BA Film Blog

Director Statement

2008-06-12T23:43:00.000-07:00

Production of Aztec Escape: The Forbidden Cake is now complete and burnt to dvd. As Director of this film project it was my role to oversee and direct all areas of the film (both creative and technical aspects). Its been a hard but enjoyable three terms of solid work and organisation. Taking on the role of director was challenging at times, always knowing that you make all the final decisions for the group and on the film creatively can on the one hand be a benefit but on the other you always know that if anything goes wrong , you'll be the person it lands on. I have seen myself change for the better because of this pressure and character building experiences. I have been more than happy throughout the year to take plenty of time out to review work and to give positive feeback.

When i first began as director i seemed to make decisions very openly to the group, allowing too much discussion and i tried too hard to make compromises when making key creative descisions on character design and story. As the terms have progressed i have realised that to be a successfully director you need to know what u want, and must be able to communicate these wants/needs to the team clearly. I have always taken a very professional approach to the role, I learned that it is hard to balance productivity and quality within the BA course time frame. I always strive for perfection in my work and in the film which can become a weakness as I want to spend too much time on one part of the production process, I have learned that when on tight deadlines quality must be lowered so that productivity is increased and the film is finished. Having direct creative control on a project is a great experience, that you must stay focussed and positive no matter what problems you may come accross throughtout the production process. I have learnt that a good story needs to be told well, through use of cinemtography, developing edits and creating clear and strong camera work. Let the camera work tell the story rather than relying on great animation and rendering. My overall thoughts on the finished film are very positive, im so happy with the outcome and the way we all worked effeiciently, professionally and effectively throughout this year. There is still alot i would want to change if i had the time, scenes i would replace and parts of the script i would re-write, but you just have to learn to walk away and start a fresh project, learning from the mistakes made in previous projects. Im most proud of the edit and energy created when watching the film, its not slow or boring in any place, the audience is taken on a short journey, that is what film making is all about. I look forward to directing many more films to come!

The future of Aztec Escape? Well since completing this one i feel as though the overal concept has a lot of potential for future film projects, the next film would be slightly longer and dialogue would be essential. In a week or two i will start to write another original film script using Aztec Escape as its foundations. I would like to give a special thank you to Alistair Primrose whos talents and professional score really makes our film stand out and memerable. As well as to Kev and Gareth, whose cinematography advice changed our edit and helped us to produce the film we're all so very proud of. Thank you to my whole team for your ideas, deadication, laughs and for putting up with my perfectionism, its made it an amazing experience working with you, all the best of luck!

Jonathan Pryce (Director)

Sound, Film Score and Rendering News

2008-06-11T14:23:00.000-07:00

Following the successfull meeting with Alistair on Monday and a brief meeting with Becky our sound designer today, the music and effects are slightly behind and so to give them enough time the deadline has been set for late wednesday/early thursday morning. This will give Myself and Rob enough time to create a credit sequence, finish dropping all of the finished rendered files into the final edit and output the film to Quicktime at a pixel aspect ratio of 16:9 so that our film can be played on widescreen televisions. Alistair took on borad all of our productive comments and we worked for a couple of hours on the score with him, detailing correct timings, emotions/feelings, desired atmospheres, etc. Alistair put a huge amount of his own creative input into developing the score for the final final edit. When i suggested possible changes he started writing brand new original music on the spot to fill the gap in the score! Im really happy with the progress of the final score and cant wait to mix it with the sound effects and hear it all together. Becky has also asked for a day extension on the sound effects, plus i asked her to remove some sound effects as they could possibly clash with the film score.

The latest news on rendering is that we have completely finished every section of the film! Im so happy that its actually all done! Though recently we're encountered a few minor problems where textures havent been successfully applied in a few render sequences, therefore resulting in having to re-render some camera shots. Due to the strict schedule that we created, rob and myself built in time for such problems, so we're not actually losing any time.

Lastest Film Score and Sound News

2008-06-08T22:56:00.000-07:00

Following sending the new precisely timed animatic to the composer and discussing score ideas over the phone and meetings in London, Alistair sent me the newest version of the Aztec Escape film score. Myself and Rob immdedialety placed the score over our latest film edit to notes any changes that might be needed. The overal score was great, but there were large areas where the music just didnt fit the animation, the feelings that we want to create and share with the audience weren't being emphasied. The actual written music is very impressive, it just needs to be moved around and areas cut. The only way of being able to discuss emotions, timing ideas and problems would be to arrange a meeting as quick as possible as the music deadline is in two days. The meeting is now set for tomorow morning at 11:00am at Alistair's house in Brixton. I have also recieved confirmation that our sound deisgner Becky is well on her way to completing the sound effects for Tuesday night.

Lighting in the House and Hallway

2008-06-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

After completing the animation for the last scene of the film, i decided to move onto finalising the lighting in the hallway and kitchen scenes. Giles had already lit these scenes, but due to file problems the lighting had to be developed and replaced. The main idea behind the way i lit the set was that i wanted to create a strong and obviuos contrast between the exciting, colourful dream world and the dull, dark and lifeless real world. I kept the lighting very simple, and just chose to place the lights cleverly in the set. Overall i used x1 spot light in the hallway coming from the direction of the landing window (i find that its best to work out the main light source of the set i.e. the moonlight, so that the lighting seems more believable), x1 ambient light for the entire hallway and ketchen set, x1 ambient to subtley highlight the characters face when viewing the cake close up (this ambient was only linked to the characters polygon mesh through the relationship editor), this meant that the facial features could be lit while not affecting the rest of the lighting in the set, x1 high intensity spot light over the cooker/cake/oven hood source (highlighting main audience focus), and x1 spot light with a subtle intensity to create the illusion that the oven hood light slightly lit the opposite kitchen wall. The rest of the set has been left dark as there are no other sources of light effecting the scene, plus helps to highlight desired props. The render images below show some of the finalised renders of the hallway and kitchen shots:

My Finalised Hallway Lighting
(Focal Length 35, Widescreen 16:9, resolution 1204 x 576, Maya Software Rendering).

My Finalised Main Kitchen Lighting
(Focal Length 35, Widescreen 16:9, resolution 1204 x 576, Maya Software Rendering).

My Finalised Kitchen Close-up Lighting
(Focal Length 35, Widescreen 16:9, resolution 1204 x 576, Maya Software Rendering).

My Finalised Oven Area Lighting

(Focal Length 35, Widescreen 16:9, resolution 1204 x 576, Maya Software Rendering).

Small Pieces of Animation

2008-06-08T08:42:00.000-07:00

The next area to start rendering after the temple cameras have rendered on Giles computer, will be the hallway and kitchen sets. The lighting still needs to be deveolped and finalised but the last shot of animation needs completing - the sleep walking character passing out and falling back after he blew up his kitchen. So far the animation that i have completed is the ornate stone slab, large stone door animation and posing and animating the characters and cameras for the edits/3D animatics. The sleep walking guy colapsing only needed to last 300 frames, the idea is that he falls over very stiff and ridgid after igniting the cooker flames in the gas filled room. I added secondary animation to his figures and nose while the character blinks several times looking shocked. This seems to add life and emotion to the chararcter. The kitchen cupboard and cake animation was completed by Jenny after i animated the character. Im not overly impressed with my animation, its was made more difficult as part of the character rig wasnt responsing (left wrist weighting problem) and no one in the group had the time to sort it out. The rig worked well on Giles computer, but somewhere along transfering it from pc to pc the file maybe faulty. This must be sorted for the degree show so that animation can be a lot smoother. This is the last scene of the film and must reflect the high level of quality produced throughout. The avi playblast of my animation, together with Jenny's is shown below:

Playblast of My Character Animation

The other small parts of animation i have completed for the final film are shown below:

Playblast of My Stone Skull Slab Trigger

Playblast of My Falling Stone Door Animation

Extra Temple Set Dressing

2008-06-07T09:23:00.000-07:00

Just woke after only having 3 1/2 hours sleep and decided to finish dressing the enterance corridoor, rock chamber and add small bits to the main chamber so that the entire sets are ready for importing the animation and final rendering later on today. Alot of the heavey amounts of temple plant and shrub dressing was undertaken by myself a couple of weeks ago. The plants used were the same ones from both the jungle sets to keep vegetaion and general style continuity. Example render pictures shown below:

Rock Chamber Enterance Dressing

Enterance Corridoor Dressing

Rock chamber Exit Doorway Dressing

Temple Interior Lighting

2008-06-07T05:18:00.000-07:00

The whole temple interior is now complete! And we managed to complete it within the time given in the schedule (10hrs sleep over four nights). For the past two days Rob, Dan and Myself have been constanlty developing the lighting, we first started with the main chamber early thursday morning. My initial idea was to use flame lit torches as the temples main source of light, but due to time constraints and lack of technical knowledge in creating the desired effects, it was easier to use the time of day change featured in the canopy establishing shot (day to moon lit night). With this idea in mind i wanted to make the temple very dark and shadowy, creating a mysterious and dangerous atmosphere. This type of lighting would contrast the lighting from both jungle sets effectively. To decide on a main source of light we used the illusion of moonlight passing through holes in the temple ceiling, this created a similar highlighting effect used in the jungle. The ambient lighting needed to reflect the time of day outside the temple, so we decided to use similar colour swatches i.e. blues, purples, silvery greys. Even with the ambient light and directional (moon) light the temple still lacked the dramatic feel of the jungle. I decided to use spot lights to focus the audiences main atentions to areas like the altar set, rock platforms and entraences. One lighting method adopted from the jungle was the environmental fog, this created a much more mysterious and misty atmosphere, camera compositions gained depth and took the attention away from the bottomless dark pits around. The fog almost takes the harsh polygon edges away from distance areas of the set, the saturation is distance set up so that audience focuses more on the action happening in front of them, rather than into large areas of dead space and vast chamber structures of the background (provides a balance). The total number of lights used in the main chamber was x1 ambient, x1 EnviroFog, x5 Spot Lights (two of them stronger in intensity to highlight enterance and altar set, one of them to highlight the explorers face at the altar set and the other to highlight walkways and actiona areas), x1 directional light to create purple/silvery gray moon lit pockets of light. With the spot lights we used a higher Penumbra angle to soften the drop off/harshness of the lights, but doesnt effect the overall intensity. These same lights were then duplicated and imported into the rock chamber and trap corridoor, the spot lights tweaked to highlight rope swing, broken walkway and entrances.

The following renders show some of the lighting tests that we created whilest lighting the temple interior:

Lighting Test Render - Single spot light at 0.4 intensity, trying to produce a very dark and gloomy set, dramatic highlights, etc (Maya Software Rendering).

Lighting Test Render - Three main spot lights, all at 0.8 intensity, very high penumbra angle and slight drop off, highlights main focus points within the set, lighting still not balanced, needs ambient lighting (Maya Software Rendering).

Lighting Test Render - Addition of EnviroFog and a strong ambient light intensity, colours used in lights are blue, purple, silvery greys. Saturation distance must be increased and fog height needs to be lowered. Very dramatic so i like it, but completely takes the focus away from the altar set area (Maya Software Rendering).

Lighting Test Render - First person camera shot lighting test from trap corridoor. Really like the darkness of the corridoor, the way it contrasts the main chamber set, keeps the focus on the chamber (end goal for our character). The main problem is that you proberly wont be able to see the explorer character running and jumping around the traps (Maya Software Rendering).

Lighting Test Render - We started to adopt the same directional lighting idea ultilised in the jungle, this time using the moon light as the main source of light. Lighting must always be justified with a main source(s) to ensure it makes sense (linking correctly to the day to night canopy shot earlier). A stronger ambient, less fog and the use of the original spot lights from the previous tests were used. Very happy with the lighting development, perhaps the ambient needs to be increased so that the rest of the set is slightly seen more. This render is close to being the lighting i would like to go for.

The final render shots of the main chamber and the rock chamber worked really well, they provided the adventerous atmosphere that i have been striving to achieve throughout the film project. The textures looked even better when lit, some textured walls were lost to large shadows, but the dark effect over ruled the need to see every texture i created. The only problem we encountered when lighting the temple sets was the ability to keep areas of the set quite dark whilest keeping the set light enough to see the explorer character. But as we had to stick to a tight deadline we all agreed to lighten up the temple sets and spend time after the hand-in using post production effects to dark areas like the rock chamber and trap corridoor sets in order to achieve a more dramatic effect.

My favourite lighting in the temple interior has to be the enterance corridoor start section, this lighting idea has survived through from the first 2D animatic we created at Christmas, the idea of a dark, merky corridoor, overgrown with plants and tree roots, and a strong source of light producing a dark outline of the explorers body on the floor. The way the shadow moves up the corridoor to rest over the skull carved into a stone slab. Below show some of the lighting tests for the temple interior, including a few final renders:

Finalised Establishing Camera Lighting for Main Chamber

Finalised Lighting for Enterance Corridoor

Finalised Establishing Camera Lighting for Enterance Doorway to Temple

Finalised Tracking Camera Lighting for Rock Chamber

Finalised Dutch Angle Running Walkway Camera Lighting for Main Chamber

Finalised Lighting for Main Chamber Jump

Finalised Establishing Camera Lighting for Main Chamber Altar Set and Steps

Temple Texturing

2008-06-05T05:23:00.000-07:00

The past three days have probably been the hardest, but most productive of the the entire film project, Myself and Rob have kept this weeks schedule incredibly tight and what myself and the group has accomplished over the three days has been amazing! Well done! It started late Sunday night when rob and i were disccussing final sets to complete, and even though the lounge, jungle and house areas were complete, the biggest area of our film still had only been modelled and dressed, but not textured! We deligated the work by splitting all the areas of the temple interior between Rob, Jenny, Dan and Myself. I took all eight of the main chamber walls, the chamber ceiling, all five rock chamber walls, rock chamber ceiling, the ornate stone slab and falling stone door from the enterance corridoor set. I had seventeen textures to complete within a couple of days. We all stayed up untill 5/6am each day to keep on schedule, my laptop corrupted photoshop and needed to be restored on the first day, luckily giles went a away for a few days so that the majority of my texturing was completed using his desktop. We all finished our textures about 3am this morning and Dan, Rob and Myself decided to start the main chamber lighting. As stated by our schedule, all the lighting for the temple needs to be completed by friday afternoon ready for rendering at the weekend.

Im really pleased with the result of my finished textures, i was slightly unconfident as i havnt textured in a while, but once i designed the first enterance the rest followed naturally. My photoshop skills are rapidly improving as the textures i created below didnt use any internet stock photography. All the effects were created using overlays, filters, effects and hand drawings (Aztec Blocks and Stones). I have found that by creating my own textures that i have more creative control over noise, shadows, texture patterns, etc, therefore producing more realistic and believable textures. As we had four peolpe textuing it was important that we kept communicating colour changes, effects, patterns, etc as it was crucial that the colour schemes all matched and successfully contrasted each other. (Wall and floor colours/patterns not to clash) e.g. Rob used my base colour swatches for the walls to adapt the floor and statue textures. Once we had collaborated and textured the temple it was clear to see that colour schemes matched and the varying texture styles created a more natural temple feel. The true extent of the textuing success will be tested as we start to develop the lighting in the main chamber. The lights from the main chamber will be duplicated and adapted to create consistant lighting effects in all areas of the temple (similar to lighting method in Jungle Sets 1 and 2). Below show a small taster of my texture maps from both chambers and the enterance corridoor:

Final Altar Wall Texture - Fully created and painted in Adobe Photoshop. The small stones were individually drawn, overlayed and strokes added to the inside and center areas of the shapes, this created the embossed effect. The stone aztec blocks were designed by myself and painted from sctrach.

Final Falling Stone Door Texture - Fully created and painted in Adobe Photoshop. This is one of my favourite textures, im really pleased with the final result as it looks very realistic. The moss was created by painting a basic colour and ive then experimented with fx layers and filters.

Final Rock Chamber 1 Texture - Fully created and painted in Adobe Photoshop.

Final Ornate Stone Skull Texture - Fully created and painted in Adobe Photoshop. This model was the hardest to texture as i had to paint in a lot of the shadow and carved stone detail. Again the texture was created from scratch and as i didnt have much of a design or any colour swatches to work from, i used my initiative and produced the design and colour scheme from images i visualised in my head, im incredibly happy with the final outcome.

Final Rock Chamber 2 Texture - Fully created and painted in Adobe Photoshop.

Final Rock Chamber Ceiling Texture - Fully created and painted in Adobe Photoshop.

Final Altar Right Corner Texture - Full created and painted in Adobe Photoshop.

All Animation Completed - Edit Now Final

2008-05-30T23:33:00.000-07:00

Today Dan the Animation Lead fanalised the enterance corridoor sequence, Yemi and Ben also met the animation deadline with ease as we had all the animation sequences by 11:30am this morning. With finishing the final edit in mind, Rob, and Myself sat down together and worked solidly so that the final edit was completely finished and timing concrete. After reviewing the animation, particular camera angles for the jungle, corridoor and rock chamber scenes had to be adjusted so that we got the best out of the really great animation that was recieved. Im very happy with the end result for the trap corridoor animation, Ben also took the anititive by animating a forward roll, first person camera and possible camera positions for his animations, one important idea he had was to establish the stone doors closing before the explorer was to try to dodge the traps, this creates a great level of tension and excitement. These shot compositions were then reviewed and tweaked by myself and rob to ensure that camera conventions and edit timings were kept, these cameras have replaced the boring tracking camera that used to follow the explorer into the corridoor.

Another change was Dan's forward tracking camera, instead of viewing the explorers run through the jungle face on, ive moved and composed the shot slightly diagonal from the character, allowing us to see all of the animation and frame the explorer and jungle nicer (framing the path the explorer is travelling from, gives the tracking camera more distance and depth). The shot is still a 3/4 body composition, keeping the audience closer to the character (more personal/connects us with the explorer).

I also adapted the animated tracking back camera framing the explorer running through the rock chamber, geting closer and more personal to the character, it seems to really bring the action closer to the audience, the idea is to feel and experience what the character is going through. Now that the edit, including fades, additive dissolves, cut timings is complete, the premeir file will now be rendered and given to Becky (Sound Designer) and Alistair (Score Composer) so that they can accuratley develop the music and sound effects further, ready for the music deadline on Friday 6th June. The conclusion of the final edit has helped me to view the film as a whole with no gaps or unfinished areas, its given me the chance to really nail down the final look and feel for the film, assessing cut speeds and cinematography. It had to be finalised today so that the process of importing animation into their relavent scenes and render/frame planning would mean a much smoother final couple of weeks. Dan's input on the edit its really appriciated, his fresh eyes on the edit allowed him to spot areas myself and rob had potentially over looked.

The animatic/film edit has been a large focus for myself and rob, by continually revising plot structure, cameras, cuts, key adience focus points, atmospheres, energy, composition. For the past three days we have been up untill 5am thoroughly combing over the edit and cinemtography of the film, changing large areas to ensure that the audience fully understand the story, allowing the camera to tell the story rather than just placing random cameras. To ensure camera cuts and shot composition create/enhance the excitement and adventure in the story. Myself and Rob, as well as great input from Dan (Animation Lead), have just finished finalising the story structure and camera work. We asked for some professional input from cinematographer Gareth Munden and camera man Kevin Williamson who visited us last week and spent some time reveiwing our previous edit and giving productive advice and feedback (possible camera angles, camera conventions to follow, etc). With these notes in mind we have largely increased the number of cuts within scenes to emphaise the pace and action in the film, more cameras added, the addition of close ups and more frontal shots of the explorer so that the audience feel closer to main chararcter, experience the dangers from his view. We also spent alot of time working on the camera cuts, how the character would move in and out of shot, making the movemnet comfortable and less confusing. As the animation is being completed we are continually dropping it into the edit, moving away from blockout to final animation and lit sequences. Below is the final edit completely finished and timed out:

AZTEC ESCAPE FINAL FILM EDIT

Panning Shot/Canopy Establishing Shot Finalised

2008-05-29T23:47:00.000-07:00

Finally finished the Jungle Environment! And its completely ready to render! The rendering schedule that Rob and I disscussed says that we have to be renderng the jungle by tomorrow night, so a day early isnt so bad! This section was hard to nail down, my methods for creating the panning shot and establishing shot worked really well, but they still needed finishing off. So Myself, Rob and Jenny sat down this evening and decided to get it done and out of the way. The tracking camera and bushes were already created by me last week, Jenny had finished her background painting and set up more of the alpha channeled planes to create the canopy, the only thing needed was to light the canopy and tweak areas in the painting using photoshop. We worked on Rob's computer and disscussed possible colours for the day to night transition part, added trees and extra mountains to the background painting (to create depth), dulled down the foggy areas and placed it into the edit. I thought the day to night transition could be done in photoshop, but Rob worked out how to key the colour changes in Premier Pro. The final colours used for the night shot were referenced from my colour tests/montages created in pre-production. The render pics below detail the final rendered panning shot and the day to night canopy establishing shot that we just finalised:

Render Shot from Panning Camera - Lighting finalised by Rob and Myself, Explorer runs into the distance as camera pans upwards through dense canopy.

(Focal Length 30, Widescreen 16:9, Resolution 1024 x 576)

Render Shot from Panning Camera - Lighting finalised by Rob and Myself, shot of leaf detail as camera starts to move out of the canopy, camera pans upwards and stop to establish temple.

(Focal Length 30, Widescreen 16:9, Resolution 1024 x 576)

Render Shot from Establishing Camera - Daytime Lighting finalised by Rob, Jenny and Myself

(Focal Length 28, Widescreen 16:9, Resolution 1024 x 576)

Render Shot from Establishing Camera - Nightime Lighting finalised by Rob, Jenny and Myself

(Focal Length 28, Widescreen 16:9, Resolution 1024 x 576)

Finalised Lighting In Jungle Set - 2

2008-05-29T19:24:00.000-07:00

Myself and rob finally finished the lighting for the main jungle path run animation, the only bit left to do is to finalise the lighting for the Jungle canopy establishing shot. Apart from that the seven camera shots including the two tracking cameras showing the front of the explorer running are ready to be rendered. And the final lighting result is amazing! im so pleased with the way we completed the lighting, it tooks some very late nights but the result has been well worth the effort. My idea using the ceiling plane and directional light really creates a dramatic look and feel in the set, together with the leaf shallows on the floor, a stylistic but in a way, realistic effect is created. The bump maps on the tree bark highlighted by the directional light above, the dark foggy shadows really help contrast the pockets of light.

The same lights that myself and rob created when lighting jungle set 1 were imported into the jungle set 2 file. Two spot lights, ambient with EnviroFog connection, and 1 directional light, we tweaked the spot lights, highlighted specific areas and modelled loads of extra holes into the new ceiling plane. The ambient really helped lighting the explorers facial features when the lighting got too dark in places, infact for the tracking run we parented the ambient and fog node to the tracking camera, so that the lighing on his front and the fog saturation distance from camera stayed consistant we travel thoughout the set. A large amount of time was spent positioning the light pockets so that the explorer would run between them creating splashes of sunlight accross his face as he runs. Below show some of my favourite lighting compositions that Myself and Rob worked on for the second Jungle Set:

Final render of Static Camera 3 - Lit, Composed and Framed By Myself and Rob
(Focal Length 28, Widescreen 16:9, Frame Resolution 1024 x 576)

Final render of Static Camera 4 - Lit, Composed and Framed By Myself and Rob
(Focal Length 28, Widescreen 16:9, Frame Resolution 1024 x 576)

Final render of Tracking Camera 1 - Lit, Composed and Framed By Myself and Rob. When we were test rendering the tracking shots, we found that the explorers face would be visible and then move into complete darkness, to balance out the effects of this dramatic lighting we created a low intensity ambient light, changed its relationship with the set off and only affect the character. This created a sublte highlight on his face. And another trick we devised was parenting the main ambient and EnviroFog node to the tracking camera. This meant that as we moved throught the set, the fog saturation distance remained a constant distance from the camera nad character. Therefore removing the problem of the explorer travelling into denser fog.

(Focal Length 30, Widescreen 16:9, Frame Resolution 1024 x 576)

Final render of Static Camera 1 - Lit, Composed and Framed By Myself and Rob
(Focal Length 28, Widescreen 16:9, Frame Resolution 1024 x 576)

Final render of Tracking Camera 2 - Lit, Composed and Framed By Myself and Rob
(Focal Length 30, Widescreen 16:9, Frame Resolution 1024 x 576)

Final render of Static Camera 6 - Lit, Composed and Framed By Myself and Rob. We decided to add the fallen tree to match Dan's run cycle and small jump over some bushes, the environment was slightly too plain and needed something extra, proberly one of my personal favourites.

(Focal Length 30, Widescreen 16:9, Frame Resolution 1024 x 576)

My Canopy Shot and Panning Camera Idea Tests

2008-05-26T21:17:00.000-07:00

All the cameras and jungle sets are nearly complete and ready for lighting. For the past two days Myself and Jenny have been working on the last camera (nicknamed the 'the panning shot') and the final part of the jungle set, the canopy establishing shot. These were the hardest shots in the film so far, it was only hard because you need to think of a way of producing a canopy that looks great and vast, but build it in a way that minimises ploygon counts for rendering and general file size. After some planning I came up with two methods that successfully worked.

The first method was to create the illusion of the camera tracking through a long, dense, leafy canopy. For this I asked Jenny to send me a file with all of her flower and bush leaves seperated. I first animated the panning camera, so that i knew the distance that the camera would travel and finally stop to establish the entire jungle canopy a small distance above the trees. Using Jennys seperated leaves and flowers, I built layers of mixed leaves in front of the camera, doubling the thickness of the slowly forming canopy bush to create depth. I extended the bush upwards until the establishing camera shot was just framed with leaves. The playblast below shows one of my panning camera tests, though the speed is way to fast, the canopy bush idea was works really well, for the final rendered film i will add to the leaves at the bottom of the canopy and place vines reaching into the jungle path, this will then nicely result in the camera following the vines upwards into the dense canopy.

Playblast of Canopy Panning Camera Test

Screen Shot of Canopy Bush Area Build - My idea is that the camera will pass throught this area, the leaves have been placed, composed and layered to create the sense of a dense jungle canopy. I added large branches to finish the look.

Canopy Build Detal With Panning Camera Positioned

The second method was for the production of the jungle canopy establishing shot. The only way i could think of was to build rows of canopy bushes similar to those created for the panning through the canopy shot, but then take a lit rendered picture of the canopy bush, import into photoshop, alpha out the bush part of the render and apply the new .tiff to a polygon plane in Maya. Then layer up the planes, slightly varying the heights and types of the canopy bushes, as they stretch into the distance the illusion of depth and an endless jungle environment should be seen. After starting this I have now passed on the job to Jenny so that she can add a nicely painted background and create more variants of canopy bush. The job was passed to her as i need to carry on lighting the second jungle set ready for rendering on friday. Once this part of the set is fully lit i think it will produce a believeable dense canopy look.

Screen Shot of Canopy Establishing Shot Build - My idea was that the camera would leave the dense canopy and break open into a sunlit establishing shot of the tree tops and characters destination of travel, the temple. Using Jenny's alpha channels bushes i fgramed and composed the shot featuring the background landscape and temple (important audience focus point).

Jungle Layout Revision - Set Building

2008-05-25T22:47:00.000-07:00

After completing the edit four days ago, alot of the main camera changes effected the cameras in the second jungle set. Following Gareth Munden's and Kev's advice this sequence needed alot of work, 90% of the shots were from behind the chararcter, a large majority tracking behind him. They mentioned that it did not connect the audience with the character and made the start of the film very unpersonal. Plus with the fast speed and energy that i wanted to incorporate into the film, there weren't enough cameras or cuts to produce it. The cameras were placed either side of the explorer which made the flow of the scene and travel of the explorer confusing and uncomfortable.

Therefore a major rework of the cameras was needed, and this was what we nailed down in the edit. The camera now cuts from a frontal tracking camera, to side shot of the explorer running away from the camera, then running towards the camera, but due to the cameras being placed all on one side of the charactrer, the flow is consistant, comforable, fast paced and his direction of travel within the jungle makes sense. During the film i wanted the camera work to feel natural, just like industry films where the audience doesnt even notice the camera change. This helps the audience focus on the action, story and animation, rather than an odd camera angle. But because of these drastic camera changes, the Jungle set that i built weeks ago needed to be re-worked. I built the set from the view of the previous tracking camera, now that we're veiwing the environment from in front of him, there are huge areas where vegetation didnt need to be built up but now there are huge gaps. All of the shot compositions for all the cameras need to be planned and the set re-built.

Plan View of Completed Jungle Set 2 Built by Myself - Includes main path and river sections
(AutoDesk Maya Screen Shot)

3/4 View of Completed Jungle Set 2 Built by Myself - Includes dense canopy and establishing canopy shot build (AutoDesk Maya Screen Shot)

Over the past three days I have been composing all the shots using Jennys modelled plants and trees, ready for the animation to be imported and the set lit. The jungle environment was the hardest set to build as it needed to seem naturally full and believable as a dense jungle. I wanted to make sure that a good level of depth could be felt within each composition, framing cameras with plants and vines. I found that some of the camera compositions over lapped, which meant that as i changed one composition, it would effect another. The addition of Jenny's vines that i asked her to model gave the jungle added character. Below shows renders of some of the cameras featured in the second jungle set:

Camera 1 Completed and Finalised Composition (AutoDesk Maya Screen Shot)

Camera 2 Completed and Finalised Composition (AutoDesk Maya Screen Shot)

Camera 3 Completed and Finalised Composition (AutoDesk Maya Screen Shot)

Camera 4 Completed and Finalised Composition (AutoDesk Maya Screen Shot)

Camera 6 Completed and Finalised Composition (AutoDesk Maya Screen Shot)

Myself and Jenny created background plates with pre-rendered images of other parts of the jungle set so that it successfully gave the illusion of a deeper, extensive environment. The renders were taken using the basic lighting from jungle set 1, placed into photoshop, alphas created and then placed onto large polygon planes. To cover the large gaps in the set and due to the height needed, the background renders had to be rendered at the size 4096 x 4096.

Background Plate Test Render from Maya - Basic Lighting utilised from first Jungle Set, masked plane hitting jungle floor texture with Jenny's modelled plants, the method works very well and will be adopted into the second jungle set. The illusion really works well, making it look like the hazey jungle stretches behind the television/lounge props.

Background Plate Render for alpha channel creation in photoshop. Final output of these plates will be 4096 x 4096 so that detail isnt lost when picture is re-rendered in Maya and more importantly gives the illusion that the modelled plants and trees extend into the distance (trying to remove 2D look and feel from background areas). The final plates will be renders of the jungle set with the added pockets of sunlight and environment fog, this should improve its look of depth.

Another example of the Background Plate Render Method - alpha channel creation in photoshop. Final output of this plate will be 4096 x 4096 when placed into Jungle Set 2.

Im very pleased with the end result, it took so long to build the compositions, but it was well worth the time. To emphasise the life within the jungle I've asked Jenny to animate some butterflies she's modelled, this should just give the set some life and movement other than the character travelling through it. The hardest part of the set build was the frontal view (tracking camera x2) of the explorer running along the path, it took the most time out of all the shots because it isnt a stationay camera, to compose a moving camera with plants, trees and vines takes a great deal of planning, the background plates worked very well filling in exposed areas behind the tree and bush lines.

Tracking Camera Playblast - Known as Camera 5 in the film edit. Animated by myself, sequence will be chopped in half so that we can have quick cuts between the static and moving shots. No lighting as of yet, the panning shot is to be completed first and then we will move onto developing the lighting for the section jungle set.

Animation Deadline Problem

2008-05-23T11:37:00.000-07:00

After deligating the final animation scenes to Dan the Lead Animator, we realised that there were four scenes left animate and only a week left untill the deadline we set, Dan approached us this morning and said that i would be very difficult to have all the scenes done to a high standard by next friday. Dan reassured us that he could confidently get two of the four scenes completed but would apprieate the any extra help, perhaps another two animators to finish the rest. The only problem was that we have no more animators at our disopsal, luckily our Concept Artist Ben wants to get into the animation area, but with no previous animation experience, apart from a few minor scenes he animated for us, his euthusiasm and well timed animation, we have decided to hand the less of the challenging scenes to him. The last scene is quite animation intensive, intailing a rope swing and a lengthy run cycle (while dodging falling rocks), after an hour ringing around we hear Yemi, an animator from a different group has finished his group animation early, and so offered a weeks worth of animating help. With three animators working towards the deadline i am confident that we will be ready to render the following week. Plus Dan will be available to help with texturing the main temple chamber and corridoors.

The project so far is going well, we are all a bit stressed, been working untill 2/3am for the past week, just trying to tie up the loose ends so that the next couple of weeks go alot smoother, geting the edit nailed down has helped to organise the the final bits of animation, we've been able to give more precise timing within specific scenes and for desired shots, plus means that all we have to do is drop animation into the edit as the structure is aready present. Anything drastically wrong is highlighted quicker and can therefore be rectified sooner, which is great when it saves us time!

Final Edit/Animatic Re-Work

2008-05-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

Though not all of the animation has been completed, Myself and Rob have deligated to the Animation Lead that all animation must be finalised and handed in by Friday 30th May next week. Once we have the final animated shots we will have all the scenes in the film timed out ready for the sound designers to start at the end of next week. The fine tuning of the final edit is key to the success of the film. My contentration has always been on the story and cinematography, making connections to the audience, enjoyable and easy to watch, rather than spending hours studying global illumination and dynamics. Below are some of the new cameras that we created using the advice of Kevin and Gareth (cinematography), ive placed a clip of the older cameras for the same section so that the differences are easier to contrast. Ro and myself also felt that it would be a great idea to add lighting to gain a better feel for the final edit:

Film Old Cameras

Film New Cameras

Though the cameras are developing, theres still an aspect of rigidness and slow paced action. I still feel that the camera work has a long way to develop, and rob and myself are more than willing to put a lot of extra hours into bringing this story to life. The rest of the camera work will be finalised once all the animation has been handed to me to be signed off.

Character Texturing - The Wrap Problem

2008-05-20T21:26:00.000-07:00

Its been a hard couple of days since the lighting was completed for the first part of the jungle set, it was nearly ready for rendering as i have been working on the textures for the explorer character, the basic colours were blocked in photoshop (using my main character photoshop painting produced in pre-production as a colour swatch reference) and i started adding detailed clothing textures to the t-shirt and jacket. Then we hit a huge problem...

The problem started back in March when i had completed the Explorer model and it was ready to be UVed, due to many dissertation problems i didint have the time to UV my modelled character, animation and more importantly rigging needed to start so we decided that we could wrap deform a UVed explorer mesh to the rigged and animated one, proberly close to rendering time. With this in mind i left it to complete my dissertation. But the problem crept back on me yesterday, the wrap deform mesh that i UVed last week wouldnt work, every computer in the house crashed when applying the wrap, the method would work successfully but the computers couldnt handle it. As these are the computers that we will finally render on the wrap method cant be used. Which leaves us with a fully rigged, weighted and animated character not UVed! And so cant be textured! Myself and Rob discussed it and we have decided to block colour the polygon faces of the main character in Maya. The same colour swatches i designed in pre-production are to be used. So for the past day ive block coloured three explorer characters and placed one into the jungle scene.

Screen Shot of my block coloured explorer character in AutoDesk Maya - The desired poygon faces were highlighted, a quick set selection saved (reduce selection time later on in colouring process) and then block coloured using my pre-designed colour swatches.

Another two screen shots of my explorer character in AutoDesk Maya - swatches are fully finalised, character posed and smoothed.

The end result.... was actually really surprising! Aztec Escape has a simple artistic style, the sleeping character was more or less coloured in the same way, and so the character fits into the jungle environment and looks great! I had worries of the quality deminishing due to the wrap problem, but infact it works better than having a realistic and detailed character texture. Every piece of Explorer animation done will have to have its chararcter block coloured, this will take time, but is far more quicker than re-rigging, weighting and animating.

Final Render Shot of Coloured Explorer in Final Lighting - Jungle Environment Set 1. The primitive block colour texturing actually suits the style of the film, which is a great relief as i really wanted to texture the charcter properly.

Final Jungle Lighting - SET 1

2008-05-19T23:56:00.000-07:00

Since performing the jungle lighting tests, Myself and Rob reviewed the idea and finalised it for the actual first jungle set. I knew that the intensity of the directional lights were way too harsh for the foreground part of the composition, but the effect of the strong sunlight on the bump mapped trees and background bushes worked really well. We changed the directional intensity from 2.4 to 0.9, this gave a much more balance light effect throughout the whole composition. The total lights in this part of the jungle set are - one main spot light (foreground) two small, low intensity spotlights, one directional light and one ambient light with an attached EnviroFog connection. The fog gives depth to the scene, darkening and blurring distant areas of the jungle environment, and emphasies the (directional light) sunlight pockets. We cut more holes into the ceiling plane above so that there were more dramatic shafts of light falling upon the surrounding vegetation and one to highlight the explorer chararcter. The idea of placing the leaves around the cut holes in the ceiling plane was carried forward from my previous lighting tests, this successsfully created the illusion of the sunlight travelling through a dence leafy canopy above (and removed the need for modelling a very high polygon jungle canopy!). As can be seen from the render images below the overall atmosphere created was great, and almost perfectly mirrors the jungle I visualised during the pitching process and pre-production.

Maya Render showing finalised shot composition and lighting. EnviroFog used with Saturation Distance 70, main diectional spot light for sunlight, three spot lights, one to draw audience focus to map/sofa area. (Render Time - 1min 50 secs with Maya Software Rendering).

Maya Render showing background light details. We placed the lights so that the directional light fell over leaf tips and tree bark, defibatley gives the shot/environment depth. This shot was taken from the final animated camera movemnet. The directional light intensity has been redued to 0.9, plus a soft spot light placed to illuminate the background slightly. (Render Time - 1 min 42 secs with Maya Software Rendering).

There was one technical hitch that we came across, which mean't that the rays of foggy sun light couldnt be added to the composition. Due to the limitations of Maya software rendering, creating actual 3D fog and lightrays wasn't possible, Mental Ray wasn't an option as we planned a productive and tight rendering schedule and so we decided to use a simple 2D idea using alpha channeled coloured rays created in Photoshop. The method created mixed results, either the rays were too transparent that you couldnt notice them or they were to opaque and set looked polluted and smoggy. Large amounts of time couldnt be wasted this close to rendering deadlines just on creating light rays, therefore myself and rob made the decision to scrap the idea. To save time and to keep lighting constistancy, the same lights used in Jungle Set 1 will be imported into Jungle Set 2 (path and river area), the lights will just be moved and tweaked to accomodate particular environment and chararcter focus points within the different areas of the next jungle set.

Jungle Lighting Idea

2008-05-15T04:45:00.000-07:00

Ive been playing around with the jungle lighting a a bit recently and came up with an idea about creating the pockets of sunlight, the problem was that we can only use up to six spot lights in one scene, and the effect wasnt that sharp enough, so i desided to model a plane as a ceiling for the set, cut holes in various places and place a few directional lights above the set, each at about 0.5 intensity, the other lights in the scene were kept to produce the dark canopy part, the rendering took slightly longer, but on Robs PC was even quicker so render time shouldnt be a problem. The test actually worked with really pleasing results!

Rob and Myself will sit down and refine the idea. Once the intesities have be perfected, we can move the holes around to cast sunlight pockets over desired areas of trees and shrubs, and then finally add the 2D light ray planes and Jenny's butterflies. I asked Jenny to sought and cut down her modelled jungle leaves to place around the cut holes in the ceiling, this should remove the sharp polygon edges of the lightpockets and instead cast leaf shapes/shadows, thus creating a canopy effect!

Most recent Jungle Lighting Test, Produced by Myself - Using ceiling and holes idea, together with original lighting and added directional lights. Intensities and positioning still to be developed by Myself and Rob. (Maya Software, Render Time 5mins 3secs but only 2mins 20secs on Robs Computer)

Jungle Lighting Test, Produced by Myself - Using ceiling and holes idea, together with original lighting and added directional lights. Intensity of Directional Lights needs to be increased, more sunlight pockets needed with better positioning. (Maya Software, Render Time 4mins 50secs)

Jungle Environment Lighting

2008-05-15T03:35:00.000-07:00

As the modelling has almost stopped and the texturing well on its way, Myself, Jenny and Rob decided to sit down and discuss the lighting issues for the jungle. The render pics below show some of the many stages of testing we have done so far.

Im really happy with the development so far, but im still only 90% sure that this will be the lighting for the final render, the dark shadows cast by the canopy above, the depth of the scene and the fog work really well... but it still needs something to bring it to life. I visualised it with large pockets of sunlight, its rays softly cutting through the environment fog, and will proberly incorporate jenny's butterflies that could flutter in the sun. These extras should really bring the scene life.

Me and Rob made the decision a week ago to stick with rendering using Maya Software, the main reason was time restrictions, with the submission date in a month we needed to be both productive and realistic. We're looking to try to create a Mental Ray Render look with basic Ambient, Directional and Spot lighting, just means that we have to be clever, instead of ticking render setting boxes! Once the project has been submitted, we will test out the environments using the Mental Ray Maya Plug-in, and possibly re-render our film for the degree show, but if everything goes to plan the original lighting should be really good anyway.

The lighting that I visualised in my head was a bright, dense and colour rich jungle, the dream environment to really contrast with the dark, dull real world scene at the start of the film, his dream is meant to feel like an escape from the emotionless world he lives and works in.

Test Render - The lighting so far, produced by Rob, Jenny and Myself, created using one ambient light, simple fog and four spot lights to highlight the tv/sofa area and various parts of the deep jungle background to provide depth to the scene. (Maya Software, Render Time: 2mins 3secs)

Test Render - Developed from lighting in render below, produced by Rob, Jenny and Myself, decided that the canopy would proberly create a very dark environment as sunlight doesnt always reach the jungle floor. The render still above is obviously too dark, ends up looking very similar to the starting lounge scene, doesnt incorporate much life within the set. (Maya Software, Render Time: 1mins 42secs)

Test Render - Developed from lighting in render below, produced by Rob, Jenny and Myself. The Render shot above is too saturated and very bright, plus doesnt seem like it has any canopy, therefore light effects couldnt be used, almost gives an obvious fake CG feel to the set. (Maya Software, Render Time: 1mins 48secs)

Test Render - First Lighting Test produced by Rob, Jenny and Myself. Scene colour very saturated and ground texture too dark, alot of development needed. Ambient Light and a Directional Light. (Maya Software, Render Time: 0mins 52secs)

Production 'TO DO' List

2008-05-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

Me and rob sat down and decided to work out what is left to do to make sure the film is completed on time, below is the list... take a copy if you need it! If you see anything you want to do just contact myself or rob and communicate what uve completed or looking to start. Just so we know whats going on! Thanks guys!

- PRODUCTION COMPLETION LIST -
By Me and Rob

Explorer UV

2008-05-13T08:48:00.000-07:00

The UV maps for my Explorer model were produced by myself and finished on saturday. I found the unwrapping of the skin for this model really difficult at first, i havnt UVed a character this complex in a while, but after a couple of hours i was fine, cutting, pinning, planar mapping, unfolding, sewing! Ive hidden most of the texture seams by cutting the UV's around the inner folds of the clothes, this also helps ensure i get very defined colour textures for the garments (no other textures accidently painted on the garment next to it). Any visible seams (like the inside of the leg) I will mask by carefully blending/merging the textures when using photoshop. The only difficult part of the model was the hair becuase it remodelled it by adding more spikes and the bandana, its was almost impossible to unfold. The UVs on the model are near enough perfect for texturing, no stretching, this i wanted to make sure of so that texturing would be quick and easy. Due to the model having so many parts and to ensure that the textures would be at a high quality resolution, I had to produce two UV snapshots 2048 x 2048 for the one mesh. If the resolution ends up being too high, either too large a file size or the resolution not needed, it can be easily reduced in Photoshop.

Screenshot of my Explorer Character smoothed with UV maps applied
(Back and 3/4 Pose)

2048 x 2048 Texture Map One - Includes Body and Main Garments

2048 x 2048 Texture Map Two - Includes Face, Hair and Accessories

Mouse UV

2008-05-13T07:54:00.000-07:00

Within the Lounge Set we are having a mouse run past the camera, Ben asked to modelled the low poly mouse but requested that I UV it, below shows the Mouse UV map that i produced ready for Ben to texture in Photoshop.

Wireframe Screen Shot for Autodesk Maya - Mouse Low Poly Model and UV Map

Mouse Low Poly Model UV Map - I found that this model was easy to UV due to the clean model produced, the only problem i had was that the UVs on the feet would not cut, I spent a while trying to work it out but stopped as it wasnt crucial to texture the model, taking into account the style the film is in, combined with the brief moment we see the character, the feet can be block coloured. I will however, investigate the problem further at a later date to ensure i know what to do if it ever happens to a model i produce.

Corridoor Modelling

2008-05-07T07:24:00.000-07:00

The Enterance to the Aztec Temple - Plants starting to be added, needs hanging vines and more tree roots around enterance, light behind the explorer when he steps into view, a silliouette will be cast over the ground, perhaps foggy rays of light shinning past his body?

Enterance Doorway to Rock Chamber - Ive just finished dressing this section with foliage, only the tree roots left to model, maybe use flame lit torches hanging from the walls, another idea i have had is to incorporate alpha channel planes with dusty webs, moss, vines, to cling to parts of the cracked walls and hang from the stone blocks. Just to give that extra essence of the tension, mystery and danger. To give the feeling of history, wild, untouched, overgrown, ancient.

The Ornate Stone Slab Model and layout - I modelled a skull into the slab, I kept the style simple but modelled it in a way so that it would be subtle, the eyes are deep so that they can start to glow a deep and deathly red as the explorer sets off the first trap. I tried to frame the shot with plants to give the composition depth.

Corridoor Modelling

2008-05-07T06:26:00.000-07:00

The following models have been produced by myself, I wanted to keep the style consistant so I decided to dress the inside of the temple with Jenny's plants that I used to build the jungle. As well as use the pillars from rob's main chamber, I remodelled them into the walls, adding cracks and stone blocks. The Alpha channel hanging vines and tree roots I will model next week. As well as use my flame lit torch idea to light the sets.

Wireframe render of Trap Corridoor Design and Model - Generall layout and structure of corridoor, added cracks and holes and dressed the set with stone rocks, foliage, alpha channal vines and flame lit torches need to be added (35mm Widescreen, Focal Length 15).

Wireframe Render of Rock Chamber Ledge Layout and Model - This the section where the explorer will rope swing to safety, plants, tree roots and vines still to be added.

Wireframe Render of Rock Chamber Central Walkway Layout and Model - Plants starting to be added, tree roots are to be modelled, this part of the rock falling scene and will be lit to highlight its focus and importance within the set.

Wireframe Render of Enterance Corridoor Layout and Model - General structure modelled, set starting to be dressed with plants and stone blocks, again tree roots will be added for extra effect.

Wireframe Render of Enterance Corridoor including Falling Stone Door Area Layout and Model - Tree roots have started to be placed into the scene, as well as plants and stone blocks, the main thing needed will be my idea for the flame lit torches that i plan to model for next week, should generate powerful and dramatic lighting (35mm Widescreen, Focal Length 35).

3D Animatic - Aztec Escape Production

2008-04-30T17:12:00.000-07:00

This week Me and Rob have been working on the new 3D Animatic, spending considerable time focusing on camera angles, movement within the sets and cuts, therefore ensure that the camera and filmic language tells the Aztec Escape story. We tried to produce more dramatic shots and highten the action adventure atmosphere. We want the camera to emphasise the action and energy within the film, we could add more cuts to produce this effect. There are still a few camera shots and compositions that dont feel right and need a bit of work, but the timing of the animation and scenes is nearly precise. This should give the Composer, Foley Artist and Lead Animator the correct timing of the film. We have contacted a 3rd year Broadcasting student to review our animatic and give further advice of camera composition, timing and movement (tracking, depth of field, banking, dolly in and out, etc).

3D Animatic - Produced By Rob and Myself

At the moment the films stands as 3mins 30secs including title sequence and credits, we hope to refine this in the next couple of weeks as Dan begins the Jungle animation sequences. We will produce another animatic as these sequences are finalised. The animation Dan has given me so far has been of a high quality and I am pleased with his progress, he has given me his personal animation schedule so that I know when to expect the work to review it and sign it off ready for rendering.

Meanwhile... Jenny is UVing and Texturing, I am Modelling the new Temple Interior Sets, Rob is UVing the Main Chamber, Giles is UVing and rigging for other groups, Ben is modelling the mouse for the lounge.

More Blockout Modelling...

2008-04-28T11:38:00.001-07:00

Following the reworking of the story, we decided that a 3D animatic was needed so that we could fully visualise the film, rob had already been modelling the main chamber so that was enough for the blockout. I decided to design and blockout the new sets: Enterance Corridoor, Rock Chamber and Trap Corridoor ready for the 3D animatic. I could get a good idea of style and size so that i would be easier to fully model these sets after. To keep style consistancy i used the same pillars that rob modelled for the main altar chamber, when I come to model the sets for the final edit, I will intergrate them fully into the walls, change some of the designs and add cracks and extra rocks.

Scene 3 Shot 1 - Enterance to Temple. Large stone blocks and tree roots
will create the doorway and continue throughout the corridoor.

Scene 3 Shot 3 - Ornate Stone Slab. Triggers traps and falling rocks, i will model the skull design into the stone surface, as well as the add foliage and vines hanging from the ceiling.

Scene 3 Shot 5 - Main corridoor with falling rocks.

Scene 4 Set - The rock chamber that I designed with blocked out rope and ledge, the room will be dark and lit along the central platform, the room will be collapsing as the explorer moves through the environment and rope swings to safety. Again foliage and tree roots will inhabit the set.

Scene 5 - Trap corridoor Set -Features spikes and swinging axe, maybe changed to stone hammer to keep with the crumbled stone Aztec Temple style.
This corridoor leads straight to the main altar chamber.

A Few Shot Compositions

2008-04-28T11:38:00.000-07:00

After the major film rework we will continue to assess and edit all areas of the film, thus producing a tigher, flowing and well timed storyline. This will greatly help animation timing, and reduce time spent on production by not modelling and texturing unnessecerily. The images below show some of the story revisions and notes created by me and rob, ensuring successful planning of cameras and shot compositions for the next animatic edit.

The image above details the main transition set designed by me and rob, includes motion path of explorer within the set, plus possible camera angle.

The image above details some of the main camera compositions within the real world house set. These will be continually refined thoughout production for the final film edit.

New Production Schedule! Final Term!

2008-04-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

Well we are a week into our last term and we have loads to do! As already mentioned last week was spent reworking the film so that we could deligate work more effeciently this week. We fell quite a bit behind due to our dissertations last term, me and rob have been working on the project over the whole Easter break and we feel we have nearly caught up, all modelling should be done by the end of next week, we've set an ambitous target and everyone is up for completing it. Rob and myself decided it was best to check off was work we've completed already and schedule in detial this final term. The Production schedule below shows the group scheduled work, deadlines and details the tasks needed to be completed by each member. As director i will continue to have a direct creative input in all areas of the production, directing changes, and revising and signing off all completed work.

Revised Production Schedule created by Myself and Rob

Aztec Escape - Story Reworking!

2008-04-25T10:40:00.000-07:00

Looks like these weeks seem to get crazier and crazier as the term progresses! As previously stated there were alot of areas in the story that i was starting to dislike, scenes didnt flow, camera compositions and timings seemed drawn out and undramatic and many shots that left the viewer confused and disorientated. Even some of the planned gags werent producing any of the desired responses. So.... a major story rework needed to be carried out. For the past few days me (director) and rob (producer) sat down and combed through every shot, discarding irrelevant material and tightening up shots and cuts. We spent some considerable time with Cinematographer Gareth Munden, taking onboard his advice about shot composition, filmic language, how the camera could tell the story rather than solely relying on the character. After plenty of hours deliberating and script writing, it all really came down to a number of factors... time left untill completion date and what we personally wanted out of this project. The removal of the gags from the story structure meant that we could spend greater time on the visual elements of the film, modelling, texturing, lighting, rendering and most importantly the camera work. Aztec Escape has now moved into a more action packed adventure rather than a comedy. Me and Rob both agree that with the gags gone the film does seem slightly bland, but the end result has meant the storyline works and all the confusion has gone. I feel that the blandness can be removed if we play on the tension, mystery and drama of an explorers' journey into the jungle and more importantly, into his dreams.

The main change - the first have to be the transitions from the dream to the real world, the original animatic edit incorporated alot of cuts and chopping from the one world to the other, this was one of the main factors contributing to the confusion and disorientation. There is now really only one main transition change, me and rob designed it while working on the story, it makes the transition very clear for the audience and flows alot nicer than all the others, the flow of the story doesnt seem interupted or disjointed. (Transition set shown in the next post).

The next large changes was the creation and revision of alot of the environments so that i would best suit the new style of the film, me and rob spent time editing map layouts and set design. The jungle was slightly altared due to the new introduction of the film. The removal of the trap chamber with the ledge along the wall was tricky as a new set needed to be designed, i decieded to create a small chamber (not large enough to take anything away from the main chamber) but enough to incorporate a central crumbled stone walkway, steep and deadly drops and a rope swing to safety, the collapsing room idea was still kept, but overall it meant we could have more creative room to play with cameras and lighting.

Im starting to like what this short film has turned into, im a huge fan of Indiana Jones and have always wanted to produce this genre of film.

Another Quick Month!

2008-04-20T12:37:00.000-07:00

Wel a month has past on the project, it was the Easter holidays for most of it and the absence of lectures and formatives meant that we could all easily work with no interuptions! lol! It kinda of felt as though we didnt have an Easter break as most of the days were spent modelling, set layouts, production schedules and a 3-D Animatic! The first week of the holiday i spent carrying on with the layout designs for the jungle environment, the second jungle area (scene 2 - explorer running towards temple) is now relatively complete, the only elements missing are extra vines, a broken wooden bridge, canopy alpha planes and brackground environment plates.

The images below give an overview of the layout of the main path of the second jungle environment, it took me about a week and a half to model the terrain and plan and build this environment. I was also experimenting with the main camera movement for this environment, the camera produced for the 3d animatic is a rough out version, the timing is precise but the angles and following motion needs to be made alot smoother and much more dramatic.

Second Jungle Environment - shot showing merge from
first environment into jungle path of scene 2
(35mm Widescreen, Focal Length 28)

Second Jungle Environment - shot showing environment half way down
the jungle path, broken bridge to be placed between gap, note the curved trees above
will be mostly covered by hanging vines and the start of the alpha canopy
(35mm Widescreen, Focal Length 28)

Second Jungle Environment - explorer completes large jump over broken bridge here, i designed the terrain to slope downwards so that the distance that the explorer runs is emphasised, i feel it gives a more dramatic feel to the shot, giving a feeling of not knowing what lies ahead.
(35mm Widescreen, Focal Length 28)

Second Jungle Environment Side View - Detailing valley gradient
(35mm Widescreen, Focal Length 28)

Shots of Jungle Environments

2008-03-21T15:15:00.000-07:00

Second Jungle Environment Camera Test Shot
(35mm Widescreen, Focal Length - 28)

Jungle First Shot (Maya Default Render):
Jenny's textures starting to be added, the ground texture will be UVed and painted by myself.

Entire Jungle Set at present
(Wireframe Screen Shot)

Camera Test Shot
(35mm Widescreen, Focal Length - 35)

A Week of Modelling!

2008-03-21T14:42:00.000-07:00

Wel its been a productive week on the project, still recovering alittle from the dissi but now feelin better about the film project! I started by consulting the blockout Jungle scenes i modelled last term, reviewed the story with rob and i decided to build the first and second jungle shots from scratch to best fit the new story, as well as add some spontanoeus creativity.

This week i started with the first jungle shot where our main character will be waking up. Due to time constraints i didnt produce any pre-production designs and so i built the set by visualising it in my head. It took a long time to produce but is now looking really nice, jenny did a great job with modelling the trees and plants ready for me to produce layout designs and construct the set. She UVed the plants and trees and also kindly re-UVed some of the trees i re-modelled to suite the scene better. In my view the jungle still looks very much like a forest, i am planning to personally model a few extra plants and vines to give the envirnoment added character and believibility. Apart from the extra modelling needed, the environment is ready for texturing and animation. I also started to experiment with different camera angles motion paths. The camera used was a standard 35mm, but changed the focal length from 35 to 28. It seemed to capture wider areas of the set, this should add to the density and scale of the jungle.

Above, the first jungle shot nearly complete, the canopy will be alphed to hide the top areas of the trees, this might be a camera set up that could be intergrated into filming.

Dissertation Handed In!

2008-03-12T13:43:00.000-07:00

Finally the dissertation was handed in! In the end i lost 4 whole weeks from the film project, which is not good, but my dissertation really didnt start off all that well, i actually had to re-start it half way through the term! not nice! in the end i couldnt think about the project untill it was finally handed in, i did however deligate some work to giles (rigging work), jenny (modelling/texturing) and dan (animation tests and modelling).

So this week... Monday - rob and myself decided to get up to speed with the schedule, we felt quite behind so needed to work out how much time was left and how much there is to do! The film is all re-scheduled and all team members now know what work they have to complete in the next couple of weeks.

THE STORY...

I was viewing the animatic alot and going over the story and i really wasnt happy with the flow and some of the main scenes in the film, to me it needs alot of work if it is to become as successful as we all hope, parts didn't need to be shown, the turtle didn't add to the story in any way, the scenes were way to choppy and overall it didnt make sense to the people who were watching it. So after alot of discussion between rob and i, as well as many comments made from people who had viewed the animatic, we decided that the story wasn't working. This week we will be working on the blockout and narrative, all the shots will be finalised, scenes and flow finalised and modelling to commence as soon as possible! We've already worked on the story partly, through breaks in our dissertation and discussions with tutors.

The camera work is to be largely based on the Indiana Jones Films by Steven Speilburg, similar cinematography and lighting is to be used also. I want the film to look and feel like a Hollywood film for cinema, therefore research is needed on different camera types and rendering techniques.

The group has been scheduled the work below for this week:

Jono (Director) - Story and camera work, finalise blockout and colour palette/texture techniques.

Rob (Producer) - Story and camera work, finalise blockout and colour palette/texture techniques.

Jenny (3D Artist) - Continue to UV Map and Texture Paint the jungle vegetation.

Giles (Technician/3D Artist) - Rig and weight snake character.

Dan (Lead Animator) - Animation.

Ben (Concept/3D Artist) - Modelling clutter for lounge, researching Visual Effects for film.

Up to date! The Finished Character Model!

2008-03-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

From the 17th January onwards, i worked on the explorer character further, changing the areas stated in the previous posts. After having a week break from the film project to work solidly on my dissertation i found that there was alot to change and that the character body didnt look believable enough, i added the small satchel and machette knife to his right and left sides, as well as made the gloves look alot nicer! The head for the both characters was initially modelled by myself and rob, after a days work on both we decided that the best option was to work on one, and we chose his. Rob continued to model the head with discussion and direction from me, the head needed to look consistant for both character models. The head was then passed onto me where i re-modelled parts of the hair and the bandana, as well as model more hair detail. The mouth sack was modelled separatly by rob and was attached to my characters head by myself.

I then followed on to attach the head to the body of the explorer. This created a large problem! The scalf was to large and high, you could only see half of the head! i sorted this by reducing the scarlf size and depth... but something didnt feel right about the finished result. I decided to remove the scarlf completely and re-model the jacket to include a collar and t-shirt. As well as re-model the sleeves, front and back parts of the jacket so that it didnt look so molded to the character and incorporated definition.

Final Model Explorer Front 3/4 Shot
(Maya Default Lighting)

Final Model Explorer Back 3/4 Shot
(Maya Default Lighting)

17th January Work Continued:

2008-03-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

The main modelling work undertaken by myself at this point, was the modelling of the explorer character. The idea was to model the characters in low poly and pass them onto the rigger, the high poly meshes will be wrap deformed so that the detailed and smooth character will be seen in the final render, the animator will animate the low poly models and the actions will effect their high poly mesh.

The low poly model without head, added belt and scarlf detail.

High Poly Smoothed Mesh - The gloves didnt come out aswel as i had hoped, need to change the style, jacket came out very well, really pleased with the progress so far!

Rendered Shot (Maya Default Lighting) Smoothed Explorer Front
Changes needed: Belt buckel detail, jacket looks too molded to body, ankle detail needs to be reduced, definatly change gloves!

Rendered Shot (Maya Default Lighting) Smoothed Explorer Side
Changes needed: Sort out curve of back, reduce scarlf bulkiness, add satchel and knife details, work on area where trousers and boots meet, more ruffeled!

17th January Work Continued:

2008-03-12T12:36:00.000-07:00

This past term has been the toughest of the BA year, and its all down to the dissertation and it didnt go as smoothly as i hoped it would! The following work was produced by the 17/01/2008 but i have'nt had the chance to update my blog until now. By this date i had been working on the blockout with rob and modelling the explorer character.

Blockout Temple Enterance

Camera Angle Tests - Inside of the first corridoor, modelled by myself. Key to the success of this film will be to make tthe action and general look dynamic and intense, rob and i have been discussing and testing camera work to emphasise the action and danger in the script. (See above).

Blockout - Second Scene
(Character will run down this jungle path towards the camera, jump over the log and stop to see the temple in the distance).

Updated: 17th January 2008

2008-03-12T12:22:00.000-07:00

Hey! well its been ages since i last updated my blog, which really isnt a good thing, but i have been doing lots of work and scheduling! Christmas went very quickly and i was ill for most of it, how fun, but a week before we came back i started to do some planning.... A NEW SCHEDULE! last term was really tiring and the schedule kinda got lost in the madness, but all the work i had planned for the group was completed and the pitch that i spoke about before went great. Due to being Director and Producer i found that i had hardly any time to think about my own work, so i decided to throw out the old and rather vague schedule and produce a new and incredibly detailed one, so that the team know their designated tasks and their relavent deadlines, as well as review dates along the way. I had a chat to rob and decided to make him Producer, this should hopefully make this term alittle easier to handle.

Also got a grade for my personal contributions to the film and got an -A. Really pleased with the grade and want to keep up and push the quality this term.

So the work ive been doing includes the blockout of the film in maya with rob, team meetings, the new schedule that rob and i completed and modelling the main explorer character. The modelling took a few days longer as the model sheets were'nt entirely accurate.

Some of the modelling work that i completed:

Blockout Work - First Jungle Shot
(Possibly following a snake weave through the dense undergrowth)

Blockout Work - Second Jungle Shot
(Slow camera track into jungle vegetation)

Blockout Work - Third Jungle Shot
(Camera stops as the main explorer character
moves between the shadows of the trees and bushes)

AZTEC ESCAPE - Final Film Pitch

2007-12-04T14:46:00.000-08:00

Had a the Aztec Escape re-pitch last friday and it went.... really well! was a bit of a rush to get our main pictures printed off and mounted for the summative assessment but we did it, and were one of the only groups who presented the 'old school' print out way! mike said it all looked impressive and many class mates said it was starting to really come together! the animatic took a couple of very late nights and looked great, certain parts of the narrative need editing/emphasing, and the timing is actually pretty good, only 2mins 30secs! ive had a meeting with my film composer Alistair Primrose and he's happy with the film so far, the music will be experimented with over the next few weeks. The general feedback from everyone whose seen the animatic is that they understand the story, but the contrast and timing between the dream world and real world need to be worked on, emphased and more stylistic. Also the pet turtle idea maybe scrapped as most people have highlighted that he isn't needed and 'why is he there?'

My whole team and i worked very hard this term, now for a couple of days rest and for me to schedule everyones work for the holidays, and then we start production! Really very happy with the film so far, was getting slightly stressful towards the end but it was all worth it. Im going to post the individual production schedules in the next couple of days. Ben is already working on the finalised model sheets.

2007-12-04T10:41:00.000-08:00

The finalised main chararcter, designed by Ben and I coloured him, it is the first character that i have painted with my wacom, had some tips from class mates and then tried it, it went really well!

A montage of my quick jungle sketches to produce a possible shot/scene layout for actual film.

My quick sketches used in the animatic, was experimenting with camera angles for the main action scene corridoor, might use both - camera moves upwards, over the ledge and follows the main charartcer.

2007-12-04T10:35:00.001-08:00

This is a finalised sketch of the alter area, designed by me and rob, it was produced by merging our drawings in photoshop.

2007-12-04T09:12:00.000-08:00

Some alter designs and a aztec marking i desgned, the statue i drew from a photograph reference image, could be placed next to artefact or along walls.

A sketch i produced to detail roots/vines and their positioning behind the alter and walls.

2007-12-03T10:07:00.000-08:00

Using robs rough map , i have designed the final map of the main temple chamber, the centre areas will be fog/mist, this maybe changed to flooring depending on render experiments.

My final pillar designs for the main temple chamber, the two sketches on the left are to be placed free standing in the centre areas of the chamber, the right design will be adapted to form the main wall/ceiling supports featured around the chamber.

A detailed stone floor/texture design i created, could be used as a bump map for the texturing section of the film production.

2007-11-27T17:19:00.001-08:00

Again another design sheet showing stone stairs and alter concepts/ideas.

Another design sheet for the main chamber assets and corridoors. The wall sketch is going to be used as a base design for the general look of the walls.

My following design sheets show concept ideas and developments for the main chamber and general interior temple areas, some of the designs have been ticked to say that they are to be used for the final film. Really liking how the concepts for the whole film are coming together, the past two weeks have been all about experimenting with ideas, finalising concepts and starting the animatic.

2007-11-27T17:07:00.001-08:00

This is my quick sketch used for a corridoor concept design, and is also used in the final animatic.

This is my detailed plan of the main action scene, includes shaded establishing shots and action arrows detailing the animated surroundings, this is the FINAL design.

2007-11-27T16:31:00.003-08:00

The next main scene to be designed is the main chamber, this page lists the assests needed to be designed and a possible plan/establishing shot sketch.

Designing the Corridoor and main action scene/sequence,
including entrance sketches and trap placements.

The following drwaings are some of my initial Corridoor Planning and Concept pages, i wanted to get a good idea of how the inside temple would look before drawing concept detailed, these all include the scaled units of measurement stated previously in my blog.

2007-11-23T18:25:00.001-08:00

This shot was drawn by myself to concept a spike trap idea i had, the spikes would shoot up from the floor from the square patches detailed. The vegetation, rocks and my aztec design monuments would stop the explorer from going around the traps. This establishing shot consists of 3 of my drawings and were compiled in photoshop.

I drew this vegetation detail sketch so that when compiling establishing shots in photoshop i could quickly place areas of vegetation to save time. And so that i could start thinking about leaf and rock styles.

Just a quick rough sketch of the type of style that could be nice for the exterior temple shot. This also includes a unit of measurement for modelling and visualisation, our character is 6ft and so this will be 1 modelling unit --------1UNIT = 6ft---------

2007-11-23T18:23:00.001-08:00

This montage was adapted from one of my previous shots, but it didnt go well, really dont like the setup of the shot, not going to develop any further with this one.

2007-11-23T18:02:00.000-08:00

Increased the contrast of this shot, makes the scene more golden, sunlight stands out, really do like this colour choice, think im gunna stick with this, exaggerate everything for the film.

Decided to try a day time mood, this is quite standard for the jungle, would like to improve on this lighting colour.

Changed the lighting/colour balance to create a night/moon lit shot. Really like the atmosphere created in this shot.

Another montage shot created by myself, this one only used 2 reference images, i added the extra rocks in the foreground and in the corridoor, i painted on the roots and vines in the whole shot and also re-shaded areas of the walls/structures to show weathering, dirt and emphasise the shadows already present. Changed the colour balance and lighting to create this cold/desolate mood.

2007-11-23T17:59:00.001-08:00

Changed lighting colour slightly, mysterious mist colour used, prefer this one to the last, this could be during the day type lighting

2007-11-23T17:51:00.001-08:00

Removed the extra temple. Adjusted colour balance to create a night shot, wanna create a refreshing stlye for the film, so i am open to all colour variations, really like this colour. But story states that the jungle is in a late afternoon time, perhaps more a sunset colour change? it is in a dream now so colours can now be as crazy as we like.

2007-11-23T17:35:00.001-08:00

Added the extra temple design, dont really like it that much, the group thought it could be used to place our temple there?

Again my montage but added extra mountains into the background.
Really like the way its developing.

Another montage that i blended in photoshop, using 5 reference images, this was created to help design the main environment pan sequence in the film, again colour/mood experiments will be carried out, this was difficult to produce, especially when blending the clouds, sky and mountain. I added mist/fog into the middle/foreground and haze into the horizon.
Really like how it turned out.

2007-11-23T17:28:00.000-08:00

My shot montage that i created from some of the reference images i collected, going to experiment with colours and effects, the picture is made up of five images that i blended in photoshop to create a possible camera view in the actual film.

A week until the re-pitch of AZTEC ESCAPE

2007-11-23T17:21:00.001-08:00

Hey, i was meant to put all my work ive done for the past 4 weeks on here last time, but again everything else got in the way, animatic prep, chasing team members for work, finalising assests and environments with the concept artists, plus our essays and presentations. So the following work shown is all my personal work to bring me up to date for the finalisation of the pre-production... CANT WAIT TO START MODELLING!!

Its been awhile....aahhh!

2007-11-19T13:08:00.000-08:00

Well the weeks are going quicker and quicker, and its getting closer to the time for re-pitching! the project has been going great! extremely busy but thats a good thing, so far the team and myself are on schedule, pitching is 9 days away and ive made lists and time tables for each individual member of the team, so no one has the excuse of 'what was i meant to be doing?'. Everyone knows how much work they have to do, the deadlines set, when they have to produce the work and when il be reviewing it so that changes are made and ideas added.

Soooo.... to recap the past 2 weeks...

i finished off a couple more 'mood' / colour montages for the inside of the temple and exterior jungle, finished off the shot scene breakdown for the new story with rob and giles, had our ideas checked by more tutors who all seemed to like the work, started producing more concept art for the inside of the temple, schedule everyone and plan meeting times! the storyboard was started end of last week and animatic starts 2moro! together with more concept art from myself on the interior of the temple and planning out the main action scenes with environmental designs/details, as well as creating a unit system with rob so that all the model sheets for the assets are to the correct scale, and the rest of the team are drafting up the final designs for the house (interior/exterior) with asset design model sheets. This week will be primarily carrying on with this work and starting to plan our presentation.

2007-11-02T05:21:00.001-07:00

This is my favourite colour test so far, the jungle environment proberly wont be at night, but the colours i chose created a quailty atmosphere!

2007-11-02T05:17:00.001-07:00

A colour experiment shot of my montage, i added a dry brush effect, i really like the softness it creates. Im kind of happy with the colours here, quite abstract but too purple.

2007-11-02T05:10:00.001-07:00

This is a montage I created in photoshop from a number of environment reference images collected by Giles, the fallen trunk in the centre was drawn and painted in water colour by me in corel painter X, this is a shot that was described in the scene/shot breakdown, im experimenting with composition, style and colour.

"AZTEC ESCAPE" - the new story!

2007-11-02T04:32:00.000-07:00

Synopsis:

The story begins with our "average joe" dreaming of an Aztec adventure. The story is set deep within his imagination, where we follow his quest to locate the ancient artefact through dense jungle and Aztec ruins. The combination of his dream and his compulsive sleep walking habits, lead to the dustruction of his apartment. The story concudes when our main character becomes consious and notes his trashed surroundings.

This story gives us so much room for creativity: visual and filmic. The main reason is because the jungle and temple environments are based in a dream world, therefore hyper-realism can be scrapped and a more original, warped and stylistic look/feel can be used. It gives us the opportunity to create exaggerated scenes and actions. The film is shorter, faster in pace and alot stronger. The comedy apects will come from the contrasts of the fast paced, exaggerated dream world, and the slow, subtle movemets within his real life apartment. Here he will unconsiously put himself in danger that will directly lead to the destruction of his home. The question is "why are we doing this film in animation?" and answer we must work to, is that we can create the impossible and stretch the boundaries of our film.

A Crazy Week!

2007-11-02T03:36:00.000-07:00

This week has been the busiest and the most crucil for our project! for a couple of weeks now i have not been happy with the final out come of the story, it also showed within the group as alot of the team weren't motivated and enuthisatic. It was getting more difficult for me to boost confidence of the group, especially when ive been having big doubts about the project myself. Even though this was the case, i carried on producing environmental concept art and continued with the development of the temple interior. it was only when me, rob and giles went over the story draft (shot/scene breakdown) for third time, when i knew that it needed urgent direction from our tutors. The day and night before the consultation i organised the team to collectively produce the tumbnails for the storyboard. This was slow and painful! it occured to me that the story was so complex that we were having trouble developing the camera angles (general filmic language) for each scene, there was just so much going on! And the film felt like it was going on forever!

The consultation with Dan...

Me, rob and giles met Dan at 4:00 and were finished by 6:00! the 2hours really opened our minds at the many holes and general flaws in the story, one of the real eye openers of the meeting was when Dan said, "your pitch was good, but you've seemed to have gone backwards with it"... it was then when i thought that the story had to change! He suggested new ideas and angles to view the story, plus also helped me over come the one mistake i made as director; making sure that only 2/3 people work on the story and that i have the final say on it. My mistake was that i wanted the whole group (all 6 of us) to develop the story from the pitch, to make sure the whole team is happy and involved, this can work, but what happened is that a "too many cooks spoil the broth" senario happened, there were too mat ideas and disagreements that the underlying core of the story was lost, i compromised with ideas so much (to keep everyone happy) that it made the whole film a blur of pointless scenes, too many characters and a messed up structure.

So the three of us went home, reviewed the notes i had written, picked at the holes of our story and decided that a complete change in story was needed. 16 hours later we had finished a new story synopsis, timeline and typed a detailed scene/shot breakdown, the camera angles are fully planned and the story seemed refreshing, exciting and stronger! We immediately went into uni and spoke with our main tutor Mike Smith, then Dan, then Jared and finally Jamie. Before going ahead with tumbnails and style development we wanted the story reviewed and 'green lit' by everyone. The feedback was great! The new story was 100 times stronger than the last, it was funnier and gave us endless room for visual and filmic creativity! Every tutor was really positive, i noted all feedback and we made slight changes where needed, but apart from that, the story was finalised instantly! I feel so happy with the new film, the team seems revitalised and very enthusiastic!

i have organised the team into their relavent roles and all know that final say comes from me, we now have a limited number on the story development: rob, giles and me, and all artists can now start development, our lead animator dan and giles will be referencing styles, jungle, temple and apartment environments. Giles and i have been developing styles and experimenting will colours for the different areas/shots of the film, this will carry on for a few more days. I really want this film to have a different, new and exciting look/feel. Rob is working on the thumbnails from our detailed shot/scene breakdown, and i'll be over seeing all areas of the project. Ben will start storyboarding today and by the end of next week we shall start the animatic! Jen is carrying on with concept, but will use the styles that giles and i develop over the next few days.

2007-10-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

Personal Concept Artwork - Stone Stairs to the Artefact (in the Temple)

2007-10-24T13:06:00.001-07:00

Personal Concept Artwork - Tree/Root Detail in Temple

2007-10-24T13:00:00.001-07:00

Personal Concept Art -Main Jungle Establishing Shot Development

2007-10-24T12:30:00.001-07:00

Personal Concept Art - Development of Spike Traps

2007-10-24T12:14:00.000-07:00

Personal Concept Art - Temple Entrance

Main Temple Map - Completed

2007-10-24T11:39:00.000-07:00

The temple environment map that i created from previous sketch.

2007-10-24T11:33:00.000-07:00

Rough Temple Map - Created by Me, Giles and Rob
Sketched by Rob.

Production Schedule

2007-10-24T11:25:00.000-07:00

The Production Schedule - created by me and giles.

The past weeks and a bit!

2007-10-24T10:01:00.000-07:00

Hey!

Firstly...

A detailed weekly production schedule for this term was produced by me and giles. Then together we went forward in creating a weekly schedule for the whole film production. This was given to my team in the next meeting.

After reading the story breakdown first draft, i made notes on the areas that i thought needed changing, then presented these ideas to the group for disscussion. Most of the changes were supported, and i considered their ideas/views too and then changed the scenes/shots accordingly. Some of the additions/changes included: the bridge shot leading to the temple was taken out of scene one, the idea of seeing the whole outside of the temple was scrapped, the first explorer now comes back near the end of the film for comedy aspect (hit by another trap before trying to stop second explorer). The very start of the tansformation/artefact magic is now seen before the shot of the shocked animals in scene five. The explorer that is turned into an animal is seen tugging the artefact out of the temple entrance after the ending credits.

The group suggested the idea to take down the character count, after reviewing the production schedule i thought it would be wise to do so; as the size of the project was already big enough, this would make modelling and animation easier, by having more time to focus on the other characters actions and timing. Hopefully producing a more professiobal result. It also meant that the story flowed alittle nicer, especially when the motives of the animal charcters have changed; they are now watching over the artefact, and protect it by operating the deadly traps below.

The second draft of the story was completed by me, rob and giles. The story is getting stronger, but i think that its getting longer! Going to organise a meeting with Dan our lecturer to review our story, to rip it apart a bit and give us feedback.

While working on the screen writing section, I have also undertaken an environmental concept artist role and organised the part-time concept artists, most of them produced nice work, though some didnt meet the deadlines that i set, which put me back behind schedule slightly. This meant that i couldnt assess the character designs all together and make decisions for development go-aheads.

My main character concept artists were working on their initail sketches at the time. The next main meeting came and the amount and level of work produced worried me alot. Some of the team seemed deflated and unethusiastic, it was hard because i didnt want them to think that i was pressuring them for work or being harsh, but if this film is to reach the professional standard i want and generally keep up with the schedule i needed to take real control of my project; and so set deadlines, gave each member of the group detailed information on what work is expected and when it has to be done for. After talking with the group as a whole, asking if their were any problems and informing individual artists that their work areas needed to be changed, styles/ideas developed and the amount they produce to increase, i felt alot less panicy about the amount of work we have to undertake.

The following meeting was excellant! The work, styles and ideas produced reassured me that we can get this film made! The character concept art from Ben was great, with possibley three of the four characters ready to be developed for production. The group really liked my environmental concept art! Im going to continue to develop and design the inside of the temple.

After hours of discussion and sketching the rough temple map was produced by me, rob and giles. At this point in the project i feel we are still slightly behind, i have informed the team that we are to carry on concept art and story development and start thumbnailing the storyboard on monday. We have a formative on tuesday!

2007-10-12T15:04:00.000-07:00

My environment reference images detailing jungle areas and aztec buildings. These also include details of possible styles, colours and background landscapes.

2007-10-12T06:50:00.000-07:00

Work Completed:

Story Oultine - List Scenes, established the motivaions, conflict and message, established begining, middle and end, list scene details, briefly described scene, established overall plot, what is setting the scene, central events of the scene. Completed this within group meetings, all notes are typed up.

Screenplay - Ordered scenes, written basic descriptions of each scene and the shot breakdowns, this was discussed/determined within the group meetings in detail, rob and giles typed up, added to and presented it in word format, i then read the document and added and amended small areas of the story.

Character Design - My concept artists (jenny, ben, rachael, luke) have started to produce rough sketches/ideas, rob and I have produced character backgrounds, indicating height and biuld details, motivations, career and life details, key characteristics and I have emailed this document to the whole group.

Reference images have been collected by all memebers of the group including myself, and I wish to produce environmental concept designs for the all areas of the story. The more ideas and drawings that are produced the better the concept development. This should mean that we achieve a higher quality apperance and originality.

The dialogue will be discussed and started sunday evening. Can't wait to get really into this project, its going well so far, alittle slow because we're drafting the story alot, but the development is key to its success.

Initial Film Pitch - "Aztec Escape"

2007-10-12T05:33:00.000-07:00

Film Synopsis - Short story comedy piece, set in a beautiful jungle environment and historic Aztec ruins. Three animals set the stage for two human explorers' attempts at stealing the Aztec treasure.

Hey!

Just got around to starting my personal blog for this project! So just going to recap the past week and a bit...

The initail pitch went really well, had to make sure i cut it down and simplify the synopsis/story so that the main points were covered only, and that i didnt waffle on during the presentation! Tutors didnt ask many questions so i took that as a good sign, in that i told them everything they needed to know. Had a great interest from the class once pitched and the orchestral music composed by Alistair Primrose strengthend the overal feel/atmosphere of the film. The only thing that was lacking from the pitch was that i didnt have any concept work.

On the friday of last week the 'green lighted' films were annouced... and mine was chosen! feels really good to know my film has the potential as a BA project. Now it was time to get together my team... which was a difficult prosess to undertake, i had to tell people that i didnt need them and thought i had definates but groups seemed to be swaping and changing constantly! Finally i got together a definate strong team and the main roles appointed (see list below):

Jenny Morgan - Concept Artist
Ben Griffin - Concept Artist

Jonathan Pryce - Modelling and Texturing Artist
Robert Sidney - Modelling and Texturing Artist

Giles Pease - Modelling and Rigging

Dan - Lead Animator

Film Composer - Alistair Primrose

This week has been mainly about story drafting, creating concreate character backgrounds, motivations, scene descriptions, shot breakdowns, rough character design and collecting environmental/style/colour reference images. The story has changed considerably and im happy because the new ideas and cuts have seemed to strength it.