2 weeks to go until hand-in deadline! Here are the tasks i’ve set for the group for the coming week:
Buoy: Production update
4 weeks to go and the pressure’s on! At today’s meeting we reviewed the film completion goals we had earlier in the year and gave ourselves a more realistic deadline for film completion- a week before official deadline.
Again i am slightly disappointed with lack of communication from some group members- resulting in neither the director Olly or I having much idea about the stage their tasks are at.
There is an official production catchup scheduled for tomorrow with our course leader however, so hopefully there will be fuller attendance of the group at this and we will all come away with a better understanding of where the project stands.
For now, Olly and I have worked out tasks to be getting on with and how to proceed in the final weeks of our course.
Buoy production update
buoy production schedule_updated
Although slightly behind schedule, we’re not as far behind as i would expect to be at this point in the project, so i’m feeling confident that the film will be completed on time!
Buoy Production update
I’m finding it difficult to keep up with production specifics of Buoy mainly due to lack of communication from several group members. There was low attendance at todays meeting again, and any attempt to contact people on facebook for updates on their tasks is ignored, the only people who post on the facebook production page seem to be Olly and I. I raised this issue today in the meeting and on facebook so i hope this will lead to more fluid communication between group members, and a more clued up production manager!
But, we soldier on:
Olly has set the new goal of having all 3D boat scenes rendered and ready to be comped with 2D animation by the end of June. There is also a suggested change to the end of the crab scene which Olly and Natasha are discussing the choreography of. Personally i don’t think the project needs any extra work.
Updated production schedule with all changes to scenes in production/ hierarchy. Olly and i are not completely calm about the amount of high risk scenes in green atm, although we are safe in the knowledge that they are all blocked roughly AT LEAST and some are complete. He is happy firing through shorter scenes quickly and coming back to the high risk scenes later.
Story Surgery with Mark Grindle
Mark Grindle held individual project surgeries today. For “Buoy” the main feedback was about tightening up the story and making it more about the BOY’S journey rather than the captain’s, also emphasising the importance of the SPYGLASS. He suggested some small cuts but mainly just changing scenes into first person perspective shots- therefore reducing character animation and letting the audience see through the main character’s eyes. Olly has begun re-cutting his animatic according to the notes he decides to to take on board from Mark. Because of the suggested cuts he has some time freed up this week to recut the animatic, complete his backgrounds and complete some very short scenes.
I met with Natasha today and made sure she had some tasks to be carrying on with this week- unlike what i previously thought scene 30- 33 are not blocked (this is part of the crab fight scene) so i asked her to work on those. She also received notes from Olly about the scenes she had already blocked and is busy cleaning up keys and making small changes according to a staging flaw Mark pointed out today.
I also had an individual meeting with Mark about my personal project “Once Bitten”. His feedback was very positive, he said the story hung together nicely. Some small suggestions he had were: allowing more time before the pup has a negative reaction at the end of the film (allowing his innocence to linger a little longer while the audience understands before him what is happening); adding a slight zoom in or focal length change in the first person perspective shot of the wolf mother looking at Anna through the trees to emphasise the inescapable danger Anna is in.
Buoy: Production update
Attendance was low at our latest production meeting for this project.
We have missed our goals of blocking the entire film and completing all backgrounds by the beginning of June. However, we do have all of Olly’s priority scenes AT LEAST (blocked if not complete) which is great! Olly also has 80% of the backgrounds complete and is still experimenting with the sea bed.
Although Natasha was not in attendance Olly assures me that she has told him her tasks from last week- and then some, are complete. Although i originally set her the task of blocking the boy’s animation for all the crab fight scenes, and also completing the crab puppet and animating him in these scenes in after effects; Olly decided after the meeting to tell Natasha to focus on animating the boy and put the crab puppet completion and animation to one side. I have heard but not seen evidence of Natasha having complete the blocking of the crab fight scenes (25-31) and also the boy walking on the sea bed scenes (21-23). Olly will meet with her later today or tomorrow when the whole team is required to attend a timetabled meeting with Mark Grindle, and we expect will set tasks for her to clean up her keys on some of her blocked scenes.
Although Annita was absent from the meeting she messaged the group letting us know her tasks were complete (fish boat model and movement tests) and she would send Olly what she had to look at and meet with us in person tomorrow. We will talk about what she can focus on next, tomorrow.
Fincher has been given keyed scenes 8 + 10 to inbetween.
Olly is working on completing his Backgrounds and also animating (as close as possible to completion) scenes 11-16 (these are very short scenes but important to tell the story).
Ritchie is continuing to work on scene 1, Olly has already received tests from him and relayed notes.
Olly has asked Niall Calder, a recent animation undergrad. graduate to help him form the soundtrack for his film by adding droning, atmospheric accordion to the parts of his film that aren’t set under water. However there is no base score for Niall to work from for these parts so what he will produce for Olly will be guess work.
Deadlines for these tasks are Monday 8th June when there will be another production meeting.
Buoy: production updates
Minutes from today’s meeting:
Olly has blocked scene 8 and 10 and is moving on to focus on backgrounds in the final week of May. there are roughly 9 backgrounds but the plan is to reuse some of the underwater landscapes as much as possible, also the under-water objects: houses and sea plants, are part of a library that can be added in on layers and swapped around to look different. A good portion of this library is complete in his sketchbook.
Olly has completed the final boat texture this week aswell.
Natasha has completed scene 3 which was due a week ago, but without some shading and colours; She has also blocked out scenes 4 and 17, however Olly has given notes for some cleaner keys to be added and hopefully the scene will be fixed to his satisfaction by the end of today . We asked Natasha to move on to more blocking tasks after this is complete: She has agreed to finish the crab puppet (his legs still need to be drawn and scanned) after this she should animate the puppet in the crab scenes: 25-29/ 31-33. Natasha will also be working on blocking the boy’s animation in these scenes.
Ritchie will be working on Scene 1: animating the Seagull gliding over the water, making the water effect in after effects, and animating the buoy bobbing in the water. He is busy with his primary project so cannot take on anymore tasks atm.
Annita is also busy with her primary project but has agreed to work on completing the fish boat model and make some movement tests for it.
Fincher is tied up with her primary project all of this week so has no tasks for now.
All new tasks are due for Monday 1st June at which point there will be a meeting and we will review how successful our goals have been. At this point i’m already aware that we will be missing some high priority scenes. This is due to an absence of team members for the past 2- 3 weeks.
Buoy Production Update
I’m very pleased with how strictly Olly is sticking to the deadlines i set him. He completed his trial of scene 6 (character animation fully cleaned and coloured) with a day to spare and since then has completed the additional scene i gave him plus his re-vamped whale asset is complete and ready to scan AND additional prop animation for scene 6 is nearly done.
Having a good idea of the pace at which Olly completes work i was hopeful that our goal of having 40 seconds of complete animation by June was achievable. However i mentioned the possibility of dropping our other goal of having the entire film blocked roughly by June aswell, in favour of 40 seconds complete (due to lack of man power available in the team until June) and Olly was of the opinion that focussing on blocking everything was more important than completing anything at this stage. So now, our goal is to have as much as possible of the film roughly blocked by June.
As for completing the backgrounds which Olly is concerned about and keen to complete by June ASWELL, since he is being fairly quick with his animation tasks i gave him 2 more high priority scenes to roughly block AND a background completion task due for our next production meeting on Tuesday 26th (due to assessment presentations taking place on the 25th).
Natasha was unable to make our production meeting today but did send ahead work for Olly to review, Olly spoke to her and gave her praise and feedback. She has not reached the goal i set her however has not been in dundee for the last week so full time focus on the task could not be guaranteed. I have set her the task of completing the scene she has been working on already for tomorrow. After that i have asked that she move on to blocking 2 more scenes amounting to roughly 5 secs for Tuesday 26th.
I am still concerned about the Crab asset which is designed but not drawn and ready to scan as the whale is (both these assets are necessary for the completion of several high priority scenes). I am not keen to assign Olly to the task until Natasha is back in Dundee and working full time on animating priority scenes.
Buoy: Animation commences
Going into our first production meeting of our last semester i prepared by noting down the topics i needed to be clear on in terms of progress before effectively setting tasks for animation:
After speaking with Olly i found that he was happy with the current story and was not keen to make any more changes. However i had some suggestions to make about the scene’s we should be focussing on and some scenes we could afford to cut completely, all in the aid of making this project more achievable and less stressful for our limited team.
This was Olly’s 2m 19 animatic as it stood before our meeting:
These were my notes including all the scenes i felt most necessary to complete the film. The notes rimmed in blue are slight scene alterations i suggested in order to tie together the story and allow us to cut entirely separate more high risk scenes. The notes with asterisk are ones i felt were high priority and that we should focus on completing first.
After the cuts i suggested and still using the rough timing Olly laid out for his edit, my cut-down animatic was 1 minute long (with 23 less scenes to animate):
Olly took my advice on board and cut his animatic down to 1m19, however this was done mainly by shortening rather than cutting scenes (7 scenes cut).
Despite disagreements about what was strictly necessary to complete the film and what we could achieve in the time remaining Olly has decided to let me decide the hierarchy and deal out animation tasks despite having his own ideas about what scenes are high priority. For the moment we are running with the scene hierarchy outlined roughly in this new schedule:
buoy production schedule_12.05
Olly made his goals clear at our meeting: film completion by the 27th July giving us 10 weeks of production time; The whole film roughly blocked and all backgrounds (9) complete by June, giving us 3 weeks; 40 seconds of complete, coloured and cleaned animation by June, giving us 3 weeks. Boat texture finalised by June.
I’ve allocated the task of completing 40secs to our 2 primary group members: Olly and Natasha. Working to these deadlines each person should be producing roughly 1 second of complete animation (cleaned and coloured) per DAY. I have set trial deadlines for each person to gage how possible this is.
More revelations from the meeting:
We still need one giant crab to be drawn and scanned to be made into an after effects puppet. At one point the Crabs and Whale assets were going to be 2.5D rigged and animated in Maya, but Olly seems keen to animate both these assets in After effects now. Designs for Crabs exist, drawn by Natasha who was originally working to produce several crabs: with our new cut only one crab is required.
We have a complete Whale asset however Olly wishes to re- design and draw this.
By this point we also planned to have small pieces of 3D animation complete i.e. small fish boats: tests for these are complete by Annita however there are no finalised models due to a delay in a finalised design. The task of modelling from the now complete model sheets, i intend to give to Annita when she is available to commence working on the project again.
There are no character animation tests complete to date however there are mist and bird flight tests completed by Richie, which Olly has confidence in, in theory, but would prefer them to be re- done for the final film.
Assets we were hoping would be complete by this time:
Crab- not complete, but will fall to either Olly or Natasha to draw;
under water plants and other library under water items, i.e. houses- not complete but evidence of progression;
Fish boats- not complete, task will be Annita’s;
Crab pot- no need anymore since changes to story;
Whale- complete, but being re-done.
Olly also let me know about the sound recording him and Fiona McAndrew had been doing the day before. They have an under-water theme and an end credits theme complete with minor edits to make including the possibility of adding either a fiddle or accordion for tense points in the story. I am not concerned about pushing the music to completion at this point, there are more pressing concerns and since not a great deal of sync with the animation is required i am confident it can be easily slotted together close to the end of production.
That’s all for now folks!
BUOY Production Managing Update
I caught up with the team on Monday, everyone’s coming along with their tasks very quickly i’m pleased to say. There’s some balancing required as some members of the group involved more heavily in pre-production are running late producing elements needed for other members to continue along their line of production. However this is a given with the added pressures of Going Live and the Research module first deadline approaching. The members of the team awaiting assets have been given filler tasks for the time being in the form of valuable animation testing.
Slava Lawson: Animation & Visualisation 