I made this short 3D film a couple of years ago and subsequently decided that animation was not the best path for me to follow as I lacked, and would most likely continue to lack, the technical skill to accomplish anything truly worthwhile. But whenever I see a piece of really good animation I sometimes wonder if I made the right decision and am tempted to try again. Please watch it and if you have the time savagely dissect it. Be very cruel, that way I will not be tempted to waste anymore time on a fruitless endeavor.
thanks
http://www.gregelmensdorp.com/animations/twilight.php
Twilight is Falling, a liquid nocturne
Twilight is Falling, a liquid nocturne
Gelm I rekon it would get too complicated with the two programs, but if you keep writting on here I check back every so often. I'm just about to start a new job so cant really start anything complicated now.
I may be able to figure out light wave or maybe some time in the future Maya will come your way, like you said I rekon we could work together quite well, lets just keep it in mind until things are a little easier.
cooker cheers, glad you like it. You can buy it in Bristol uk, its been fairly well received people ask me for Subhuman#2, trouble is it takes so long to finish a comic and does not make me any money :(
websiteEzromation blog/doodlesDeranged Scratchings
Cooker, you have given me some very good advice, do you happen to have any specific tips for submitting to festivals?
Thanks for leading me to the Noah Lukeman book, I'm definitely going to order it as soon as I get a chance.
Has having a book published helped you get more notice while marketing your novel?
ezromation, I'll keep an eye on this forum then, and I'll see what I can do about getting and learning Maya. Good luck on the new job.
Thanks, and good luck with your book
websiteEzromation blog/doodlesDeranged Scratchings
First off, your film has some very cinematic elements and it needs to be seen on a large screen. Aim to submit to festivals.
Editing an art film is difficult, because it's not just about story but about evoking a mood and keeping the viewer guessing. If I had a direct link where I could download the .mov file, I'd be tempted to play around with it in Final Cut Pro. One of the best ways to create quality is to test all the edits/versions with a select audience, looking for the best combo and desired effect.
It's interesting, the Noah Lukeman book might answer some of your editing questions, in a roundabout, metaphorical way. He writes about some common mistakes and how readers perceive things--all from the standpoint of how an agent evaluates your query letter and the first couple pages. His viewpoint is priceless; he's a good writer, and I'm pretty sure he's the only agent who has written about what a literary agent does, how they operate, how they are conditioned to judge things very quickly, and how you can work to counter that, etc.
I liked the Lukeman book a lot, so much that I purchased his ebook, How to write a query letter (oddly, which I could only find at http://www.writersstore.com/ )
--and voila, he convinced me why I should do it his way, how to revise specific elements in a work, how to research the agents you submit to, and so on.
Now, I don't like sounding like a commercial, but I've published a technical book, and now I've got a novel that I've started to send out to agents. Nothing is easy. Getting something published is an uphill battle, so, an author needs everything he can use to understand, communicate to, and connect with the publishing world.
Ezro,
I like your comics and your character design. You have some nice use of perspective and proportion. You said it's just 40 pages, did you finish it up enough to sell it in stores or at least pitch it to somebody?
Sometimes, money can be a great incentive to staying with a project--or, of course, a cashed check and a looming deadline can be a great slavery.
I liked some sections, its very atmospheric, and I like how you used the light. The whole film has a very creepy feel to it which is an achievement in it self.
That is a whole lot of work, how long did it take you?
On the criticism side I would say that it is important to aim to complete shorter films. When you complete a film you can look back on what you have learned, and also short exercises like walk cycles are very useful for polishing your animation skills. I liked the film it had some great settings and reminded me of the end sequence of 2001 however the animation lacked weight in places, and the pace was very slow, for this I suggest you work on some walks and some lifting weight animations maybe. Also when you have a shot where there isnt a lot of movement try to keep the character alive, maybe try doing a breath animation see how alive you can make a character while he is standing still, with weight shifting subtle eye movements, animating a deep sigh etc
I tried to do a 15 minute film by myself and it can become very daunting, recently I have done a series of walk cycles and this was helpful to me because they are quick to do, you can straight away see what you need to work on, and they are also useful for your showreel.
websiteEzromation blog/doodlesDeranged Scratchings
ezromation, thanks very much for watching and taking the time to tell me what you thought. Your observations and advice are right on the mark. I was trying for something like the end of 2001, sort of stream of consciousness, like a Terry Gilliam Monty Python animation, but (regrettably) without the humor. I was learning as I went and I just kept adding scenes one after the other, which is why it so slow and has such a weak narrative drive. I am a poor character animator so I cheated a lot, having the camera move and give static scenes some life to them.
I know exactly what you mean about it being daunting to create a 15 minute film by yourself, I think if I had planned from the beginning on it being that long I would have given up long before it was finished, but since I was just making it up as I went along it was fairly easy to keep going. Though a lot of the things that are wrong with it stem from the very fact that I didn’t have a script or a storyboard.
I’m not sure how long it took to complete as it was done over three different time periods that were spaced out across three years. If I combined them all together it would probably amount to about three or four months of working eight hour days.
I was checking out your website, especially the walk cycles. The monkey with wings is very good. How long did it take you to get the movement that smooth?
Those walk animations all took about half a day, but I have been concentrating on trying to get my speed up, and also working in games you end up doing a lot of walk cycles, so I have lots of experience.
Ive been working on a 2 minute film put together from bits and pieces, sounds similar to the way you did that film. I still have the render to sort out, but that has taken me around a year. I have been interupted with the odd bit of illustration and teaching work, but I just find film making so slow.
I am just about to start a regular 9-5 job so I dont know how I'm going to finish it.
What program did you use for your film, I use Maya 4
websiteEzromation blog/doodlesDeranged Scratchings
I started it in Lightwave 5, did most of the work in Lightwave 6, and finished and rendered it in Lightwave 7.
How long would you say it took you to get to the level of character animation that you are at now?
What is your film about?
I've got three years professional experience in game, and then I have about two years of messing about between projects. I tend to learn in different ways when I'm working by myself.
It's harder to learn new skills when your working on game animation because you dont normally have time to experiment. It can get very repetative but also you get a lot of practice at animations, which would be seen as line test exercises when I was at college.
What are you up to now in terms of a job?
websiteEzromation blog/doodlesDeranged Scratchings
I haven't had any animation jobs since about 2002. Since then I've been concentrating on finishing my first novel and submitting it to publishers. So far I've received two rejections. If it doesn't sell I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I have tried to keep my 3D skills from getting too rusty by occasionally working on some projects that are related to my novel. I have one of them up on my website. It's still a work in progress. A virtual tour of one of the settings in my novel. I'm trying to get it as close to photorealistic as I can. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
http://www.gregelmensdorp.com/fw/panoramas.php
http://www.gregelmensdorp.com/fw/livecams.php
The pseudo livecam does update hourly but you can see all 14 pictures by pasting in the link below and changing LC160.jpg to LC170.jpg and so on until the last picture LC290.jpg
http://www.gregelmensdorp.com/fw/lc01/LC160.jpg
http://www.gregelmensdorp.com/fw/lc01/LC290.jpg
Good luck with that, I tried doing an inde comic last year.
http://ezromation.bizhat.com/Subhuman1.html It got some good coments from other people on the scene, but I got worried, because I didnt see me making any money out of it. (Comics is different from writting obviously)
I did it because I wanted to get a story together faster than animation allows you to. You can put down anything you want and you dont have to worry about "how the hell am I going to build/animate that"
Animations weird because you can pretty much do anything you can think of, my problem is, I have usually thought of something else I want to do, a quater of the way into my current project.
websiteEzromation blog/doodlesDeranged Scratchings
GElm,
I think you should continue in animation, and novel writing as well. Your long film shows that you have the patience to succeed in both.
Your film could be truly great, with some proper editing. While watching it, I felt that you included too many segments which didn't help the story and seemed to be more appropriate for a demo reel (e.g. gratuitous pans, zooms, fly bys, etc). Although the twilight theme demands darkness, many scenes of the film were a little too obscure, e.g. the apple picking scene could have used a little punch up color on the apple, in After Effects if needed. Low light levels in 3D often appear problematic, at worst it can flatten things too much and make things look 2D.
I think this film has a real opportunity in the art film short; if you remove the dialogue, and shorten it to just the essential narrative scenes, I don't see why it can't be playing around the world.
Lastly, for your novel, get this book: The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman. He's a literary agent in New York and his wisdom will help you find an agent and shepherd your novel to publication. It's not easy, but given your drive, you can make it whatever you want to do.
ezromation, I checked out your comic. The character designs are very cool, especially the polar bear. Was it going to be a monthly series or a limited series?
I know what you mean about wanting to get a story together faster than animation allows. I can write a short story in a few days that would take me a year to animate and at the end of that year I probably wouldn't be happy with the final result.
L_Finston, I made the kaleidoscope-like opening almost by accident while messing around with a plugin in Adobe Premiere. I thought it was perfect for the beginning because it sets the mood for the whole film: continuously warping, visually interesting, obscure, impressionistic.
I agree with you that character animators tend to get more attention, but I do think there is a reason for that, because without a good character animator it is very hard to tell a concrete story. My lack of skill in that area severely limited my ability to tell a story with even the barest minimum of a plot. I tried to hide this weakness by making it as surreal and dream-like as I was able to.
Thanks for your comments.
Cooker, editing is one area where I need to be more ruthless. As slow as my film is now at 16 minutes, imagine it at 22, because I did cut about 6 minutes. In your opinion, what scenes do you think should be cut?
I was never able to convince myself that it was good enough to enter into any film festivals. Your words of encouragement are very kind.
I was checking out the book you mentioned on Amazon. How much info does it have on the actual submission process, cover letters, etc?
thanks glad you like the character design theres only one comic at the moment, its 40 pages long and took ages to do so, I would like to do another one but it depends how my day job goes.
If you could switch over to Maya I would be interested in working with you, I am interseted in doing a cross over between macabre and cartoony, cute but in a disturbing way.
I know asking any one to swap programs is asking a lot (Im a bit lost on lightwave) so tell me Im a nut and I wont be affended
websiteEzromation blog/doodlesDeranged Scratchings
ezromation, your character design and animation skills would mesh real well with the things I am good at. We could probably create something pretty cool. But I've only used Maya a couple of times. It's probably not feasible but do you think it would be possible to use both programs, perhaps importing the work from one to the other, or you doing the characters in Maya while I create the settings in Lightwave and then compositing them after they're rendered (though that could get very complicated)? It would look good on my resume if I learned to use Maya, but I'm not sure if I have the time to learn it, besides the fact that I don't have the program and can't afford to buy it.