'Cliff' 01/05/2011

It is 01:27 am on a Saturday.
I was continuing work on the main dialogue scene today. Will still be working after i write this until i fall asleep.
Some inspirational music and support from my fellow students.

It is now 01:58 I am still working on the lip sync. Creating keyframes of mouth shapes so tomorrow i can draw inbetweens for them.
I've saved a progression swf for lip sync to show with my final hand in.

This scene is basically 25 seconds of Para Cat Lipsync (Talking). So, although i was ambitious to get all of it done tonight, i do not think it is possible. I am sleepy and I am yet to animate Cliff's facial expressions or Tam's entrance.

Tomorrow my list of production is this

• Para Cat finish lip sync
• Draw background for behind Cliff
• Animate all of Cliff's expressions
• Bring Tam in and animate her acting

If i can manage to complete all of that i will

• draw set for outside/inside house.
  

But i doubt i will get there just yet. There is alot of acting and lip sync to be done in this scene. But i still feel confident that i am moving at an ok pace concidering my time avaliable.

The full film is 6 minutes 20 i think.


- Nathan Viney
Cliff and the End of the Rainbow Update

'Cliff' 27/04/2011

I've just discovered this book hidden among many others. It is a collection of comic strips from Charles M Schulz released in 1968.'This is your life, Charlie Brown.'
It is very interesting to see how the style developed over the many years of drawing the strip. The style of the characters and how they move in comics has always inspired my art style and where i went with my work. I did used to have a lot of characters + a dog as both a comic and animations. Although i have left them behind the style of Rainbow is clearly influenced by their simplistic facial features, button eyes and simple lines for noses and mouthes.


Recently i completed the 'last scene' in Cliff and the End of the Rainbow but not the final one i am to work on.


here is a drawing of my production


As you can see the green areas are complete, the beginning and the end.
I recently finished the ending of the film with some suggestions from my girlfriend. Originally Cliff would breath in to speak, then get kissed, then the screen would go black revealing the end.
It ended up being too sudden, and did not really work for a short films finish.
Because of this i made it so the camera tracks upwards above them, past a tree and into the blue sky revealing the words 'The End'
This seemed to work better than the quick cut.

So now i have returned to the middle of the film to work as hard as i can. My personal deadline in June 25th.
I am very much hoping i can pull this off.

Here are some screenshots

The warrior is very hard to draw/animate so i decided to give him a tough confident look when bringing him back for the films ending. These are the red line drawings for planning.


This above is actually a quick sketch to tell me where abouts Para Cat would stand in that shot, though the drawing came out strange it was still very useful.

And below are three frames from the ending as the camera pans upwards

Click for larger


- Nathan Viney
Cliff and the End of the Rainbow Production Blog

'Cliff' 25/04/2011

For the last few days i have been working on the final scene in the film, The storm of black ghosts in the golden city that kills the witch, and the happy ending.
The happy ending is very much still in production.

I am at 11.7 seconds and i need to get to 32 seconds.

Once that is complete i can begin work on the rest of the film

At the moment i have 2 minutes 55 to complete by my deadline the 25th of May. I'm not sure if it gets tighter than that.
I am still confident though, i will fight through until the very end.

Here are some production screenshots

The death of the witch.
First i animated a few loops of ghosts that i could place into the screen, they soar across from the side multiple times throughout.
For the witches death i frame by frame animated her body getting thinner, like her insides were disapearing, and then a wave of ghosts fly past leaving only the bones and fly off screen.

I used a running loop i'd already animated for an earlier scene and then drew a standing version. Once i'd done that i could do intbetweens connecting the loop from the new keyframe stance. So he runs and stands smoothly.

Cliff watches as the golden city turns a dark corner, the backdrop becomes a blurred red and black. I used the same background for a variety of shots in this scene, simply flipping them or making them bigger.

A character sheet of the main cast.


- Nathan Viney

Sunny days in the UK

The sun has been out for a while now, at least 3 weeks.. maybe. That is a very long time. And it was hot for like 2 days!!! cooorraazzzy
I went out in it once, that was nice, got some icecream and sweets! And a pie.
I'm animating everyday, not as hard as i dream of. Writing a schedule is a bit like having a nice dream really.
You plan out all these wonderful days where you complete a full load of coursework or any kind of production all at once. You expect, on that one day you will be stuck on WORK MODE( A mode you are familiar with, you have done it before, you'll do it again.) But you don't, you wake up, tired, lazy, and looking for food even though you are not actually hungry.
Any excuse to get 'in the mood' I'll be in the work mood in a moment, surely. Maybe once i have a shower, no, maybe if i eat breakfast.
Maybe if i check my email, facebook and twitter all will come together and work will start.
It does not work like that, first you've got to pass the most difficult part: Is todays work difficult?.
This question is very important.
If the answer is YES, then you avoid work because it is going to be difficult and possibly BORRINGGGGG
if you the answer is NOOOOO
Then you will leave it all day (It's ok, i'm ahead of myself, that bits so simple i can finish it later).... you either end up staying up very late or doing it the next day! Then you end up behind schedule! *

Another thing that can hold you up is if you've had a bad experience previously, if you feel like what you have just done sucks! It looks terrible and it has wasted (ooh stylo just came on on media player) a load of important working time.

To get past that last one I try and find something really easy to work on. Whether I'm doing something easy or difficult at least i am doing something that helps production. Then something is always completed by the end of the day, even if that is just flicking a puppies nose.



Conclusion
GET TO WORK
and stop blogging

thanks Bobby Womack for those kind words


Night

'Cliff' 21/04/2011

I've once again not updated for a while but here i am with a progress report. I've been working on the final scenes of the film (Keeping in mind the whole middle section of the film has not been worked on since i left it).
I have almost reached the three minute line, so close! I just have to keep working.
The final scenes have used mainly the same backgrounds with trees moved around the place and some blurred.
In the past I have made sure that every background has perfect detail, but i just want to tell a story and make sure i get it completed on time, so I am doing character animation mainly, with some occasional new adaption of a background.
All of the 'fighting' off has been done.
Para Cat is frozen by the witch after his attempts at shooting her. Cliff is punched down whilst trying to pull her away (Still more pulling to come) and fluffy the cloud is unfortunately set on fire. But all of them will return, once the witch gets eaten by dark mystic ghosts of the golden world.

(Click for larger)
The witch holds the key to the door at the end of the rainbow. This is how all my shots work. I take the animatic, turn it into a much clearer image and then create the final version.
This is the final version

Notice her arm has changed since the original drawing, this is because in the next shot she is using her left hand, it did not make sense to have her arms swap around.

I worked on the golden world through the open door tonight. I wanted a world full completely with piles of gold. Quite a wonderous place.
I took inspiration from these images

(Disney's Ducktales)
When i saw this i wanted to use bags of gold! Like someone had placed all of it in there.

In this image from Aladdin i took inspiration from the piles of gold close to the camera.
Here are my production shots.


The golden world has many objects, bags, a crown, treasure chest and goblets. As well as rubys. The ruby/gem that i was orginally going to have in the sky did not work for me. I liked it but the light it would shine would be red, and this was not a red world, is is a very.. golden one.
Although i wanted this place to have a sun, almost like another planet, i got rid of it all together. Though i do have clouds in there.


- Nathan Viney

'Cliff' Update 16/04/2011

At this point in time Flash is crashing half way through exporting my last scene.
Unlike previous weeks where i have managed to complete 1 minute in a week, this week i have only been able to complete 38 seconds.
Unfortunately, not even that will export from flash at the moment. Flash, with help from my laptop have decided that blurs and motion tweens are too much for the machine to handle. This is a sudden development but one i almost always expect.

The swf export gets half way and then freezes, stopped, paused in time forever.
I have seperated the first part as a different fla. But i am now having the problem that some of the important blur effects are not working the way i want them to.
Will have to look into this.

Today i animated an emotion scene between Cliff and the Cloud and Para firing an arrow.

- Nathan

'Cliff' Update 15/04/2011

I've been working on this project every day for the last week. I started work on the final scene, from where the characters see the witch once again flying over them and go in to fight her in the clouds. I am worried this scene is a bit rushed so i may have to let my musician know soon.
My musician, Stephen Brooks will hopefully be producing some demo tracks based on the animatic and footage i have sent to him.
Ive animated some character acting animation for Para Cat, where he tells Cliff a little more about the End of the Rainbow and the possible reason for his voice being stolen. This is good practice for when i return to the middle of the film where there is a lot of acting.

The reason i have gone straight to the end now is because the final scene has some complicated animation that needs first attention.

For example today i animated my Para Cat character doing a backflip loop, it does not work like a perfect animated backflip but it IS perfect for the scene.
He is struck by the electric force of the witch.

When i was animating I sent an email to Benjamin Rudman, the voice of Para Cat to record a sort of screaming (Whilst being attacked by the electric force). He immediately sent a perfect recording. It works really well and is quite funny.

Then i moved onto the continuation of the cloud scene, where Para Cat lands on a cloud looking quite serious and then jumping upwards in front of the sunlight.

Here are some screenshots from my work

Above is: The money shot. My favourite shot in the film so far.

Frame from backflip


- Nathan Viney

'Cliff' Production Blog 9/04/2011

Once again I have avoided updating for a few days. This is because as work becomes more intense there is more need for sleep, also i had uni on friday so there was less work to take note of.
First off, yesterday I officially completed 2 minutes of production.
This means i have two minutes of animatic developed into polished/ish animation. The reason i got a minute completed in one week is because i have stopped putting in as much detail in some of the artwork and also the animation itself. There will be less inbetweens and not as many shadows for the rest of the film.
Reasons for this are

• They slow production down
• They were useful for starting off the film, hopefully getting people excited for the rest of the story. Once they are in the story they will not notice this lack of detail.

Something else that is speeding up production is that i am reusing backgrounds. Some backgrounds are just a green field i can place right in the background. Eager obvserves may notice it in almost every shot following the introduction.

When i worked on the sunset scenes it was important to turn my animations into graphics so I could easily darken them.
Since then i have used this technique to brighten, colour and darken characters and sets through production. In the night time scenes i did for Cliff stuck at the bottom of the ditch, i made him and his surroundings much darker. This means i can just use the colours i usually use for the clothing and backgrounds and then change them slightly for the mood. This is a very useful way to get through drawing different settings.


Here Tam is showing her emotional side by reminding Cliff that he does not have a mind. Both characters are lit up slightly in yellow to show the sunlight glaze over them.

When Cliff falls down the hill he gains a small cut on his knee. I decided to show the pain it gave him, so the audience has even more sympathy for this small voiceless boy.


The image above is when Cliff finds his way out of there, he sees a tall green plant. He then uses it to shake, to get Tam's attention above.
As the picture shows, i used the blur tool to bring the plant in focus for the audience. To show it's relevence on screen and for the story.


- Nathan Viney

'Cliff' Production Blog 05.04.2011

It is so late! Animators work late.. that is just how it is.. It is not like i woke up late or anything...

So today (And the last few days) I have been working (very slowly) on a very important scene in the film where Cliff falls down.. a cliff... Well a dirt hill.
In reality a dirt hill/cliff would not stand up like a giant cliff, but this is my fantasy world so i can do what i like.

I've produced another shot of Cliff running. This shot/background reveals a little bit of what is to come. Although these images are very subtle i hoping if viewers watch the film a second time they may notice these things.

Cliff slips up on some mud, there is a water pud on the dirt path earlier on.
When he is running there is a slight cliff edge near by.

I am reusing the same distant background over and over again as a green field. Resizing it, colouring it and sometimes blurring it. This makes production much quicker and easier to work on.

That will teach kids not to run around!

I decided to make the slip quite a surprise, and very fast paced. As i believe this works better for 'surprise' and possibly a bit of comedy.
You will notice the bottom shot has a cliff edge type drawing on the bottom half. This was to make it connect with the next shot, a dirt cliff. Else, i was told, it looked like it was falling out of a tree.
Fall with animatic below

Today i animate Tam calling out and Cliff rolling down the dirt hill and stopping.

Tam calling out involved some simple arm motion and short lipsync.
As the background was blurred behind her, as only she is in focus I thought it would be interesting if, when she ran off the background came back into focus. My video camera does this occasionally, i thought it might connect it with live action a bit more. As there is not any handheld camera work in this film I need a way to connect with the audience as a camera man.
I thought it might add live action connection with the animation.
You will be able to see this in the final film production.

I animated the rolling down the hill frame by frame, as well as the cloud of dust at the bottom.

This roll was not as hard as i expected or as complicated. It only took two goes for me to be happy with the result.
I'd also animated Little Howard doing a similar thing in my commerical freelance work so was excited for this scene.

I had a lot of trouble with this background, i am still not happy with it but it will have to do. I suppose it could have been worse.

After this follows a close up of Cliff rubbing his head (Injury) and looking up to the sky. This was all animated frame by frame.
It is easy to fill in the inbetweens whilst listening to music, gets me through the boring drawings. And I do not like keyframes because they are the ones that stand out. They have to be just right! But the idea of them is genius.

- Nathan Viney

Cliff and the End of the Rainbow Production Blog