Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Zombie Pirate Tales Complete!


Zombie Pirate Tales is now complete! I managed to do the simple flying debris shot and floating hearts today. I will have a final video about the film in the coming week.

Last Puppet Shot Completed!!!


It's hard to believe, but I just inserted the final puppet shot that I animated today into the editing timeline. I need to set up the last two animated shots of the hearts and boards flying in the air. I may try to set up the final shots today to animate soon since I won't be doing sculptures for any of my clients for at least a few more days. It is both a good feeling and sad at the same time.

Only One Major Shot Left!

I'm in-between jobs for my clients which has given me a little time to work on Zombie Pirate Tales. Another shot was completed so now there is only one 2 1/2 second shot left to do, one wood explosion shot and floating-heart shot. Then I will need to go through each shot and tweak the look and audio.

Since my equipment evolved from a 5MP camera to a 12MP camera and an Animation Toolworks lunch box to Dragonframe - the look of the film has inconsistencies. Some shots seem almost smeared while others are very crisp. That's because the sensors in the cameras I used picked up different levels of pixels and the internal firmware caused the images to appear at slightly different color temperatures.In editing I hope to resolve some of those issues, but there's not really a lot I can do beyond that. The film simply won't be perfect - but I think the experience was well worth it.

For not having a big budget, some shots are on-par with what I hope I attained. The Will Vinton Claymation style that the talented artists like Tony Merrithew, Gary Bialke, Webster Colcord, Chuck Duke, John Ashlee, Mike McKinney and others taught me through teaching and inspiration. Hopefully the film will inspire the next generation of animators who never saw those older films to give clay animation a try.