopefully the final concept of the creatures of the dead world, the Doctor and the mum so I will probably be up all nite sketching and maybe using flash. I e-mailed two sound students that I know in college about sound effects this weekend, tried to find more sound students but it didn't work with the studentifier so I have to log into their course on Moodle or something so that I can ask some more. Cos we will need sound from a hospital, maybe even osund of the girl breathing sometimes etc. I will give students that are interested the animatic.

Had a good meeting today. It was me, Wan, Josie and Patrick, decided to do the tree trainstation so I will do more concept of that until Thursday and right now I am e-mailing Bobo and The girl as Cut out psd parts ( that Patrick and I will use in our Animatic ) to Patrick. Will do them in profile versions as well, will not do a mad slick animatic but nicer and better then the old one so that people not invo;ved hopefully understands whats going on.
Now..back to work.. :)

Bobo cut out parts for animatic

Some of Sofie's cut out heads for the animatic

I am e-mailing Patrick Bobo and the girl with cut out parts that we easily can animate for a nicer and more understandable animatic. Patrick and I will do the animatic together and I am thinking about asking Raphael to do some scenes as well as he hasn't doen so much this term and he said he wanted to play around with the timing before so thats good. To make sure Patrick gat it all I also texted his mobile phone about it, he hasn't replied but now I am sure he knows about it.

My Tree trains station idea was voted for so I am going to do more concept this week. I want it to be a mixture between an Old oak tree and a Willow Tree. I htink butterflies are to pretty and feminin but I want to make my own version of fireflies.

Wednesday. My head can't handle stress. Migrane. Made a list of the meeting for the rest of the term and posted on the group Blog yesterday and was up late sketching on the Doctor.

Thursday: Nnamdi and Josie are sick and I can't get thru to Patrick so me, Raphael and Wan had a short metting and everyone gat a lot of work to do. A bit disapointed and angry as no one had done what they had to do for today but maybe they put it on the Blog later on today? There's only two weeks left and right now I don't really trust everyone in the group any more, deadlines been crushed to many times and people act as if they don't know what they're supposed to do eventhough we decided about the tasks together and have the list of them for every week on the blog. Hope for better luck next week :)

I can't belive I promised to help Aminata to draw a background of Paris moahahaha, my drawing really look SHIT! I told her that I am bad but..well well haha..it will be a long nite. Have to make character sheets for Bobo and the girl and develop our Doctor as well so it will be a long nite. Sorry Aminata! I am trying ha ha, but..not very good at it

My favourite is Doctor version 1

Friday: F unbelivable but Aminata thought my background style was cool and want another one with no grey in it haha..she most be joking! But I will make 2-3 more and e-mail her today. Need to make the Eifeel tower actually look like the Eiffeltower as well.

I have e-maild Patrick, Nnamdi and Raphael about the group Blog and that I am disapointed in the after 7 weeks not posting anything at all and not leaving any fedback or comments on our concept eventhough they said they would start doing it 4 weeks ago. Its important that people feel our characters but right now its jut me, Josie and Wan voting and chosing them. I e-mailed Jessica, Eva and Aminata to help us and vote and leave fedback as well as I find it important. Haven't heared anything from Patrick so I hope that he is alright, he always use to text back. If I dont hear anything until tomorrow then I will start doing the animatic on my own. I also replied to Nnamdi and told him that he gat until Monday to present the train he was going to present on Thursday and has been working on for three weeks - if he doesn't then I will talk to Caspar cos I know he really wants to build and old steam train. Can't wait any longer.
the voting took off and stange enough everyone liked the same on, good, then thatw as easy! So I started with his modelsheet and Character Sheet and did a little Character description that I hope might be atleast a little bit helpful for the animator.

Peace n Luv,
asa

Week 6 - Hopefully the turning point

2007-11-05T10:52:00.000-08:00

Monday and we had a meeting with the group today. Posted a protocol on the group Blog. Tired.
We have problems with the storyboard and the animatic, I will start making my version of it during this and the coming week.
Need some time for dissertation research, presentations and essays as well. I have the oppurtunity to sell some of my illustrations in a small art cafe in Hither Green and the oppurtunity to be published in a book made by the Swedish Illustrator Society that they make once every year and send out to advertising agency's and publishers so I want to go for that while I have the chance, start aiming at what I want to do before I graduate. Want to send out my little book in February and see if I can get a work placement for the easter break but I guess that they all are looking for 3D people.

Josie showed us some clips from a Miyazaki film earlier that I have totaly missed, Naausica of the Valley of the Wind, I really liked this enviroment an dthe colors used, the light. I have been digging into books in the library but I am still sticking to my original style idea, a mix between Miasaki and the "I lived on the Moon" musicvideo cos i haven't found anything else that I really think fits and that I like that much.

I am working on Sofies modelsheet, I am struggling with the profile of her face as I draw so 2D. Have to find a book or a tutorial about how to easily adapt 2D drawings to 3D. I tried to sketch on the trainstation yesterday..I am as good as drawing houses as realistic people ha ha! I tried in Illustrator as well. I almost rather make block outs in Maya but I havent installed it on my new computer yet. I want a Miyazaki style trainstation. I want a magical film. Will took to Ross today about light, he is really good on 3D lighting so hopefully he'll have a chance to help me a bit next term. Here are some sketches and research:

I really like the idea with a tree house, maybe make the station between the trees roots? I want some imagination in this film. I want some magic.

The question might be, if this is a train station where do people and creaturs waith for the train? Can we be a bit creative and run loose or do we have to explain and make everything belivable? I would like to put Raphaels watch man on the stairs by the door.

Tuesday: Trying to learn more about color as it will be very important for my film as we will communicate a lot with the colors schemes and environments. I hope that who ever that reads this alos read the GROUP BLOG, where all the lists of what people should do and for when are up as well as who's been attending meetings and who's not etc.

Never gat any colorshemes from Patrick or Eva so now I just quickly made the one fo rthe hospital room as well and then its done.

Thurdsay: My sister came from Sweden today but I posted my new research and sketches on the blog and told Joise about what she should look at at the meeting and she did a really good job. Will meet up again tomorrow and now I think its time for me to loose it. Talked to Jessica about that I will not have time to do more work for her this term, I neeed to get my won film back on track. I really enjoy sketching on those pigeons though!

Friday: Had a really good meeting with almost everyone from my group. Told Nnamdi that he has to start putting up things on his and our Blog as he oes have lots of ideas and have research but he doesnt put them on the blog so how will the tutors know? I was just about to start stressing research and conept for the dead world when he showed me " Josie's la la land" - that was it! A bit to dark but thats what I imagined but softer and warmer. Josie and Wan like dit as well so now we gat that done and I am happy :) Aminata helped me out with the model sheet so that I much easier can make them aso now I have promised to research views of Paris and paint, forgat to ask if it s for the films background or the womans apartment view but here's some research so that she can tell me what she likes and what I should sketch on.

RESEARCH FOR AMINATA:

peace n luv,
asa

Week 5 - Developing Bobo and looking at Colors

2007-10-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

The sketches I have done of Sofie during the weekend. For some weird reason I can't log into the Group Blog. I will ask the group today if anyone else is having problems, maybe we have to change the password. Josie liked nr 1, Wan, me an dPatrick likes version 3, Me, Wan and Raphael also really likes version 4 but everyone wanted to see her with the other hairstyles.

I checked the animatic that Patrick sent me. I can see now that we need to explan and show more in Scene 3, Patricks and my scene. That scene shouldn't be to dramatic but we have to establish that she doesn't want to be in that world, that it is painful and we have to establish the goog bye and " its time to let go" moment with her mother. I don't think we are doing that good enough right now. Scene 4 is still going a bt to fast I think, what happened with this girls journey and where are the creatures that she can see in the new world of the dead? Tomorrow we will have a meeting and then everyone will have a look at the animatic so that we hopefully can get the real storyboard and anmatic developed within 1- weeks, I don't want to rush it, it is bloody important and it's hard. I am a bit stressed and worried but I feel that eveyrone started working harder last week so hopefully we will be okej. If not, then I guess I will stop working on so many films and focus on my own. It's just that I really enjoy concept work and we are doing all that stuff this term so that's why I am really busy right now.

I have done some color research but have to discuss what we are going for with the group on our Monday meeting. We all like and decided to go for wamr and tone down colors and use a lot of grey as in the "I lived on The Moon" musicvideo. But I think I want to intergrate more warm colors as orange into the dead world to more clearly with the help of color establish that this is the world that the girl wants to be in. Lighting will be very important, cold and sterile in the hospital and soft and warm in the Deadworld.

Almost everyone was an hour late to the Monday meeting. I don't want any more of that, it pisses me off as we have shit loads to do. Okej if a train is late but otherwise everyone knows we start at 10 and I do think that we all should take our last college year seriously. I think that Joise and I have been bad producers so far, we are behind so we are doing something wrong but we really try to inform everyone about everything thats happening and making sure that each one of us know what we are expected to do every week. Mike said the thing, " I need to see more amount of work". And thats exactly what it is! If you are gonna work on the trainstation, the girl, Bobo, the hospital room etc - I wanna see more then 1-2 sketches, I wanna see research. Oh my God, if I had only done 1-2 girls per week then we would never ever finish!
So I am gonna ask all concept artists to NOT bring 1 or 2 sketches ( but i think I already did on the Group Blog ?) but atleast 5-10. I am worried and stressed about the pace we are working in. So Josie and I have to be tuffer from now on. Otherwise there will not be a film cos this is the most important term, this is where we set the foundation of this film.
Was I stuoid when I was democratic and let everyone had a say about this film? Should I have sticked with the octopuss idea?
I think 6 brains should be better then one so we will stick with the train, but offcourse, in my head I see the girl swinnimg with a octopuss.

Jono hasn't replied for days now so I am not going to priorities working for his film right now, I need fedback and I need to know what's going on first.

Monday evning and I am trying different hairstyles and colors on the 2 girl designs that everyone liked:

Tuesday. I have posted a wake up call on the Group Blog, cos we are getting more and more behind. I will talk to Josie as well, we have to be much tuffer producers from now on. I also e-mailed everyone and asled them once again to start using the Blog and to give the rest of us fedback so that we dont always have to wait for the next meeting to get everyone's opinions but can make changes before and speed things up. If they don't start using it, I will pick the final designs.
We don't have much time now.

I am pushing everyone about the animatic and is trying to develop it and the storyboard further, I find it really hard to think within frames but I am slowly starting now. I watch so much film but I never really think about the angles and the camera moves etc.. I had an idea of shooting from inside the train and seing a creature sitting on the back seat, watching out through the window where we can see bobo and sofi running trying to catch the train and maybe zoom in on them a bit. The people in my group liked the idea, Raphael took a look at western films as we didnt like those old shots, so we took a typical front western film shot from the wild west and added to our film :) I am re drawing stuff and e-mailing to Patrick so that he can make the final animatic. Here are some of the shots/scenes that I have done so far.

well, this is Sofie now. Can't waith for the rest of the group to vote. I begged them a week ago to start leaving fedback on the blog so.. During the weekend I will make hers and Bobo's modelsheets.

Thursday and I am staying home today, had migrane last nite and my head is still no back in order, my eyes are a bit funny right now as well so I can't sketch or draw today, will get back to bed. I did the colorschemes though and updated the group Blog. Talked to Josie the other day, we are appearantly doing something wrong as producers as we are a large group but so behind. I told her tat we have to make sure we give fedback to everyones research and sketches cos thats the only way to get some where, I missed that when I put my first six drawings of the girl on the table and no one said anythg and I said " its concept, what features do u like and what don't u like, what should i keep and what should change" and then I gat some fedback. I am slowly learnng how to be a producer, I am good at pushing things forward but I am not good at making all the decisions as I have been wanting to be so democratic and wanting all the people in the group to be a bg part of the film. have realsed now that that is not working. If they don't say anything at the meetings or ar the group blog- then they appearantly don't have a opinion and is fine with it. I am really happy about the people in my group, they are all very nice, laidback and creative, but Josie and I should have told them weeks ago that one or two sketches of something isn't enough work to produce in a week. So, we should take the responsibility for that, learn and get better.

Its friday today and my head and eyes are back in full function but I am stressed about the film. I am really bad on life drawing and I am making the girls modelsheet, maybe not a very good decson but I think I found a short cut. I e-mailed the school where I used to work as a teaching assistant and asked if there's a 7 year old girl in normal size for her age who wants to be our body referance. Cos then my old colleges can take pictures of her and e-mail them to me and my drawings will be less cartoonish :) They haven't replied yet. I did some pigeons for Jess yesterday, and actually, I think two of them has something but my eyes don't work properly after migrane, get really sensitive to light and color.. but if I get the time I wll draw them better and develop them. I am disapointed in Jono for saying that he loves my drawings and wants to see more and then i do and a week later, still no fedback or reply. I could have spent that time on my own film.
I checked the blog yesterday and Wan and Josie are my angels, they are working really hard, thanks to that w emight even have the train design and the hosptal room design on Monday, that would be wicked, then we slowly start catching up.
Now I'm gonna drink coffee and try not to panic :)

Did some new pigeons for Jessica's film.

Like the some of the top ones, but I am not very proud about this ones, drew them on Thursday when my head n eyes still was a bit weird after the migrane. The new ones above are better. But i really enjoyed making them! Wanna do some more.

I hate making model sheets. HATE. I need to do lifedrawing everyday for like 5 years before I can understand and start drawing perspective and realistic. Usch.

peace n luv,
asa

Week 4 - Finaly I have a computer!

2007-10-24T14:08:00.001-07:00

Yes, last friday I finaly recieved my brand new iMac - and it is amasing! Now I can start working for real!

The first thing that I decided to do create a new Blog. I know that Mike showe me a journal from last year that he liked but for me that journal was not in depth enough, I couldn't see any of that students developing work, sketches or research. And I do want to write about the entire group work process as well as this is pretty much about good group work - or lack of it.
So I started a new Blog, this one, and its my journal.

My other Blog was my Art work and Illustration Blog and I soon realised that it ended up with only research and Jornals and I don't want people that are interested in my illustration or art work to have read all that and wonder what I am doing.

Ruff Sketches of how the girl, Sofie can look

Monday: The only ones who had done their storyboard scenes for the Monday meeting was me and Eva. Josie had missunderstod but quickly started to draw her scene and fixed it during the meeting and her drawings are great.
Patrick n I decided to do ours together and discussed the scene and agreed that we would like to shoot as much of this scene from above as it would give a feeling of the girl being in a box and being locked up. We also changed the defribilator scene, we decided that that is a bit to dramatic for the pace and the feel of the film. we don't want the girl to die a dramatic death.
But I was really disapointed that not more people from the grup showed up and had done any work as I said so many times the week before that a good storyboard is crucial for a good film and that we need to get started and help eachother with it.
I decided to give everyone a couple of more days and book a new meeting on wednesday and this time e-mail, text, talk AND put up info on the group Blog about it so that everyone will be there.

I have drawn some different sloth faces for Jono so that we can start developing the animals characters for his film. I have e-mailed them all to him and is waiting for fedback cos I don't really know what deadline I have or whats happening as his group live together and talk about everything at home and don't have a group blog or e-mail out any info so, I am just trying to do as much as possible and has asked him to keep me updated so that I know what's going on and know if I have to speed up my work or not.

..trying to figure out how a sloth would look if it walked on two legs...

Researching sloths, apparently they move 4 n a half metre in a minute..

Concept work for Jono's film "Azteek Escape"

I am trying to figure out how they stand up and would move if they actually could walk. I understand now why Ice Age used a sloth kind that doesn't even exist any more but - it could walk! So I am trying to merge their feet and body with the kind of sloth that Jono likes.

I e-mailed everything to Jono and asked if we could met up on Thursday and Friday and go through them all. Done some quick sketches and changes on the opossum.

Wednesday: Storyboard meeting and everyone was there!! Jippi! Now it feels as if we finaly can get started for real, I explained to everyone that no one who dislikes drawing has to draw but everyone has to come to the meetings as everyones thoughts and ideas are important and will make it a better film. This film has so much pssoibilities and could be something really extraodrinary, it is up to us as a group. Josie and I have worked our asses off on The Girl and the Bobo design and I have asked Becca and Aminata to help out as well as I feel that we need to start getting somewhere. And slowly but surely we are.
I asked everyone to leave comments about all the sketches on the Blog so that we can continue develop our designs and hoepfully have the girl or Bobo or the train ready by next week. We turned our heads inside out and went through the storyboard and made some changes..then just before we were going to give up for the day Patrick came up with the briliant idea of using ballons in the end scene instead of the train, we all really like the idea but are afraid that it will slow down the film and make it longer. I really dont care as long as the film is good. We couldnt find a good way to explain why they had to catch just this train, but with lots of ballons taking of and just one left, our girl Sofie would have to hurry up and cath the last one and then take off into the light. I love it. I actaully saw a image of baloon over Paris two weeks ago when I was researching art work and liked it so much I wanted to use t some how but didn't feel that it would fit my film, but it actually would but with other colorschems.

Thursday and Friday: Realised while listening to Jareds Production Scheduling lecture that maybe its Josie and my faults as prodcuers that we are behind, maybe we are not clear enough? Josie and I decided to re do the schedule and post it on the Blog and I decided to from now on alwasy write up exactly who's doing what on the Blog and for what date and the date and the time of the next meeting with Block capitols so that no one can get confused or forget what they promised to look into. Wan, Eva,Raphael and Nnamdi joined up with us in the 2nd year room so by accident we had a unplanned meeting and discussed and tried to develop the storyboard some more and told everyne about the changed timetable and the new system, everyone said that they iked it and that it made it easier for them fast to see whats going on so thats good! And I was really glad that everyone that was in just joined us and came to see what was going on, everyone in my group really seem to want to make this film which makes me really happy. I have asked for exapmles of music but everyone had forgatten and I havent managed to find anything, but Christina played piano on a film I did in my foundation year so I will go to her house with the animatic when it is done so that she can play and adept the music to it. Patrick and I started putting the storyboard scenes together in photoshop, a lot of them wasn't nmbered so I was about to go crazy and it took much longer time then we planned. Patrick said that he could do the animatic at home and that he enjoys playing around with After Effects so I thanked him for that ( as I hav emore films to work on) and left and headed fo rmy drawing table at home!

For Jessicas film I have done some 60's interior design research, chosing the 60's was a brilaint idea that will stylise her film and make it really funky as 60's designs are really colorful and fun. I haven't been able to find any London postcards from the 60;s or Posters. The few posters that I could find were in really bad quality, but I will continue looking and see if I can find some 60's cartoons that our Owl teenager can have in his room maybe?

That's all for this week. I am exhausted.

Week 3 - Character Designs!

2007-10-24T13:52:00.001-07:00

This week I have focused a lot on working on Character designs for Jessica's film. She liked the idea of mafia inspired pigeons and wanted to inegrate the 60's glasses on the mother owl, so here are some of my sketches on that:

( double click for larger picture )

I did some ruff bat sketches as well haha but I didn't really get any fedback on any of my work so I guessed my drawings where to silly...

he he

.. So then I continued developing and sketching on the little girl for my film and her toy and friend, Bobo instead.

Everyone in the group seemed to really like the funny vintage toy that I posted so I made a quick sketch and now I am trying to develop him further so that we might have our Bobo character soon. Waiting for fedback from the group.

Some Amazon Jungle animal research

For Jono's film I am working on the three jungle animals, he doesn't want any birds or monkeys so I went for sloths and a oppossum. Now this will be a challange! I can't draw animals! I just really like Jono's film idea and think that his jungle animal characters are someting that you can have a ot of fun with, but if I can make them? I will do my best and try, hopefully he doesn't ant a realistic but more cartoonish look. Jono and I sat down on Friday and I was quite sure that he wouldn't like my art work but to my surprise he did, he wanted me to make the sloth more athletic as he has to be ablo to move fast, but he liked the right hand ones face and expression and he also liked my top oppossum and asked me to change the nose, give him bigger ears and feet to make him more cartoonish so I am gonna work on that. I was really surprised and happy about that he liked them, I hope that he is not just being nice. He asked me if I wanted to sketch on the two explorers as well, I would love to do that! But there just isn't enough time. Updating my own film blog and being a producer is taking a lot of time and energy.

I choosed to go for sloths and oppossum as they are really cool animals.

I did a little quick sketch for Ash's film. They can really have fun making the characters of the old woman and the tall skinny old man. This sketch is way to silly, don't know why I did it, guess it was after talking to Ash and he said they didn't have a lot of conceot, well, this is nothing they can use but he was really happy when I gave it to him which made me glad :)
Is it so much more fun to draw for project where you get fedback.

Inspiration, art work that I like for different reasons, colorschemes, light etc for my film.

this one is tacky as hell, baby colors and not very imaginative but maybe it can help us thinking about what NOT to do and get more ideas

Week 2 - Research and getting started!

2007-10-24T10:34:00.001-07:00

The 60's! Jessica and her fulltime group decided that their film should take place in the 60's and I love it! Here's some reaserch on clothes, furniture, hairstyles etc from the 60's.

Then, what kind of owl's is there and what kind of Owls is Jessica after?

Some of my Owl Research for Jessica's film "Owl's Day Out" and here are my first sketches,

I thought that the pigeons might be a bit more fun if they were street guys, mafiosos or gangsters..

Started playig around, trying to imagine the mixed media dead world but so fat I see it only as empty 3D space with mist. But I started making some water color textures as I know that Patrick is playing around with that enviroment this week so maybe he wants something to play with?

We all started sketching and working on the girl, Bobo and the girls mother this week as well. I don't want a manga girl, I don't want a cartoonish girl and I don't want a realistic girl, so how do I explan what kind of girl I want? I have searched internet for her but Haven\t managed ti find naything close, this sketch is a girl that I like. She is badly drawn, but I like her sadness and I like that she is not cartoonish, not realistic and not manga. But I didn't get any fedback from my group when I showed the sketch so it didn't seem as if the liked it. Maybe I have to develop it and present it better.

I tried to sketch on the mother and The Doctor as well. It is hard. I draw silly and cartoonish but I still like all the concept work cos this is how we learn and develop, challenge ourselfs.

I asked Nnamdi if he wanted to be the main producer. I told everyone from the begining that the only reason why I am the director, producer and art director right now is because I am not sure that you all share my vision of the film, if you all are ready to work hard etc. It is just because I feel afraid of giving away the film and end up with a complet different film then the one I wanted to do. But I feel that we are very much alike in my group and we all agreed on that this is a sad film with a slow and beatiful pace and we all love the art work that inspired me from the "I lived on The Moon" musicvideo and its colorscheme. Nnamdi said yes, unfortanlly he called me later on two days later and said that he wanted to go and do his own film. I understand if he wants do to his own thing on his BA year, totally. But ofcourse I am sad that he is living as he is a very talented guy, very good on filmic language and script writing, I think this film would suit him and that he would have had fun with it. Will ask him on Monday if he will stay as a part timer or dissapear completly. I really hope that Wan stays so that he doesn't dissapear as well.

Very annoyed about not being able to work at home..will have to sort my computer situation out SOOON!

PS Found this article online that I found interesting!

_________________________________________________

Kids near death report surprisingly similar experiences. What can we learn from them?

By Randall Sullivan

When she arrived at the hospital in the spring of 1982, seven-year-old Kristle Merzlock was in a coma after spending 20 minutes at the bottom of a swimming pool. Bill Longhurst, the lanky doctor who received Kristle in A&E, quickly summoned paediatric doctor Melvin Morse, then 27, the only doctor at the hospital who had performed a significant number of resuscitations. But even Morse, with all his experience and outstanding academic credentials—a medical degree and a research fellowship funded by the US National Cancer Institute—was not prepared for what was about to happen.

Kristle’s pupils were fixed and dilated, Morse recalls, and she had no gag reflex. A CT scan showed massive swelling of her brain.
A machine was doing her breathing and her blood pH was extremely acidic, a clear indication of imminent death. “There was little we could do at that point,” Morse says.

So when Kristle survived, emerging from her coma three days later at the hospital in Pocatello, Idaho, with full brain function, Morse was amazed. More extraordinary still, his world view was profoundly altered when Kristle recognised him. “That’s the one with the beard,” she told her mother. “First there was this tall doctor who didn’t have a beard and then he came in.” That was true. Morse sported a beard, while Dr Longhurst was clean-shaven. Kristle then described the casualty ward with astonishing accuracy. “She had the right equipment, the right number of people—everything was just as it had been that day,” Morse explains. She even correctly recited the procedures that had been performed on her. “Even though her eyes had been closed and she had been profoundly comatose during the entire experience, she still ‘saw’ what was going on.”

www.readersdigest.co.uk/ life-after-death-i-71...

peace out
asa
Posted by "The day That I died" Production Blog at 15:20

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Week 1 - My "The Day That I Died" Film

2007-10-24T10:22:00.000-07:00

I e-mailed everyone log in information about the Group Blog and asked them to check it atleast two times a week so that they stay updated, made a list with everyone's e-mail adress and mobilepone number as well and sent it out to everyone in the group so that we easily can get in contact with eachother. I asked Josie if she wanted to co-produce with me, I think that Josie would be a great producer as she always stays calm and always hand in work long before deadlines and tehre for most be well organised and, I already know that she is a hardworker. She said yes :)

Everyone gat the link to The Production Blog of "I lived on The Moon" which inspired me a lot. The musicvideo can be downloaded on the Blog and you can read about what inspired Yanim Puig to make it. He really managed to mix 3D and ad in a beatiful way that deson't feel werid at all, the textures and the animation are amasing as well. I have e-mailed Yanim and he replied so I asked him a couple of questions about his film :)

First post on The Group Blog.

I am trying to sketch on the girl and the style of this film but my drawings so far are too cartoonish or too much as a childrens books illustration. I don't want them to be too realistic but at the same time I don't want to take away the fact that this film is about death. As I imagined it, it starts of with the girl in the hospital bed and her voice (no lipsyncing ) saying " Tis is the story about the day that I died. It seemed like any other day. The Doctors had said that I had atleast one more month, but they were wrong". Then I want us to follow her, into her eyes as she closes them and everything turns black, and the black starts to clear out and she gets grabbed by something, its a octopuss, taking her from the deep dark waters up toards the lighter ones where the octopuss lift her upon a cloud and she continues her journey towards "the light". I know that 3D water is pain, but I was imagine it as a lot of particles and light and maybe not using real 3D water but paint and 2D layers..hm. This is not very developed. I have built a octopus in Maya. I gat this idea on the saturday before the film pitch, about following a girl that dies and go a bit more experimental and arty. I had started modelling the Monsters Spa in 3D, I had spent two weeks in my room developing the Monsters..but..then this new idea comes up and I just have a weekend to sketch it down n try to explain what the * I want to do. And offcourse I am thinking that the 3D people in my class will think that I am really weird and that no one will vote for my film - but some people did! I am really exited, this will be hard work but FUN! :)
I presented my idea for the group and everyone liked the octopuss idea BUT we talked about how hard it would be to model, rig and animate as a Octopuss doesn't have a skeleton but muscles. So we decided to change that.

Bobo

Inspiration and research:

..and this is when my lap top and hard drive died..and I lost my 3D octopuss...verdammt.