skip to main |
skip to sidebar
It took 5 hours, but this is the first take of scene 3. I'm actually really happy with it. I think it could be a bit smoother, but honestly I don't know if I want to do it all over again. We'll see in a few days. It's been wonderful having the whole week off. I'm making weeks of progress in only a few days!
So, I burned through more flashlight batteries on my filament bulb flashlight. That's why the tree gets slightly brighter about half way through. I also realised I couldn't have him sit completely upright because I framed the tree directly above him. I refuse to have tangents like that!!!! It all reads well, though. I'm confident that I can cut on the action at the end of him opening the bag and that will transition smoothly into him looking into the tunnel of mail.
.... I hope.
Well, I like this one better. I drilled the hole for his wire mount so that he can shift forwards and backwards, which helped convey struggling a lot better. Well... at all...
I took the whole week off, so I'm going to work on this Monday - Wednesday, 8 hours a day. Then, of course, thanksgiving is Thursday.
I'm not in love with this shot. My second set of batteries burned out on the foreground tree. you can see the tree light back up when the camera stops panning. I think LED flashlights are the way to go from here on out. They last something like 30 hours straight. To be fair to the filament bulb, I am using batteries that we used during Halloween.
Also, right when the camera stops panning, the whole frame shifts. This is because I scratched the paint off the center of the upper lip, transitioning mouths because I didn't bother cutting my damn finger nails. When I got up to paint the face, I slammed my back against the camera crane. After a half hour of trying I got it lined back up as best I could. Lesson: trim your nails before shooting. Also, always be incredibly careful as to where you occupy space.
As always, the running is horribly animated. I have almost no control once the puppet has no legs to support itself. A professional would have the puppet supported with a massive rig that travels straight up and out of the frame. That rig would either be keyed out or photoshoped out or whatever. I THINK that kind of stuff is done in After Effects, but I'm not sure. I'm just trying to do everything in-camera right now.
For the first project I've ever done, it's good enough. I have three okay shots to choose from. I can't spend 10 more months screwing around with one shot. I'd rather just keep moving. I'm not winning any film festival awards for a Rankin Bass parody anyway.
So, yeah. Over a month and I only have one more good take to show for it. I did two more takes in between this one and the last. The first one I hit the camera with my shoulder by accident and never could find the right position again. The second one, the puppet slid way down and I couldn't ever get him to get back up again. I don't love this one. It's passable I guess. It's better than the horrible first take. I'm going to try one more time to give myself another shot at doing it right. It's not just the stiff camera boom and pan. It's not just the awkward, slow animation, it's also that he slids down the whole time and I can't control where he pivots. It's very frustrating. A real professional would have a huge key green rig that holds him up and would just get taken out in post. I don't know how to do that.
