I got the Arri Light Kit from my partners at Blue Juice Films, Inc. and was finally able to find some time last night to film the miniatures.  I shot a bunch of different versions of the triplane turnaround, and ended up using the last one.  I turned it slowly, so that I could just speed it up as need in After Effects, and that plan worked well.  I’ll have to actually work out the right timing when we film Anastasia as the pilot, but that’s still a ways off.  I managed to line up the timing of the actual camera move around Pupsock, the faked camera move (achieved by having the triplane on a turntable), and the virtual camera move across the clouds to reveal the pirate ship.  After chugging through a shuttled preview, I finally feel confident that this shot is going to work!  There’s still a LONG way to go, though.  Here’s an incomplete list of things left to do for this one shot:

• Stabilize the footage of Pupsock
• Lock Pupsock in place on the wing of the triplane
• Get a perfect chroma key on Pupsock, rotoscoping as necessary
• Get a perfect chroma key on the triplane, rotoscoping as necessary
• Find just the right shot of the pirate ship
• Get a perfect chroma key on the pirate ship, rotoscoping as necessary
• Finalize the virtual camera move
• Figure out how to create wake in clouds generated by Trapcode Form
• Film Anastasia in pilot costume (need to get pilot costume)
• Lock Anastasia in place on the triplane
• Get a perfect chroma key on Anastasia, rotoscoping as necessary
• Color correct everything
• Put light spill on everything
• Final color correction

So, yeah, everything is coming along nicely…….

In other news, Adam finished editing a first pass of the non-pirate-ship scenes, and it looks pretty OK.  First cuts always are a bit weak, especially when one of your main characters doesn’t exist yet.  Very cool to see it together, though!

Also, I started a new blog.  I was accepted to Animation Mentor, the Online Animation School, and am very excited about it.  I start on June 29th, and would say that I can’t wait, except that I have a pitch reel to get finished before then. So I can wait.   Though, maybe if I overlap the start of school with the finish of the pitch reel I can get feedback on my Wendell shots from my mentor.  Hmmm….  Anyway, AM encourages its students to keep blogs of their progress, so I went ahead and started mine.  It’s a bit frustrating being in the nebulous phase, post-acceptance, pre-class 1.  I wanted to know everything that was supposed to be happening between now and then, and unfortunately not too many blogs had any information about this. So I started mine, and am trying to keep detailed information about the waiting period on it.  It can be found here, if you’re interested:

http://animationmentorblog.wordpress.com/

Still working on the Pitch Reel when I can, though with two kids and overtime at the day job (plus trips across the country) I still am not getting to it as much as I’d like.  However, tonight I finished painting the miniature for the triplane that Pupsock will be riding.  I’ve never done anything like this before, and it probably shows, but I think I did a pretty good job.  I spent a while studying painting techniques, and then spent a couple of days studying photos and footage of actual triplanes to see how they naturally wear as they age.  Then, I put my newly-acquired painting knowledge to work trying to imitate the same wear and tear.  It was a good feeling watching it all come together and look something like what I had in mind.  I’m sure a model expert would have several issues with it, and I’d love to hear what they are and how they’d go about fixing it.  Best way to learn.

I’ll let it dry tonight, and then hopefully I’ll get to film it before the day job sends me to Alaska on Monday.  Then I’ll really be able to tell if I did a good job or not.

Just got back from LA where we had a very successful GALLERY OF DOOM screening at the Newport Beach Film Festival.  Kevin flew out with me last Thursday and we landed just before midnight.  All the cheap rental cars were gone at this point, so we got a Jeep SUV for only $23/day.  I’ve never driven a car that tall in LA before, and I must say it was very nice.  I was able to see over traffic and drive much better.  We lugged the Jeep up into the valley to stay with my friend Orion Martindale, who produced my first puppet film, DUDLEY AND THE TOY KEEPER’S CHEST.  We stayed with Orion for two nights, while we did some sightseeing (Kevin had never been to Hollywood before), and then went down to Newport for two more nights in a hotel provided by the festival.  We didn’t do too much festival stuff, but the screening was awesome.

Orion drove down with Joey Monasterios, who played Princess Stacie in the movie, and the theatre was packed with kids.  Orion’s car broke down on the trip just before the screening and Kevin went to their rescue.  Unfortunately they missed the first half of the films, which included THE SURE SHEEP (which Kevin & I also worked on), and came in while I was doing Q&A for that.  The kids really responded well to it, and had a lot of applause to share, and actually asked a lot of questions afterward.  After the Q&A, puppeteer Alan Cook (of the International Puppetry Museum in Pasadena) put on his wonderful Billy Goats Gruff shadow-puppet show, and followed up with a shadow-puppet workshop.  After all this, the tiniest kids were advised to leave and a second set of films started, now aimed at ages 7 and up instead of All Ages.  GALLERY OF DOOM closed out this set, and got the biggest applause of the entire show.  I came up for another Q&A, and the kids had a lot more questions, and some even came up to me for autographs and personal advice, which I was happy to give.  It was a really good feeling getting to speak with some of the kids one-on-one, and I felt like I was getting to inspire the next generation of filmmakers.

The other major high point of the trip was the fact that Heather Henson was still in town when we were there on Friday, and offered to give us a personal tour of The Jim Henson Company lot on La Brea Ave. in Hollywood.  It was amazing beyond words.  So, I won’t attempt to use them here.  I’ll simply say that, at the end of THE MUPPET MOVIE, there is a lyric which says, “Then somebody out there loves you / Stand up and hollers for more (MORE!) / You’ve found a home at the Magic Store.”  Now I know where they were singing about.  In addition to being the Henson lot, it was originally built by Charlie Chaplin and it is where he made most of his biggest movies.  The sense of magic and history was palpable, especially inside the soundstage.  It was amazing.