Hallowed Room

The room where Mr. Prigley reflected and where Violet Winterborne was haunted.

Last week when all was said and done and I had a moment of free time, I found myself lingering in the old Rostrum Room at college where I had shot both my BA Final Major and FdA 2 Final Major Project. 

Weird feeling, knowing that I'll most likely never have reason to be in these old rooms again.

Very sad for some reason.

My Film in a Box

A very odd feeling indeed. Slow to come to terms with the fact this is now a past project, an old film. 

Six (and a bit more) months of my life devoted to this thing, gone. 

Wrapped up in a nice little film.

But it isn't the end yet, not exactly.

My set for "Flytrap" has been chosen to be exhibited as part of the London College of Communication's Summer Show as example (along with a few others) of the best of Animation and my film shall also be included on the showreel. 

A great honour indeed, so perhaps not the end in a final sense, a tiny hiatus perhaps.

Then the end.

A New Showreel

Well, a little new. A couple edits.

Show Time (Sort of)

(Above: The lovely Show "Identity", designed by Jake Green and Isabel Garrett of the FdA Year 2 Animation course)

(Above: Exhibition Space)

(Above: Exhibition Space)

(Above: My set unfinished and unready for the public)

(Above: My set still unfinished)

(Above: My set a little more ready for the huddled masses)

And so the fun and exhaustion of preparing and putting together our Graduation Show has begun, and has been "begun" for about two weeks or so now. Full-on days of painting, planning and light-arguing.

Well, if you're not arguing you're not making good decisions. 

More to come as posters are hung and sets are finalised. 

(Above: Modern Art, Constructivism/Joke) 

Poster Boy

The lovely and slightly nasty poster for my BA short animated film "Flytrap" that will be shown as part of the Graduation Shows of LCC (London College of Communication) from June 20th.

Preparation for which has already begun in earnest with only a week or so to go. Tense stuff, lots of discussion, lots of creative differences, but that's what to expect from a collaborative show. All have different visions and all are relevant. 

The poster was originally in my head an homage to the gloriously lurid and campy adverts for the classic Hammer House of Horror franchise from the 50s, 60s and 70s but then as the subject of posters began to get discussed more and more, the idea of going for a more subtle and simple poster seemed more effective and so I opted for a more subdued design based on the title card of the film.

This was made quickly and at short notice by the brilliant Natalie Tood who previously saved my bacon by making the portraits that feature in the film.

Her wonderful DeviantArt: page http://tallytodd.deviantart.com

In the next week or so I shall edit together a small trailer for the film that I shall post about.

So more to come....

Packed Up and Ready to Go

So, thats it. 

Production is done.

Finished.

At an end.

Sad, but also terribly exciting.

Everything exported, backed up, packed up and ready for the hand-in.

Paul my sound designer and myself plan to tweak the sound edit a final time for my college's Graduation Show Showreel DVD in a week or so's time. Little refinements, nothing more.

I presented Flytrap as it is now called yesterday (Tuesday 28th May 2013) to my class and it received a wonderfully warm and receptive reception. Some excellent feedback too and brilliant suggestions for improvements. A great reward for such a time consuming, testing but exciting project.

This is however a prelude to the final Graduation Show where it gets it's proper debut so watch this space for more updates.

Preparation talks for the Show start next week, and so another adventure begins.

Thank you to all who helped. To all my tutors, to Paul (Freeman) my tireless sound designer, Katie Single, my tireless First Year Animation student who I regretfully underused but offered me brilliant feedback and support, and beautiful props too, Brenna Eaves, my tireless American costumer, maker of beautiful things of the Crocheted variety (her blog http://www.etsy.com/people/nutsaboutcrochet13), to Natalie Todd who I pestered and bugged to get to tirelessly make me some sublime portraiture (her wonderful DeviantArt account http://tallytodd.deviantart.com), to the tireless Anita Delaney (Uber-knowledable technician and helper-outer) who tirelessly unlocked computers and cupboards, gave me cameras and other invaluable equipment, tirelessly, and to Georgie Throssell for brilliant moral support and stuff like that. To all of you my biggest and warmest thank yous. 

I don't believe it simply to be my film, but yours too.

A film is not made by one man (or woman) alone.

Flytrap is just as much your film as it is mine 

(although in the eyes of legality and copyright, it is mine. Rather mine)

Thank you.

More to come...

Pick Up Sticks

(Above: Getting into the swing of things)

(Above: A frustrating pause and lack of ability)

(Above: Violet freezes)

(Above: Glaring away)

(Above: Focus Pull)

(Above: Violet put aside)

(Above: Wood Grain I)

(Above: Wood Grain II)

(Above: Violet Down)

(Above: Wooden Hills)

So here I am again. 

During the later days of last week I had an extremely helpful tutorial which lead to the discussion of added shots for certain shots to make the continuity flow neater.

Fascinated and excited (if a little deflated at first) by the prospect of more work needing to be done, distracting from the already taxing duties of editing and working on the soundtrack in partnership with my sound design, I went away and drew up a little list of shots I would "pick up" the following week.

And so that was how I spent my day.

Admittedly the day didn't consist of much exhausting animation, just the tedious annoyance of ineffective puppets and props, my fault entirely, I should have built them better.

Anyway, after several frustrated hours working with my First Year Animation student helper (frustration was in no way due to her help, it was purely by my own hand and clumsiness) we managed to get the needed shots to a good standard.

They were nothing major, just little nudges here and there to push the continuity into tighter positions to help the flow.

Plug some of the holes I had left whilst filming the week before.

My main annoyance today was due to trying to make Violet climb a staircase leading to the bedroom in her new house.

I had originally not drawn her going up the stairs in my storyboard, explicitly aware of how time consuming not to mention complicated such a scene would be to make. I had intended to explain her using the stairs through sound.

My First Year Student and I fought to get Violet to at least look like she was going up stairs, but she simply was incapable of it. Violet, not the First Year Student.

So regrettably this little sequence will have to be cut.

I would rather it was taken out than be included and be of bad quality.

Which is a shame, because in individual frames, it actually looked rather convincing, it was the movement that let it down.

So that was it for today. Possibly the final day of the shoot.

I tinkered with the edit soon after finishing filming the bits and pieces and it seems to work very nicely indeed.

All that remains now is the soundtrack from my sound designer, which I wait for with bated breath.

More to come...