And yet another!

Even fresher!

Here's a test of my progress so far.

NOTE: There are extra frames at the end of the avi of blank or repeated animation that won't be in the final film. This is to give myself buffer room to work in. I'm not that bad at timing, I promise.

The Latest Update

Alright, so production is underway, and things are now in full swing. I'm very excited about this project, and I think it will be pretty impressive when complete. This past week, I started Scene 1, and its nearly complete, now. Here's a test of Scene 1:



In addition to Scene 1, I also created my production schedule this weekend. Here that is:

(heart)Beat Production Schedule
Week 6
Sunday, April 27th – Create Production Schedule
Monday, April 28th – Complete Scene 1 (4 hours)
Tuesday, April 29th - Begin Scene 2 (4 hours)
Wednesday, April 30th – Complete Scene 2 (6 hours)
Thursday, May 1st – (miscellaneous)
Friday, May 2nd – Begin and complete Scene 3 (6 hours)
Saturday, May 3rd – Begin Scene 4A (4 hours)

Week 7
Sunday, May 4th – Complete Scene 4A (4 hours)
Monday, May 5th – Begin Scene 4B (5 hours)
Tuesday, May 6th – Continue Scene 4B (3 hours)
Wednesday, May 7th – Complete Scene 4B (5 hours)
Thursday, May 8th – (miscellaneous)
Friday, May 9th – Begin Scene 4C (4 hours)
Saturday, May 10th – Continue Scene 4C (3 hours)

Week 8
Sunday, May 11th – Complete Scene 4C (4 hours)
Monday, May 12th – Begin Scene 5 (6 hours)
Tuesday May 13th – Continue Scene 5 (3 hours)
Wednesday, May 14th – Continue Scene 5 (6 hours)
Thursday, May 15th – Continue Scene 5 (2 hours)
Friday, May 16th – Complete Scene 5 (3 hours)
Saturday, May 17th – Begin Scene 6 (4 hours)

Week 9
Sunday, May 18th – Complete Scene 6 (4 hours)
Monday, May 19th – Begin Scene 7.1 (5 hours)
Tuesday, May 20th – Complete Scene 7.1 (3 hours)
Wednesday, May 21st – Begin and Complete Scene 7.2 (5 hours)
Thursday, May 22nd – (miscellaneous)
Friday, May 23rd – Begin and Complete Scene 7.3 (5 hours)
Saturday, May 24th – Cleanup

Week 10
Sunday, May 25th – Cleanup
Monday, May 26th – Editing
Tuesday, May 27th – Editing
Wednesday – Final Presentation

Scene Breakdown
Scene 1 – ELS – Egg inside -> zoom out to nest & woofer
Scene 2 – MS – Baby bird hatches, cuddles to woofer
Scene 3 – ELS – Establishing Shot – Transition from night to day
Scene 4A – FS – Baby bird dances -> night to day
Scene 4B – FS - Adolescent bird – night -> day
Scene 4C – FS - Adult bird – night -> day
Scene 5 – FS - Bird dances and flies from roof – PAN
Scene 6 – Downward pan as bird falls
Scene 7.1 – FS - Bird hits dancefloor – music cuts
Scene 7.2 – FS - Bird gets up, looks around
Scene 7.3 – FS - Bird belts out song, dancers resume, zoom out to ES


It's looking pretty intense, but so far, so good. My main concern thus far is just being able to balance this project, my concept class, and working 25 hours a week. But I'm a trooper.

Tutorial 5

Well, here it is: the last of the tutorials. I've had some problems with exporting, and this AVI isn't as good as the .swf file, but it'll do.

EDIT: Click this link instead, the quality is much better:


"I laugh in the face of danger!"



Five points to whoever can name the movie the clip is from!

Tutorial 4

Here's a walk cycle using my own puppet. So far it only walks in place, since I couldn't figure out how to turn the animation into a symbol. So let's call this a work in progress:

Tutorial 3

Tutorial 3: Rotoscoping.

(In my defense, the reference video was pretty terrible).



See my own walk cycle in the next post.

Storyboards

So here are the storyboards for (heart)Beat. I definitely settled into a color palette after the first page, so ignore the colors on the first page. Take a gander:

Animation Proposal

Well, since I'm still learning Flash, I'm going to try and go for something rather simplistic in motion, but impressive in style.

My story goes as follows:

(heart)Beat

•Baby bird in egg feels mother's heartbeat.
•Zoom out to reveal that the mother's heartbeat is actually a subwoofer, belting out dance music.
•Bird hatches, blind, and cuddles up to subwoofer.
•Zoom out further to reveal that bird and subwoofer are balanced precariously on roof of patio over a raucous dance party.
•Months pass – day to night, night to day – and the little bird grows to love his “mother's” heartbeat music. At first bobbing his head, then dancing, flapping his wings.
•Grown bird tests his wings, flapping to the music, before fluttering to the dance floor accidentally.
•The dancers stop to look at the fallen bird and the music stops.
•Bird struggles to his feet, looking around at the dancers, scared.
•Meekly, he opens his beak, belting out the song where it left off. The dancers resume.
Relatively simple. Now, the impressive part is that I would like to incorporate heavy texture, such as different kinds of paper, to give the animation a cutout kind of feel.

Now the hard part is executing it.


Here's a concept sketch of adolescent Bird:

Well, well

Look! I'm learning Flash!

Tutorial 01: Exercise 1 - Bouncing Ball


Tutorial 02: Exercise 1 - Manipulate Puppet Character


Tutorial 02: Exercise 2 - Create your own Puppet