here are some photos by Manu the layout checker.
He's from France - its nice to see the old town thru' the eyes of a visitor!
soem of the blurry guys and gals in here - Remi, Telman, JB, Ray, Gav Nora and me looking at a linetest......
Sunday, September 03, 2006
photos
here are some photos by Manu the layout checker.
He's from France - its nice to see the old town thru' the eyes of a visitor!
soem of the blurry guys and gals in here - Remi, Telman, JB, Ray, Gav Nora and me looking at a linetest......
the final
ahh tis the final today between kk and cork, bit sure I'm in here all busy and all. I'll have to go and see it later in a pub or soemthing.
gwan the cats.
anyway things are trundling along, its pretty messy as per normal, the best laid plans and all that.
still a couple of weekends off gave me fresh eyes and I had a look at the animatic again yesterday.
Theres still soem tidying up to do, and I really do think we could have done with more screen time but I think its holding together okay. I gotta just get the intentions of the scenes we keep as clear as possible and try not to loose anything along the way.
The hardest thing so far has been trying not loose any info in regards to composistion between boards and also acting in the posing, its really tough, and theres a lot of retakes everytime.
So much can be lost between those two stages and those stages are so crucial to keep the intent of teh past 9 months boarding.
the film is packed full of stuff, I hope it'll be entertaining, its actually ahrd to get a bead on it when you get this close. I think the performances from the kids are great and I love Mick Lallys delivery of a lot of the lines.
We are looking at the moment for some help for Gavin the 2nd assistant director, whos been doing alot of teh precomposisting and line testing, we need someone asap and I advertised elsewhere on line. Soemone whos gonna be happy working a lot with AVID, Animo and AfX.
We precomposist each sequence with teh posinga nd animation, its agreat way to check how it all works, and helps us see the wood from the trees.
Aniamtion is starting in earnest next week and in a few weeks we'll be up to a full crew.
Its more crucial than ever that I lock the third and fourth reel now!
So better get to it!
t
gwan the cats.
anyway things are trundling along, its pretty messy as per normal, the best laid plans and all that.
still a couple of weekends off gave me fresh eyes and I had a look at the animatic again yesterday.
Theres still soem tidying up to do, and I really do think we could have done with more screen time but I think its holding together okay. I gotta just get the intentions of the scenes we keep as clear as possible and try not to loose anything along the way.
The hardest thing so far has been trying not loose any info in regards to composistion between boards and also acting in the posing, its really tough, and theres a lot of retakes everytime.
So much can be lost between those two stages and those stages are so crucial to keep the intent of teh past 9 months boarding.
the film is packed full of stuff, I hope it'll be entertaining, its actually ahrd to get a bead on it when you get this close. I think the performances from the kids are great and I love Mick Lallys delivery of a lot of the lines.
We are looking at the moment for some help for Gavin the 2nd assistant director, whos been doing alot of teh precomposisting and line testing, we need someone asap and I advertised elsewhere on line. Soemone whos gonna be happy working a lot with AVID, Animo and AfX.
We precomposist each sequence with teh posinga nd animation, its agreat way to check how it all works, and helps us see the wood from the trees.
Aniamtion is starting in earnest next week and in a few weeks we'll be up to a full crew.
Its more crucial than ever that I lock the third and fourth reel now!
So better get to it!
t
Sunday, August 13, 2006
clean up
In the previous post i have shown some examples of the final clean up model sheets for some of the main characters.
The bold outline on these is done in photoshop. The Ume Brothers in digital graphics in belgium are still working on the software to automate this process - I'll post the first successful test here with glee - its going in the right direction but the colour lines are tricky - once we make the outline bold, they become very obvious therefore any pops or changes ion the inking become very noticable, expecially presumably on the big screen.
Anyway these drawings - roughs by Barry Reynolds, clean up by martin Fagina nd colours by Lily Bernard are very handsome in my opinion and I hope we can get that look on screen in motion.
We have had a hard few weeks but the people who are hanging in here are getting the style and thats great. Jean Morel has animated a nice scene where Brendan first sneaks into teh scriptorium and we have made a quick pre composist with teh clean Bg and had it playing on teh tv in the studio the past few days - its nice actually to see the imagery on a big widescreen tv as apposed to a monitor - gives a sense of how it will be seen by the audience eventually.
Telman is doing soem cool layouts with teh abbots room and Nik is tackling the mammoth task of teh goose chase at the start of the movie - establishing all teh key locations at a breakneck speed with loads of comedy ...hes making a nice job of it too.
It looks as though we'll have to delete a sequence to get the running time down to 75 minutes again.
painful.
At any rate I'm just about finished the last of teh boards - the hopefully dramatic Viking attack on Kells , the climax of the film and all in - shhhh - PERSPECTIVE!
We are trying to throw extreme perspective into teh dramatic and scary shots to really jolt the audience with a sudden shift - teh far background remains in teh medieval style of the rest of the movie but suddenly familar things will be coming towards the camera.
Its a bit of an art direction risk, but seems to work in the scene illos we've done so far and cut into the movie.
And its a bit of craic to try and draw in perspective again after walloping everyone over the head with the super flat style.
I'll post some pics soon to show the effect.
Next week I'm off on my hols for a day or two in Cork. Staying in Cafe Paradiso - one of the best veggie restaurants in the country - and then off to Cape Clear in the gealtacht for a bit of the wild west experience before the summer evaporates on me.
Can't wait.
slán anois a chairde,
T
The bold outline on these is done in photoshop. The Ume Brothers in digital graphics in belgium are still working on the software to automate this process - I'll post the first successful test here with glee - its going in the right direction but the colour lines are tricky - once we make the outline bold, they become very obvious therefore any pops or changes ion the inking become very noticable, expecially presumably on the big screen.
Anyway these drawings - roughs by Barry Reynolds, clean up by martin Fagina nd colours by Lily Bernard are very handsome in my opinion and I hope we can get that look on screen in motion.
We have had a hard few weeks but the people who are hanging in here are getting the style and thats great. Jean Morel has animated a nice scene where Brendan first sneaks into teh scriptorium and we have made a quick pre composist with teh clean Bg and had it playing on teh tv in the studio the past few days - its nice actually to see the imagery on a big widescreen tv as apposed to a monitor - gives a sense of how it will be seen by the audience eventually.
Telman is doing soem cool layouts with teh abbots room and Nik is tackling the mammoth task of teh goose chase at the start of the movie - establishing all teh key locations at a breakneck speed with loads of comedy ...hes making a nice job of it too.
It looks as though we'll have to delete a sequence to get the running time down to 75 minutes again.
painful.
At any rate I'm just about finished the last of teh boards - the hopefully dramatic Viking attack on Kells , the climax of the film and all in - shhhh - PERSPECTIVE!
We are trying to throw extreme perspective into teh dramatic and scary shots to really jolt the audience with a sudden shift - teh far background remains in teh medieval style of the rest of the movie but suddenly familar things will be coming towards the camera.
Its a bit of an art direction risk, but seems to work in the scene illos we've done so far and cut into the movie.
And its a bit of craic to try and draw in perspective again after walloping everyone over the head with the super flat style.
I'll post some pics soon to show the effect.
Next week I'm off on my hols for a day or two in Cork. Staying in Cafe Paradiso - one of the best veggie restaurants in the country - and then off to Cape Clear in the gealtacht for a bit of the wild west experience before the summer evaporates on me.
Can't wait.
slán anois a chairde,
T
Thursday, August 03, 2006
skunk fu blog
I added a link to a blog I was only just made aware of started by Aidan Harte upstairs!
Its a Skunk Fu Blog and full of awesome art from that show.
some real talent on there.
hoo yeh.
http://skunkfu.blogspot.com/
Its a Skunk Fu Blog and full of awesome art from that show.
some real talent on there.
hoo yeh.
http://skunkfu.blogspot.com/
Sunday, July 30, 2006
welcome to my little world
Well, its gettin harder thats for sure!
We've had a "little world" of own for soem montsh now, in preproduction and now the hardest thing is bringing all the ideas and energy from that into full-production . Trying to communicate all those months to the "new guys" and get them on the same buzz as us is hard but rewarding as its starting to translate into the work they do.
With all the new staff comes the challenge of trying bring everyone up to date with the ideas we've been discussing as a small group for so long and try to find a way for it to be interesting for them despite the fact that, really ,its quite a controlled stage.
We really know what we want and we are really going for controlled - pose to pose type stuff in the posing , using the boards as a starting point, without too much re-invention, same with the Bgs, the scene illustrations are the "keys" we are trying to have everyone follow.
For some people, its just not suiting them, and thats difficult.
The style is very specific, and theres not a lot of room to manoeuvere , which I guess is frustrating for some of the artists, all of whom are very talented and good at what they do.
Slowly though people are getting to grips with what we are trying to do.
Probably , also, our preparation could have been better and a lot of fixing is happening at thsi stage too.
The animation will begin in September and we are trying to have very tight , pose to pose stuff figured out in this layout posing stage.
I'm going through the layout packages with a fine tooth comb with Nora trying to really help everyone get to grips with what we are after now, so when the real pressure hits they will be able to communicate it to the rest of the crew abroad, easily.
For techinical alyout we are coming to grips with trying to get whats planned on teh boards exactly on screen without losing anything in the fixes and even in the simpel process of including more people. Its hard because sometimes we want it EXACTLY as its boarded other times its cool to find better ways to show things or improve cuts and so forth, so its a real scene by scene process with lots of retakes.
Anyway we struggle on! I think we'll get there in the end and we'll have soemthing to be proud of and a bucketload of experiences to help with the next one!
We had an inspiring talk from Mike Nyugen last week , really giving us the gusto to try and raise the bar and really get into our scenes. He's a really great guy and I look forward to seeing his film - My Little World - completed.
It was great to see Barry O'D as well , down from magnificent offices of Barley Films, and Tom Caulfield, a Salooner once, many moons ago, has just joined the team again.
Also we had a visit from Darragh of the famous Brown Bag Films in Dublin and it was great to be discussing the "problems" of having such a Boom in Irish animation at the moment! Long may it continue.
anyway sin é ,
Slán anois,
T
Saturday, July 15, 2006
colour models
I love these - makes it look like a REAL production - hehe - really sort of professional looking or something - yeh i know thats dumb but theres this sort of fetish for the artifacts of production is'nt there? Like rough model sheets and things that most people never see?
I love that old Bob Clampett bugs Bunny model sheet - its so nicely laid out and presented - i'm sure most animation fans know the one I mean - and I mean its just a working document - not intended for public consumption - just a means to an end, yet for fans its as interesting as the final cartoon in many ways.
When Lili was doing these I remembered the visit I made to the Bluth studio in dublin when I was 14 - I remember being impressed and depressed by the enormity of the endeavour it was back then to make an animated film.
I remember a room full of paint pots, specially mixed, for each colour of each character!
mad.
vikings
Last year Jean Baptiste did some really great concepts for the Vikings - a few of which I post here.
The roughness of their line in contrast to the stained glass type line on the main characters is something we really wanted to keep.
For a while we even thought of doing them CG.
Anyway we decided to do tehm 2d but we are trying to find a way to have a cool rough outline on them. One test we are doing with the Frere Ume in Liege in belgium at the moment is this test of a drybrush type outline.
The idea is to have the computer track the red line on the clean up (by Martin Fagin) with the drybrush ink-line.
It might be a bit of stretch. But failing that we can always go for that "rough animation" pencil outline look. I'll post how the tests go...
layout posing starts
Well,
bit of a mad week, outside the weather is mighty, but we are going ninety, Sunday we tried cutting the animatic but kept hitting problems of a technical nature.
Anyway the guys in Hobsoft are cutting it now, and it should be here on Monday.
I felt a bit overwhelmed on Monday with all the new people and the pressure of still having so much to finish on the boards. But we got over the hump and all was good by the end of the week.
Nic Debray joined us for posing, he's getting into the style, as is Jean.
We are working reel by reel now, trying to get all the technical layout and the posing for the first reel done first and so on.
Barry is checking design stuff and designing any incidentals thats are not in the model pack.
Fabs is back from his time off in Cologne and taking care of the posing team . dividing the work and so on. Its good to have a few people who are well into the film to lead the new crew.
So the posing crew are - Nic Debray- Jean Morel- Jean Bap - Eve - Baz- Fabs- with Andrej and Tom Caulfield to join soon.
The Layout is coming together and they are hitting the style too, less retakes this week.
Raymond is motoring through the clean Bgs, and the studio seems really full as we also have some helper-interns - Lisa Marie, Rebecca and Ray. We also have two interns from France from the same college as Adrien and Lily, Sebestian and Laure, who are helping out too.
The colour models are looking well, and the boards are shaping up.
I thought I'd write a bit about the process of doing the boards - working over the now 12-18 month old first pass stuff with the final voices and doing the final timing. The pass we did last summer was like a rewrite pass where we ironed out a lot of things in teh script before the final draft with Fabrice last November, and cut and changed dialogue, but we had no final location designs and the models were in development as we went soits pretty scrappy...we are redrawing everything now for teh past 6 months or more, but as we've gotten busier and busier Remi has had no time to work on it, and its gotten down to me and Nora to finish the final pass. Mind you Nora and I are so busy looking after things its gotten slower and slower...anyway heres how I have been working...
I tend to have a "scary period" where I'm trying to pull it all together in thumbnails and scribbles, this is pretty scary and stressful when you are under pressure to check things and keep an eye on everything else.But also its the most creative part and you don;t want to lose too much just because you are under pressure like .. I try to use the weird time before waking up or going asleep to picture the scenes and play them out in my head, I always think theres more time than I really have and end up having too many ideas.
Its the same with my animation - I almost always intially do too many poses and end up having to pare it back.
Anyway once that bit is done I'm lucky that Stewie and Nora can read my absolutely scrawlly scribbles to see if they think its on the right track, and if it is, i usually head on in to tidying it up.
That second opinion is really important to me, I really don;t feel comfortabel going any further until I have gone thru' it with the lads to be sure its been double-checked.
then its "tidy up"
Which takes ages and usually has quite a few things crop up at that point.
We've been hitting quite few learning curves - for me its mainly been stage direction - having to flip a lot of shots I've been instinctivly putting in the wrong direction in the scribbly pass stage. Its usually okay with flipping it and stuff as we have a very flat style with very clear and simple rules about which directions the characters should be travelling in to various locations and so on.
The other main problem I encounter is bad cuts with "pop-ups" and so on.
This is something that just keeps slipping by me and I wonderw ill I ever get it into me to just avoid them - anyway they are usually quite easily fixed with abit of restaging help from Remi, but somehow its always a little painful... you just can't always show everything and still be clear. Usually once those type of things are ironed out, it all feels that much more solid and makes more sense , even when it seemed okay before! ...if you know what i mean... its just seems to click together better.
Anyway thats the process for the boards, we are going to quite a full finish, with fairly on model characters and clear Bgs and lots of poses. Its a good way to try and iron out problems early on.
Not that its that early on anymore!
At technical layout we've still encountered a few of these annoying "pop up" and "stage line" issues that keep creeping in, and Ross and I have been sitting with Remi and the layout guy at the beginning of each scene they take on- and trying to spot any issues before they get stuck in to all the technical work of preparing the scene.
Also Ross will spot any problems in the Scene illustrations that need to be checked and redone in continuity with the layouts and any props or locations that need a sketch for the layout man to follow. Lilly has been doing some great prop design lately.
A few of us bummed off early yesterday to Superman...The last Superman film I went to in the cinema in Kilkenny I was wearing my Superman outfit. It does'nt fit too well anymore so I left it behind this time.
What a great show. I really enjoyed it, a few things bugged me but overall I just loved it. I really love the whole mythos of Superman and this one is really lovingly done.
Put me in a good mood all night!
Anyway thats all for now folks...
T
bit of a mad week, outside the weather is mighty, but we are going ninety, Sunday we tried cutting the animatic but kept hitting problems of a technical nature.
Anyway the guys in Hobsoft are cutting it now, and it should be here on Monday.
I felt a bit overwhelmed on Monday with all the new people and the pressure of still having so much to finish on the boards. But we got over the hump and all was good by the end of the week.
Nic Debray joined us for posing, he's getting into the style, as is Jean.
We are working reel by reel now, trying to get all the technical layout and the posing for the first reel done first and so on.
Barry is checking design stuff and designing any incidentals thats are not in the model pack.
Fabs is back from his time off in Cologne and taking care of the posing team . dividing the work and so on. Its good to have a few people who are well into the film to lead the new crew.
So the posing crew are - Nic Debray- Jean Morel- Jean Bap - Eve - Baz- Fabs- with Andrej and Tom Caulfield to join soon.
The Layout is coming together and they are hitting the style too, less retakes this week.
Raymond is motoring through the clean Bgs, and the studio seems really full as we also have some helper-interns - Lisa Marie, Rebecca and Ray. We also have two interns from France from the same college as Adrien and Lily, Sebestian and Laure, who are helping out too.
The colour models are looking well, and the boards are shaping up.
I thought I'd write a bit about the process of doing the boards - working over the now 12-18 month old first pass stuff with the final voices and doing the final timing. The pass we did last summer was like a rewrite pass where we ironed out a lot of things in teh script before the final draft with Fabrice last November, and cut and changed dialogue, but we had no final location designs and the models were in development as we went soits pretty scrappy...we are redrawing everything now for teh past 6 months or more, but as we've gotten busier and busier Remi has had no time to work on it, and its gotten down to me and Nora to finish the final pass. Mind you Nora and I are so busy looking after things its gotten slower and slower...anyway heres how I have been working...
I tend to have a "scary period" where I'm trying to pull it all together in thumbnails and scribbles, this is pretty scary and stressful when you are under pressure to check things and keep an eye on everything else.But also its the most creative part and you don;t want to lose too much just because you are under pressure like .. I try to use the weird time before waking up or going asleep to picture the scenes and play them out in my head, I always think theres more time than I really have and end up having too many ideas.
Its the same with my animation - I almost always intially do too many poses and end up having to pare it back.
Anyway once that bit is done I'm lucky that Stewie and Nora can read my absolutely scrawlly scribbles to see if they think its on the right track, and if it is, i usually head on in to tidying it up.
That second opinion is really important to me, I really don;t feel comfortabel going any further until I have gone thru' it with the lads to be sure its been double-checked.
then its "tidy up"
Which takes ages and usually has quite a few things crop up at that point.
We've been hitting quite few learning curves - for me its mainly been stage direction - having to flip a lot of shots I've been instinctivly putting in the wrong direction in the scribbly pass stage. Its usually okay with flipping it and stuff as we have a very flat style with very clear and simple rules about which directions the characters should be travelling in to various locations and so on.
The other main problem I encounter is bad cuts with "pop-ups" and so on.
This is something that just keeps slipping by me and I wonderw ill I ever get it into me to just avoid them - anyway they are usually quite easily fixed with abit of restaging help from Remi, but somehow its always a little painful... you just can't always show everything and still be clear. Usually once those type of things are ironed out, it all feels that much more solid and makes more sense , even when it seemed okay before! ...if you know what i mean... its just seems to click together better.
Anyway thats the process for the boards, we are going to quite a full finish, with fairly on model characters and clear Bgs and lots of poses. Its a good way to try and iron out problems early on.
Not that its that early on anymore!
At technical layout we've still encountered a few of these annoying "pop up" and "stage line" issues that keep creeping in, and Ross and I have been sitting with Remi and the layout guy at the beginning of each scene they take on- and trying to spot any issues before they get stuck in to all the technical work of preparing the scene.
Also Ross will spot any problems in the Scene illustrations that need to be checked and redone in continuity with the layouts and any props or locations that need a sketch for the layout man to follow. Lilly has been doing some great prop design lately.
A few of us bummed off early yesterday to Superman...The last Superman film I went to in the cinema in Kilkenny I was wearing my Superman outfit. It does'nt fit too well anymore so I left it behind this time.
What a great show. I really enjoyed it, a few things bugged me but overall I just loved it. I really love the whole mythos of Superman and this one is really lovingly done.
Put me in a good mood all night!
Anyway thats all for now folks...
T
Saturday, July 08, 2006
hello there
Well,
its getting so busy now its hrad to find time to think never mind post.
I hope it'll all settle down soon, its mainly just all teh new people, and a bit coming and going.
We have new a new layout guy - Marc .
The layouts are flying along, the hardest thing is feeding this crew while keeping an eye that nothing is being lost in the flurry of activity. Theres a huge amount of reuse in the layouts because of the style, somany objects are designed and then just moved around to crete different composistions in the same environment, especially in the interior scenes, so its allowing teh technical layout to go quite fast.
Its been a bit depressing in some ways seeing boards I was'nt completely finished noodling with going to layout - its much bigger deal to change things after that , so i guess I just have to let go most of the time when it gets to layout.
Cuts, composistions and so are pretty much locked from then on.
We have locked the first third of the film now animatic wise.
I am spending the day tommorow with the editor, Joe, just marking the scene lengths and stuff.
Cutting the wavs to get them onto the x-sheets.
Using Animo, we can have digital X-sheets from the word go, which is cool - very precise stuff.
Wea re installing an assest managment sodftware called "Hobsoft" that was used on Asterix and the Vikings, hopefully it will help us manage all the files that are being created between all 5 studios and it will allow us to communicate more easily too....at least thats the plan!
We have a new animator joinging us today, Jean Morel an ex-Disney guy who worked on The Lion King on Scar and on Hercules and stuff on Andreas Dejas team, thats quite exciting.
Jeans showreel is mighty impressive, so its great to have him joinging us .
Also in a few weeks in association with Barley films in Dublin, we are having a masterclass from Mike Nyugen , the director of "My Little World" and a supervisor on The Iron Giant.
Thats gonna be cool I'd say. I went to Gobelins during the week last week, amazing work there, the students all seemed to be in big demand. But hopefully one or two will join us here!
I was depressed to find I am now to old to begin training in Gobelins - I'm 29 and the cut-off is 26. So my new ambition is gonna have to be to make the Cartoon Saloon a place where I can learn as much as i might there!
So goodbye to any dreams of going to Gobelins, or being a Ballerina, or an astronaut.....sigh.
Emmmm...Bruno is starting to work on the temp track for the score this week, so thats exciting too, we have a tele-meeting set up for Thursday.
Unfortunatly we did'nt get together to go to Miltown Malbay this year for the Willie Clancy festival.
Last night i went sketching in the woods near my house with Adrien, Lili and Remi.
I'm boarding the final pass of the forest sequences now , and just to sit in a forest and sketch was very nice.
I think i'll try and do it again tommorow.
I am having to go super fast now on the boards as theres thsi trundling machine behind me that is catching up to me, and I have to keep it busy!
Its a lesson for next time - LOCK THE BOARDS BEFORE LAYOUT...ahh I always learn thehhard way I suppose.
Its been nice in some ways to say that certain thinsg are "locked" , finished and time to move on, like all the modelsheets and all - in a nice big thick package now, seems substantial.
I've uploaded a few ....
Next time....thats something on everyones minds now, thinking of what the next project will be already....
So thats a quick update after a long radio silence!
T
Monday, June 19, 2006
wottaweekend
well this weekend we moved house - five new layout artists arrived and I ALMOST finished the brendana nd aisling meeting scene.
wew.
welcome - Telman, Darren,Stephane and Raymond,and Niklas.
wew.
welcome - Telman, Darren,Stephane and Raymond,and Niklas.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
sebestian
http://www.gobelins.fr/galerie/animation/gen2006-4.htm
More Gobelins goodness - check out the dog and the beautiful bgs!
as I say ALL these students are amazing!
More Gobelins goodness - check out the dog and the beautiful bgs!
as I say ALL these students are amazing!
Thursday, June 15, 2006
pyrats
http://www.pyrats.net/watch-movie.html
man this is so class. Students, wha'?
check out the happy little dance on the guy about to be hanged when he thinks they're there to save him. class.
Sure ALL the Gobelins stuff is always so classy. I swear its a good old kick in the bum.
man this is so class. Students, wha'?
check out the happy little dance on the guy about to be hanged when he thinks they're there to save him. class.
Sure ALL the Gobelins stuff is always so classy. I swear its a good old kick in the bum.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Aisling meet Brendan, Brendan meet Aisling
well,
I've been fighting with the scene where aisling and brendan first meet all week.
I started with nearly the same staging as the first pass. But it was'nt really working with the final location designs and the final voices.
So I started changing stuff - with out thumbnailing on paper - just playing with stick figures.
Just could'nt get there. That stupid thing where I keep asking Nora what she thinks, thinking I'll like it if she says its okay.
Stupid, cos if I'm not happy with it I always have a nagging doubt even if others say its okay. So I showed it to her and Stewie, got good feedback and started to rethink it, again without thumbnailing on paper like I normally would. Just too eager for it to be done like.
Basically got nowhere , but yesterday morning I did that thing where when you are half asleep and you can kind of watch it like on a tv in your head, got some good ideas, but of course I was imagining the voices at the timing that suited the ideas as apposed to the actual timing of the kids voices. So I put it all down fast in thumbnails. Felt good.
Then the whole afternoon was gone on an EFX meeting with Jeremy, which was good, got stuff sorted and Jer got back up to speed. Then getting on with movin' stuff from the house.
Went to a thirtyeth birthday party. Its all weddings, babies and thirtyeths these days. I still remember when it was all 21sts and graduations!!
Anyway did the playing it thru' in my head thing this morning again, came in and plowed all the ideas from the thumbs into Flash really rough.
Finally had the "aw yeh this'll be deadly in colour" buzz going on, and "I want to animate this scene myself" buzz - so was fairly chuffed.
Then I got THE FEAR - like, shit its no good, bloody hell layout is starting in a week , this scene is scheduled to go to layout in less than a month, aw crap its probably all wrong staging wise, , all THE FEAR.
But I showed it to Gav, and he laughed in the right places and said "deadly" even where its really rough and all, and he got it - it read, it played , he knew what was going on with stick man scribbles, so its working i think................
I hope.......
Now I'm going in to tidy it up.
Probably too many mid shots.
hmmmmmmmm
I've been fighting with the scene where aisling and brendan first meet all week.
I started with nearly the same staging as the first pass. But it was'nt really working with the final location designs and the final voices.
So I started changing stuff - with out thumbnailing on paper - just playing with stick figures.
Just could'nt get there. That stupid thing where I keep asking Nora what she thinks, thinking I'll like it if she says its okay.
Stupid, cos if I'm not happy with it I always have a nagging doubt even if others say its okay. So I showed it to her and Stewie, got good feedback and started to rethink it, again without thumbnailing on paper like I normally would. Just too eager for it to be done like.
Basically got nowhere , but yesterday morning I did that thing where when you are half asleep and you can kind of watch it like on a tv in your head, got some good ideas, but of course I was imagining the voices at the timing that suited the ideas as apposed to the actual timing of the kids voices. So I put it all down fast in thumbnails. Felt good.
Then the whole afternoon was gone on an EFX meeting with Jeremy, which was good, got stuff sorted and Jer got back up to speed. Then getting on with movin' stuff from the house.
Went to a thirtyeth birthday party. Its all weddings, babies and thirtyeths these days. I still remember when it was all 21sts and graduations!!
Anyway did the playing it thru' in my head thing this morning again, came in and plowed all the ideas from the thumbs into Flash really rough.
Finally had the "aw yeh this'll be deadly in colour" buzz going on, and "I want to animate this scene myself" buzz - so was fairly chuffed.
Then I got THE FEAR - like, shit its no good, bloody hell layout is starting in a week , this scene is scheduled to go to layout in less than a month, aw crap its probably all wrong staging wise, , all THE FEAR.
But I showed it to Gav, and he laughed in the right places and said "deadly" even where its really rough and all, and he got it - it read, it played , he knew what was going on with stick man scribbles, so its working i think................
I hope.......
Now I'm going in to tidy it up.
Probably too many mid shots.
hmmmmmmmm
Monday, June 05, 2006
APB FOR 2D animators
We are still looking for experienced 2d animators. Being from the EU or qualified to work here a big help. We are testing people, as the style is quite tricky.
Thanks,
T
Thanks,
T
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Pictures
I was thinking a bit about the whole posting pictures thing - I like posting them, just to show whats happening to the few people I know who I don't see too often who drop by, and also because it seems to have gotten a few people in the industry to notice what we are doing and stuff.
Although this started out as a fairly personal Blog to just document what was happening, it soon became obvious that everyone had a sort of misgiving or whathaveyou about the types of things that should or should not be said and put up here, so its sort of evolved into a mixture of personal log and newletter of some sort.
I guess we'll put out an art-of book or comic or something of the development art and preproduction stuff, so while I'm not gonna give stuff away quite as freely or often as before, theres piles and piles more stuff being generated everyday and its nice to give a peek into the production sometimes.
Also to illustrate points and so on.
I've decided to try this - small sized jpgs , with BIG watermarks- hopefully that'll protect the stuff enough and allow us to still make some cash out of an "art-of"-book later ! (evil capitialist cackle MWAHHAHWHAW)
Anyway these are some cool colour models that were put together recently.
Also , a small sample of the layout notes Ross Stewart has been working on, which I think are little mini-masterpieces of information delivery in and of themselves. I sure hope they help everyone stay "in the style".
Saturday, June 03, 2006
cats laughin
yeh its beautiful weather out there , totally like a holiday , kilkenny is great in the good weather in the summer , the cat laughs comedy festival is in full swing and i'm here indoors in work.
well there you go.
Remi is off in Annecy and I'm taking the chance to catch up on the paper boards and models sheets to double check we are okay to start layout in a coupel of weeks.
Each time a new group of artists starts its a bit nerve wracking - hoping we'll be able to hit the style and quotas and all that.
also a whole new set of faces in the place.
anyway putting the voices into the animatic at the moment too.
Lots of hiccups getting the files in a form we could use but we are finally sorted .
enjoy the sunshine.
t
well there you go.
Remi is off in Annecy and I'm taking the chance to catch up on the paper boards and models sheets to double check we are okay to start layout in a coupel of weeks.
Each time a new group of artists starts its a bit nerve wracking - hoping we'll be able to hit the style and quotas and all that.
also a whole new set of faces in the place.
anyway putting the voices into the animatic at the moment too.
Lots of hiccups getting the files in a form we could use but we are finally sorted .
enjoy the sunshine.
t
Friday, May 26, 2006
voice recording
wow - a week I'll not forget in a hurry.
We recorded all the voices in 3 days and then edited them and stuff in 2.
Just home now. Guts busted- must be the stress! But it was tremendous fun too as Father Ted would say.
Katia, Paul, Fabrice, Nora , Kairen and myself were there for the records.
Then just myself and Nora and Kairen did the editing with the engineer a "sound" guy called John (pun intended heh).
We were in Ardmore sound, Tom Caulfield and Barry O Donoghue called in for some of the sessions, it was good craic overall.
Liam Hourican was really cool as a lot of the extra brothers - particularly leonardo.
The voice he did for Friedrich was so funny I cryed my contact lens out!
Paul Tylac did some great stuff as Assoua as well, very big and booming stuff.
Brendan Gleeson did a great performance on Monday , he really got into the character and asked a lot of questions and found really interesting takes on the lines. He gave the character so much authority. Mick Lally and himself seemed to really get into the parts, acting them out physically as well and with their voices.
Brendan Gleeson is such a big guy it was cool seeing him acting opposite little Evan. He really made the character his own and really made him come alive.
Mick Lally WAS Bro.Aidan, even his mannerisms between takes were very inspiring for the character. He really loosened up the dialogue and was very interested in the character. He even said he did'nt think Bro.Aidan would refer to St.Colmcille as "saint" because he probably knew him! It was a cool little insight that will be bring a subtle depth to the character.
Mick had a bit of a head cold, but we thought it will be a neat thing to bring into the character animation, making him more grounded and "in" the world, I started sketching Bro.Aidan sniffing and sneezing and stuff as Mick did his performance.
As all the actors were roughly the age of their characters and also roughly the same build and so on, it was kinda like seeing a real-life representation of them in front of us.
Fabrice shot soem reference footage which will be fun to use in the animation.
Evan McGuire our 11 year star was really great , and the scenes where he played against Brendan Gleeson and with Mick Lally had me shivering, it was so cool to hear so much life put into the lines we've picked at for so long.
Christen Mooney was really fantastic as Aisling, she was really brilliant, had all her lines off by heart and considering she's only been on the planet since 1998 its amazing the understanding she brought to her character! Nora helped get to some of the trickier lines, and listening to them back today it was really exciting.
It was cool to hear it back like a radio play, but strange too, because characters like Pangur and the vikings and stuff were conspicous in their absense! Its gonna all come together only with the pictures and thats as it should be in animation. Their are parts in the film that the actors really liked, and which i guess could be done in live action but I'm really hoping that overall its gonna be something ONLY acheivable in handdrawn animation.
But with the voice performances in the bag it feels like we are off to a great start.
Tús maith leath na oibre as the man says.
T
We recorded all the voices in 3 days and then edited them and stuff in 2.
Just home now. Guts busted- must be the stress! But it was tremendous fun too as Father Ted would say.
Katia, Paul, Fabrice, Nora , Kairen and myself were there for the records.
Then just myself and Nora and Kairen did the editing with the engineer a "sound" guy called John (pun intended heh).
We were in Ardmore sound, Tom Caulfield and Barry O Donoghue called in for some of the sessions, it was good craic overall.
Liam Hourican was really cool as a lot of the extra brothers - particularly leonardo.
The voice he did for Friedrich was so funny I cryed my contact lens out!
Paul Tylac did some great stuff as Assoua as well, very big and booming stuff.
Brendan Gleeson did a great performance on Monday , he really got into the character and asked a lot of questions and found really interesting takes on the lines. He gave the character so much authority. Mick Lally and himself seemed to really get into the parts, acting them out physically as well and with their voices.
Brendan Gleeson is such a big guy it was cool seeing him acting opposite little Evan. He really made the character his own and really made him come alive.
Mick Lally WAS Bro.Aidan, even his mannerisms between takes were very inspiring for the character. He really loosened up the dialogue and was very interested in the character. He even said he did'nt think Bro.Aidan would refer to St.Colmcille as "saint" because he probably knew him! It was a cool little insight that will be bring a subtle depth to the character.
Mick had a bit of a head cold, but we thought it will be a neat thing to bring into the character animation, making him more grounded and "in" the world, I started sketching Bro.Aidan sniffing and sneezing and stuff as Mick did his performance.
As all the actors were roughly the age of their characters and also roughly the same build and so on, it was kinda like seeing a real-life representation of them in front of us.
Fabrice shot soem reference footage which will be fun to use in the animation.
Evan McGuire our 11 year star was really great , and the scenes where he played against Brendan Gleeson and with Mick Lally had me shivering, it was so cool to hear so much life put into the lines we've picked at for so long.
Christen Mooney was really fantastic as Aisling, she was really brilliant, had all her lines off by heart and considering she's only been on the planet since 1998 its amazing the understanding she brought to her character! Nora helped get to some of the trickier lines, and listening to them back today it was really exciting.
It was cool to hear it back like a radio play, but strange too, because characters like Pangur and the vikings and stuff were conspicous in their absense! Its gonna all come together only with the pictures and thats as it should be in animation. Their are parts in the film that the actors really liked, and which i guess could be done in live action but I'm really hoping that overall its gonna be something ONLY acheivable in handdrawn animation.
But with the voice performances in the bag it feels like we are off to a great start.
Tús maith leath na oibre as the man says.
T
Sunday, May 21, 2006
voices
So Belgium was Oefti. Seems like a lot of good solutions can be found with the software of the Freres Ume and they have a beautiful studio in Liege. It was good to see Eric, Vivanne, Toon and Benoit.
The kids were down yesterday for a workshop day, they are lovely kids and we had fun showing them all the stuff. It was great to see their reactions to the animatic, them being the target audience age and all. They did a little read through together and they are both very professional and easy to get along with. It was good to have them meet each other and see the studio and stuff ahead of the records next week.
I'm a bit nervous now, but we are as prepared as we can be I guess and I'm hoping it'll go well.
I'll be heading off to Bray now in a few minutes, theres a whole big gang of us going to be there so we'll have some fun too I hope.
Well, fingers crossed , next time I write a post we'll have the final voices in the can!
T
The kids were down yesterday for a workshop day, they are lovely kids and we had fun showing them all the stuff. It was great to see their reactions to the animatic, them being the target audience age and all. They did a little read through together and they are both very professional and easy to get along with. It was good to have them meet each other and see the studio and stuff ahead of the records next week.
I'm a bit nervous now, but we are as prepared as we can be I guess and I'm hoping it'll go well.
I'll be heading off to Bray now in a few minutes, theres a whole big gang of us going to be there so we'll have some fun too I hope.
Well, fingers crossed , next time I write a post we'll have the final voices in the can!
T
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Faster and faster
Faster faster take me to your master!
(ZigZag from the Thief talking to the crocs)
Yeh things are going really fast now.
Didier , Fabrice, Ivan and Bruno Coulais came over on Tuesday.
Bruno seemed really into the artwork we showed and felt the story was working in the animatic.
He is a really nice guy and we feel lucky that he'll be working on the music.
Katia's fella organised a great night of trad music in the Pumphouse on Wednesday night and everyone had a blast. The craic was mighty and Bruno seemed really into the Irish music.
We hope he will be back for the Willie Clancy festival.
He's gonna do a temp track based on the rough stuff Nora put down on the animatic and thats really exciting - to have feeling for the score up front. Hopefully it will be inspiring for the animation and all too.
We had a party for both productions here in the studio while the guys were here and it was quite overwhelming to see all the crew - or most of it anyway in one room. 40+ people, thats some amount after years of never really being much more than 10. Cuilin seemed like a big crew for us last year!
Anyway the records are soon and we need to cast the final voices for the additional monks.
We will have the kids down on Saturday for a workshop day. Then we are meeting Brendan Gleeson and Mick Lally on the Sunday and on Monday we begin recording!
It'll be hectic , but Fabrice is gonna come over again to help with the voice directing as he's doen that before. He had some good notes on the animatic too - just tightening up lines and so on.
Tommorow I'm off to Belgium with Nora, Martin and Remi to meet the Belgian crew and work on the ink and paint tests. Its gonna be a busy few days and then we're back just in time for the records.
Layout is baring down on us with the crew starting in June, I'm gonna be boarding at least until end of July so its getting like spinning plates on sticks kinda thing.
Its a bit stressful alright but we're getting there.
I think things are still looking pretty good and if the voices are good it'll be a huge leap forward.
Didier was really cool about the blog - I was a bit worried he would'nt agree with it, but he thinks its cool. He's into linking it with the marketing site that we'll launch in September.
Adrien and Lilly have a cool idea for a Brendan game that'll be on the site so that should be cool.
Fabs will be helping out with the voice breakdown and we are gonna be up to our eyes for a few weeks after the voice records.
He's been doing soem gorgeous scenes as testers - just little chunks that are silent and don't need the final dialogue.
I've been thinking its a little less stylised animation wise than we first envisaged but looking very well.
He's flying through it so thats a good sign I hope .
Just hard to get my head around the fact that by Christmas all our animation will be done and the layout will be finished.
All the remaining work will be overseas by then.
As Katia says - once you enter the layout phase its like entering another dimension....yikes!
Anyway Ben is beside me here getting fed up so I better go!!
T
Saturday, May 06, 2006
hey and ho and hi
so - another week or so whizzes past faster than you can say something that does'nt take very long to say
Got thru' very little boards , its getting slower and slower as we get busier and busier.
Anyway its still going forward and the current system with remi doing a layout pass on the boards Nora and I do is working really well.
Finally got some closure on the main part of the Irish finance which is nice, its a drip by drip process but we are in a much sturdier place now.
So that was nice.
Emm,deadlyBgs by Stewie , Adrien and Lily this week - starting to see the more creative Bgs that are part of the more lyrical parts of the film that I'd been looking forward to and now I'm on the forest part of the boards its fun to be opening up outside of the confines of super tight continuity issues that we had to respect "inside" Kells itself as a location.
Its funny, at this point I almost feel like I could walk around that space, and although theres loads of artistic license in the style we picked, it feels consistant when I scroll through the 100 or so Bgs or "scene illustrations" that we've done so far.
Eve, an intern from France, has done a beautiful job on a layout test Remi set for her and we are hopeful she will be able to join our team for a while this summer.
Raining cats and dogs these days you'd swear it was'nt summer at all.
We are probably recording the voices the last week of this month now - trying to get Mick and Brendan Gleeson into the studio at the same time is tricky as they are both busy. We hope to bring the kids who will play Brendan and Aisling down for a workshop one of the weekends between now and then.
Martin has been cleaning up the modelsheets for Cellach recently -looks classy. But Barrys drawings are so tight that its kind of easier than normal he says. Theres no redrawing going on between the rough and the clean its just all about the line. He's a bit of an illuminator is our Martin!
The thing with good crew, I can't say it enough, is it makes it seem almost easy somedays!
Remi often spots important stuff on the boards too or suggests really cool alternatives that I did'nt think of when I was plowing thru' a second pass of a scene.
Theres a lovely frisson of jealousy and awe and a bit of gratitude and probably loads of other stuff when you see people taking your stuff and going further and making it better than you would have on your own. I know Disney DVDs are full of this kind of praise and it usually makes me cringe but there you go, its just a fact.
I was at a "artists day" today in the Castle in Kilkenny- just a networking kind of day with workshops and all. I did a writing workshop, one of the speakers was a novelist that used to write for tv, He wrote on that great puppet show from years ago that I loved as a kid - "Spitting Image". Its mad the heads there are around Kilkenny. Liselott and Nora and Mike were there too. |The castle is a class space, big old beams and stone walls. Maybe in a year or so we'll have a preview screening there or something! Teddy Newton from Pixar gave a talk there last summer as part of Feile Beochán - the Irish animation festival that Ross John of the Murrays ran with Kairen Wailloch.
Didier Brunner the French Producer, Fabrice Ziolkowski (all round cool cat and screen writer) , Bruno Coulais (the composer from France) are visiting this week. Sure it'll be great craic.
Probably won't get much boards done.
We recieved some ink and paint tests from Belgium yesterday , looks great to see some coloured animation. Nora, Martin and myself will head over there week after next to see the crew there and work thru' some smaller issues that are easier sorted face to face.
Sin é muintir le Dhia,
Tá alán obair agam inniu , bhfeidir go scriobhfaidh mé cúpla rudaí eile amarach,
Slán anois,
T
Got thru' very little boards , its getting slower and slower as we get busier and busier.
Anyway its still going forward and the current system with remi doing a layout pass on the boards Nora and I do is working really well.
Finally got some closure on the main part of the Irish finance which is nice, its a drip by drip process but we are in a much sturdier place now.
So that was nice.
Emm,deadlyBgs by Stewie , Adrien and Lily this week - starting to see the more creative Bgs that are part of the more lyrical parts of the film that I'd been looking forward to and now I'm on the forest part of the boards its fun to be opening up outside of the confines of super tight continuity issues that we had to respect "inside" Kells itself as a location.
Its funny, at this point I almost feel like I could walk around that space, and although theres loads of artistic license in the style we picked, it feels consistant when I scroll through the 100 or so Bgs or "scene illustrations" that we've done so far.
Eve, an intern from France, has done a beautiful job on a layout test Remi set for her and we are hopeful she will be able to join our team for a while this summer.
Raining cats and dogs these days you'd swear it was'nt summer at all.
We are probably recording the voices the last week of this month now - trying to get Mick and Brendan Gleeson into the studio at the same time is tricky as they are both busy. We hope to bring the kids who will play Brendan and Aisling down for a workshop one of the weekends between now and then.
Martin has been cleaning up the modelsheets for Cellach recently -looks classy. But Barrys drawings are so tight that its kind of easier than normal he says. Theres no redrawing going on between the rough and the clean its just all about the line. He's a bit of an illuminator is our Martin!
The thing with good crew, I can't say it enough, is it makes it seem almost easy somedays!
Remi often spots important stuff on the boards too or suggests really cool alternatives that I did'nt think of when I was plowing thru' a second pass of a scene.
Theres a lovely frisson of jealousy and awe and a bit of gratitude and probably loads of other stuff when you see people taking your stuff and going further and making it better than you would have on your own. I know Disney DVDs are full of this kind of praise and it usually makes me cringe but there you go, its just a fact.
I was at a "artists day" today in the Castle in Kilkenny- just a networking kind of day with workshops and all. I did a writing workshop, one of the speakers was a novelist that used to write for tv, He wrote on that great puppet show from years ago that I loved as a kid - "Spitting Image". Its mad the heads there are around Kilkenny. Liselott and Nora and Mike were there too. |The castle is a class space, big old beams and stone walls. Maybe in a year or so we'll have a preview screening there or something! Teddy Newton from Pixar gave a talk there last summer as part of Feile Beochán - the Irish animation festival that Ross John of the Murrays ran with Kairen Wailloch.
Didier Brunner the French Producer, Fabrice Ziolkowski (all round cool cat and screen writer) , Bruno Coulais (the composer from France) are visiting this week. Sure it'll be great craic.
Probably won't get much boards done.
We recieved some ink and paint tests from Belgium yesterday , looks great to see some coloured animation. Nora, Martin and myself will head over there week after next to see the crew there and work thru' some smaller issues that are easier sorted face to face.
Sin é muintir le Dhia,
Tá alán obair agam inniu , bhfeidir go scriobhfaidh mé cúpla rudaí eile amarach,
Slán anois,
T
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