It's producer Niall here, back for another Friday update. It's been a while, what with Christmas and all, but we've all made some great progress. 

I bring exciting news: The film is complete! We've just applied the final pieces of audio and post production, and the render is now finished.

Our film, which we started planning in October, is now burnt onto a DVD and ready for submission. Soon, it will be available on the front page of this very website.

This week was focused entirely on audio implementation and post production. The audio was provided to us by an external source; a foley artist named Beech Pilkington.

We made some alterations to shots 1 and 3, editing the characters so that they appear as silhouettes until the spotlights illuminate them. We also removed some minor visual glitches from the film.

The production bible has also been printed on glossy paper and soft-bound at a print shop. It's been excellently laid out by our art director; Nila.

Once the DVD was burnt, we placed it into a DVD box, which was decorated with sleeves and slips designed by Leonard.

We've shown our film to a few people, and so far it's received positive feedback in the form of laughter. A successful comedic film is one that gets a chuckle, so things are looking good.

Our production bible ends with a critical analysis and individual comments based on our own, uninfluenced opinions of our work.

Once we receive critical feedback from the tutors and peers, that may have a place on this blog as well. For now, however, this is Niall, signing out.

Merry Friday, to one and all! There's a shiny new update for you, waiting beneath the Friday tree!

This final week was reserved on the schedule for clean ups and alterations to animation that should have been completed already. For three of us, that was essentially the case, although Lewis is still working on his shot. It's a tricky shot, and one of the longest in the film, but we're running low on time and it really should be done by now. Anyway, we're trying to stay frosty (The snowman) and keep things stable (The stable where baby Jesus was born). On Thursday we went through every shot in a group and with our analytical overlord, Chris Webster. We received some feedback and exchanged ideas. And all of this without any Christmas related puns!

So, onto individual progress. This week, Niall (me) had only a minor input into the film's actual animation. I did have a little bit of input into shots nine and ten, as I felt their animated backgrounds were moving too slowly. I've sped them up now. I also lightly modified Leonard's shot six, and changed the layout and animation slightly. I have already completed my shots, and although we discussed a transfer of Lewis's final shot to me and Nila, we've decided to allow him a second chance. He's made some good progress in the past few days, so we'll see where he gets. Furthermore, we've allocated roles for the production bible. Nila will be working on the bible's layout and design, while I'll be providing the longer segments of text. I've written up some charming crew descriptions for our team page, and have done a few hundred words on the film's actual treatment and style. Other than this, I've simply been doing producer things (keeping people on schedule.) I think we're all dreaming for the day this is over now.....andawhitechristmas.

Nila's done a bunch of things this week. She's created the background for the credits shot (It's now much more appealing to look at, and even has an animated rain cycle in the background, provided by yours truly) and she's also finished up shot sixteen. She had a chance to clean up some of my shots too; shot one and three, painting over the symbols to remove pixelation issues. As previously mentioned, she's also been working on the layout of our production bible. I'll put a screen shot below of what our crew page looks like. She kindly drew some charming pictures of the four of us; so charming in fact that it scatters our dignity to the wind like ashes in a blizzard. (Blizzards are Christmassy). She's also been providing feedback on other shots, and right now is working on the 1950s photographs that'll fit into the final shot. I think that's worth a see as well.

Leonard has been re-working one of Lewis's old shots; Shot eight. Shot eight is the one which involves Red flexing and mountains rising from his biceps. The core idea behind this shot was to get some serious strain behind the motion, and the original lacked that. In post production, it'd be nice to have some debris and snow flying from the mountains. We'd have got Lewis to redo it, if he wasn't so swamped with work right now. Along with this shot, which is basically completed now, Leonard has also made us some snazzy DvD covers and even a design for the actual Dvd itself. It's simple, but quite snazzy. 

Lewis meanwhile, as previously mentioned, has been working on shot fifteen. He's told us that he'll be finished by the end of the day, so hopes are high. He's done some stylised hand-drawn frame-by-frame animations in his shot, including a fully animated cloud of steam and a hair rip. It does look pretty good, but it has been very time consuming, hence the fall behind.

Ideally we'll be editing on Monday. Together, we've killed a few more of the amber boxes, and now there are only six left. The grey boxes should be done by Monday, and will be ready for editing and presenting on Tuesday. 

Now excuse me, I must be off to enjoy my partridge in a pear tree. Please accept complimentary after-update chart. 

In time for a presentation last week, we created a new animatic using our old premier file that displayed all of our new and unfinished shots. This is what the film looks like right now. Bear in mind that some of the shots are still simply storyboard stills. Almost all of the shots will require a level of clean-up or re-working as well.

Time for a Friday update, from me, Niall, the blog monkey.

Next week is our final week of animation, and so that calls for some hard work. Some of us are a little behind schedule, so we’re doing our best to catch up. As it stands, the actual animation stage is only three shots from completion, and all three of these shots are currently in production. Excitingly, the Super Shot has been one of the week’s primary focuses, and it did indeed end out being rather super. Shot twenty was also finalised and completed after some hands were grafted to the old men’s stumps, and shot thirteen was completed too.

This week, I’ve been working on shots twenty and twenty one. Twenty one is basically an extension of twenty, meaning I was fortunately able to build shot twenty one using the components of its predecessor. The shot involves Old Blue and Old Red closing in on one another for a fierce, confrontational stand-off. Despite this rather aggressive description, the primary issue I had to face was not making it look like the two characters were about to passionately kiss. I had to adjust the body language, postures and expressions to completely abolish any and all signs of desire and intimacy. I’ll be adding smaller details soon, such as bloodshot eyes, throbbing veins, twitches and snarls. The shot will be finished on schedule, and then I’ll work on the credits tile. I’m looking forward to having this project put to bed (or dead {everyone agrees}).

Nila has been creating the fabled super shot, spoken of only in Norse mythology and cryptic cave paintings. The shot is actually a sequence of fourteen separate shots all ran in quick succession. The shot contains animated backgrounds, some screaming characters (complete with rapid tongue waggle) and also a hand drawn fire effect. The scene has been described by stoic fisherman; Chris Webster as; “Very funny.” Note that he did not laugh, but I think he appreciated it in his own peculiar way. The super shot is actually completed now. Originally it was scheduled to accommodate two animators, but uh, that was not necessary, apparently.

Leonard completed shot thirteen and then fell deathly ill. He is suffering from a cold at this time, and so has been unable to attend our production days. Since he has completed all of his scheduled shots, we thought it wise to assign him clean up duties on some of our less favoured shots. We’d very much like some touch ups applied to a selection of shots, all of which have been marked in the production schedule with an amber tint.

Lewis meanwhile is still working on shot sixteen. He was originally scheduled to assist Nila with the super shot but has instead spent a second week working on shot fifteen. He’s hand drawing a lot of the frames, and so far, it looks quite sharp and effective. Unfortunately, he hasn’t made much progress on it, though. He’s assured me that the shot will be finished before the 10th December which is when we’re scheduled to present the fully animated but not finalised film.

We’d like to give you something to watch so you know what sort of progress we’re making, so here’s a Youtube link to the Super Shot previously mentioned.

Here’s our new production chart, which is now marked with shots that require some clean-up or total reworks. Shots one through three could use a steady hand to go over the black lines and prevent pixilation. Shots nine and ten could use some background alterations to speed up the symbols, and the composition could also be changed to make the characters more centred. The crowd shots could also use a bit of tidying up to get rid of blocky artifacts on the characters.

It's Friday, so it's time for another weekly update from your lovable producer; Niall.

So we've started wading into the deeper waters now. As we come towards the end of our Production, we're starting the more complex shots.
Needless to say, some people have fallen
behind, but we're not in trouble yet. We've encountered a lot of bugs and errors this week which as really slowed our progress. Some shots had to be entirely rebuilt after we overlooked a memory bloating issue, and corrupted an entire shot. We also had some difficulties with rogue PNGs refusing to accept colouring. We've come to call these terrifying symbols; The Possessed neck and feet. If we catch the demonic entities early on and exorcise them, then we don't have to worry about them screwing with our animation later on. A possessed neck sadly broke shot 3, so I have to
fix that over the weekend. It's not too much trouble, but it's a pain and a setback.

Shot three is all done with the exception of
the neck issues, but that can be fixed quite quickly. I've just finished colouring shot twenty,
but the animation is not complete upon it yet. I'll
be hopefully finishing it on Monday and Tuesday, and then will be perfectly on schedule. Here's a screen cap of the shot:

Leonard has been working on our split screen scene in which Red and Blue roar at one another for dominance over the space. He's applied some great follow through and vibration effects on the screen divider to really give the shot some strong motion. The animation is rather simplistic, mostly with rapid snaps, but it definitely serves the purpose. The colouring isn't finished yet, but he's got plenty of time to finish it and I'm confident he will. After this week, Leonard will have completed all of his shots, and can begin to think about working on the shots of his teammates and find ways to improve them. Here's a screen cap of his shot In progress.

Lewis has been working on the mountain shot from last week. The shot is  near completion but will require some heavy clean-up and some alterations
to make the act appear more strenuous. Currently Lewis is scheduled to take the longest shot
in the film, but I'm thinking about re-assigning that to someone else so he can work on the Super Shot next week. Perhaps Leonard can tackle it. That aside, here's a shot from Lewis's shot eight.

Nila has been hard at work providing the crew with symbols. She's done incredibly well and I'd argue perhaps even too much work. I wish more
of us had her artistic talent so we could create the puppets for our own shots, but this is the best way to keep it aesthetically consistent. Nila
has been dancing between a number of her shots, making improvements here and there. In addition, she's been working on my shot while I added an animated background to one of hers. Primarily, she's been working on the second longest shot (not including the super shot), shot sixteen. In sixteen, Red tears off his moustache and beats his chest like a gorilla while paper aeroplanes fly past him. It's a tricky shot, but she's made some great progress. She also advised I colour my shots prior to animating. It was good advice which I promptly followed.

Here's a shot from sixteen. This is the point in which Red has torn off his moustache, the background going wild behind him while he moves in slow motion.

 
As always, here's an updated production chart and a link to a larger one. 

We have two weeks remaining, and I'm confident we can get this done, even if we
are a tad behind.

  It’s Friday! So it’s time for an update.

This week we’ve been working on an assortment of new shots, and finalising production on some of the ones we animated last week. Monday and Tuesday were dedicated to clean-up and colouring processes to make them more presentable. Most of them still require some touch ups in After Effects during post production, but we won’t be doing that until much later (Likely not until after the Christmas holidays.)

Niall (That’s me) is fully up to date on the schedule currently, so I’m able to complete this entry. My work load was smaller than the others’ this week, as I only had to animate around three seconds. Next week I have over twice as much to animate, so that’ll be interesting. Shot 17 is all done and coloured too. It took me an afternoon to complete. Shot 3 took me a little longer. I had some difficulty when inverting the arm symbols to face inwards. I had to make it look real, but disallow the audience from actually seeing what was happening, as I was effectively snapping RED’s elbows. I mostly hid it with speed. It’s quite acceptable to look at now, and the audience likely wouldn’t question it unless they slowed it down to half its speed. Shot 3 still requires colour, but that shouldn’t take more than a few hours.

Nila is close on my heels. She’s finished shot 12 already, aside from the colouring, and even managed to resolve an issue we were having with duplicate symbols passing unwanted colours to others (with some help from Ian Friend.) She’s currently working on shot 18, another medium length shot but with some tricky perspective animation. I’ve been working with her to try and secure a realistic in-perspective punch while using flat symbols. It’s tricky, but we’re making progress. She’s also finishing up the colouring on shot 7, and that appears to be going well.

Leonard has finished shot 4 and 5, and has moved onto shot 6, a skewed perspective shot with some medium difficulty animation with both characters. Even as the week’s end draws in, however, the shot is far from completion, so I fear Leonard may fall behind schedule. He’s actually already coloured it in, however, so he can use his colouring time next week to finish the actual animation. Sadly the background is pixelated and I have no idea how to fix it without redrawing the entire thing, which is a massive waste of time.

Lewis has finished shot 9 and 10 and has only just moved onto shot 8, a heavy shot which involves mountains emerging from RED’S muscles. The shot requires facial and body animation, but it’s still only four seconds long. The shot has been laid out, but it appears he’s colouring in the shot first before animating as well. If it’s a more productive way of animating, then I suppose there’s no harm in it. The schedule specifies that we colour in the following week, but if they find it easier this way then there’s no point arguing. It becomes a little trickier to track the progress and see the construction, however. Not to mention, if a symbol needs to be edited or replaced, due to some sort of error, then the whole thing was coloured for nothing.

We’re falling behind slightly on our schedule, so I’m hoping that we’re able to catch up once again before next Friday. Stay tuned to find out.

As before, here's a link to our current production chart, and an image.

Now that we've officially begun animation, we can start to show you some of the progress we're making. Shots 1, 2, 11, 14, 4 and 5 are all either completed or near competition, with the exception of colour, which will be added at a later date.

The backgrounds are almost all finished as well.

Nila has been working on the  symbols which we use to animate our shots with. We essentially break down the wrestler characters into limps separated by pivot joints to allow them to move like paper puppets. She's also fully completed shots 8 and 12, and is currently working on shot 7. The animation is done on 7, but it requires colour.

Lewis has been working on two of the animated background shots, 9 and 10, but has not completed either so far.

Leonard has been creating shot 4 and 5. They're both near completion but the timing is totally wrong for 5 at the moment, so it needs to be fixed (it looks like space invaders or something).

Niall has been working on 1 and 2, and they now only require colouring as their animation is complete.

If you'd like to see our progress on our chart, click the link below for a full screen preview. Alternatively, you can look at the picture provided.

Our producer, niall, created a shot breakdown and a schedule for us to follow!