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/

Here are the photos from Day 2 and Day 3 of shooting the Pitch Reel.

After a few days off to celebrate the new year (and storyboard), we took back to the camera and filmed the remainder of the LITTLE DREAM ENGINE Pitch Reel on January 3rd & 4th.  It was probably the most ambitious thing I could have written, given that it would have to be in front of the cameras within 10 days of my having written it, but my team pulled it off.

Tom, the Producer, started making calls and secured the three locations we needed very quickly.  He got us a movie theatre (thank you, Premiere Oaks 10 in Melbourne, FL), an old-timey Sam Spade-style office (thank you Spectre3D, Inc.) and a green screen stage (thank you, Tight Line Productions, Inc.) to stand in for the Air Ship.  This is in addition to getting craft services, DP’ing the film, getting extra crew in, and the million other things a Producer does that I don’t realize.

John Kennedy came through with all of the villain puppets, including a group of Air Pirates and a 12-foot tall Goliath to serve as the main villain (you can see him in the pictures from my previous post).  John is a very talented puppeteer, who has performed almost all of the Muppets at various times, such as Sam the Eagle in A VERY MUPPET CHRISTMAS, and Fozzie Bear in MUPPETS FROM SPACE, and has performed Elmo’s Right Hand for many years on SESAME STREET.  We became friends last year, and I got to work on a couple of his shows, and he agreed to help me out with this Pitch Reel, even performing Pupsock during the theatre shoot.

Jamie Donmoyer, who built Pupsock and performed most of his scenes on GALLERY OF DOOM, came back for the weekend shoot to lend her brilliance to the character once more.  She only had a limited time off for the holidays, and I’m honored that she spent some of it with us.

Kevin McGuire  was a big help, and a presence whom I’ve sorely missed on previous shoots.  We did so many films together in college, and then life got in the way and he wasn’t around much.  Finally he rejoined us for this shoot, having been reminded how much fun it is after having done a day on GALLERY OF DOOM and assisting me on THE SURE SHEEP.  He was there every day, took on any task we gave him, and always did a great job with a positive attitude.

One of Tom’s friends whom I hadn’t met before, Josh Malyn, swiped his fiancee’s brand new DSLR camera and was there for the whole shoot taking stills for us, and taking videos when the battery left the land of the living.  We posted the pics from the first night, as linked to in my last post, but haven’t gotten the others ones up yet, as we’re still recovering from the shoot.  I’ll let you know as soon as they’re up.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Things are slowing up on GALLERY OF DOOM, and now my company is focusing on our first feature, THE LITTLE DREAM ENGINE, and couple of other projects, most  involving the Pupsock & Wendell brand.  Right now, we’re shooting a Pitch Reel for THE LITTLE DREAM ENGINE.  This is basically Pupsock using the downtime on his latest adventure to tell investors about the movie, about me and the team, and to show them GALLERY OF DOOM and DUDLEY.  It’s a 3 day shoot, with Day 1 already behind us, Day 2 rising with tomorrow’s sun, and Day 3 soon after.  This one has a bunch of Wendell animation, and another virtual set (this one probably done with a miniature).

Here’s a link to some pictures from the first day of the shoot, where Pupsock battled a 12-foot puppet to rescue the Princess.

Today is Wednesday the 9th of January, 2008.  Tomorrow will mark one year since I first stepped into the warehouse that became ours for two weeks.  Shooting started only a few days after that, and by the 19th we were wrapped.  Here we are, one year later, two festival screenings behind us, a huge one coming up, and we’ve almost finished the film!   The end, in fact, is scheduled.

I have until Monday night (which I’m sure will become late Monday night) to finish any shots I want to enhance/clean up/invent.  Then on Tuesday the 14th — one year and one day after shooting began — the picture will be locked, and the key thrown away.  Then, it’s off to the sound designer David Wallace for his finishing touches.  I shall meet with David on Sunday the 20th — one year and one day after shooting wrapped — and finalize the sound design.  If it isn’t too late, I’ll head over to editor Adam Miller’s and marry the sound and picture.  And there we will have a film fitted.

Can’t wait for the next movie!