Ever wondered what your stuff says about you?
The sound project completed…
An amalgamation of Stop motion and live action.
The original video footage was about 1900px by 1700 px but the animation video was only 500px by 300 px, so I shrunk the live action footage down to that size. The video became a bit laggy as a result making it look as if that was stop motion too.
Due to time constraints, I ultimately wasn’t able to do a music video for my final project (I’m still doing it, it just won’t be assessed). So, the kind of video I could do that would still involved my band would be a “Behind the Music” Style mockumentary, the band had initial concerns with being viewed as a “Skit band”, something that would effect whether or not we would be taken seriously. As part of their agreement to do it, I had to include some behind the scenes footage such as outtakes and deleted scenes to show that it’s all just acting for a laugh.
One of the problems was, I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted the band to have themselves portrayed. Valen already had his alter ego lined up and he was eager to play it. The rest of the band, myself included hadn’t given much thought into our band personas, and because they were played by individual people, I didn’t want to tell them who to play or how to play it. I left the idea of their persona creation in their hands, but without knowing who was playing what, I couldn’t plan a script in advance, the best I could do was line up a few questions to ask them and film their improv’d responses, such as;
Who are Sordid Lies? What are your influences? Tell us about the other band members? Do you think you’ll go far? What hobbies do you enjoy when not on the road?
There were advantages to improv such as this, much like “Straight ahead” animation, the acting felt a lot more natural. People could act in whatever way they saw fit which some took better to than others, it also allowed for certain happy accidents to occur. For instance, in one scene where Valen is interviewing, Dani can be seen imitating him from behind, this was unplanned and accidental, but worked out. The idea of a glam metal guitarist that enjoys a spot of carp fishing is ludicrous, but funny, it was all his idea. He didn’t know he was going to say that, and neither did I.
Another problem was the idea of “Cream screening”. This is essentially Green Screening but with a cream background, an idea that ultimately failed because the cream colour is very close to our own skin colour. The idea was to implement a studio background on the more personal one to one interviews. However, when I tried to use the keylight in aftereffects, it would simply block out the entire scene… accept maybe some of our darker clothes.
It was filmed on a Sunday, so as a result, most of Sordid Lies were quite hung over for their parts, some might call that method acting.
Using research from the previous blog posts, I am to develop a name for my specific subject. In this case, it’s animation. I won’t be going with Morning Star as that’s too easy. Time for something new. I think referencing this old Blog Post may be rather helpful.
A listed a lot of words using my old blog post and then used dice to determine which words to put together. I’m only going to list a choice few here; Flint Mango, Copper Orange, Sour Tail, Steel Tsunami, Crystal Flail.
As a general rule, I dislike the idea of having too many syllables so Steel Tsunami is out. Crystal Flail is a bit too… I’m not sure, weaponized? Crystal something. Looking Glass? Mirror Glass? Crystal Mirror? The list goes on. I’ll keep those handy. My handwriting looks a bit odd, so Flint Mango, looks like Flint Mingo. Might work, but that sounds more like the name of a dashing aviator protagonist. Also, Mingo has multiple definitions and not all of them are politically correct.
Sour Tail provokes some interesting imagery. Especially if I change the spelling. Sour Tale.
Flint Mingo Media.
Sour Tail Productions.
I was sketching up various doodles, and I saw maybe it could be Flint Min-GO. Then it can go back to being a mango, only it’s “Flint Man-GO!” That could well be the one.
I then need to look at different typefaces for my production company name. Reasoning will have to go beyond “I think this looks nice, I’ll use this one.”
As far as type facing goes. I do like the one used to Dark Chronicle. The whimsical fairy tale style really helps sell the Sour Tale look I’m gunning for. Other examples;
Save for fairy tale font, the three games are all published by “Level5” games. Guess I’m following a theme here.
Then Sketch and Storyboarding an animatic for the ident, drawing in and showing where sound will go and clearly displaying the movement. Finally, we’ll be seeing the whole thing.
(I created 36 pairs of words, and put them into groups of 6 of 6. I then rolled pairs of dice to to see what names I would get.)
I’m leaning towards making a music video towards one of my bands songs. Thing’s I’ll need may well include a camera man, so I might have to snag one of the students for something like that. As far as video recording equipment, I believe our guitarist (Loz) has the finest SLR in all the land so that’ll work for me. I’ll need to get a beasty portable hard drive to carry around that amount of raw video data. First things first, let’s look at the styles of video I’ll be wanting.
I’ve slightly sped up the initial deployment phase of the scooter/kitchen.
It doesn’t really look that different compared to the last one, but I’m ready to add my chef. The illusive Larry whom serves passers by from his scooter kitchen.
Isn’t he just the happiest thing you ever did see. He’s meant to be a dull green but the GIF file won’t render that many colours, so he doesn’t look so much like a gerkin/cucumber, as he does a sad, dried out poo. Never worry, I’m pleased with the ultimate outcome of this project. Id nearly completed Larry’s addition without incident, when Flash Crashed, and corrupted my file, so I had to import an SWF of the Larry file, which is A LOT harder to work with, I was gonna add some little things, like the sign fluttering and more blinking, but the SWF file made it a lot harder to do all these things. I may still be able to add sound yet, if I get it in Premiere or After effects.
I’ll be coming back to Bus Stop, I was not happy with the final draft, so I’ll approach it from a different angle.
So, moving on for the time being… Food Vendor. A place, where characters come to eat, and when people eat they talk, great for character development. I need to consider what kind place it is. At first, I thought maybe repurposed train cars that have been removed from tracks and hollowed out into kitchens. I drew out a sketch.
The scale of it is a little too big, it needs to be the kind of place, where people could buy food, but couldn’t really hang about or sit anywhere to eat it. So it needs to be more mobile. So I threw out another sketch. I really like the idea of having food vendors in weird places like, half way up mountain trails, or in the middle of a bridge. I’ve really been inspired by the environments from Resonance of Fate.
Again, it’s still not -really- portable enough. So I looked at Tuk Tuks for a bit. (I would’ve maybe gone out to find some, but such vehicles don’t really exist in this country. The closest being a robin reliant or a motorbike with a side car). So, more sketches…
I really liked the idea of combining two of these. A tiny moped, that impossibly transforms into a mobile kitchen. A domestic autobot that was long forgotten in the cybertron wars because it has no weapons…. and robots don’t eat. I digress. The idea of all these kitchen parts and corregated roofing folding out and in an animated fashion really stuck with me. I got to creating a basic animation.
Alright, the design is placed, but I need to retweak the speed. I’d like the seat to come flying open, almost snapping off, and then the machinery deploying at a dangerously faster rate, almost over-extending and smashing everything in it’s way. I’d also like to incorporate a character, Larry in this case, to be sat on the moped, only to be launched off by the seat, land on his feet by the pot and immediately/casually begin stirring the ladle. No even batting an eye.
“Oh that? That’s just Larry. Want some soup?”
The looming spires, the sickly colour, the casual standing position. Something something something bus stop.
Updated to the max.
Look at Craig Mullins stuff
Bus stop. It doesn’t have to be a bus stop, just a place people meet for public transport, lets brainstorm… sorry, mind map… oh no, thought shower. That’s it, let’s thought shower.
Actual Bus stops… kinda boring but got to start somewhere. Train Stations. Airports. Docks. Harbours… Overground docking platforms built high above the choking smog of the under city. Think Phantine in the 40K universe. Stilt striders from Morrowind, massive bugs that have had their shells hollowed out for passenger and cargo transport. Under water glass air locks with submarine vehicles attached awaiting passengers to take to the surface. Back to clouds of smog idea, some kind of Hovercraft could float along with clouds because they are that thick. Open topped? Close Topped? Even bugs, maybe waiting to attach themselves to the underbelly of a much larger bug that regularly passes through.
Stay tuned…
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Look at Craig Mullins stuff
Bus stop. It doesn’t have to be a bus stop, just a place people meet for public transport, lets brainstorm… sorry, mind map… oh no, thought shower. That’s it, let’s thought shower.
Actual Bus stops… kinda boring but got to start somewhere. Train Stations. Airports. Docks. Harbours… Overground docking platforms built high above the choking smog of the under city. Think Phantine in the 40K universe. Stilt striders from Morrowind, massive bugs that have had their shells hollowed out for passenger and cargo transport. Under water glass air locks with submarine vehicles attached awaiting passengers to take to the surface. Back to clouds of smog idea, some kind of Hovercraft could float along with clouds because they are that thick. Open topped? Close Topped? Even bugs, maybe waiting to attach themselves to the underbelly of a much larger bug that regularly passes through.
Stay tuned for thumbnails and roughs.
I like the idea of a smoggy landscape with an orange sun burning through. Something traditionally hideous combined with something traditionally beautiful. Example by Michael Lee-Grahams (See his DeviantArt
Remember Craig Mullins work too.
So, we’ve got the idea, now I need to thumbnail some vehicles too.
So definately thinking about industrial smog, and I believe I have the vehicle design down, now I just need to make the proper picture and decide on the viewpoint.
Morning Star Animation 