The First Animatic has Arrived!

After a long couple of nights compiling all the story boards together and choosing the best takes from my actors, the animatic for the first scene in The Districts is done! This animatic is being utilized as astrong communication tool for the timing and pacing of the film. Our composer, Shane, is currently using a copy of this to time the music with the actions on screen. The trailer, which is coming soon, will depict the first minute or so of this scene and include a few extra shots. Coming soon will be a test rendering of the locations found in this scene. Enjoy!

This is the opening scene to the film “The Districts.” In the wake of an explosion rendering the station combining Districts A and E a flaming ruin, District A Black Ops scour the slums in search of the man responsible. In the midst of their search, Marcus emerges from behind a dumpster, bleeding from his stomach and keeping an eye out for death. But was he truly the one responsible? And who gave him that wound?

*Note: This animatic only portrays the first scene of the movie. Music and sound design have not been added in. Also, the voice overs have not been altered to fit the atmosphere. These changes will come soon.

A Busy Past Couple of Weeks

As time moves forward in most projects, work often becomes busier. Life and other projects influence everyone involved. Over the past few weeks I have been incredibly busy with a lot of other projects, but that does not mean I loose sight of my goals. With prioritizing an important aspect in production, I have reorganized my schedule to reestablish this project as my top priority. Since my last post, a lot has been accomplished. For starters, our team now has a small budget for our original music composition. While it’s not as much as we’d hoped for, it is something to get the gears grinding. Jennifer, Geng, and I all put forth efforts into gathering said funding, but we are not done yet. After some very beneficial networking opportunities, we have a few leads and guidance into obtaining more money for our budget. Jennifer and Geng have been doing an excellent job keeping such things on task.

In the mean time, I have been plugging away at modeling, organizing the animatic, and communicating with our composer and writer.  Over the next few weeks, I will be compiling my own rendition of the soundtrack for this film for a class I am taking called Scoring for Media. I will then use this music composition – along with the animatic – as a tool to communicate with the Composer. I feel it is always beneficial to have a general understanding of all areas of production in order to better communicate with your crew. I have also recently finished two separate 3D projects that taught me a few extra skills that will be applied to this film. Gaining this extra knowledge increases my confidence that this will be a strong film.

Just this past weekend, Taylor and I met and accomplished a handful of necessary tasks. We continued to iron out our knowledge of transferring back and forth models from Cinema 4D to Motion Builder in order to prepare for animating our scenes. We were successful at merging our models with the rig in Motion Builder, so we are ready to proceed with that step once we finish gathering all of our models together. In addition to that, Taylor and I spent some time compiling models for our scenes. Tonight I will have a finalized list of what needs to be done for the trailer and who will be working on each part.

The rest of the semester will be pact full of finalizing each element of the film. While it will be a busy grind fest, words from a Telecom Department alumni – who recently visited for Multi Visions – will keep me motivated. There is a fire in my stomach and that will drive me forward to completion.

Keeping up the Pace

Once again it has been another very productive week. Things are getting busier, but more is getting done. This week was very successful for two reasons. First of all, more progress is being made on both the Animatic and modeling (more specifically for myself, the modeling of Marcus’ head). Secondly, Taylor and I were able to make it over a very important hurdle that could have been a large technical issue further down the line. This last Friday I was in the Motion Capture studio again grabbing extra footage I knew I needed. Later Taylor joined me and we looked into moving rigged models back and forth between Cinema 4D and Motion Builder. We already knew that the two programs were compatible, but there were specific details we weren’t sure how they would fit together. For example, we were not sure if our own rig would transfer and we weren’t sure if it would move back to Cinema 4D and snap together. Fortunately, it all worked out smoothly. There were a few details we needed to work out, but it did not take long to figure out.

Our weekly meeting was more focused this time around. As Jennifer said, we started off by watching other animated shorts for inspiration (some of which were previous contest winners). From there we looked at multiple animation or film festivals, and I personally have a strong feeling we can win at least a few of them. Some will be more competitive, but I know we have a very strong product in the makings. We also discussed a bit more about finding funding for this film. This is a big hurdle for us and it is one that is going to need a lot of attention. I also met with Kaleb this week to go over background chatter. All of that should be finalized in about a week or so.

Sometimes it’s interesting to look at fate versus coincidence (oddly enough one of the themes of this film). During our weekly meeting, there was a random student watching and listening in on our meeting. By the end, we discovered that this person does computer modeling and is interested in the project. We do not know this person’s abilities, but we may have another potential recruit!

Updates to the Website

Over this weekend, I updated the website to include a contacts page – which lists only the key members and their e-mail addresses. I was also going to add both Taylor’s and my professional reel, but Taylor lost his power cord and was unable to upload his reel. Once he finds it, I will upload them both. I was excited to finally figure out which line of code in our CSS dealt with our background color. You would think that would be a simple line of code, but in the past every time I tried editing the background color, the main picture would disappear. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why the CSS was working that way. Well, one look at the code after a few weeks away, I noticed a part of the code that might work. Surely enough, I was finally able to make the background color black so that the entire website would blend better. It’s amazing how taking a step back from a problem then approaching it later down the line instantly results in a solution. Funny how the world works.

My to Do List

• Essentially the same as last week, only more progress on each.

Kick up the Productivity – Motivation Forward

What a productive week it has been. After I gathered my thoughts from last week, I was able to spend a lot of time focused on specific aspects of this production. One key element that needs to get finished is an animatic. This helpful little device is very useful and essential to my composer, sound designer, modelers/animators, etc. It is something very commonly used in animation, and I have made a good amount of progress on it. A few more sessions of dedicated time to the task and it will be finished! As time progresses, I will explain each step the animatic is used in. For the time being, begin to get excited. So far I am loving how it is turning out.

On top of spending time focused on the animatic, I had a few very good and productive meetings this week. First of all, our normal Wednesday meeting – although cut a little short – placed our new modeler on the same page with us (as well as established his new assignments), and covered a good handful of needed contract acquisitions. I was also able to give our concept artists some more notes on the direction I am looking for. One of the greatest feelings was the fact that a finish line can now be seen for the concept artists. We are not quite there yet, but we are getting very close. Later in the week I sat down with Joe to hammer out more of the storyboards. A new sense of motivation has been sparked within him (as well as myself) and, we have a solid plan for ironing out the animatic for this film.

One of the most interesting meetings I had was a conference call with a friend of mine. He is currently out working in New York on two different projects – one of which has rumored actors such as Helena Bonham Carter, Justin Long, Ryan Phillippe, and others. Our film is now in need of funding. While I spoke with Jennifer and Geng a little bit about this on Wednesday, I spoke with my film maker friend and he gave me some more, very useful advice. While I cannot share that information on the blog, I am very grateful to have friends in the industry.

Earlier in the week I also met with Siya. We signed our contracts, and he is now officially apart of the team. We are now on track to improve the look of our website.

As far as my normal weekly routines are concerned, I am plugging away at them as planned. As I said before, it has been a productive week. Unfortunately, Taylor was ill this week, so I was not able to meet with him, but that also allowed me to focus on my own personal tasks. One of my main goals is to still finish the animatic. It is a top priority of mine that will be receiving a great deal of attention.

I wanted to end this particular note on something that I hope will benefit my fellow Districts team members. Being motivated is an important aspect when it comes to getting work done. There are many ways to find motivation, or even to be motivated. This can range from the simple change in weather (which for those of you who live in Bloomington, IN… warm and sunny weather has recently made an appearance), to working with others who are enthusiastic, or even having a strong drive to complete a goal. I myself find inspiration and motivation in various forms or ways. Naturally, it feels good to get a lot accomplished and to see some actual progress. Like wise, if one feels like nothing is getting done, the person can find themselves in an unmotivated rut. It is important to keep your drive going. It’s not always easy to do it by yourself. That is why being apart of a team can be so important. You can motivate each other. At the beginning of this year, I told people that I had a very good feeling about this semester. That feeling is still there and still strong. I know there are some hurdles for us to face, but I know that this team can pass them. There is a lot more hard work to come, but I know we will be ready for it. For those of you reading this, I’d like to ask you, “what motivates you?” Feel free to respond in the comments below or in your own post. Here are a few of mine:

• When I listen to a song and either a new idea – or a project I am already working on – pops into my head, I can envision a story. Seeing that vision in my head makes me want to create it, and in turn I am motivated to create.
• There are times when I watch an incredible movie, and seeing such a master piece motivates me to create a story of my own.
• When I see a talented artist or piece of art – granted I know I am not be as talented as said art/artist – I begin to wonder about the journey taken to get that amazingly talented. I then want to go on such a journey.
• If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. (Back to the Future anyone?)
• Seeing another person I am working with as enthusiastic as myself only makes me want to keep working harder.

My to Do List

• Prioritize the animatic
• Meet with Taylor to iron out the transition from Motion Builder to Cinema 4D (actually go into the studio and work on it)
• Oversee the progression of the website
• Continue to work on finding money for a budget
• Continue the usual weekly tasks

Ironing Out Plans and Staying on Track

As the weeks continue to roll by, specific details need to be ironed out and strategies discussed further. As I look into what needs to be done next, I find it’s always good for a brief pause to look at what is done, what needs to be done, and reorganize my thoughts and plans. It is easy to get ahead of one’s self, so taking a step back every now and then helps. Taylor and I discussed our plans for organizing how we tackle each scene. As we enter more into the modeling phase, it becomes important how each model will be scaled and how they will be combined into scenes for animation. We plan on organizing our Cinema 4D files into individual camera angles per scene with a master file of some sort. Each main modeled element (such as characters) will have separate files. This will make the animating process easier. Coordinating our models, animations, scenes, and files in an organized way will help us maintain a steady and unconfused flow.

Also this week, Jennifer, Geng, and I met with Shane – our composer – to go over all of the details involved in his contract and all of the steps we will need to take to make sure we get the best product possible. Jennifer will post the notes taken during the meeting. Shane is a valuable asset to the production. He has worked on larger projects similar to this one and has a strong grasp of the work flow involved. With his knowledge combined with ours, we are able to prepare for the steps necessary to finish the deliverables on time. I also have a better understanding of what tasks I need to complete in order to make Shane’s job easier. One hurdle we will need to overcome is the need for a budget. With low budget animated films, live music recordings is one of the most difficult assets to acquire. Creating a budget for the music will make the process flow much more smoothly. I have begun talking with a few contacts I know to start building a potential budget. There are a few more things I need to research regarding this task before I can proceed.

A few things I wanted to get done last week ended up getting pushed back. I had planned on meeting with Kaleb to iron out extra background dialogue, and I planned on meeting with Siya to plan out how we will approach the construction of the website. Unfortunately, I was unable to meet with either of them do to the fact that we were all a little too busy with other projects. However, tomorrow morning I have a meeting scheduled with Siya, and Kaleb is free later in the week. It was a small hicup in timing, but things will be back on track after this week. Scheduling multiple people’s schedules is always a back and forth process.

Trying to coordinate a project such as this one with all of the other activities going on in everyone’s life is no easy feat. Each person working on this project has other jobs, school, and/or projects to worry about. This makes it even more important that we all stay on track and do not fall too far behind. Fortunately, everyone is working hard and is very dedicated to the success of this project. I am lucky to be working with such a talented and dedicated team.

My To Do List

• Continue working on Storyboard Animatics for Shane
• Find potential sources for a budget
• Iron out the meetings with Siya and Kaleb
• Continue all of the usual weekly assignments

Expanding Forward and Taking the Next Step

As the weeks move on, time always appears to speed up. It is often said that a journey begins with a single step. While I took my first step on this particular journey well over a year and a half ago, new steps are taken each week. Some are steps by new adventurers, some are steps on the next leg of the journey.

This week, Siya joined our team for the goal of web development. The timing was perfect. Last week I set up our current website, but it is far better having someone devoted solely to the development of it. Having Siya on the team will allow me to focus on the other tasks I need to accomplish. Jennifer and Geng are keeping me on task with contracts, arranging meetings with people such as our composer, while I am ironing out specific details with Taylor about how we will proceed with modeling. One of the most beneficial things we established this week was deadlines for rendering and delivering the trailer. With these dates in place, Taylor and I will be able to plan out what models we will need and how long it will take us to create and animate them. One of the most important things I find while working on a team is the fact that everyone brings a different perspective. I will get into more detail about this in a separate post.

Continuing on, our team is getting bigger. Siya has agreed to join along with Darrin (another modeler), and I am seeing Jennifer and Geng make progress with other prospective recruits. I am currently attempting to get in contact with another 3D modeler I worked with a little bit and who was a Masters student at the IU Telecom department – Austin Lord. I have yet to hear back from him. On a more positive note, Jennifer and I are ironing out a time to meet with our composer once again. We will be able to cover in detail what work he will be doing for us and what deliverable are expected. I recently sent him a very lengthy e-mail regarding specific notes on the types of sounds I’m looking for and even a break down of each scenes and the emotions I am looking to pull forward in each. I will place said notes in a separate post. Also, this week Kaleb Havens joined our meeting. I was able to go into more detail about background chatter I would like to add to the film. Kaleb will also be working with us in updating content for this website (such as updated character bios). As soon as Kaleb and I meet up to break down the sort of background conversations we want, more actors will be contacted to record the extra audio.

Modeling Characters

Right now, I am working on modeling the head for the character Marcus. While Taylor is working on modeling male bodies, I will be focusing on the heads. We figured that this would be the best approach considering I have a more clear visual of the style I am going for. Once we progress further into the process and more people join us, we will modify our work flow.

As for approaching the modeling of Mark’s head, there are various strategies one can take. If you really boil things down though, there are essentially two. One can either start from nothing but an image and begin modeling each piece of the head one at a time (usually starting with the eyes), or one can start with a block and mold that into a head almost as if working with clay. Each approach has it’s benefits. I chose to begin with a block and work from there. I find that approach to be easier when it comes to maintaining a specific look and an initial low poly-count, although I feel as though the other approach is more traditional. I have not been able to fully get through Mark’s head yet as I just started on it today, but I should be able to get at least a low poly-count version completed in a few days.

My To Do List

• Finish Modeling Mark’s head
• Meet with Shane (the composer) to iron out his details
• Meet with Kaleb to go over background chatter
• Meet with Siya to go over web designs
• Still go through all of the recorded dialogue and pick out the best takes in order to combine them with our storyboards.

Recruiting, Technical Details, and WebDesign

We are now two weeks down into the semester, and I am as excited as ever. While I feel like my team and I are doing a great job getting things underway, I know busier weeks lie ahead. This week was full of contacting people, preparing ourselves for the modeling and animating process, and creating a bit more of a functional website.

Recruiting and Communication

During this past week, I made it a priority to re-establish contact with the artists and other people working on the project thus far as well as looking for more talented people. Early in the week I sent out a few messages to a talented 3D modeler and animator I have worked with before through the website GameZombie TV. His name is Darrin Giggy, and after I explained the project to him, he responded with a great deal of enthusiasm. He has agreed to join our team and work with us on this project. I am relieved to have another modeler on board with us, but I am always on the look out for more talent. With Darrin joining us, we will have to draw up an additional contract for him – a task I am confident Jennifer and Geng can handle with ease. We are still talking about the specific details that will comprise of his work load, so we will see how much he can contribute.

I also got back in contact with one of our previous concept artists, Dillon Olney. He has already developed a great deal of art for The Districts, and he will continue to iron out specific designs. I gave him a few notes on the work he did over winter break, but it wasn’t until I met with him in person that we really went into more depth about designs such as Samantha’s sword, District A Foot-soldiers, and background art. I am always impressed by the amount of time and effort Dillon puts into his duties. Communicating with him on what sort of vision I have in mind comes easy. While I have a specific look I am going for, Dillon is always able to add another perspective. I have asked him to begin designing a few specific street sections for Districts A and E, and I look forward to seeing what he develops. Some general notes I gave him include the following:

• For District E (a.k.a. the slums), I want a look that is a mesh between the post-apocalyptic wastelands found in the video game “Fall Out 3” and the re-building of the city of Midgar in the animated film “Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.” A skeletal landscape with rough edges and earthy tones are important.
• An idea to start with District A is to imagine a Norse knot design and picture that design as the road layout for the district as seen from a birds-eye view. Then smooth and curved buildings will flow from that design with the Chancellor’s manor acting as the center.

I have also recontacted Ryan Campbell about coloring in some of the art work we have already finished. Ryan was one of the main concept artists for creating the three of the four main characters. I have sent him an e-mail detailing the next steps and the overall color scheme for each character. He is currently out of town, but he informed me that he will begin working on those next steps as soon as he gets back.

In addition to my artists, I have also contacted Shane Monds – the composer for our film. He has agreed to meet anytime in the next few weeks to go over the specific details regarding his work and his contract.

Technical Details

I sat down with Taylor this week to go over the scenes we will be working on for the trailer. While we did not get into the specific scenes, we did cover a lot of the technical issues we will be facing as we proceed with this project. In retrospect, I find it was much more productive to be certain of what we can and cannot do technically before we decide on what scenes we want to focus on. The most important issue we discussed was the integration of Motionbuilder files (the Motion Capture files obtained from our time in the studio) with Cinema 4D (the program Taylor and I are most familiar with). We were pleased to discover the two programs are in fact compatible. We still need to experiment more with the binding and weighting of the key framed bones/joints with the models we will be creating, but Taylor has already begun looking more into the matter.

We also began to establish a list of characters/items we will need to model. Priority will be placed on the models that we will need for the trailer itself. Since our deadline for the trailer is May, we will focus on those scenes first, and then expand into other scenes based upon the time we have available to us. We have yet to finalize a specific list, but once the technical details are ironed out we will establish one. I imagine that will be an objective for this next week.

As we progress forward, there are certain problems and issues I imagine us running into.

• Modeling complex characters can take a lot of time. To help speed up the process, we will most likely model a few generic bodies and then swap out different heads and other details. I already have a generic body created from last semester that we can use to start with.
• Hair and clothing are difficult elements to work with. They cause a lot of problems and require a great deal of RAM to render. The less often we need to deal with these elements, the better. For the most part, we will try to model the clothing directly on the characters. However, certain outfits will require a little more “flow” to them (such as Samantha’s dress or even Marc’s trench coat). Even the hair for each character can potentially be tricky, especially Samantha. She has various hair styles and outfits throughout the film, so she will be the most difficult to work with. Taylor has already been commenting on various techniques to make this process easier.
• Render times are going to be on obstacle we need to be prepared for. Even rendering a single frame for a film can take several hours, let alone 1 to 3 minutes. This means that we will need to have our modeling and animating completed with enough time to allow for several days (if not weeks) of rendering. Taylor and I will be putting together deadlines for each step in the process in order to make sure we complete everything in time.

WebDesign

I devoted most of my time this weekend learning more about WordPress, the integrated CSS style sheet, and changing a basic wordpress template into a custom website. After several hours of work, I have the basics down. I was able to format the website in a more organized manner and even add my own graphics. This is where things became tricky. While editing custom CSS with wordpress, you can either start from scratch, or build upon the stylesheets already given to you. Since I am not an html/css guru, I went the route of building upon their templates. In order to do this I had to write CSS code that would override theirs. I had to understand their code and develop it for my own purposes. The most difficult part was finding out which lines of code adjusted which parts of the website and changing them enough to align each graphical element. I am not the greatest web developer by any means, and we will be continuing to look for a more experienced programmer. In fact, Geng is having some luck finding more experienced web developers to make our site look as professional as possible. However, I wanted to be able to understand how wordpress works and get a general feel for how our website is going to be developed before a web programmer joins our team. Not to mention, in the event we cannot find a programmer, I want at least a smoothly functioning and aesthetically pleasing website.

My To Do List

Moving into this next week, I have a few items on my list.

• Jennifer and I need to meet with Shane to go over his duties and contract.
• I still need to contact Austin Lord to see if he will be interested in joining our team.
• I will be pitching this project to sound designers in Norbert’s Scoring for Media class.
• I am awaiting reply from Kaleb Havens regarding background dialogue for this film. Once he gets back to me, I will contact the actors who were not hired for the main character roles to see if they would be interested in coming in for a few “additional voices” recordings.
• I need to go through all of the recorded dialogue and pick out the best takes in order to combine them with our storyboards.

Pre-Production Compilation: The Characters

Here is a short compilation video summarizing some of the work that has been done during the Fall Semester of 2010. The video focuses on the main characters of the story and the actors who played each role. A YouTube channel has also been created to post progress and updates on the film. The user name is theDistrictsFilm and the channel can be found here.

First Week of 2011

This week we had our first meeting for production on The Districts. It was an excellent opportunity to get the ball rolling and get a solid start on all of the work that needs to be accomplished by the end of the semester. As Jennifer, our producer, has stated before, we began the meeting by covering all that was left over from last semester and all that needs to be accomplished this semester. Also, it was explained what role each person would play in this project. Jennifer is continuing on as Producer/Production Manager and Geng is joining her in those duties. It is established that Taylor will focus mainly on modeling, animation, and other post-production techniques such as lighting and special effects. There are other people working on the project who will be mentioned in a separate blog.

Collectively we decided on a time to meet. We will be gathering every Wednesday at 5:30pm, and I am looking into exact locations that will suite our needs. I am very enthusiastic about this semester, and I am proud to have such a strong team. Right now everyone has something to focus on, and I plan to make sure that everyone has something to do every week. The most important thing is that we all put our best into this project.

My To Do List

• Right now one of the most important things to do is continue recruiting. Our project is a bit ambitious and we have a solid schedule for completion, but the more talented people we have working on this project the more we can achieve. Right now we are looking for more modelers and animators. I have contacted a talented modeler, Darrin Giggy, I used to work with on GameZombie TV to see if he might be interested in joining the project. I am currently awaiting his reply. I also plan on contacting Austin Lord, another talented modeler/animator, tomorrow to see if he would be interested. Our team still needs to recruit for other positions, but my focus right now is on modelers while Jennifer and Geng will focus on other roles.
• Over winter break, I recruited a talented Composer who is going to write the musical score for The Districts. He is very smart and has a good grasp on what sort of music fits different mediums and genres. Later this week I will be giving him notes on specific tunes I want for this film. He will in turn present me with samples that we will refine into the final score.
• Concept art is reaching towards the final stages. While character art, vehicle designs, and random items (such as cameras and weapons) are virtually completed, a little more work needs to be done back ground art. One of my artists, Dillon, will be focusing on that area while another artist, Ryan Campbell, will be focusing on coloring key work that has already been done. I will be meeting with both of them this week to discuss the specific notes on each part.
• As for additional work I have done, this week was full of emails and a little extra planning. I am learning more about wordpress to see if I can use it to form our main webpage, and I worked on a few more storyboards to add to the already large pile of them. I imagine that once we get a few weeks in, I will be solely focused on modeling along side Taylor. Together we will sit down and pick apart the scenes we feel would be best suited for a trailer and model the components of those scenes first in order to save time for this semester. I realize this may be a bit backwards, but to make sure we have our deliverable completed on time (a 1-3 minute trailer by the beginning of May) and to ensure that this trailer is of high enough quality, we feel it best to work on those elements first and then come back to the full individual scenes. Once Taylor has finished reviewing all of the material already completed for the film, we will sit down together and iron out a more specific plan.

Responses

• Jennifer – I would be glad to join you with your Wednesday morning meeting with Steve Khranke. I trust that you can handle everything yourself. I simply feel it would be easier to go over them together than to discuss the details later.I love where your head is at with the contracts. We need to make sure we quickly mobilize getting all of them signed as soon as Steve gives the thumbs up. That will be one of the first things we can cover for this week’s meeting. Let me know how things progress with recruiting more members and getting a hold of Bob as they unfold. Keep up the great work!
• Taylor – I read your post at http://www.taylorbryant.info/ and I was wondering how far along you are with reviewing everything. I will be following you up on this matter with an e-mail.

“Don’t ask for it; go win it on your own. Do that and you’ll succeed.”