Work in Progress - July 2008

Work in Progress - July 2008 from Paul Caggegi on Vimeo.


This month's work in progress video: the first of the animatics based on a piece of dialogue I've had edited for over a month. I've just gotten to this page of the storyboards so I thought it appropriate to use it as a showcase of the work to date.

This edit took me less than half an hour. This is due to so much work that has gone before. The rest won't be so cut-and-dry, I know.

When story-boarding, I try to think of each most important shot to show. I am considering many things here. Aziz is a verbally diuretic intellectual, who poses in dramatic stances. Marcus is a stoic, stone giant. There is a great subtext I never thought of before at the scripting stage which came out purely by accident - notice the fondling and opening of the small crate? What do you think might be in it? It makes me feel as tho Aziz is going to pull out some sort of death for Marcus.

Could be. :D

I am as of this writing, at nearly 30 pages - almost a full week ahead of schedule. These shots comprise of pages 21 through 24. I think there could be some extra shots injected into that sequence, but I am determined to plow through to the end before I go back and revise the story-boards.

There's already scenes I am marking for edit. The edits range from shot sizes I think could be better, to shots I need to put in in order to explain events more clearly. I shall be showing some examples closer to the time.

One thing I WILL consider going back and changing, however, is the aspect ratio. (Kudos to Michael J Dowswell for picking up on that... albeit because of his unholy love for the 4:3 AR)

I shall preface this by saying: I AM HUMAN, THEREFORE I ERR. Coming from a video editing background, how could I overlook something as fundamental as Aspect Ratio? It should have been the FIRST thing I checked.

I didn't. I apologize. I need to go back and correct. What aspects am I thinking about? Probably a more cinematic 1.85:1 although the other night I was at an editor's seminar that featured footage shot on the new RED ONE and I am VERY tempted to cut the whole thing in 2:1 (Imagine THAT!) and render at either 2k or 4k.

This week, I also want to showcase the amazing efforts of my voice actors. I had but the merest inkling of what the characters should be doing in this scene, but it wasn't until I first heard Steve Ogden's interpretation on Aziz that I began to visualize how he may move and act.

And so I roughed out the scenes in my head. When the time comes to animate this, I shall have to resort to a tried and true method: film myself acting out the parts.

These past few weeks, I've really learned that the best way forward is to do focus on one task at a time, and not diversify too much. I am pushing modeling back until after the storyboards are completed. I am frantically reading up on things I shall need to know soon, such as texturing (my weakness) and I am formulating some very specific looks.

Milt Kahl - one of the "Nine Old Men" of Disney - once said (and I paraphrase of course): "Animation is doing one thing at a time." His justification? "I'm not smart enough to think of more than one thing at a time!"

Perhaps, despite this day-and-age, the old guy was onto something. And I had to figure it out the hard way. But I'm in here for the long haul. You guys are gonna tag along, right?

.....RIGHT!?

See y'all next week.

Originally posted July 20th 2008

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