Freaker's Ball

Freakers' Ball on Aniboom

2007-12-29T10:06:00.001-08:00

Group Pic Revised

2007-12-18T10:14:00.000-08:00

2007-12-16T11:48:00.000-08:00

Freakers' Ball on Youtube

2007-12-08T15:24:00.001-08:00

Freaker's Ball Final Render

2007-11-21T17:17:00.000-08:00

The Freakers' Ball- Final Render from 2DANM8R on Vimeo.

Freakers' Ball has gone public!

2007-11-21T16:18:00.000-08:00

As of this post, this blog has become open to the public!

To all the new comers, this was a private blog that we set up to post our progress on the film and critique each other. Now that the project is done, it's nice to look back at this as sort of an unpolished, unedited 'making-of'.

On here you'll find everything from the very earliest concept drawings and story sketches to the fully realized film. Unfortunately, once animation and cleanup got underway, we were posting less and less of our progress on the blog (mainly because we were all working together in the lab and didn't need to communicate online anymore). But we do have several progress reels which reflect the various stages of animation and cleanup, I just have to get around to compressing them and posting them.

So enjoy the blog and feel free to post your comments.

Hanna

Final

2007-11-21T14:31:00.000-08:00

Hey guys heres the copy that I uploaded for use online. Thanks For Letting me be a part of it!

Second Music Session

2007-11-05T20:59:00.000-08:00

Here is the second muic session. Hanna is playing the guitar, John is on the keyboard, and Brad Hughes, the Director of Sound, was on the computer. Unfortunately, we ran into a few technical difficulties during the session which prevented us from recording both the guitar track and piano track simultaneously. So we had to go back to Powell to record the piano track in the grad lab.

Music Session 2 from 2DANM8R on Vimeo.

Amazon girl & Strong man

2007-11-03T16:32:00.001-07:00

(Click on the image)

I put these psd files in "Freaker's Ball\Layouts\DENNY" folder.

Shot 8 Stage

2007-11-02T20:51:00.000-07:00

Here's the completed set for shot 08, with a camera test:

Shot08 Camera Test from Hanna on Vimeo.

First Music Session

2007-10-29T15:30:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Bonnie and Gretchen for setting up a meeting with John Varn, a young talented musician. He has jumped on board to help record the musical soundtrack for the project. Thanks to Denny as well for letting us use her apartment in the last minute.

First Music Session from 2DANM8R on Vimeo.

Crunch time!

2007-10-18T20:44:00.001-07:00

After a long hard day work at his new job at Wild Brain, Hanna still has enough energy to come to the Grad lab to work....well, he had to take a nap first.

Shot 3 Rough and Clean Animation

2007-10-05T13:53:00.000-07:00

Shot 3 Cleaned Animation from 2DANM8R on Vimeo.

More pics

2007-10-02T00:39:00.001-07:00

Shot 2 Cleaned and Colored

2007-10-01T20:15:00.000-07:00

Shot 2 Cleaned and Colored! from 2DANM8R on Vimeo.

Shot#08

2007-10-01T13:57:00.001-07:00

Great job Nenad!

layout

2007-09-29T13:01:00.001-07:00

I tried to color it little bit. (not finished) But I think someone else can do better than me.

I'll keep going with this, but if there is someone who want to color this, feel free. I have psd file.

Polaroid Action!

2007-09-22T21:38:00.001-07:00

Our most productive day yet!...Awesome job everyone!!

Another Hard Day's work at Powell

2007-09-22T20:13:00.001-07:00

Here is evidence of the commitment that we have for this project . In the lab at 8:30 on a Saturday night! Eat your french heart out Gobeleahhhhhnn!

Real Work from 2DANM8R on Vimeo.

Here, not so much.

Hard at work on a Saturday from 2DANM8R on Vimeo.

Nearly done

2007-09-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

layout02

2007-09-22T14:58:00.001-07:00

Nearly Finished...

2007-09-19T22:57:00.001-07:00

Almost finished .....but time to move on ....It'll get the polish at clean-up.

Shot#4 Color

2007-09-16T22:11:00.000-07:00

I took a crack at coloring Say's layout, just to see if the 'flat color' technique of dalmations will work for us....it's definitley faster than coloring with a feathered brush....I can tell you that much!! and it's much easyer to make quick color changes with the paint bucket tool...I tried to stay as close as I could to bonnie's color models, but i' not sure i got quite as much mood into it as the color thumbnails.. this might be something we might have to compromise for the sake of speed.

Your thoughts?

layout~~^o^

2007-09-15T13:50:00.000-07:00

Layout process

2007-09-13T18:07:00.001-07:00

Hey guys

How are you doing?

Im doing some drawings of the first scene layout.

Leave me some feedbacks.

Chao

-Denny

Just For Kicks!...

2007-09-12T02:04:00.000-07:00

...but also as a compositing test...
I compostited the one man band onto one of the 101 dalmations backgrounds. I put it on Youtube, but you can see a much better Quicktime version HERE.

Shot 2 Rough Animation

2007-09-12T00:33:00.000-07:00

Here is the semi-completed rough animation for Shot 4 with Scotland's layout. I will be working on cleaning up some of the drawings by Saturday.

Shot 4 Rough Animation from 2DANM8R on Vimeo.

Saturday

2007-09-12T00:20:00.001-07:00

Is everyone okay with meeting up again this Saturday to work?

2007-09-11T17:57:00.000-07:00

post theatre reference

2007-09-11T16:25:00.000-07:00

So here are some foto ref. of post theatre .
I think if we use it for layout people would feel more involved in the story,
couse then it would seem its happening right there...
And there is just some leyout rough, horizon line is not like it should be
couse I just used Bonnies old rough of characters on the stage...

Stage floor layout

2007-09-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

Here it is.....

Layout posts! Yeah!.....okay, I'm still working on that....

2007-09-10T16:01:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,

Sorry for the delay

I tried several layouts and I mixed the original one and trung's version. Somehow it reads better. I want to add some more things. but I like this camera angle.

Let me get some feedbacks from you guys.

Tks

Here is an idea for layout / color

2007-09-08T08:47:00.001-07:00

Here is an quick color/style color sketch of the backstage based on the 101 Dalmatians examples that Hanna posted. I thought I would try the odd angles for a stylistic touch to see what everyone thought.
I am not quite satisfied with the colors/richness/continuity but I thought you all should look at it.
B

Project Work Day

2007-09-06T22:56:00.000-07:00

These are the schedules of the labs in rooms 220 and 250 at Powel. Sherrie said we could use either one durring the time they don't have classes scheduled. It would be nice if we could find a day (or half day) where everyone is available to work together at the same time. And this could double as our weekly meeting instead of mondays.
Can everyone post what days and hours are most suitable for them based on the free slots in those 2 schedules?

101 Dalmations Layouts

2007-09-06T21:27:00.000-07:00

This stuff is simplistic but so expressive. I think everything was drawn with a ruler but purposely a little crooked. Creates lots of appeal, and the colors are just laid in flat without a single gradient. It's kind of a similar coloring technique as the stuff that Trung posted a long time ago (from Uli Mayer) but with the line drawings visible on top. Looks really straight forward but it might prove to be a little trickier than it seems. Those guys really knew what they were doing! Plus it's a style the old Disney guys developed specifically for cutting corners. Which is precisely what we need to be doing at this point!...

Denny, Say, Bonnie, Nenad, Scot, what do you guys think? Since you guys are handling layouts and colors, would this be easy to replicate? And does it match with the overall style of our characters?

Stage

2007-09-05T22:32:00.000-07:00

It seems there's been alot of hesitation regarding the last shot(#8), mainly because we've been working without a clear drawing of the stage. So i went ahead and did a preliminary layout. The final design of the stage may or may not stay like this, but at least it will give us something to work from.
Any ideas?

Shot 2 Rough Animation

2007-09-04T14:51:00.000-07:00

Walks in faster ( 8 frames per step versus 16 frames).

Shot 2 Rough Animation from 2DANM8R and Vimeo.

End of Shot#8, Rough Character Layout

2007-09-02T23:28:00.000-07:00

Maybe the big guy in the back can do Johnny Bravo-esque moves, so we don't have to in-between them...we can just put a blurred frame in between.
-One man band is walking back and forth (Walk Cycle)
-Ballerina is dancing back and forth (Mirrored Loop)
-Magician prepares for a big trick (Loop?) then turns himself into a rabbit by mistake (Still)
-FrogMan does acrobatic tricks through the hoop of fire (Loop)
-Sword Sallower swallows swords through one head, and pulls them out the other (Loop)
-4 handed jester drops from the ceiling with the banner in 2 hands and juggling with the other 2 (Animated then Looped)
-Snake Charmer (Loop)
-Giant Woman (Still)...we could animate her hair only and loop it?

...And a black and white version for Bonnie if you want to take a crack at putting some lighting on it.

Video Reference

2007-08-31T16:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, here is Salem as the ringmaster and he even made the hat. What a sport!

Untitled from 2DANM8R and Vimeo.

Untitled from 2DANM8R and Vimeo.

Shot 5 Video Reference from 2DANM8R and Vimeo.

Shot 7 Video Reference from 2DANM8R and Vimeo.

Shot 8 Video Reference from 2DANM8R and Vimeo.

Shot Breakdowns

2007-08-30T21:41:00.000-07:00

So I finally got around to filling out those excel sheets. Doing this really gave me a sense of how much work we really have to put into this thing to finish it. It's quite a bit!! I didn't even fill in the sections for time projections, mainly because I have absolutely no idea how long it's going to take us to go through each shot since we're all working on this "part time". But I think we can do it. We just have to be smart about deviding up the work...Probably something we should take care of in the next meeting. Now that our shots are all locked down, we can assign key animators and assistants for each shot/character.

2007-08-30T11:44:00.001-07:00

Model Sheets (Latest Update)

2007-08-29T15:49:00.000-07:00

Shot Planning (Shot#2)

2007-08-28T19:12:00.000-07:00

-Denny, when doing the layout for this shot, make sure to print this out and use the same HORIZON line and V.P.
...Ignore the blue lines...they're only for the character.

-Trung, Ed suggested we shoot reference for this shot...I think that's a good idea.

layout

2007-08-28T13:26:00.000-07:00

This is test layout design I've been working on.

Say and I talked about it last week, and we thought instead of a guy sleeping on a wooden post, a small mouse (or rat) would be better.

One Man Band

2007-08-28T00:14:00.001-07:00

Fire!!!

2007-08-27T15:45:00.000-07:00

Fire test...

2007-08-26T23:31:00.000-07:00

Untitled from kungfu hampster and Vimeo.

This is a test Hanna and I did in flash for the fire ring. I did the initial pass and Hanna did the inbetweening and the cleanup.

2007-08-23T16:39:00.001-07:00

2007-08-23T00:39:00.000-07:00

Some stuff that Bonnie sent me a while ago...

Magician Pencil Test

2007-08-22T23:49:00.000-07:00

Hey guys. I started working on a rough animation test for the magician. I wasn't sure if it's really where we want to go with him since he is not one of the main characters. A cyclical animation might be better. Anyway, I figure I give it a shot just to get the animation juices flowing again.

Here are some things that came to mind while I was working on it and that we should probably have settled by monday or really soon:

Who is animating what?
What is each character doing at the end?
Which characters will have limited animation?
Which ones will have cycles?
How many frames do we have to work with for each character?

I'm sure there is more stuff we need to figure out as well. November is creeping up!!

Rough magician Test from 2DANM8R and Vimeo.

Welcoming Denny and Say on the project!

2007-08-22T21:00:00.000-07:00

Denny and Say have officially joined the team as our layout guys (girls). They've both joined the blog and I gave them an overview of the project earlyer today. We also went through the animatic with salem and picked out all the main shots from his 3D model. I'll post those at the bottom of this post. Any layout inquiries from this point on should go through the layout team.

If everyone's cool with the shots we picked out, we can make large printouts of those and start animating on top of them while the layouts are being done.

Animatic...

2007-08-21T20:28:00.000-07:00

Well, here's a finalized animatic...let me know what u think!

Untitled from kungfu hampster and Vimeo.

Idea for stage and last shot

2007-08-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

Julian's comment about the stage looking like its been "lived in" got me thinking. What if these performers did live in this stage? Traveling from town to town and putting on a show night after night after night. It would then make sense why they look so tired in the establishing shot. I thought it would be cool if the stage was part of there traveling freak show caravan like they did in the old west, so I sketched up a rough of what it might look like. And instead of zooming in the camera, the camera can zoom out to reveal all the characters already in position and doing their act. What do you guys think?

With possible character positions:

Stage views

2007-08-20T23:48:00.000-07:00

Here's some ideas for the stage.

Rough Layout for Shot 2

2007-08-20T11:57:00.000-07:00

Here is the same layout with possible positions of the characters:

3D Stage set

2007-08-19T22:35:00.000-07:00

Worked on a few simple 3D layouts of the stage. i hoped i could get more feedback by e-mail, but deu to the Santa Cruz trip we had this weekend, i guess i didnt get enogh PC time :S
but hopefully what i have now would still help :)

see u all monday

Pulling a rabbit out of a hat?

2007-08-18T08:39:00.000-07:00

Could we have the bearded ballerina step out of the magician's hat? Check out "Emile" athttp://www.gobelins.fr/galerie/animation/gen2007-06-Emile.htm
Also the ratio of white to color might be a source of inspiration for the finalie
B

Reference Material

2007-08-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

This is from the musical Cabaret. I thought it would be good to see for lighting and shadows with stage lights and spotlights.

In the first video, I like the way the Emcee enters on stage with the spotlight already on and how it slowly reveals him as walks toward the front of the stage. Good Stuff.

In the second video, I like the staging of the performers. Notice how the band members are on platforms behind the dancers and singers. Maybe we can use this trick for the secondary characters who will have limited animation. Some of the camera movements and angles were nice in this one too. I also like the music. Very jazzy, funky, etc.

Rough Layout for Shot 1

2007-08-16T20:28:00.000-07:00

By the way, have we decided what character was going to be in the rafters?

Rough Character Lineup

2007-08-16T16:44:00.000-07:00

So here's our final lineup...woohoo!!

Just tried to do a rough representation of all the characters in relation to one another. I think we made a great selection! Just looking at all the silhouettes I can tell it's going to look really cool seeing them all up on the stage....Nice variety of shapes and sizes.

More 3D Reference

2007-08-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

Layout and Color Inspiration

2007-08-15T14:12:00.001-07:00

I stumbled upon Uli Meyer Studios via Cartoon Brew and found these really cool screenshots of a Flash short that they did. I love the style, colors, and compositions of the layout and thought it might be a cool way to go with our project. The characters in their short are also painted flat which kind of blends them in with the background, but I think if we go with a sketchier line quality with our characters and keep the layouts flat, we might be able to accomplish a unique style.

Revised Story Thumbs

2007-08-15T01:12:00.001-07:00

These are based on the latest story revisions that we've discussed...

...Graham, feel free to use these for the animatic.

How about some title suggestions?

2007-08-14T22:05:00.000-07:00

I just realised we still don't have a title for this thing! How about everyone make some suggestions in the 'comments' section of this post?

Flash Walkscycle

2007-08-13T17:53:00.000-07:00

Done in Flash MX with a Cintiq.

Character ideas and Camera angles

2007-08-13T16:52:00.001-07:00

2007-08-13T16:37:00.000-07:00

Here are two examples of color scripts based on last weeks meeting. The first segment of each bar are cool colors of the backstage. The endings reveal two different treatments of stage lighting and the reveal at the end.

some character stuff

2007-08-13T15:55:00.000-07:00

Je's Character Designs

2007-08-13T15:11:00.002-07:00

3D reference Model

2007-08-13T00:36:00.000-07:00

Here's what Salem's been working on...

...A few more tweeks to be made, but this will really speed things up for layout!

Trung's Storyboards

2007-08-11T20:49:00.000-07:00

I figure I add these to the blog since I had already scanned them in.

Clean-up & Color Test

2007-08-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

It's an animated GIF file so it might play a little slow, but you get the picture...(Click to see full size)

So for this I did cleanup with a lead pencil over a red under drawing, then i scanned it into animo and did coloring and compositing there. I added the shadow later on in Image Ready (an extention of Photoshop that creates GIF files).

Inspiration!!

2007-08-11T11:10:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Bonnie!

Backstage

2007-08-11T10:37:00.001-07:00

Salem actually did a quick 3d model based on those drawing. I think it will come in very handy as reference for the layout artists because we can easily move the camera around.

My designs....

2007-08-11T01:31:00.002-07:00

Did anyone check the lab computer to see if the flipbook file was saved with my images? Can someone post them up here?

Hanna's Character Designs

2007-08-10T19:50:00.001-07:00

Production Schedule

2007-08-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

As you can see, we're already cutting it kind of close! I can start making model packets as soon as all the characters are in and we've chosen a line-up. I'm also done with a clean-up test and am ready to do a color and compositing test in animo (someone is hogging the animo computer, otherwise i might have been done today!). I'll post it as soon as i'm done.

Character Designs from Trung

2007-08-10T19:15:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

2007-08-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

I just set up this private blog so we can start sharing any work or ideas relating to the fall festival group project.

As some of you may know, 'Huey' (the computer) crashed and has been reformatted. As a result we have lost all the files that we had gathered on it. Fortunately nothing's been permanently lost because we each still have the original copies of everything we have done so far. It's just a matter of recompiling all of it.
If everyone could upload their characters (and other related artwork) to the blog that would be awesome. And I will go ahead and post everything that I have gathered for the project so far.

Otherwise...meeting on Monday as usual. Not sure if we can use the grad lab this time, but we can figure that out in the next couple days.

Have a great weekend!

Hanna