Watch Emile!

My film, Emile, is up on Vimeo! You can view my film here through this link:

https://vimeo.com/95378337

Password: TMthesis14 (case- sensitive)

Enjoy!

Emile is FINISHED!!!

So I know it's been a while since I posted on my thesis blog, but its because I've been slaving away on my film, Emile, and as of last week, I'm finished!! Because of ownership right issues (the school owns our films), I'm not sure if I can upload my film to my blog yet, but I thought I'd upload some backgrounds and stills! All the backgrounds are hand painted in water color and all the animation is done in photoshop :)

I learned a lot working on my film since I did all the animation and art myself- quite tedious at times but so fun at the same time, especially painting all the backgrounds.  Of course, there is a lot I would fix, but in a year, I'm happy with the way it turned out, and I thank my fellow team, namely my composer, sound designer, and musicians, who helped this film come alive!

Picture Locked film!

Hi! Sorry its been a while since I posted, but its been kind of a roller coaster.  Anyhoo, thought id post my picture locked film! In terms of timing, that can't really be tweaked, but I will largely just be working in the visual aspect of the film from now till May!

A Kind of Kewl Shot

Getting into the nitty grits of the guitarist...It was kind of tedious animating this scene, but I got it done. Another close up to go.

Some Color Keys for my Last Sequence

I'm currently in the midst of animating my last sequence and I realize that I didn't even plan out the space or set or anything.  So before animating, I decided to do some color keys and rough thumbnail sketches of potential designs for the plaza that the final scene will be taking place in.  It helped a lot and now I feel more confident in animating.

Here are some thumbnails of how I wanted Emile to find the guitarist- or hear him- when they are in close vicinity to each other.  I like the one with the arches on the left column , bottom two.

Planning out the scene when it is a wide shot of Emile walking through the piazza to the guitarist.  I like the top one where there is a sliver of light connecting the two.

Trying to figure out color!! Since these will be water color painted backgrounds, I tried to make it look drippy, with really rich saturated colors...

Planning out how to animate the guitarist and how to best portray him- he will also look really watercolory.  

just a quickie sketch of the scene when he goes up to the guitarist and the guitarist is about to hand him his guitar.  

Guitar reference!

This weekend, I filmed my guitarist playing some songs so I could get some specific reference on the hands before animating the finals scenes when the boy meets the guitarist! He is an AMAZING guitarist, and just hearing him play was SO cool.  Here are some vids and photos!

Great Sound Design Inspiration!

After my teacher recommend I watched August Rush last spring semester, it took me a whole summer to finally get to it.  I finally watched it a couple months ago, and I wanted to post a few clips that I thought had some really cool sound design!!  I really like how the scenes turn natural sounds of the city or landscapes into a kind of organized cacophony, integrated slyly with orchestral music in the back.  Enjoy!

I thought this one was really cool in terms of their interaction with each other, which I feel gives a similar vibe to my film.

Ink Tests!

Here are some ink snapshots I took while filming my ink tests! the movs won't load so ill try again next time.

MAJOR UPDATE!

Hello there! So i realized that I totally have forgotten to post on my blog lately, even though I thought I did!

The biggest thing that has happened is change of story!! So what happened was that I had a nice simple story I pitched in the spring.  Then for some reason, I decided that it was too simple and changed up the story in the summer to something a tad more complicated.  I did like the story, but after getting some feedback, I realized that the story I had before was way better and just much more doable.  Therefore in early November, I made the tough but much needed decision to switch back to my old story, which I'm so glad I did!

The old story is this: a young homeless boy sitting in the street loses his one coin he has received.  Upon trying to find it, he wonders into the streets and discovers an alluring and mysterious trail of music that leads him to a new surprise.

Here's my latest animatic!!

My boy is coming to life!

Ink Tests

Here are some tests I did today for my backgrounds with the ink flowing in.  Being the after effects noob I am, I'm kind of happy I managed to pull this off :p The first four ink spreads are taken from the awesome video posted below.  I wanted to try out different kind of ways ink can spread and see what kind of look/ effect it gives.

The last video uses a ink dropped in water video- a little too liquidy for my taste, but what I DO like is how the ink seems to bleed in more color instead of the background emerging from blackness, which is what the first 4 tests do.  Not sure how i did that, but I was just playing around and it happened.

I'm planning on filming my own ink on water videos so I can better control how I want the ink to work.  I love the look of ink spreading on paper more than ink in water, so I decided I'm going to go with that look. 

 

 

 

 

SOO COOL!! Ink water art

I WANT THAT EFFECT ON MY FILM

More style frames!

Ext of orphanage? might make it more stylized and blurry.

Below, I tried to simulate an impression of how it would look like with the watercolor seeping in.

Original watercolor!

Carn- More amazing inspiration!!

I saw this film yesterday and fell in love with it immediately.  The story and look is so simplistic yet so powerful that it almost brought tears to my eyes. The use of silhouettes for both the boy and wolf for the majority of the film is brilliant, and the composition in each of the shots is well designed and dynamic.  I love the use of the same colors for certain elements- red motif for the scarf and blood, blue for the hostile, cold backgrounds, and the fiery brilliant sky at the end marking the climax.  Great stories can truly be told with just the right colors and cinematography.

This film as great because it reminded me of the power of silhouettes, which I had more of in my first animatic.  I remember one of the professors said keeping him in a silhouette at some points in my film and maintaining that simple readable shape could be a distinct feature of my film, and this was a good reminder that simple is better.  

Check out the film through this link: https://vimeo.com/search?q=carn

Below are some film stills I think are soo incredibly beautiful!

I love how absolutely creepy he looks. 

LOVE the silhouette!!! Simplicity tells story best. 

Bloooood red. LOVE the mountains in the background and how to converge to the midpoint. Works great to draw our eye to the wolf.

This bright fireball sky definitely got me. He's dead center but the composition works well in creating tension.

Just love the trail of red blood and how everything is blocked out in black.  

Great birds eye view.  

Love how straight and rigid the trees are.  It works to enhance the mood of the film.

Again, great use of simple characters and dynamic deep background.