This week I am posting a much earlier shot from my film ‘The Lift’. In this shot the main character is leaving for work, or what ever she does. As you saw from one of the other later shots I posted she doesn’t make it to where she was going.
Something I haven’t really talked about yet, and I am always asked, is when will it be finished. I am looking to complete this film in early 2010, actually the end of January. I am attempting to submit this film to Annecy which is apparently celebrating its 50th anniversary. If you are interested I took some pictures when I was there in 2003 (Annecy Animation Festival Pictures).
Enjoy!
I am posting this new video on my blog a little late this time, a week late actually. I forgot to do this last week, though I did get it up on Youtube and Vimeo. This week I won’t be doing a video as its a holiday in the US.
Shot 51, what you see below is the shot immediately after last weeks, the girl gets pulled down the sewer drain and transported to another world.
Other than that I think I am pretty set on the new title of the film “The Lift”, as my sister Emma says “Once and Never Again” sounded lame. I think i agree.
I have recently setup 2 channels, one on Vimeo and another on Youtube which I will update every Tuesday with new shots from my film.
YouTube Kohrtoons Studio Channel
Vimeo Kohrtoons Studio Channel
This week I created an almost 7 minute tutorial showing my process of developing a shot from the animatic to the final video. I demonstrated how I use Flash to create the animation and color the frames, Blender to generate the 3D scenes and After Effects for composting.
On another note the film is currently called “Once and Never Again” though I am considering changing it to “The Lift”. The premise of the film is an elevator experience gone wrong, a cautionary tale about holding the elevator door for people (though you wouldn’t know it from this shot :P)
I recently downloaded the latest drawing app available for the iPhone. I have not been a huge fan of the others as they never felt quite right. Autodesk seems to have offered up something truly good, Autodesk Sketchbook Mobile.
The main difference I felt between Autodesk’s offering and Brushes was that Sketchbook lacked the ‘vector-esc’ functionality which brushes relies on and instead implemented a system where the data is all bitmap. Brushes uses XML data to draw, though it works well it doesn’t feel all that natural or responsive. Also Sketchbook carried over its rather intuitive tool set from its desktop offering Sketchbook Pro. Over all Sketch book is a really solid offering and definitely worth the $2.99 cost.
Check out the painting I did in Sketchbook Mobile (click to view the full res).
Ever heard of the 11 Second Club? If you are an animator you should have. Its a website where an audio clip is posted on the first of the month, usually something from an old movie. Then those who choose to participate have about 30 days to complete their interpretation of the animation.
I decided to submit this past month. Below is my submission for August. If you can’t tell the clip was hand drawn, in flash.
We all know that the bane of web design is IE 6. I stumbled on this really awesome site this morning.
Kronenberg.org
They have an IE 6 emulation that runs via Wine. Wine is a software that allows for Windows emulation with out having a full install of windows. I tried it out for a minute and its pretty awesome. I know people are straying away from IE 6 but this is perfect for any mac designer who needs to check IE 6 out, you should also have IE 7 on another boot of windows, but in windows its really tough to run more than one version of IE reliably. I will definitely be using this app a lot!
I originally saw this on digg then on web monkey and thought that it was an interesting warning/humor/comment on freelance and things to watch out for. That said I thought it would be fun to add my top ten. I stole some of the better ones from that site ;) That said here are my top 10 freelancing red flags:
10. He asks if you can make a sketch or mock something up because he has a few other artists who he is also looking at.
9. He bemoans the last person he worked with on this was a disaster and is looking for someone who can deal with his type of management.
8. There isn’t much money for his job (actually only enough for a McD’s sandwich) but asks if you think that he could pay you in stock?
7. He asks if the deposit (which is supposed to be non-refundable) refundable?
6. He can’t manage to pay the deposit on time.
5. He mentions in passing that he sometimes I forgets to take his medication.
4. He talks a little too much about his kids and want to know about your dating life.
3. He saw “some movie” and wants the animation too look like it, but is floored when you give them a lowball price and wants you to “come down a bit”.
2. He calls himself CEO of his own production company which only has 1 employee.
1. He talks about all the “people” he knows in animation (or art) and name drops then gives you a look of pity when you don’t share in the fact that you don’t know these people.
So I can’t help a little corperate pandering to the company that pays my Bills, but I do feel a little proud to work here especially when I look at Pinwheel, the Canadian show that was Nick before nick when I was like 4 years old. Here is a Clip:
For a little more retro-fiction here is the original logo.
So thus ends another year. Okay so its a little short of New Years. That said I have finished my annual Reel. The new reel has many things my old one had, however I have made it now almost 70% my yet to be finished film “Automatic Doors.”
“Automatic Doors” is not the real name, it was only a holder name until I could come up with something catchier. Currently I am liking “Once and Never Again”. My film is about an elevator experience gone terribly wrong. A young woman neglects to hold the door for an older woman, that older woman then seeks to teach the young woman a lesson.
That said enjoy some fresh rough animation from my film.
Have you ever wanted to use more brushes than Photoshop has? Do you dislike Painter because its interface drives you nuts? Well have I got the site for you, a co-worker of mine found this the other day. We got brushes!!