Another minute bites the dust......

Here the group emerge from the tunnel/portal into Oz.


2_02_01 (22mb)

I am humbled.

Looks good!!!

I'm glad I saw this. Due to family obligations that I could not get out of, my last week was a bust for working on my shot (2_02_02). I've only had a little time to start to work on the lipsync which has been giving me problems.

The reason I'm glad is because this shot ended with Capt'n Bill to Trots' left. The shot I have was set up with Capt'n Bill to Trots' right. Luckily, I haven't gotten to the keyposes yet.

I think the best way to proceed is to grab Your cho and save it as 2_02_02 and use your last poses for my Starting poses. What do you think? Don't you agree that instead of modifing the chor I have that it's much easier to just use yours?

George

Heaven's no, don't do that. Move the characters in the existing 2_02_02 to match 2_02_01.

OK but do you mind if I ask why? I just want to understand the process better. The scene and lighting should be identical so I'm just wondering.


George

If you did that, it could destroy all the previous sub versions. Not sure. But an easier way to do it is bring both chors into a project. Then you simply copy the poses on the last frame for Trot and Bill. Then paste into your first frame.
(At least that should be how to do it. If not, there is a way......)

Sounds pretty easy. Martin, is this ok to do?

George

Sure.

Very nice work Ken!

Clear camera setup and cuts, story is easy to follow, I like the travelling with Bill at the beginning.
Capt Bill's arm gestures are very fluid, he has personality, I like when he says"Disappoint him". The transitions with
the walk actions are smooth. I also like Trot's attitude, that's how I imagined her myself. I think there are too many frames
in her lipsync though, it gets too snappy. At first we look at her eyes, but when she starts talking, our attention turns to her mouth.
I always think lipsync is not gratifying, it works if you don,t notice it. Maybe a floaty moment after sec25.
The lift off and landing of Ork look a liitle mechanical, and his lipsync too busy, but Ork is still very believable.
I am just picking on small things, with a new eye, it's overall very inspiring in giving those 2, personality.
Very nice!


Since we are talking continuity here, wouldn't it be nice to have assembled the blocking stage done in a single shaded movie?

Michel

That's the plan. Good crits. Hopefully we'll get time to fix them all at the end.

Very very nice Ken.
Keep that up and a movie just might get made yet!

I expect the longer set of shots here were even more fun to work with than the short assignments from TWO.
Perhaps easier to see how everything fit together?
I'd be interested to get your thoughts on that aspect.

You've got some really nice personal touches in there.
The stories you'll be able to tell about animating and voicing Cap'n Bill and friends.

Thanks Rodney. Yes, I much prefer to work on longer segments. Less "administration" and you can build up a performance over a longer period of shots.....eg a character gradually getting irritated.....not that I've done that yet. Though it has it's difficulties such as scrubbing further in the timeline. But that's not too bad.

I'm still getting used to my voice coming out of Bill, but it's growing on me.

Incidentally, I notice all replies in the SO:Animation section are from people in the Film group. Do we have another situation of people not being able to respond?

I just realized I do have a minor suggestion.
Probably something that will seem obvious as the scene is refined but thought I should mention it here.

As the scene ends and Ork delivers his last line he should perhaps end by looking at Cap'n Bill. This would serve several purposes. 1. It'd silhouette Ork better. 2. It would lead the viewer to look at Cap'n Bill in time to catch his smile then move on to Trot to get her reaction. The audience's attention is then stuck between Cap'n Bill and Trot as the scene ends.

As as further aside... I think the Bonnet tying scene is going to be tough to animate. If it can't be pulled off effectively perhaps this would be a good place to just cut to everyone flying through the sky? It might pick up the pace of the movie and carry the audience along as well as give us an uncertain sense of how long they've been flying. I know these aren't animators decisions to make of course. Just throwing the ideas out as one never knows what might worth keeping.

Yeah, he's looking at Bill, but it's not obvious and I think his head could be turned to the side all the time. That Ork is tricky.

The script does cut to them flying in the next sequence. Thank goodness. (Not only would it be hard to animate, but it wouldn't add much to the story.)

Wonderful. I missed that revision.
Looks like a reread of the script is in order.

I remember thinking 'Yikes!' as my brain tried to figure out how best to animate Trot adapting her bonnet for the task at hand. I'm sure someone would be up to the task but agree the sequence didn't add much to the story. It did provide a little room to show the characters resourcefulness but I think that has been established at this point. Its also rather satisifying to occasionally jump to the characters' end solutions without having the audience in on all the detail of getting there. I recall the shot from TWO where Scarecrow gets his idea on how to best open the door to Yoop's Castle. There was a greater reward in cutting to the solution there too rather than show how they got it done.

When last I downloaded Ork he wasn't rigged so I need to look at him again.
He looks to be a challenging yet entertaining character.