The Beginning

Alrighty.

You just bought this really great animation software package that everyone is raving about. Yes, that's right, Animation:Master! You've looked at the A:M Films and were amazed at what is possible. Now you are thinking to yourself, "I want to make a movie! But can I? And how and where do I start?"

Well, the first thing I would recommend is completing The Art of Animation:Master. These exercises are designed to help you learn A:M in an easy and logical process so that you can move on to making your own movies. Once you have completed these exercises, you can move on to work on the Hash Movie Project Scarecrow Of Oz. This is a great opportunity to work on a feature length film and work with some of the best people around here!

Or, if you are like me, maybe you want to make a short animation. Actually, there is no reason that you can't do both.

Anyway, the purpose of this Special Topic is two fold.

The first is that I want to make my own little animation. As I have never really made a complete animation before (other than a short for the Mini-Movie Contest), I am going to be learning a lot about Animation:Master (a lot more than I know right now). I am also going to be learning about what is involved in starting with an idea and seeing it through to completion.

And this leads into the second purpose. As part of the whole learning process, I want to be able to document everything here so that you can follow along and see everything that happens, including mistakes as well as successes. We learn by our mistakes, right?

Inspiration

So, where do I start?

Well, you need to have an idea.

Okay, that seems simple enough. Maybe you have had that perfect idea for a movie bouncing around in your head for a while and now is the time to act on it. Or maybe you saw something funny and though to yourself, that would make a cute film. Or maybe something happens out of the blue...

This is my case. I have had several film ideas that I have wanted to do for several years and just started seriously working on a Star Wars Fan Film. I have been modelling the AT-AT for a few weeks now and thought this would be a great film to follow along with. Then last night my son and I were outside with our dog. You know, the last routine before putting the dog in his crate for the night. Well, I had bought a laser pointer and we were playing with the dog. For an $8.00 laser pointer, this thing was pretty powerful. We started seeing just how far the pointer would shine. It shone off our neighbours shed about fifty feet away. Cool. We were able to shine it off the chimney of a house 5 doors down. Way cool! Then we went out into the middle of our street and shone it all the way down to the end of the block. Unbelievably cool!!! Then we started joking about shining it off the moon (didn't happen though). And then we were joking about shining it off into space. One thing led to another and then the light came on!! This would make a pretty funny animation. We would have a Mr. Bean type character with a laser pointer playing with his dog doing the same type of things we were doing.

All this took place in the span of about 15 minutes and the birth of an animation film took place!

Hope you follow along as the idea gets fleshed out, story boarded, modelled and turned into a final animated film.

Al

Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

You go gir..ahem I mean man Sounds like a great project for a short AM movie!

Oh yeah? well what's with the ONE person baloney? The way I see it, you already got your son and dog helping you.

Looking forward to watching this evolve!

Does anyone know where I can get a dog who knows how to rig? :-)

Looking forward to being amazed, Al! And of course, I can make your opening scrawl thing for you using my Mac.

Sounds cool, Al!

Oh...those lazers mess with dogs' heads. We did it on ours when he was a puppy and he was trying to bite walls. Even after we stopped, his eyes were darting around looking for floating spots. I think that's the reason he eats flys now. He runs after flies he hears (which is alot) and trys to chomp them. Sometimes he succeeds too. The problem is he also does it for bees and wasps.

I'm interested to see how this story develops. It sounds like your characters going to laugh hysterically when they see the spot on ever distant objects. Or maybe not.

Thanks everyone. I think this is going to be a pretty fun project to work on.



Not to worry Nancy. I have been married for 24 years now and my wife tells me that I don't have a 'person' status anymore. And between my son, myself and our little Bichon, the dog probably has the most smarts out of the three of us!!

My 17 year old son wants to help with this, so what a great time to turn him away from the dark side of 'polygon' (spits on the floor as I type this) modelling to the light side of patch (many thunderous cheers and applauses) modelling. Since I just upgraded to the web version 15, I am letting him use my 2007 CD to learn A:M by going through TaoA:M. If he makes it through the tutorials and still wants to help, than I will purchase him a web version as well.

Al

Al,

a bit off the topic, but consider yourself so very lucky that you have a17 year old that wants to do ANYTHING with you. I went through four kids and all of them turned into different people when they turned that age. Then I had to wait a couple of years until they realized that I had not changed, but that they had.

Cheers

Eric

Al,

I can really relate to the laser story only mine was with my cat. Although dogs are probably fun with the laser, I've had a lot of fun with cats. They go just as crazy if not more so. When you can get a cat that's 17 years old to get up and chase a blaring red dot, it's quite an accomplishment hehe.

Good luck on your project

George

Thanks Eric. I consider myself to be extremely fortunate to have a great son like Brian. We both have the same kind of sick, warped sense of humor, so we laugh around quite a bit. Only 1 child here though (well two if you count me).

I know what you mean about cats George. We used to have a lot of cats when I was a kid. And a cat will climb up things that a dog won't in order to get what it wants! Like curtains, pant legs, bare legs (ouch!)...

Al

I've got a tittle for you!

A Boy and His Dog... and a Laser Pointer



p.s. You don't have to feed anyone to the dog at the end of course. The 17 year old might like that though.

-vern

LOL!! That is funny Vern. And what a great movie A Boy and His Dog was starring a very, very, young Don Johnston. Unfortunately, I have seen it only once, but I loved the last line in the movie as the Boy and His Dog are walking away. Do you remember what it was? I still laugh when I think of it.

Al

I haven't seen the movie in years. I think the last line was something like "she had good judgment but not good taste." Or something along that line.
That movie was freaky. The first in a long line of talking dog movies I suppose.

-vern