Wham Bam

THANKYOU MA'AM

My stuff is currently transferring to Jack's hard drive (20GB worth, mind you) and then I just have to export it as a MPEG2, which will take a few minutes, and burn a couple of copies, and then that's it!

10 months work all done and dusted.

You kids enjoy.

Jarrod

Stressed

Im getting rid of the flag plant sequence. I hate it. To compensate I might do a nice shot of Herbert in the rocket crying after he lands, with the Earth reflected. Maybe even fade in the flag over the top. But no flag plant. Nope. Nope.

So close, and yet so far... Actually, not too far. Pretty close, really. Don't know why I brought it up...

So this thing is due in a matter of days.  In 92 hours.  That's less than 100.  Damn, I should have stayed in accounting.

I've finished every single shot of the thing, except the dreaded Flag Plant shot, which is still in the early stages.  Otherwise everything's finished the animating stage.  I have to record a couple of noises.  I have to re-do the newspaper spin in, but Daz-Dawg knows how to do that so I'll get his help tomorrow.  Then I need to put in the helmet, which could be a pain.

The sounds all finished bar the ones I wrote before.

Then it's just a matter of editing it, which won't take crazy long.

And then, as of Monday, I'll sleep for 3 months.  I hibernate like a bear.

A week left...

Watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uoL5EAAV18  (Please note:  You don't have to watch this. It's just an irrelevant clip of the COMMUNITY characters singing a song about how happy they are)

That's how I'll feel when this assignment is all over!  Next Friday, in one week, this assignment is due and I shall, as the cast of Community said, finally be fine.

I've done my credits, they're wham-bam-thankyou-maam finished.  They're visible down the page.

I've done most of the after effects shots, with the help of Darren.  He's been great!  Not that all the teachers havn't been.

I'm having real trouble with the walking then flag plant shot.  I've tried it 3 times, and all 3 times I hate it.  Not "that'll do" hate it, "if that goes in I'm gonna hate it forever" hate it.  So I'm gonna talk to Jack and think of a different shot for the flag plant.

Otherwise I've just gotta do the head expand shot, the explosion and the knee-drop.  Then it's all animated!

Enjoy my credits.

Production Journal Review 2

At the moment, with 2 and a half weeks left to finish Moon Cheese, I'm feeling confident.  I've finished a fair few shots, with only a few more to go.

I made a few decisions in the last couple of weeks regarding difficult things to animate.  I decided to scrap the 3 dots on Herberts nose, as I felt they wouldn't look right frame to frame.  Like they would change position and size.  So I got rid of it, and it's been much easier.  I also decided to go the "Mickey Mouse" route, and keep both Herbert's ears visible even when turned sideways.  It looks pretty good.  I'll have some screen caps up here shortly.

Everyone in the class have been really positive and helpful with any ideas and tips.  Sean is a lovely man for getting me Toon Boom, and Josie has been good to talk to about the program because she's using it as well.  Bruno's just positive towards everything, so that boosts my confidence.  Nils is barely here, but he's good, Tai gives his nod of approval, which makes the world a better place, and Alex always has a look when it's all done.

Teachers are helpful too.  Kirrily always has good advice and is up for a chat about it all.  Darren's the Toon Boom expert and is helping me with Particle Illusion.  Jack is just tops, and always wats to help and wants to know what's going on.  I've missed a few of his classes, but I'll be there tomorrow!

I'm confident I'll get this done, and I've got family and friends on my ass to help me get it done.  If I can't focus at home, my best friend has offered her house, so that she can sit there and yell at me every time I try to stop and procrastinate!  Now that's friendship!

Production Report - Week 11

Hey hey kids.

I enjoy accounting.  It's ever so much fun to play with abacus'.

Well Toon Boom works, and I've already done the White House scene.  A frame of it is up on the blog.
I've done the animation and coloring for the crying shot, but I'm yet to put the background behind it.
I'm currently doing the sound, and I have to in the next few days, hopefully by the end of the week, book myself into the recording booth and do a few recordings, mainly "MOON MADE  OF CHEESE" etc.

I'm thinking of changing it a little.  There's a great distant space explosion sound which would work well.  So I'm thinking of a shot after his head expands, with the moon reasonably far away, and a small explosion seen, then cutting back to Herbert falling on his knees then front with no head.  But I don't know.  I probably should.

I'm doing the rough animation for the walking then planting the flag scene.  I should just put in my pencil test and go by that, but I tried to do it by memory and it looked SHIT!  The rest of the animation is fairly simple, small movements etc.  So I'm getting the hard stuff done first!  After this sequence comes the head expand.  I've got some Simpsons episodes to watch which have their heads expand, so I can look at them.

Speaking of Simpsons, I had a bit of a bitch fit at the end of semester 1 when Huni said my design was too much like Itchy.  Playing around in Toon Boom, I colored him blue for a sec, and sure enough, it looked like Itchy.  To which I smiled and said "God dammit, Huni"

Wish me luuuuuuuck!

3 Seconds - Done and Done

It's important to celebrate the little things.  So I am celebrating the completion of 3 seconds worth of the animation finished.  Here's a frame of it:

It's weird to be happy over 3 seconds.  And it may not look like much.  But let me tell you from experience.  Just because something only lasts 3 seconds, doesn't mean it isn't spectacular!

127 Hours

The next few weeks are going to resemble a bad parody of 127 Hours.  Instead of my arm being stuck in rocks, it'll be stuck holding a WACOM pen, and I'll have hallucinations of rain coming to save me.

Darren managed to help me with the exporting and alpha channels etc.  I have promised to give him a job as the head animator on the TV show I will have one day.  Except I get to just credit him as "Daz-Dawg"
In Moon Cheese he has agreed to let me credit him as Darren "Daz-Dawg" Bell.  I will have to ask Jack if I can credit him as Jack "Jack Attack" Parry.

Tonight I begin the rough animation.  Let's do this, mofo.

What I'm Thinking...

I'm thinking of getting rid of Herbert's 3 dots on his nose.  I'm just having nightmares of being up at 4am with them not looking right, jumping around the place...

I'll have a test and see.

HALLELUJAH!

In the words of the incomperable Professor Farnsworth - Good News Everyone!

Sean has managed to get a totally legal copy of Toon Boom Animate Pro.  That's like the full on version, the creme de le creme, the program they use for like Simpsons and Family Guy and stuff.

The only thing now is the exporting.  It works, but we're a little confused with the quality and bringing the thing into After Effects, and editing the compasition settings with the frame rate etc.

Hopefully Darren can help us tomorrow!

Turns out that PENCIL thing wouldn't have worked anyway.

But I'm much happier, much more confident than I was 48 hours ago!

FGH JK

I have a pointy forehead.  I just smooshed the keyboard with my forehead, and it was in a perfect line.  FGHJK.  I think my nose hit the spacebar.

ANYWAY.

First day of accounting school today.  It's so fun.  We're learning about the history of the 5c coin!  Did you know that in 1926 a man by the name of Frank Doyle consumed 10 pounds worth of 5c coins?  He died.

...

Anyway.  I'm actually still in animation.  Daz-Dawg thinks we may be able to sort it out in PENCIL, so we're gonna have a play on Thursday.  BUT if that doesn't work, Toon Boom is on sale through their website, so if we havn't sorted it out on Thursday, I might just buy it.  That way I know I have it, and I won't have this problem next year.

I bought a new laptop last night, sp I really can't afford this.  But ah well, you gotta spend money to lose money...  That's not the right saying.

This Is Starting To Get Ridiculous

Remember a week ago I said I could see this all actually happening?  Yeah, that's starting to fade off now, and the feeling of "OH FOR F***S SAKE" is starting to creep in.  After we thought we'd fixed the problem yesterday, Josie messages me today with an extension of that problem (see her blog for details).

Toon Boom sucks.  And I really don't want to animate in Flash.  But it's starting to look like I'm going to have to.  Darren hasn't e-mailed me back, and Josie's literally just messaged me telling me she's asked Sean if he has anymore ideas.

Panic's starting to set in, all I wanna do is start the proper animation, and yet shit has begun to hit the fan.  Bloody "ghost in the machine".  I think it's Steve Jobs, punishing us all for using PCs...

Too soon?

I Hope You Like Sausages

Coz we've hit a snag!

I wrote that joke.  Just then.  I'm funny...

SO Josie calls me this morning.  I didn't answer because I was busy.  Then she messages me to tell me that Toon Boom hates us.  Apparently the version we THOUGHT was the full one is not it at all, and therefore when we export there is a watermark of the word DIGITAL on it.  I checked it out, and sure enough, there's the word DIGITAL in BIG RED LETTERS!  Therefore, snag.  Josie, get me an application for accountant school!

I've messaged Darren to see if he has any ideas, and I'm about to Facebook Mundy-Man to see if he has any ideas as well.

Wish us luck!  Otherwise we're fuc---  No, unnecessary!

One More Thing

Okay, doesn't look they they've worked.  Because Blogger hates me.

Oh, by the way, Mum was watching Beauty and the Geek the other day, and a geek had the Blogger logo on his t-shirt...  LAME!  Now, where did I put that Big Bird shirt...

This post is to apologize for my lack of posting and contact for the last week.  I was crook as a dog, which Kirrily can attest to, because she saw me Friday and I was SICK!

So I'm sorry, I'll do my best to keep up the contact and blogginess!

And sorry to Josie if you were offended by my "E-mail Jack" thing.  I love you...  Reow.

Jarrod.

Once Again, Jarrod Fairclough Tries To Present...

MY PENCIL TESTS!

Hopefully this is going to work.  If it doesn't I will stab someone.  I'm looking at you, Nils.

Right, some error came up, so I have no idea if these have worked.  For the 4th time I will try to publish this post.  And hey, let's see what happens, shall we?

Otherwise I'll e-mail Jack...

That was a dig at Josie, I just read her blog and most of it was "E-mail Jack".  I giggled, but that's because I'm a bad person!

Right Now...

Hello kids.

At the moment, I'm doing better than I thought I was going to do.  There's some light at the end of the tunnel, and I feel like I might actually get this thing done!  I'm preparing for some sleepless nights. I'll stock up on Red Bull and No Doze.

I've done the pencil tests for the hardest parts of the animation, and we've all agreed they look pretty good.  I learnt not to put too much detail into it, as I really only need the basic shapes to get the thing looking good in a test.  PENCIL is the greatest program in the world.  If you don't have it, get it!

I've got the rights to use "Mr Moon", and I'm in the process of possibly getting an instrumental version of it for use over the title cards at the start.  As for ambient music over the actual animation, I'm yet to find something I really like.  I'm considering not having actual music, more ambient tones and some sound effects instead.

When we come back for term 4, I'm going to book the recording booth to record a few dialogue lines. Such as "Moon Made of Cheese" etc, and a countdown to put over the start when the rocket is about to launch.

Still playing around with Particle Illusion, I need Daz-Dawg to show me some stuff in it.

Over the holidays I'll properly start actual animation in Toon Boom...

This is happening, people.  Get ready!  And good luck you 6.

Cheers!

Jarrod.

P.S - I'm about to retry putting some videos of my pencil tests up.

30's Style Nandos

I've decided to do a title card at the start of the animation.  The first one makes it seem like Herbert is a classic character thats evolved his look since the 1930's.  When in fact he didn't exist until February this year.

I love the fact he's grayscale, and all rubber hose like.  He looks like a real 1930's character.

This is the title card, in the same vain as the old Looney Tunes cartoons.  The rocket will fly in.

I need to find some happy orchestra music to play over these two pictures.

I'm looking forward to getting this done!

Question for Jack:  Is it Perry or Parry or Pearry or Paerry or Frank?

Hello friends, collegues, FOX Executives, Universal Studios and Barry.

I've done loads of animation tests in the program 'Pencil', which is one of the best programs I've used in a long time.  It's simple to use, and it works well.  I'll have to put on the videos later on, they don't want to work here.  That's annoying.

BUT

I have a song to use!  The song is called "Mr Moon" by Kate Micucci.  Here's a link:

http://youtu.be/rccxm8OaNeI

Listen to that.  And then watch this:

http://youtu.be/rZXANhfSn9A

That's Kate singing the part of song that I'm going to use, on the TV show SCRUBS.  It's her song, so I don't have to talk to ABC or anyone like that to use it.  And she's been very generous and is letting me use it for free!

I'll get the animation tests on here soon, definitely before Friday, because I'm off to Sydney for a couple of days then, meaning I'll miss a day of production.

Dance your cares away, down at Fraggle Rock!

Question for Jack:  You're a bus driver.  You have 4 passengers.  At the first stop, 2 get off and 6 get on.  At the next stop, 3 get off and 2 get on.  At the third stop, 1 person gets off and 3 get on.  What is the bus drivers name?

You Spin Me Right Round Baby, Right Round, Like A Newspaper, Right Round Round Round...

This is just a quick shot of what my newspaper spin in will look like.  The pink will be taken out, and a shot of Herbert and President Janney will be there.  There's a lot of little references in the paper.  For example, there's jokes about fellow classmates Sean Mundy and Bounnong Sayamongsa being lovers, Rebecca Black's song "Friday, and my favourite gag of the entire animation (which you'll barely see) "Garfield 3: I Hate Mundys" - starring Sean Mundy.  FYI, the papers date is the day man landed on the moon.  The newspapers edition number is a reference to episode 4192 of Sesame Street, because that was the episode they were filming the day I visited the set.  The reporters name is J. Schreuder, named after my mate Josh, who came up with the name for "The Anim-Nation Sun", and the photographers name is E. Richardson, named after my best friend Emma.  I liked putting these little jokes and references in.  I'll try do more next year.  Oh, and also the President's name is "President Janney" named after actress Alyson Janney, which is a longrunning joke between my brother and I...  Phew, that's a lot of references...  Anyway...

QUESTION FOR JACK:  Can I borrow 20 bucks?  And by borrow, I mean have?  And by 20, I mean 50?

"I'm Alyson Janney, and I approve of this reference"

Title Shot, Before and After

This is the original title shot.  I was so pleased with myself when I'd finished this.

Then Jack helped me realize it could be better.  Now when I look at the original one, I want to spit up, like a small child, because it's awful, and flat, and blegh!

I still need to shade it, and put in "MOON CHEESE" etc but its basically done.

500(ish) Words On The Class:

WHAT PROBLEMS I’M HAVING:

At the moment, I’m having trouble getting the animation timing correct.  I’m worried its either going to look too fast or too slow.  I have to remember to sort it out before I actually start trying some animation.  I’m also having problems making the animation look smooth.  I’ve tried the head expansion twice and both times I’m not happy with how it looks.  Darren’s agreed to help me with it next week, so hopefully my confidence in that area will improve!  It’s not so much a problem, but I have to find some type of decent music to use at the end of the animation now that my request to use “Fly Me to the Moon” has been denied.  I’ll try to get that done in the next couple of weeks.


BACKING UP, BACKING UP, BACKING UP, BACKING UP, COZ' MY DADDY TAUGHT ME GOOD:
It's not uncommon for students to lose their work from their hard drives, so to combat this, I have 5 different places with saved versions of my animation work.  I have 2 external hard drives (Slagathor and Tom Sellek), saved on 2 home computers, and then, just in case, saved on a friends computer.

WHERE I WOULD LIKE TO BE:

I’d like to have done my backgrounds by now, but I’m yet to complete them.  They’re 80% done, and they’re all looking good, it’s just the moon ones that I need to finish up.  They’re all laid out, so it shouldn’t take me too long to have them all ready to go.  I’d also have liked to do more animation tests and actual animation completed, but I haven’t, due to timing issues etc.  I’ll get talking to Jack and Darren about them ASAP, and hopefully have them well on their way within the week.

WHAT’S SLOWING ME DOWN:

Animation is way harder than I was expecting!  I guess I wasn’t expecting the daunting task of getting all this done in such a short time!  There’s a lot to do, and it’s just a case of organizing it and getting it done.  Plus, my niece really cute and she wants cuddles, so I have to make time for her!

WHAT I’M UP TO NOW:

Basically I’m going to get my backgrounds finished ASAP, because then I can fully concentrate on getting the actual animation over with.  I’m also on the lookout for different music and sound effects.  Over the next few weeks I’ll get onto sound effect sites and see what I can drum up.  I need some type of ambient music to play over the actual animation.  I’m going to record the starting dialogue and other launch pad noises, e.g. “Houston”, countdown etc.  I’ll do that next term when we get back, in the lovely recording booth, I’ll act like a real voice actor.

PROBLEMS WITH CLASSMATES:

I don’t have many.  Any I do have will not be broadcast on here, and can be discussed in private.  For the most part though, I get along very well with them all, I’m keen on their opinions and ideas, and I appreciate the fact that everyone’s so willing to help each other!

Update - 23rd August

Hello.  Hows things?  You're looking well.  That's a lovely sweater.  Where did you buy it?  Oh, I sure hope they have some in my size!

In my last update I said I was doing backgrounds.  I've sinced finished the newspaper.  It looks pretty good, and if you freeze frame it theres a couple of little jokes and references throughout the articles.
I'm still re-doing the title shot, but thats pretty much well on its way.  I'm not tooooo fussed on getting them all finished asap, but I want them done fairly quickly.

I'm currently working on animation tests.  I'm a little worried the animation won't look smooth.  But Daz-Dawg is helping me out with that!  He's a nice lad.  Sagittarius, I think.

I got an e-mail back regarding using "Fly Me To The Moon" over my credits.  It was denied.  They've yet to tell me why, but I'll ask again if I havn't heard back in a few days.  I may use it anyway for educational purposes (thank you loop holes) and if I submit it, say in Jack's festival next year, I'll find some different stuff.

I'll get some concept art and such up here soon.

Have a wonderful day!

Question for Jack:  Wanna play 'Personal Space Invaders'?

Update!

Hello! How are you?? Anyway, I've got a fair amount of my backgrounds mapped out, and a few finished! I'm currently working on the newspaper, then I'm going to redo the title shot.

Attempting to get the rights to use "Fly Me To The Moon" to play over my credits. The company have responded, and asked a few questions about the film. We'll see what happens!

I'll post some pictures soon!

Question for Jack: If I was to jump off a cliff, would you jump too?

Slight Script Change

I'll post it in the script section of the blog, but I've slightly changed the script.  It now has some dialogue (voice over) and a bit of aggression to it.
Enjoy.

QUESTION FOR JACK:  If a chick and a duck had a baby, would it be a dick?

Concept Art

This is some concept art for the moon surface, the mouse rocket and the Earth in the background.  Click for full size.

QUESTION FOR JACK:  If a tree falls in a forest, and no-ones around to hear it, is Charlie Sheen still a douchebag?

Update

Just updating my blog.
Had a bit of a kerfuffel with a teacher today about the story.  Apparently, to put it bluntly, she thinks its shit.  Was a bit patronizing, but thats alright.  I'm not changing it.
So thats that.

QUESTION FOR JACK: How much wood would a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?

Synopsis

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE MOON IS MADE OF CHEESE!  Gasp, shock, horror and all that.
The President is spending millions of taxpayer money to send an astronaut to the Moon.  When he arrives, he gets himself some cheese from the moon surface.  But he can't eat it with a space helmet on.
He quickly learns his last life lesson when he removes the helmet, expanding and then exploding his head.

Created by Academy Award watcher Jarrod Fairclough...

QUESTION FOR JACK:  Where do babies come from?

A Cheesy Film

This year I shall be making a a film entitled "Say Cheese", in which a rat's head will explode.  How?  No air expanding his head.  It's a complicated thing, a lot of theory.  You'll see it as we go.

QUESTION FOR JACK: Why are you stalking me?  I saw you looking through my loungeroom window last night.