BSA324, mixed tape drops 2018, 23 October, 2017

Inspired by this: 

I did this: 

I don't know.  Maybe I'll like it better in a few days.  Something's off.

The ones in front look more chibi big head than distorted by a camera lens.  Time to move on to something else!

BSA324, Window display, 20-23 October, 2017

20th
I picked up the Resene paint purchase order from Rosalie.  Resene only had the black and white paint I ordered. The brown they will drop off to me when it arrives via courier this afternoon.  I spent another hour scraping and acetoning the window.  There are still bits that won't come loose but it's time to move on.

21st
I painted the white box black and pulled up the white poster board on the floor. The carpet is red in both boxes.  I will have to come up with something to cover that.  I painted the mortar lines onto both boxes.  Resene says that the brown paint will not arrive until Tuesday, earliest.  I'm glad that we have 24 hour access.  I didn't finish until nearly midnight.  I will add some brown sponging on Tuesday.   


22nd
In the morning I made a string of Jellybean lights!  I cut/auguered holes in the backs of the glow in the dark Jellybeans and put them onto the string of lights.  I've only got nine.  I could live with it, but I don't think that I'll be able to stand it.  I will ask Kevin tomorrow about where he got the glow filament.  I'll print at least one other set.  In the afternoon I went back to painting in the windows. The smaller box is definitely the neglected one.  By the time I get over there, I'm totally sick of whatever I'm doing and the lines are skewy. I darkened up the leftover grout paint and put some texturing onto the bricks.  It's looking like a brick wall but I wish I had that touch of brown in there.  I only worked for 3-4 hours today in the windows and then went home to paint Jellybeans.

23rd
I dragged over shelves, beer crates, suitcases and some objects to decorate with.  If I know what part of the brickwork is exposed, I will put the brown sponging in there.  I'd like to tie the walls in with the browns and creams of the shelving.  The characters will pop!  The big printer is set up with matte paper and I'll print characters on that. Here's what I'd like to print:
     

fake book cover x1  I've already got 3 printed out with Goldie and Girl in different places that I can fake up as other copies of the book if I pile them up. 

Girl on the bean bag, maybe with a big "Coming Soon!" sign over her hands.  

Should I have a Jellybean-bag in the products window and a print of Jellybean with the others in the warehouse window?  What if I recreate the cookies scene?

 

I will flip flop the layout in the window so the shelves are at the left and Jellybean is to the right.  I resized everything with Jellybean being one foam core board (76.5 cm) high. Everybody else is scaled down relative to that.  I printed them out on matte and will foam core them later this week.  

If I make a furry Jellybean-bag for the products window, maybe I can print and foam core up a Girl to sit on the bag.  In an ideal world, I'd be able to find a child-size mannequin to sit up on the bean bag wearing some Girl and the Imagination Warehouse swag.  

For the rest of tonight, I will 3D model that Bluff sign I keep thinking about to use as my show logo.  Maybe I can have that one say "Coming Soon 2018; Girl and the Imagination Warehouse" on the signs.

BSA324, Exhibition 3, 14 September, 2017

I entered my super swanky pitch bible.  I've been working on it so much that it didn't feel like I'd done any new work for the exhibition.  ha!

I entered a grouping of painted 3D printed Jellybeans and some packaging ideas.  This also seems like something I've been working on so much it's not new.  Double ha!

Finally, I entered an updated version of the animatic.  This one I can't remember what I've done to it since the last exhibition.  Really, I wanted to showcase the song Anna van Riel did for me based on the lyrics I sent her.  I still need to do a new sequence that fits this new opening, and I have a plan for that, but for this exhibition and assessment I put in a string of concept art I already have and took out Girl explaining the problem of the day up until the beanbag transforms into Jellybean.  The first segment of the show, Prickles and Jellybean's Sock, has me doing all the voices and whistles with the help of the excellent, if basic, voice changer app I download to my phone when I need it.   I spent two hours recording and 6? hours layering it into the animatic.  If I could get a little ukelele strumming going on underneath the scene and some foley, it would be rough but on the way!  I will get a rough opening into the animatic this weekend and then it's nothing but animating for 8 weeks.  

BSA324, exhibition feedback, 15 September, 2017

I got some good feedback; Vy said she could tell I'd done lots of work, Kevin's dad said he liked the textures, and Anna says she wants one of the Jellybeans.  ha ha!  I told her we needed to do a raffle as I didn't know how many I'd be able to produce and I've already had some requests.  I need to start making merchandise.   Ha ha ha!

To do for exhibition 12- 15 September

BSA306
design and print prototype labels for toys due by 5pm ?Thursday for installation

BSA324
QUICKLY rework opening to animatic to accomodate "Imagination Warehouse" song by Anna
The song is 1:14sec 16 frames long due 4pm Friday for playing at opening and exhibition

scratch track: add Imagination Warehouse song and record voices of Girl and Prickles plus whistling for Jellybean
edit audio for scratch track

put in some subtle camera moves to animatic to make it look more interesting.  I mean, come on.  Try here.

Fix that teensy tear in the corner of the pitch bible.  due by 4pm? Thursday

When were we supposed to install again?  Crap. Thursday by 5 for physical objects, Friday by 5 to turn on the videos.  I'll have to be finished by 1 so I can go shopping for party food with Danielle.

BSA324, pitch bible cover, 23 August, 2017

Our exhibition dates have been changed!  Hooray!  Installation is 14 September.  This should give me plenty of time to get my pitch bible (versions?) back from the printers.  Now that I have more time, I'm wondering if Girl and Goldie should swap places on the front cover.  Egad!  Endless tinkering, endless options.  I have worked out a game plan for a 10-page (including front and back covers, I think) lean machine pitch bible machine version in A4.  It will be interesting to see how they turn out and what the reactions are to the two styles.  Opening night is the 15th and Danielle and I will be doing catering again.  Excellent!   This time I will do as Danielle and Chanel and get something to eat BEFORE the opening.  There's just no time if you're serving drinks.  The exhibition runs until the 29th when the animators have to break the whole thing down from 4-5 so the fashion students can get their stuff up.

BSA324, exhibition 3 plan update, 9 June, 2017

One-on-one with Rachel:

Update:  only do 3-4 minutes of opening of show, and not the whole animatic
The rest of the script can be done when funding has been nailed down and a pilot is going to be produced.
The characters and how they interact with Girl should dictate whether they're 2D or 3D.  Only print the characters that end up in 3D for the toy line and don't worry about printing all of them.

BSA303, BSA324, exhibition 3 plans, 7 June, 2017

What's the next milestone to hit between now and the end of year exhibition?

If I want to end the year with the following things:
a professionally printed pitch bible
3-4 minutes of animated tv show with music, voices, and audio
Jellybean mascot
toy samples with packaging
Kickstarter video with Jellybean mascot

then I should aim to have these things ready when exhibition 3 installs on 7 September
Finished animatic (whole script if possible, but definitely through the 3 sets of arguments)
animation tests in 2D and 3D showing characters doing a scene in a fully rendered 3D warehouse
toy schematics on posters with printed samples
in-process video of patterning and construction of Jellybean mascot
pitch bible prototype 002

SO MUCH TO DO!!!  No more going home early and watching Netflix.  This is also the third time I've loaded up a screenshot of my task list.  Every time I think I'm done I think of two more things to add.  Making decisions THIS WEEK about what's 3D and what's 2D will help with that. I could decide to only 3D model 3 more characters for the toy line (Girl, Teppy, and Prickles for example) and commit to photo-puppeteering the rest of them over a 3D background.

These items from exhibition 3 I can use to apply to the Southern Film Trust (Rachel, Kathryn, James Wilkinson, Matt Innes, Ash Bartlett and others) for advice on how to get funding from local bodies like ILT and Creative Communities Southland and in kind donation of time with computers, software and the rendering farm from SIT.  I can then push on and produce a pilot which I can then push on for funding for a series.

BSA303, BSA324, exhibition 2 is up! 7 June, 2017

I'm sick of boxes and boxes of crackers being left over after exhibitions so I volunteered for catering.  Danielle was keen, as well, and we met a week ago to discuss what should be on the menu.  Rachel got us a purchase order for $85; the original $100 request was deemed by SIT as OUTRAGEOUS- they clearly also fear the overcrackering that occurs as these events.  That turned out to be totally ok as the $85 that I collected from 3rd years and Rachel was more than sufficient for alcohol (4 bottles red, 4 bottles white) and the fizzy drinks and orange juice.

Chanel came in to help us prep the food and we were able to make a good meat, cheese and cracker try with cherry tomatoes, a plate of baguette slices, 3 flavors of potato chips, nacho chips, 4 kinds of candy, carrots and cucumber slices, 2 dips, hummus, and I made guacamole.  The tables were completely full of food and drinks, which always looks good.  And all the crackers got eaten!  And all the baguette slices, which really surprised me.  We had some leftover chips but not so many that it felt like a huge waste of money.  The untouched bottle of white will be donated on to the next exhibition and the unopened bottles of orange juice and sprite will go onto set with the filmies this weekend.

I really enjoyed doing the catering and running the drinks station because hospo can be lots of fun and much easier for me to talk to everybody than just walking around.  I didn't get to eat anything though and that makes me a little sad.  Ha ha!  I will have to follow Danielle and Chanel's lead and sample everything before it goes onto the floor next time.

Rachel thinks we had 40-50 guests at one point.  It was a good mix of 3rd years, students from other years and disciplines, tutors, parents and friends, and former students.

Yay us!    

BSA303, BSA324, Exhibition 2, 1 June, 2017

For Exhibition 2, I decided to put in a prototype pitch bible, a prototype toy, and the first minute animatic of the show. 

I could have gotten farther along in the storyboard if I had stayed with scribbles but I can't stop myself from trying to make it nice and clean.  So I spent 6 or 7 hours dropping nice line drawings that I already had into the appropriate places.  That's why Girl's head keeps changing size and shape.  I traced over the characters when they started piling up to save time and it still looks pretty good.  I will continue to extend the animatic to get a scribbled version of the whole show with timings and a scratch track.  I will also continue to develop the performance and plan when and how facial expressions will change and match the timing up to the song which I still need to record.  If I take another pass at writing the script, it may be worth asking people to record the voices for real...

The animatic will play on loop from Tuesday.  The display feels little and anticlimactic after all the time and effort that went into producing the pitch bible prototype.  I really miss that splash of colour on the wall.  Anna Black has done a poster advertising her show and that looks really nice next to the TV.  For exhibition 3, I will think more about how I'm presenting what I make during the term ahead of time and do some planning.  Exhibition 4 should be an installation that gives the feel of being IN the Imagination Warehouse and exhibition 3 could be one step removed from that...

Shots from Prototype pitch bible.  

I'll get feedback from people on the pitch bible over the next few weeks.  What I can see is missing now: the layout of each page showing consideration for the center binding.  In the above photo, the right hand pictures are good while the left hand pictures have text boxes that run into the fold and can't be read.  The contrast between the white box and the text needs to be greater so the words pop.  I need title and contents pages and to finish collaging or painting the Girl sitting page opposite one of the series summary pages.

There is really good separation between characters and backgrounds in these pages- the figures and illustrations pop really well.

I may have time to print a second prototype before I go away to Auckland on the 24th.  My friend the graphic designer might have some ideas about formatting, as might InDesign.

It's "ok" for now, but the bull dog clips holding the spine together are NOT going to cut it.  The middle of the book scene has Jellybean's face lost in the crease.  And Teppy's is gone, too!

Jellybean 3D prototype toy with decoration.  His spots went on very quickly so little time was spent planning out where the colours would go and it shows.  The last minute decision to put in some purple spots was ill-advised; they're virtually invisible against Jellybean's ALREADY purple body! A nice discovery- with the fur on, the toy balances better and doesn't totally lean back on the tail.  That might be due to more weight in front or the pile is helping hold the body forward.  It's sitting especially well thanks to the blu-tack which is supposed to "deter" children from picking it up and walking off with it.  I hope that hand holds- the crack around one wrist was getting worse as I worked on it.

BSA306, BSA324, 3D figure decorated, 1 June, 2017

3D Jellybean #1 done!
He was very "facety" because I printed him lo poly with no smooth mode, and no amount of sanding was going to fix that. I did some basic painting on his head, belly, hands and feet and then covered his shell with purple fur and spots of colour.  by doing this I learned that if I want to repeat this in future, in addition to the sculpt needing a smooth mode, his head, feet and hand need to be significantly bigger to keep proportion with his bulk after the fur goes on.  It's a good first effort.
This is the fur I'm going to make the costume out of.  Maybe a stretch velvet would have replicated the pile in miniature.

BSA324, pitch bible prototype for exhibition, 30-31 May, 2017

Writing for animation: pitch bible with Rob Hoege and Grant Moran


BSG pitch bible
I was planning to print and foam core character and illustration boards for the exhibition but Rachel reminded me that one of my goals for my third year project was to create a pitch bible to shop around to potential investors and stakeholders.  So I've taken those pieces and added pages that handle where and what the show is, a 6 episode series summary, and a summary of the script that relates to the illustrations, and a few filler pages to make a booklet.  There are pages I can add or pages I can combine to create a better flow for anyone who flips through it.  I'll get feedback and do another practice run before I send it away for printing.  Chris MacDonald has lots of info on printing through Blurb and Rachel's pitch bible for Tale Enders looks great.  These are the pages and their layout:

Now that they've been printed, I can see that the contrast between the black letters and whitish boxes is not strong enough and legibility has been compromised.  I threw in the black line drawings of Girl sitting because I needed another page- there was no time to colour them, let alone collage' them.

BSA324, exhibition materials, 16-18 May, 2017

I can print out character sheets of each of my critters with descriptions, illustrations of scenes from the script, the script, and animatic in progress.

I'd like to illustrate Girl helping to resolve the problems at the end.  Maybe also them all lying on their backs from the show opening. Finishing the storyboard is a high priority as is recording a scratch track to go with it.