'Cliff' 17/05/2011

i finished animation on the 12th of May. Almost two weeks ahead of schedule. This means i am straight into editing now.
All of the scenes have been put together using Sony Vegas, an easy to use professional software.
The reasons i decided to use Sony Vegas

• Although i am comfortable with editing on Adobe Premiere, i have had bad experience with exporting my animations from it. No matter what i did the quality would lower or the colours would glitch. It is also not as simple to important image sequences into it as Sony Vegas.
• I'd like to use After Effects for compiling the images as i know it is brilliant with exporting image sequences at a perfect quality. Though i lack the knowledge to add simple effects like fading, also the sound control is very limited on After Effects.

Sony Vegas imports image sequences in the easiest way possible and I have full control of the sound. I can also add various effects to the film if i prefer. I have been doing this, adding glow effects to the scenes in the golden world as well.

I emailed a friend of mine, a fellow animator. It was important to get someone who did not know the full story, or had not seen any footage yet to review it.
I have plenty of people who have helped my progress throughout making the film, but as they have now all seen the production their they cannot judge the footage by story.

Milo Waterfield, a brilliant animator. Here are his views on the film.

• There were a couple of moments that i thought could do with a little more time to absorb what's going on... in the opening shot, maybe a beat or so between Miss Locket flying by and the cat cutting the branch off the tree? It all happens at once - i guess that was the idea - but i was a bit, like, "whuh?"
  
  
  I wonder whether when we first see toddler Cliff, before she takes the key, he should speak or at least make a noise? Maybe repeat "Good boy" or something? It might make it clearer that she is stealing his voice? I was a bit confused about that at first...
  
  
  I find the fade to black just before Cliff shakes the plant to get the Tam's attention a little confusing... it suggests time has passed. And should he look up at her when she finds him?
  
  
  Maybe just a beat or two at the very end after Tam kisses Cliff and the camera pans up? That all seemed to happen quite fast...

All of these critiques have been taken into account. I may fix up all of these points.
To do these fixes I will need to go into the flash files, do the fix, then export the png image sequences to individual organised folders.
Then i bring them into Sony Vegas and replace the original files.

Click for larger

My letter to my musician
"So i will try and get that full film sent to you saturday-sunday (15th)
> From then on we can conference call whenever you have the time if need be.
>
> The deadline if it is ok for sending me the soundtrack would be
> 26- 29th of May
> This gives me a bit of time to edit it all in and plop the film on a DVD
> for uni"

Here was his letter in response
Perfectly fine! Like I said if you give me a date to meet I can meet it.


Once all of this is done i must work on the paperwork that accompanies the release of the film. And place the film on an authored DVD for hand in.


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