Light tests

I have been working on the lighting a little bit. Here are the first light tests for the room.

Photobucket

As well as publishing videos on YouTube I have now also started to upload my still images to Photobucket. I will use these 2 sites as a general repository for some examples of my work.

http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa75/vortexdz/Little%20Louise/

Crit

We had a rough cut crit yesterday.






roughcut for Little Louise from maja on Vimeo

It was very useful to get feedback from different people and to see how far everyone else has got. It's reassuring as I am working from home to see that it's not just me...

Our projects are so different and it is always fun to see them all together, it's always inspiring and I often get new ideas from them.

The voice over is great, I was very lucky to get the services of a professional voice actor who was perfect for the role. This is first time I have seen how the animation looks like with the voice assembled.

It still needs adjusting. I have more recorded voice and I think I will add some more.

The first scene lasts too long , the mayor is walking a bit too slow and I am not sure his pain shows enough. I think I should cut it earlier.

Also when he is in the corner I plan to pan to a close up on his face.

Some of the later scenes that are not animated yet will last longer and have voice over.

Music is missing now. I didn't have exact timing so far and the musician couldn't finish the music. I hope that will happen faster now as it will take the project to a whole new level. I can't wait for this as the composer studied at the Royal College of Music and I really like her work.

Animating ...

Today I was animating the girl getting in the river and swimming a little.





getting in water1 from maja on Vimeo
It is only a playblast.

Last week was all about the mayor in his room, getting scared and paranoid, but I still need to fix these scenes.



Tomorrow I will do the scene where the mayor spies on the girl in the river, and possibly the murder scene.

We also have the first recording of the voice over.

The actor has an amazing voice, and I think it works very well with the animation.

Voice Acting

I have had many offers of help for the voices in the project. I need 2, one for the Mayor and one for the narration. I don't know whether or not to have just one voice covering both parts, so at the moment I am getting people to record both parts. Today we recorded an actor who was simply perfect for both roles in the National Galleries recording studio. As a result I might just use this recording for both parts. I have a very tight production schedule laid out and it simply doesn't offer too much leeway in going to and from the studio.

Still working on the text, I had thought it was ok, but now I am making some more changes to it, particulary the order of some scentences and their length. I am starting with the animation although I am not finished with the background.

I finished the model of the girl she just needs some hair and cloth but I will use the Maya cloth for her shirt and add it once I have animated her.

Gannt Chart (yuck)

Gannt charts are not my first love (or close), but I find them an essential evil. Those who don't know project management are forgiven fo rnot knowing Gannt charts, there are just another name for a production schedule. I see them as just some of the boring administraton that is so important in any project.My animation schedule is going to be very hard for me and as there is a lot involved and a close deadline I cannot afford to get stuck trying to achieve perfection in any one scene. Each element has to have a 'window of oppurtunity', after that it's finished and onto the next scene. All my backgrounds and textures come at the end as does the final assembly. I am hoping to get ahead of schedule so I can buy myself some time for extra polishing, but really I'll be glad to just hit each stage as planned.