New Year New Project

Not strictly Cold Storage but we're now onto our next project. It's going to be a promo for my script Free Run. I'm gonna blog it so you can see how the newer version of Antics works and for me to see how much I learnt from last time!

OK, so it’s been a few months since I’ve done anything of substance with Antics. And now I have the latest version, 3, loaded with a bunch of new content available.

So I started with a “spike” – a quick prototype to see if I can get near the capabilities that I want in this animation. So I need a street - loaded the UK pavement from content. Then a decent character who looks the part. Having browsed locally I don’t have what I need. So I’m onto the website and browsing to find male child – a hoodie, just the part! Downloaded in 2 minutes and he’s in my set – smooth.

I created the first spike using male running, then a jump which worked well. Had to “interrupt” both animations to prevent him returning to naff standing position. The “Fall” animation didn’t really work as he falls on the spot and I wanted a forward roll after the jump – more searching of the content warehouse – man it really needs a proper tag search rather than hierarchy of folders - so Windows 95!

I then got him to run around a corner at a quicker speed but the auto-path created is rubbish and doesn’t look realistic.

So I created my own follow path and used that.

The problem is then blending between the end of the jump and snapping to the follow path. These transitions are always the problem and I usually use cutting between cameras and close up shots to “hide” them.

Running around corners is very upright and gives the impression of slowness so to get a dynamic pace I am going to have to him to lean. This probably means focusing on the upper body only and angling the whole animation so it looks like he is leaning in. More work.

The spike also showed that I will have problems with him jumping different levels as the jump animation will have him landing at the same height. Will probably get around this by creating a pose from the middle of the jump, place that in the air halfway down the steps and then have a starting and ending pose. Then use blend to get him to hump down. Will use this for roll also.

So need to check out all the animations and the poses to get me up to speed with the armoury I can use.

So this shows how a “spike” can get you lots of feedback with a small amount of work. I now have a few next steps laid out as well as challenges I will be facing for this project.

As well as focusing on these steps I know I also need to write out the story. I will also spike this by writing it quickly and roughly. This will throw out lots of ideas and questions around what I will need in Antics. I will note these as I go, thus building up my task list of things to tackle. Easy huh!

Onwards and Upwards

We've slowly been expanding the website. I've added another process page and have the Antics details to load up as well. We're putting on multiple download version over the coming months along with loading into YouTube and Google Videos.

The problem with YouTube is they only accept 10 mins max and CS is 11m 30s. So initially we are going for 2 parts but it may mean a recut.

Antics have just released Version 3 which is looking very funky and also now has a basic version for free. So if you haven't tried it yet give it a go. They've revamped their website and have a budding community... along with plenty of competition in with MovieStorm who seem they are just up the road in Cambridge!

Anyway, Antics are keen for me to do some work with them. It looks like I will be invited to a workshop to comment on what to get in for future releases. Very exciting. I'm also going to pitch putting together a promo for them (and me). So it'll be back to hacking heavily in Antics - looking forward to creating something new again!!

Watch this space for developments...
Pete

The end of The Making Of...

I think that’s all for the backdated blog. There’s a few more entries after we posted the movie up but I’ll add those in as I go along.

So, where are we 7 months (wow!) after entering Cold Storage onto the MySpace competition?

Well we didn’t win :-( but there weren’t any animations in the final 12 shortlist. We got good feedback from friends and a few independent nods.

The next task was to really get it out there. The obvious place is YouTube but we didn’t want to miss the inevitable spike in traffic and wanted to drive it to a new Cold Storage Movie site. So, I started building that… and 6 months later I’m finished! Not because it’s a massive site but other things get in the way – like the rest of my life, work, etc!

The recent focus of energy to finish the site has come because Antics have seen Cold Storage and love it! They want to showcase it and I may work with them to do an Antics promo. I’ll be talking to them very soon.

And of course, there’s always the next project. Film-wise for me it’s going to be “The Killer Job” although I may do a few smaller things as I continue to develop the script. I want it to be a live shoot, 90 minute, horror film. So I might start a new blog for that…

So keep coming back for updates for Cold Storage and our other films...

Website Launched!

At last! It's taken longer than we wanted but we had a push this weekend and the site is now up and running.

Go take a look!

Please go and take a look to see the movie again or read some background to the story and the project as a whole. There are also details on other scripts and projects we have in production and have worked on over the years.

I think that’s it for the backdated blog. There’s a few more entries after we posted the movie up but I’ll add those in as I go along. It's real time now, but plenty more to be talking about.

Now we've got the site we'll be posting on YouTube. I've also got some very exciting news (I hope) later this week around Antics who have seen Cold Storage and absolutely love it!

Beyond Post Production

25/5/07
The film has been out almost a month with around 116 views. Not bad considering we've not done much promotion. That is starting next week.
So what have we done? Well, after a week's rest (well deserved I assure you!) we did a quick re-edit. The aim wasn't to change too much but there were a few areas that I wanted tidying up. In the end it was less than I thought. I think because after seeing the completed film a few times and discussing it with people you realise the bits you see really aren't important.

Next was drawing up a plan for the next steps. Although both Parmy and I are keen to kick off another creative project, we need to do this justice first with some distribution and marketing to get it out there. Enter Lance Weiler and his film "Head Trauma" which he has self distributed and written some great articles about. I used this as the basis for our own web promotion.

Along with our other ideas we came up with a list of 40 things we could and should do to get the movie out there and promote it. Many were more creative things (posters, trailer, brand new website design in Flash, etc) so we've opted for the less creative stuff first - getting a presence on social sites first. If you're reading this, then you're already seeing the results!

I've also been looking into how the music needs to work. If we can't license what we have we may have to recut the music using production music libraries. See my other blog on music.

Plan Review

24/4/07
Not finished yet but a quick plan review reveals that I didn't even start animating real action until the week it was meant to finish! 29/3
I took a week longer than planned and started 3 weeks late meaning an overrun of 4 weeks.
We are now squeezing post proper into 3 days, although Parmy has been editing for almost 2 weeks.
Editing is 8-10 times quicker than shooting. A 12 shot scene that will take about 1.5 days to shoot and a day to prepare takes less than half a day to visually edit.
All Antics had no sound so interesting to see how well that will work in Adobe.
Titles not even started yet so they will be simple.

Principal Photography Complete

24/4/07
Wow! The last week or so has been pretty intense. The end in sight and pushing, pushing, pushing. Still I put in a few nights and evenings and got there.

Have also been reviewing Parmy's edits which are also time consuming and stressful when you want to push on with your own stuff! Still, it is coming together nicely. I think the music and sound will be more time consuming than we imagined so it's important to make a start.

I predict that we will fall short of what we want but it will still be pretty good. I've got to read up on music and copyrights today and will also make an early start on the MySpace page. The upload is bound to be a technical nightmare. I hope it comes out close to what we want.

So getting there. I've made some notes in my learning Blog. Onwards and upwards...