By No means the final thing. Put this together in about an hour or so. I'm quite happy the way these came out considering I didn't spend long on them. As concepts these give a slight insight as to what I'm thinking for the hitmans room however it is still slightly too dark for my liking. I know its supposed to be quite dark in this room (according to the script) however I might push the light for now and see where that takes us. If the majority of the group (and the other director) feels that the light is a bad idea... then obviously I'll go with that choice. But we shall see over christmas as we have a number of different jobs to do. Its going to be a fun christmas this one.... working and we are planning to have WHACK'D Wednesdays meaning we will be in on Wednesday Days to compare our work and continue our work as a TEAM. Working together we should get a great film out of this.
Quite happy with this concept of the Suitcase. Only took me an hour as its a quick model. Just thought I'd render out an Occlusion of it. As you can see I have drafted out Sam and my owns contract (Directors) for now and I shall work on the team members ones once christmas has started (and essays are out of the way....2 to GO!) I think the contract I have written is quite accurate and the budget is all correct. The budget as you have probably read now suggests a number of different activities which could happen to raise money. Sam and I have been thinking of all of these whilst we've been directing the project so far. As well as Course rep'ing. So far we've just about managed to keep everything going. It's tough at times however luckily there are two of us so where one of us starts to stumble the other can pick up the pieces.
Had our presentation today and I think it went fairly well. We all took our turns to talk at the start explaining our roles and our position within the group. We even got approached at the end by a couple of sound design students that would like to work on the film at the end of it so something must have gone well. Seems like it was a very good day. Below I've listed the feedback we recieved.
Mike Smith and Dan Dalli actually made a good point today when they mentioned that we could hint towards the idea of a target and give the hitman a REASON to shoot 'at' our target.
They also mentioned the pacing of the animatic needs to be worked on slightly as we are not allowing areas that need to breathe the time that they need to get the message across. All in all I think Sam did a good job finishing off the slides. We all had creative input however Sam and I put the majority of the design layout however the work was a compilation of everybodies.
The feedback we got from it was that mainly the animatic pacing was a bit off and that the hint needed to be in there. We as an audience need to feel exactly what the hitman is feeling (or be lead moreso) and understand why he's trying to take this target out (...or save him) Rather than just a random guy in a suit whos looking a bit rough around the edges. As we went first we had the opportunity to set the standard. I think we as a group did this very well. Mike and Dave said that it was a very professional pitch and Dave even commented that he really wants to see the final product and is quite looking forward to it already. Major thumbs up there but we still have a few creases to work out. Nathan brought up a great idea which we may well be going down the line of. He mentioned how we could use the idea of the target watching tv... and he could be on the tv considering he's supposed to be a sort of sad sack/watched up political figure or someone that knows too much (witness protection). This way it gives an insight to his background and we lead the audience. If these shots are pulled off I believe our story and script would have grown again, unfortunate for us as we have more work, but on the positive side a better story to work with and work on all round. :)
I see myself having hundreds of bits and bobs to do during the modelling phase - Different pieces cropping up for the team and therefore I have put myself as the Main Modeller of the Interior of the Apartment as well as all the objects inside. This will probably lead me on to texturing it also. Stewart will be aiding me on this room however it'll be my focus and His on the Motel room where I'll be lending him a hand every now and again. I'll also be having a go at modelling a car as I think I could do with a challenge (not that this whole project is not a challenge in itself). I just like quite big projects to dig my teeth into.
This term so far has been going ok. Had PPD today which about 7 of us turned up to. I respect Allen and therefore I turn up and I figured it would be rude to miss it. I don't care if anyone else goes, I'm going to try and learn from him as much as I can. Had a debate about getting work experience and he actually introduced me to a young lady called Georgina who may be a useful person to know in the long run. Thanks. Other than that he helped us be more confident and gave us tips on how to present better to each other and to seem more engaging :) Good stuff.
Just Whack'd this together in an hour just trying to get an idea of Sam's drawing and what not. Kinda like this though and am thinking its looking alright. Attempting to get the style correct was not too difficult with an in-animate object such as this one however I feel it may be quite the opposite when it comes to actually modelling and rigging the character. And may well be a whole other kettle of fish when it comes to the texturing. Luckily thats where Spence should be coming in and aiding our team slightly. As he is freelancing we will have to chase him down and get him to do our work for us, giving him enough notice is priority as he is a very busy guy with all his paintings :)
Things are going quite slow at the moment as we've been dropped right in the middle of Presentation after presentation and Essay after essay and ... apparently PPD which no one knew about until I had to chase it up, Anyway, nevermind - its all on moodle now and Mike sent out an e-mail telling people where it was as I don't have access privileges. SO much work to do at the moment its a lot to do to say the least... Not enjoying the essays and what not at the moment. Think I need to get into the right frame of mind. Haven't managed to yet - possibly as we are in the concept stage. I don't know.
2 Min Scene – A story in miniature Expo: Film Noir – post war Newspaper Office. 1A. Fist thumps paper – my turn to play ball (+) 1R. Hand stops globe – not while I pick team (-) TP – Revelation: 2nd Kirk Douglas is revealed 2A. Not going to wait – Has a story in mind (+) 2R. Get back in line – threatens with sack (-) 3A So easy for you – threatens blackmail (+) 3R Editor gets up and grabs reporter (-) TP Revelation 3rd Kirk Douglas revealed Older reporter hands version to him (+) Summed up. (+-)
Big Story: Controlling Idea: Success comes to those who play the system
Had Dave in On this Monday. Was useful to see another short however I fee;, the 'story preaches' are going unheard now and they are slightly unnecessary as we are all about to get into the modelling stage so that the animators can really get cracking on with their part and actually make it look half decent. No point in having a great story if the animation is not up to scratch. I'm pretty sure that our group is feeling slightly left out when it comes to Tutor time as we have been the last group to be seen two weeks running now. Maybe the tutors are confident in our work or maybe not. Either way it seems as though as its the end of the day no one really wants to hang around and speak to the last group. One week (our formative) everyone else got sheets filled out on where abouts they would be in terms of grades and at least 30 mins with Mike Smith, our group got 5-10 mins in TOTAL (spread across the 5 of us), no sheet or anything to relate to a grade or so we can see how we are doing. No look at the blog... Nudda. I hope we are doing ok but I think some of our group might not have enough evidence on the blog to get them a grade they deserve. Need to make sure everyone stays on top of all this. The week just gone we saw Mike and Dave this time but again being the last group we got them at 3:40 giving them as little time as possible to hear the story. Both didn't really say too much in terms of direction. Only thing we got told to do was to push the 'old' style in terms of old tvs and old buildings etc. Suppose that will help. Shall probably do some of that over the weekend. Will have to. Just wishing that we had some more outside opinions to be honest. May call on Dan Dalli yet again as I hear he's helping a number of other groups with their work.
Just an update on the Guns I drew up in illustrator. I find it very easy to use illustrator considering I have never really been taught. Self taught is the way forward clearly, I understand what Jared and Mike were saying now in year 2. If you want to learn it - get out there and JUST LEARN IT. Its a matter of having the devotion to something - you don't need someone to show you. Research it yourrself and learn yourself.
The red car and the blue car had a RACE... Milky Way advert... but hey I figured I'd model a few car concepts in Illustrator to get the ball rolling on that front. I think I like the bottom left one the most. The bottom right looks as if its a taxi. Top left looks too plane. Top Right looks too sad.
Just some sketches if what the Ninja could look like. Quite like the pose possibly for the finale when the gang of them are outside the door. could be on a car or something....meh
Just another style we won't be using. Made this up quite quickly so isn't too bad and wasn't too much of a time waster. I enjoyed making him as he was nice and simple using simple geometry to make up the body. Possibly transferable into objects within the room. Who knows :p
Replay is an animated short. I think its french. Not looking at the animation itself but more the use of depth of field and the camera angles used to tell the story. First shot is out of focus and is someone running across - you have no idea whats going on until you get inside the room where the oxygen levels return to normal. Possibly we could use this kind of example of entering a room and not understanding what it is thats going on until our sniper is finally ready to set up the briefcase - possibly look out the window first?
PLEASE NOTE the rigged hair on the boy to give subtle definition of his movements and the secondary animation!!
ALSO check the tools they used (listed at 8.00 mins exactly...these guys are a french version of us!)
Just so we can rule out this style - it briefly popped into our heads that it would all be set in a sort of retro place ... what if the people were retro as well? this is what I ask you!? well.... there you go, a few retro characters. These have been discarded however to have a more modern style and feel with a HINT of retro eg TV and the look and feel you get from the subtle objects such as cars etc.
I came to a grinding halt and had a block... a mental, physical and just all things creative BLOCK. Really messed me up a bit but hey I think I'm starting to get over it now. I think a day of nothing will help - just solidly working on projects and concentrating on the aim. Attempting different styles of concepts and attempting to make each one look decent. Trying new things and experimenting with our work.
Went to the Games Expo up in London in Friday which was really good. A lot of industry contacts were in one place and I managed to interview a few people to help with the dissertation that I've got to do. The information was very useful in more ways than one. Seeing posters and logo designs for pieces of work really got me thinking which is never a good thing. Anyway I had a good interview with splash damage, Paul Wedgwood, a guy from game republic and ubisoft. :)
