New and improved

It's new!  It's improved!  It's 3D!!

It's my all new handy-dandy little-giant new and improved 3D Animatic!  (Yes, I said new twice, it's that new.)  Well it isn't done yet, but I am working on it now.  The original animatic is a great starting point for me, but I need to have a starting point for 3D, plus I've been getting a lot of good feedback from people, so I have ideas on what I can do to improve the story and flow.

But what is an animatic you ask?  In short, it's a rough idea of what the film will look like... but not actually look like.  More like an idea of the flow, timing, camera direction, staging, and so forth, as opposed to the look and style.  Still don't get it?  It's really just behind-the-scenes stuff, so don't worry about it.  Just know that this is a vital step, and the sooner I finish it the better.

My goal is to complete the all new animatic by Tuesday, but only with blocked in shapes.  That means it will only have a few basic shapes and colors, and most of it will not look anything like what it is supposed to look like.  It is just enough to get an idea, so I can get started with modeling the actual 3D assets.

Speaking of which, I have to make a whole new list of assets as well, but that will be for the next stage.  I need to make sure I have all the props, sets, background elements, characters, and even effects accounted for so I know where to go next.  I will also work on style frames so I will actually know what it has to look like.  But that is another goal for another week.  This is all really early production work right now, converting the original concept into 3D and making adjustments as needed.  Important, but not that impressive looking.  Yet.

Well I have a lot of work to do in order to get this ready.  Back to the grind...

Cha- Cha- Cha- Changes

While I have had my first rough animatic for a while, getting people to look at it and give me feedback without hearing the story first has really given me interesting result.  Some people understood my original intent, but most only got part of it or interpreted something completely different.

So on order to remedy this, I have ears advice and suggestions from a number of people, and I have worked with my friend Michelle to come up with a solution.  I am not sure I will be revising my 2D animatic to show this, but I may have to.  Either way, there are big changes to te timing and flow, and minor story changes as well.

Professor Maloney suggested I take the opposite approach and have the ray of light light up the city because the lighthouse broke and a ship was heading to town.  While I like that idea a lot, it is a different story.  Another friend say the light as the firs evening star, lighting up the town but getting frustrated at the human element getting in the way.

I've decided to take a different approach, where the light will first run into a cabin in the woods where it will see a candle in a cabin and try to light it up, but can't get trough the window and then gets visibly frustrated when someone else lights it.  I will then adjust the timing and acting of the scenes to really pick up the beat/flow until it gets hectic and culminates in getting zapped by the bug zapper.  I then will show the ray flickering on and off, almost out of juice as he finds a broken and well-worn lighthouse.  As he flies in to the lamp, he fizzles out to nothingness, and the I really plan to hold it like this for a long time, several seconds, before the lighthouse abruptly turns on.

So that will require more drawings, more timing, and a new animatic.  I'd love to do the new animatic in 3D, but I haven't decided if I will yet.  For now I have to fill out a production schedule and work on figuring out my milestones.  Then I can worry about the little details.

Blog Arrangement

This blog is arranged in a simple manner.  Following the buttons above, you can reach the regular blog posts at any time by pressing on the Home tab.  You can then look at the current state of the (completed) Pre-Production work, which consists of work from my Concept Development class, by selecting the Pre-Production tab.  Next to that, the Production tab will give you the current state of the production as done in the Senior I  and Senior II classes.  Finally, the Post-Production work from the final post-production class is next to that, and will be updated after production has finished.

If you would like to see my other blog, which will consist of all the projects I am currently working on, selected the Pixel of the Day Blog tab.

Thank you for your interest and support!

Welcome

Welcome all to the official blog for the short student film "Last Light".  This short animation is the senior project of SCAD student David Hixon.  The blog will chronicle the development of the 2013/2014 film, and show the various stages of the production.

Last Light is a film about the last ray of sunlight trying to find a place to stay for the night, where it can be of use to someone.  This film will be fully 3D, using a variety of software packages, including Autodesk Maya, SideFX Houdini, Foundry Nuke, Adobe CC suite, and more.

You can check out the pages linked to at the top of the blog to look at examples of the film's pre-production, production, and post-production stages when they are available.  You can also access my main blog, Pixel of the Day, from there as well.

Thank you for your interest, and remember to check back often for more updates!