Nominations and screenings

Well we must have done something right... LE DELIVERI has been nominated for best animation and will be screening in a couple of weeks. WOO! Go team!

In the meantime I'll be writing another gajillion words on my research paper about Limited Animation. The whole process of trying to cut as many production corners as I could during the making of both my animated films in 2004 (was it THAT long ago?) meant I kind of fell into a research paper relating to it.

Is anyone ever reading this? Please post a comment if you are. If you DON'T you'll get 10 years bad luck in the form of a long string of those annoying chain emails that say if you don't forward them to 88 people in the following 60 seconds a bus will crash through the front of your house and that will cause you to get another long string of emails that will give you bad luck if you don't immediately read my blog... possibly causing the universe to implode. You don't want THAT on your concience, do you?

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I'm pretty sure nobody reads this.

Le Deliveri

15 hours is a LONG time if you're waiting for someone to rescue you in a blizzard. 15 hours is NOT a lot of time when you're trying to make an animated film but we did it, and I think we did a great job, even if I do say so myself.

The quote to be included in the film was 'where does it go from here?' and the object was a pair of shoe laces. Potentially we would have had a film about a karate rat who wears shoe laces as a headband and a belt, or an indiana jones style mouse following the trail of a mysterious shoelace. We ended up with 'Le Deliveri'. A 2:45 minute piece about a courier who is given the task of delivering an enormous pair of shoelaces to a mystery recipient who he has a bit of trouble finding, as the old lady who gives him the task mumbles and the address is written in gibberish.

McFoolin Parkellowsli productions would like to thank... anyone who did any stuff that may have been related in some way to the making of 'Le deliveri'

OK, so...?

This Saturday I'm making a film in 15hours and entering it in a film festival.

Am I a sucker for punishment or am I actually nuts. I think to be a good animator one needs to be both. Being borderline alcoholic probably helps too, at least that what the SImpsons tells us and TV never lies. I know because they said so on TV one time.

At 8am, we, (The various counterparts within McFoolin Animation) get given a mystery object and a quote. Both of which must feature in a film that has to be finished and edited by 11pm. Sounds like a blast. WOO!...

Now WHAT!?

You can watch ELIMINATE DR SANDWICH at http://207.36.233.66/b_files/DrSandwich.mpg courtesy of www.pugamation.com

This site is made by Belinda Bohlken, who helped out with the musical score for the film

In hindsight my very original pitch and script is almost EXACTLY what I ended up with as a final version. Anyone wanting to point out how ironic that is should go to www.getstuffed.org/shutthehellup.

I LIKE my film. After the hamburgers stopped chasing me in my sleep, demanding that I change their dialogue, and I hadn't watched my film for a month or so I sat and watched it again and again and again and I'm really happy to watch it still. I vaguely remember saying to Matt Riley, "Yes Matt, I'm still updating my blog...' but more importantly, that I wished I could erase my memory of ever having made that film so I could look at it with totally unbiased eyes and a fresh point of view.

I'd have a few pointers that I'd write down and email to myself...

• The pacing of the movie DIES almost instantly when DS arrives home and is suprised by his party guests. There is too much dialogue here with not enough action and the whole piece just slows down.

• There's only so many hours you can work in a row, for so many days, before you realise you've aged about 10 years overnight and you look like a garbageman

• If the script had been written more simply right from the beginning, more detail could have been applied to the polished linework I imagined it having when I first thought of the idea.

• You've erased your memory, it's in that file on your hard drive labelled PLEASE DONT TRASH

Then when I had my memory back, I'd make a few notes like

• I think the visual style I designed, although not as polished as I'd have liked, worked well.

• Giant Robots are cool.

• 6 minutes of hand drawn, full colour animation including lipsynched dialogue, soundtrack and hundreds of foley effects is REALLY REALLY HARD. I'm proud of my film and I'm looking forward to the next one. I've learned as much about what NOT to do when making an animated film as I have about what you SHOULD do.

Next time I'll be more logical in my approach to what I can achieve in the time I'm given. I won't be foolish and try to make a movie in less than 20 hours and then enter it in a film festival. That would just be CRAZY!

I was right...

I quote myself from August 16, 2004... "Someday I'll look back on this project and think one of 2 things… 1) WOW, that was a job well done… or 2) WOW that job would have been much easier to get done well if I didn't always insist on making my stories so damn complicated.

I was almost totally right. How FREAKIN annoying!!!! That was MEANT to be funny. You know... like if I'd said, wouldn't it be FUNNY if I made a 6 minute cartoon that was so damn complicated that I'd need to write 23 versions of the script, make 19 detailed and different animatics in order to nearly go blind by drawing almost 7500 drawings, then scanning about 3200 of them, then colouring them all in (individually), so I could composite them in a bunch of software I don't really know how to use. Course, that would only take me literally 20 - 22 hours a day for several months, so I thought "HEY!... Let's make this interesting, I'll write 6 minutes of dialogue (trimmed down from 9 mins), requiring voice talent to audition and be available for several recording sessions each!"

No problem!... while I'm at it, I'll drink about 2 litres of coffee every day, spend all my waking hours wondering why I can't sleep and then have nightmares about talking hamburgers. If I follow this plan EXACTLY, I should get this done easily. I might even go to fiji for a week, just for laughs...

In the end I was torn between calling the film. "ELIMINATE DR SANDWICH" or "How I became a strange jittery hermit like guy and all I have to show for it is this lousy cartoon..." The first one was easier to say in one breath, so I stuck with it.

I awoke the morning after the screening on the sound booth floor, in only my australia flag boxer shorts, still very drunk. Several hours later, when I was sure no-one had any photos of me in my severely alcohol induced slumber, I started talking out loud to myself. I WAS trying to talk to other people, but as I wasn't making any sense, nobody was really listening. The world seemed very strange that day. The last inklings of 18 weeks of blood, sweat, tears and coffee faded quietly into my head. I took a breath and thought... "Ah crap, I don't think I've written in my blog since August'

Animatics and voice overs

It's annoying when someone points out an aspect of your work that you really like as being a problem with the story. My usual reaction is…

WHAT!… I'm not changing THAT! I LIKE that bit. It's not my FAVOURITE bit, but I LIKE IT and I'm keeping it there because this is MY film and I don't have to change it if I don't want to. YEAH, this is MY movie and nobody is going to make me change my mind about it. YEAH. SO WHAT if it doesn't make sense and reveals gaping holes in the plot. I MEANT it to be that way. I DELIBERATELY wanted that bit to confuse the audience and that's why I wrote it like that. It was INTENTIONAL and… uh… you know it IS pretty confusing. Maybe I could just rework it a little bit, not CHANGE it, just rework it. If I change that and then that other bit then that will probably make more sense and look better and improve the overall story. Of course I ALWAYS intended to change that part right from the beginning. I just wanted to keep it in there to see if anyone noticed, I'm glad I noticed it there before it stuffed up my film.

I go through that process about 10 times a week. I usually spans a few hours.

OK. So I have been working on the animatic. I watched an animatic of the pilot episode of FUTURAMA and it made me realise how much help doing a good detailed job of it can be. I am becoming MILDLY concerned that my movie has broken the 6 minute barrier, and is still climbing.

I had a few days of auditions and then a few days of actual recording of voice overs. Having done the 8th draft of my animatic means I will need to RE record some bits and change some other bits, (see above) but it's better to get all these things ironed out now rather than further down the line.

The complexities of the island

Dr Sandwich in his helicopter.


Someday I'll look back on this project and think one of 2 things… 1) WOW, that was a job well done… or 2) WOW that job would have been much easier to get done well if I didn't always insist on making my stories so damn complicated.

I can't help it. I LIKE to watch a movie and be confused so that I can't see what's coming up. My favourite cartoons are seemingly needlessly silly. It hurts one's brain to think seriously about tieing a 5 minute animation together, incorporating a ninja, a 15 billion year old super intelligent evil sandwich, a time machine, a UFO, a suprise party and a military conspiracy. It almost takes 5 minutes just to say that sentence.

I've completed the initial animatic, then 2 more versions, including the rough dialogue. I'm looking at somewhere between 5 and 6 minutes. I have several people auditioning for the spoken roles tomorrow and I'm still tightening the script. I'm getting there, at least I think I am.

Back on the island

I haven't changed my mind and I'm happy with the way the Island of Dr Sandwich is going now. There is much more potential for quick visual gags and more silliness. I think cartoons SHOULD be silly. At least THIS one will be.

I avoided the use of dialogue as much as possible in the Living Bread, which is another reason why I think the Island is working better. I've surrendered the urge to avoid dialogue and I'm actually glad. It adds another dimension to the silliness that I like.

Logic holes and weak links

Holes in the logic in the 'Night of the living bread' are making me want to revert back to the island of Dr Sandwich. The reason I changed the idea in the first place was because the NOTLB seemed a lot simpler than TIODS. The more I got into it the more it seemed I was straying away from the type of cartoon I wanted to make, which is supposed to be much more light hearted and sillier.

Give me a few days and hopefully I won't change my mind again.