Closing In.

One of two of the shots done so far, all composited using Photoshop and After Effects.

The results will be pleasing...

I certainly am very pleased.

The Technical Side of it all

There is no coming in and animating before you have gone through all the technical side first and work out how will you achieve the right format for your movie.

Last week I struggled with the aspect ratio, the fps on different programs, codecs, Hd and bla bla bla... probably my biggest mistake was not asking the right questions at the right time.

I have learnt new skills in various programs that would have relieved me from weeks of work and stress through out the process of this movie.

Green Screening the Sequences

The Next step in the production is to get the Green screen done for each sequence of animation, this way i can Chroma key it in after effects and begin the composing stage. Each of the backgrounds have been done in photoshop so it will be easy to play around with the layers and generate a nice look to the animation.

My contribution to the Tim Burton Exhibition =P

Ambience Sounds

This the animatic with ambience sounds. Many of it will be updated and reaseached. Like the sound during the day suits more a summer day than that of a winter one, and extra soundsto enhance the narrative.

Sound design Raul Cueto : http://www.myspace.com/remulbizarret

Blackberry Monster: Work Up till Now

After I made the first animatic i relalized that the amount of animation that need to be done would be a huge amount, so i locked myself up and began animating...at the time my thought was that i "rather pull off a good animation than do a little of everthing and not finish anything at all". But the concecuences of this is that you get caught up on one thing and by the end of it the quality begins to decay. I began painting the backgrounds which i still havent finished because of extra animation i have been developing.
Slowly the animation jumped from 2.30 min to 3 min not including titles.
The idea of the animation is to tell the story in minimal movement, and the movement animated trying to be as smooth as possible. Making the backgrounds interesting and busy to tell the story.
Music wise, we have gone different ways with it, constatly discovering alternative ways to help tell the stry with sound. We are currently working on the final track which has a completly different approach to the one set in the last animatic psted on the blog.
At the moment I have finished all the important animation and only some backgrounds and still images are missing. I am exporting the animation with a green background and keying it out so i can compostie i all in Adobe Affter Effects, all the backgrounds are made in Adobe Photoshop so that i can play with the layers and mix it with the animation.
What has been frustrating me is not having the right tools to be able to work fluently on the project.
I have come to realize is that if i would've known most of what i know now from the very start of the project i would have aproached most of the animation differently.

Edward Rocha

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