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Trinket and other stop motion projects by Chris
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slothpaladin

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Posted: Feb 22, 2005 - 08:37 PM

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Well I should be able to start animation tomorow, here is a teaser poster.

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-Chris

Check out Trinket
http://www.chris-boyer.com

slothpaladin

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Posted: Feb 24, 2005 - 10:45 PM

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Mmmm, hot glue.

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-Chris

Check out Trinket
http://www.chris-boyer.com

slothpaladin

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Posted: Feb 26, 2005 - 11:02 PM

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Earlier today I animated a shot, it was a very difficult shot involving a puppet stepping up behind a chair and pulling the chair aside and sitting down and pulling the chair under him. It was the most complex shot I ever did, and it turned out like crap. It was awful and could not be included in the film, after giving it some time I reanimated it, when I played the old shot back at half speed it looked a bit less crappy so I decided I would shoot on twos on the retake. While animating it I had a strange sense of peace, I did it a bit different and I really enjoyed it this time around, after watching the finished shot I realized it was the best looking piece of animation I have ever done. So I am very happy tonight.

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-Chris

Check out Trinket
http://www.chris-boyer.com

slothpaladin

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Posted: Feb 06, 2005 - 07:36 PM

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Well I needed to open the door to my bar but I did not want to have just a black yonder outside, so I made this:

Ah the magic of a bit of glue, cardboard and creativity. (and don't worry, the hunter won't be looking like a drunk, I was just setting up the lighting.)

This is what it looked like before the paint job:

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-Chris

Check out Trinket
http://www.chris-boyer.com

slothpaladin

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Posted: Feb 17, 2005 - 10:51 AM

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I have been working away at my movie, and I thought it might be fun to post and entry in this journal about how I do my lighting. Heres a nice little illustration:

First I do whatever 'on set' lighting that needs to be done, in this case I take a yellow lighting gel put it over the hole in the fireplace and shine a desk lamp into the hole to get the nice yellow look. The Next light you see is a defused light I add to the set, it does not cast shadows like the main light but adds body to the final image, this light here is bounced off the far wall of the bar. The next light is the primary light of the scene, and does most of the shadow casting and comes from where people think the scene is lit from, the center of the ceiling (this light is a 250 watt halogen lamp). The last light is to replace the light that is lost rather then diffused and bounced off the wall back onto the puppets, as I removed the wall so the camera would look in I needed a diffused light to make sure the puppets would not get hard shadows that dont look right, (this particular light is my other 250 watt halogen lamp reflected off a white piece of foam board).

There you go the magic of lighting. Sometimes it takes me longer to light a shot then animate it.

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-Chris

Check out Trinket
http://www.chris-boyer.com

slothpaladin

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Posted: Feb 22, 2005 - 12:59 PM

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There are more reasons to reshoot then just bad animated, today I was looking at my finished 'approved' shots and shot #17 has a huge continuity error. A person, who should be in the background it missing, and in his place there is an empty chair. Like no one would notice that... pissing continuity.

Edit: That shot above this post, thats shot #17, you can see the empty chair behind the hunter.

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-Chris

Check out Trinket
http://www.chris-boyer.com

slothpaladin

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Posted: Feb 03, 2005 - 11:57 PM

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Well Im really quite bummed today. In the mail I got a letter that I bounced a check on some light gels I bought. When I purchased them had forgotten that I had just bought Chromanator. I ended up borrowing some money from my parents and dropping it off at the bank right then. This would not have been a problem if I had remembered to turn my pay slip in at work on time, as it is my next paycheck will be next in January. While I dont really need to spend much money the rest of this month I really wanted to upgrade to CompositeLabs HD Pro when it was released which would have been £10 less then the already lowed launch price because I purchased Chromanator after November 1st. So if your feel like you have a lot of extra holiday cheer you could donate me a few dollars (Ill at you in the credits too) and maybe Ill give you back a little animated b-movie holiday cheer.

Sorry if that came off a bit forward, but if you read this blog will you please drop by the Journal Feedback thread and tell me you do? I sometimes wonder if anyone is reading all this rubbish.

By the way I reshot scene 17 and it is one of the best pieces of animation I have done, I also reshot another scene which looks great as well. And if any of you wonder what my sets look like when you pull the camera back heres a nice pic for you.

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-Chris

Check out Trinket
http://www.chris-boyer.com

slothpaladin

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Posted: Feb 09, 2005 - 10:23 PM

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Thanks for those that replied in the feedback thread.

Here is a nice long (6.5 sec) clip of talking, this will be used in the final film and gives you and idea of the overall quality of the picture, enjoy.

1-16avi.zip

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_________________
-Chris

Check out Trinket
http://www.chris-boyer.com

slothpaladin

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Posted: Feb 14, 2005 - 12:50 PM

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Well there seems to be a dilemma, unlike the preview version of EffectsLab DV where I could use custom high def footage I cannot in the 'gold' version. Because I need green screening and want the power of CompositeLabs Pro I was planning on just buying it and limping by on EffectsLab DV until I could afford to upgrade to EffectsLabs Pro or VisionLabs Pro. Because you cannot shoot like smoke in stop motion I needed EffectsLabs to create CG smoke, as I have never heard of a vampire film that did not have fog. Of course my current story cannot be done without green screening and due the lack of stability with Chromanator and high definition footage it means that I may very well have to buy both programs, however after bouncing two checks I dont exactly feel like spending money. That leaves one alternative; I can take a gamble and make a movie for the contest FXhome is holding where I could get a copy of VisionLabs, Effect/Composite Labs Pro, or Effect/Composite Labs DV. Of course for this to be any good to me I would have to place second or first in a contest that doubtless many people are entering in. So the question is, is it worth putting off my vampire project for about a month to win free software, and can I do it?

More on this later...

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-Chris

Check out Trinket
http://www.chris-boyer.com

slothpaladin

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Posted: Feb 29, 2005 - 02:35 PM

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Well just the other day I received a lesson in stage swordplay where I was walked through the basic attacks and parries. Im sure I forgot most of them however my favorite method of learning is to do and then to read how its done. Later I will get a hold of some diagrams explaining what I have done and they will make far more sense having gone through many of them myself.

Hopefully Ill also be able to round up everyone for a holiday voice acting session as all my actors should be done with Christmas plays or back from collage. Ill try to bring a camera to the session so I can upload some nice pictures.

Last post was a plea for help as I was unable to afford Effects and Composite Labs Pro, which I need as my movie is being shot in glories high definition. However things have changed for the better and I now own both of these excellent programs and I may write a review on them later once I have a better understanding of them.

Just a note: I am now keeping a blog at http://beyondthecrypt.blogspot.com that is more or less this animation Journal, most likely these posts will be the same as the blog however the blog is in a more user friendly format for people who are not members of this site that might want to keep up to date on this project.

_________________
-Chris

Check out Trinket
http://www.chris-boyer.com

slothpaladin

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Posted: Feb 11, 2006 - 07:15 PM

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Finally, Ive got some progress that looks cool in a picture. This is a spire for a miniature Im using in the movie.

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-Chris

Check out Trinket
http://www.chris-boyer.com

slothpaladin

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Posted: Feb 05, 2006 - 09:12 PM

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On of the hardest parts of making animated movies is getting everyone else together for voice acting. Its right up in difficulty with lighting, if only everything was as easy and the animation itself, I just dont know how those live action no budget film makers do it. But this Saturday I managed to get all the actors and Ben the sound guy for the whole day and we had a blast finishing off the bulk of the voice acting.

For those of you who are interested Ill tell you a bit about our setup. In my computer I have 1/4 inch input and output on my soundcard, much better then 1/8 inch cords. Now we take a high quality shielded 1/4 inch cord and send it from a sound board into my computer. Two microphones are connected to the board and we just add a touch of a vintage feel to the sound. It really adds a rich quality to the sound. Over the mics we draped a frilly table cloth and a batman mask to filter out the pop and they worked quite well. I did not want the mics to pick up the hum of my computer so the mics were positioned going one direction from the board and the computer going another, we then put a piece of foam board between them for safety. The audio quality we got was outstanding, or at least I though so.

After the previous voice session that we had had last year I was having second thoughts on the actor who was doing the hunters part, however while we were recording a dialogue between his character and the vampire hes voice gained a new gravelly quality that he had never used before and it was just the rugged edge I wanted in the voice. This of course meant redoing all his parts but the sound was wonderful. However when he was acting against Emilys damsel in distress he lost the quality and was having difficulty getting it back, then Ben the sound guy said, Think of miniguns Brian! And it worked, he got his voice right back and I was very pleased with the final outcome.

I also managed to get two hours of the voice acting on video so that may appear as a special feature in the distant future.

VoiceActing.jpg

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_________________
-Chris

Check out Trinket
http://www.chris-boyer.com

slothpaladin

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Posted: Feb 16, 2006 - 07:47 PM

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Sometimes cleanup is a pain, but it has to be done.

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-Chris

Check out Trinket
http://www.chris-boyer.com

slothpaladin

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Posted: Feb 21, 2006 - 01:21 PM

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Well I finished Scene 1 today, well, except a 13 sec flashback that takes place on a different set. Scene 1 is the only scene that uses the bar set so I will be putting it aside and making the set that will be used in scenes 5 and 7 next. Hopefully I'll finish that before this week is out. For those that care I have captured 1,532 frames so far (1min:10sec:20frames). Which I think is a few hundred more frames then my last claymation, Trinket.

_________________
-Chris

Check out Trinket
http://www.chris-boyer.com

slothpaladin

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Posted: Feb 25, 2006 - 10:48 PM

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Watch it

Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in my movies, this video has some cool stuff to my upcoming animation, I've never been very good with written blogs so I'm giving video blogs a try. I'm a bit like a fish out of water with the whole live action thing though so bare with my on that side of things.

_________________
-Chris

Check out Trinket
http://www.chris-boyer.com

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