So, while I’ve been finishing off Wendell animation and trying to figure out this Dungeon Painting environment, Jim’s been off working on the Giacomo animation, slowly but surely. He had over half a dozen shots of Giaco inside live-action sets, with wild, handheld camera moves and interaction with real objects. All while trying to figure out what Giacomo looks like and moves like, and getting up to speed with Toon Boom. So, understandably, it has been taking him a real long time to get out each shot. Which was starting to worry me, because we have a deadline coming up (more on that in the next post).

Then, lo and behold, he gets past all the live action stuff (which I am now behind on compositing, due to trying to get the flying carpet stuff done), and starts getting into the virtual set shots. Which means that Giacomo can pretty much stay planted, and there are no handheld shots that need to be motion tracked or anything. Which means he can just focus on animating. And BOOM, he knocks out 13 shots in 3 days — and all good stuff! That put him at 19/27 shots.

It’s back to the day job now, so productivity on the movie goes down. However, he’s aiming for 2 shots a night, which should have him finishing up by Friday. I’ll let you know how that goes.

He just turned in another shot, making his total 20/27. However, it is a shot of Giacomo running, which will probably be used multiple times in the flying carpet sequence. I’ll have to double check to be sure, but I think he may only have 4 shots left to do!

Way to go, Jim!

Since starting this blog a week ago, I decided that I really need to have the Wendell shots done by the end of August.  At that time, there were 30 shots to go, so I decided finishing 10 a week would get me to that goal.  That means 5 on the weekend, and 1 per night during the week.  7 days later, I have 10 shots done.  Only 20 more to go!

Also, the first Giacomo shot came in from Jim Compher, and it looks great.   Very exciting to have a small piece of the “real” Giacomo in my effects project.  Jim also decided that it would be easier for him to work in Toon Boom than in Flash, so he decided to jump ship.  Guess that means we’re not a pure Adobe house anymore.  But hey, I’m more loyal to my animators than to a software company, and I want him working in whatever software he feels he can do the best work in.

For those keeping score:

• Wendell Shots: 27 / 47
• Giacomo Shots: 1 / 27

If only that were all that was left.  After Wendell, I still have “living” fog to animate, a jail-break sequence set in a 3D world, and a flying carpet chase!