Jasmine Works on Backgrounds

Week twelve has come and gone. I have officially finished two full backgrounds, the sketch of the third and have started on the line art for that one as well. So far I’m just on schedule. I think I may run a week over for backgrounds but cutting a week into concepts shouldn't put me too far behind schedule as I've already done some concept sketches on the side. Hopefully next week I can get the opportunity to speak with someone from backgrounds because I have a few logistical issues I need help with. That's pretty much it so far, wish me luck!

- Jasmine

Rae Explores Photoshop

Hi! 

It's been a while since my last blog post, I've finished my animatic, and it's given me a better grasp on what I want to do. I've hit a little bit of a wall, where I haven't been able to get much done, or spend as much time on it. So far I've just been working on my backgrounds and further developing the style I want for my film. I've been exploring with different ways to paint and use texture in Photoshop, and I've learned some new tricks and tips from some of the people here.  I don't have much time left, but I'm still determined to finish it! I set up a system to organize my shots, so I know exactly what I have to do for each one and when I should get it done, and which ones need to be done first. There are a few complicated shots that I am going to try and get done first. I'm really looking forward to everything coming together in the end, and hopefully I can pull it off! Here is an updated version of the opening shot and the background for the second shot that I am currently working on. I'll have more to show next time!

-Rae

Pippa and the Casting Call

How is it Friday already?! I swear, it was Monday like yesterday.

This week had a lot of casting call stuff for Epic Studios too - and so it should, since the auditions were Tuesday and Wednesday. Which would also explain how I apparently got lost in the space-time continuum.

So Monday was predominantly spent calling agents of anyone who wasn’t confirmed for Epic Studios. Lots of emails, lots of phone calls, lots of voicemails. I’m getting a lot better at making my emails short and to the point. I’ve always struggled with that sort of thing, what with my writer’s nature to make things sound pretty.

I’m really glad that I’m actually becoming less verbose. It only took me sending between twenty and fifty emails of saying pretty much the same thing, when I could have summed it up in a single sentence and made that process a lot less time consuming.

Tuesday and Wednesday took me to Farmhouse Productions to meet the team there, which was pretty cool. I also got to meet a few actors that I knew as I was manning the sign-in sheets for the auditions, which I emailed to ACTRA afterwards. I was surprised to see how quickly auditions actually go.

I also got to do a bit of production scheduling for Epic Studios, and counted how many days each cast member will be needed on set. I got to try some of that in my program, but I’ve been finding that a lot of aspects of a production are easier to wrap my head around when it’s actually attached to a show rather than a school assignment.

Back at Smiley Guy Studios, I started helping with the Vampire Steve weekly meeting schedule, and Erin said next week, meeting notes will be my responsibility. I also got to sit in on a skype interview with one of our future interns from Denmark, so that was cool.

Aside from Smiley Guy stuff, I also helped with a second breakdown for Epic Studios casting which is going to take place Monday. I’ve also finally started compiling that script notes master list for Lisa that I mentioned last week. Working on things for the second casting call is actually why my blog post for this week is going to be late - lots of scheduling and adding and shifting things around. And then I got to make more sides for those characters that didn’t have sides already. There were a lot more emails and phone calls, but we eventually got that all taken care of.

And that was my week.

Pippa is a Busy Bee

Alright, I've had a little time to process everything now. So, to recap, last week was my first week. Depending on the size of the screen you're reading this on, you may be able to see my previous post as well and know that already. And to that I say . . . well played.

So last week I dove headfirst into the world of animation, although my experience in production leans more on the live action side. But, despite diving into the deep end of the pool instead of the where I could at least see the bottom, I managed to tread water long enough to survive my first week. I'll admit, I almost lost it in a sea of casting emails on Friday, but I pushed through and made it back to the surface.

I suppose it's probably not advisable to use so many metaphors involving water in a place with so many electronics, so I'll try to stop the flood of bad jokes here.

Besides helping as a casting assistant for an upcoming web series that Smiley Guy's sister company iThentic is working on (which involves receiving more emails than you do when you subscribe to email updates from your favourite chain stores, except you actually have to answer all of them), I've also been learning about the online database system that Smiley Guy uses for their productions, and I've been working on setting up the database that we'll be using for an upcoming animated web series that Smiley Guy is working on for Teletoon. Since the auditions took up such a large chunk of last week, my work on the Vampire Steve continues this week as well.

Erin taught me how to organize a workback schedule in spreadsheet format. We learned how to make workback schedules on a spreadsheet in my college program, but I could never fully wrap my head around how the spreadsheet thing worked until I saw how Erin made the one for Vampire Steve.

Also, on Friday, I got a moment to try a Virtual Reality gaming system – which was super cool. I accidentally punched Joel in the process, which I still feel bad about, but other than that, only a few virtual characters perished during that particular adventure.

This week, I've done more casting. I've become better acquainted with the Casting Workbook system (finally!) and I finally feel like I'm riding the accompanying wave of emails instead of getting bowled over by it. Which is good, because Lisa's warned me that when we send out the prospective audition times, everyone is going to want to change their time.

Okay, so timeskip and now it's Friday again. The bulk of my week consisted of casting emails. Audition schedules, audition re-schedules and chasing agents to confirm their clients' scheduled audition. I've also been working on cast reports, which was the first time I'd ever used Final Draft, but it was user-friendly enough. I believe next week I'll be back using Final Draft to work on some script note compilations that Lisa wants me to make.

In the time that I haven't been working on the casting call, I've either been in meetings or adding concept links to the Vampire Steve database. I think I've pretty much got the latter just about finished for the first three episodes – I just have to go over them one last time and then I'll be ready to start parenting builds (which I think is the next step?).

And I'm at a full page so I should call it for this entry. Tune in next week for chapter 3!

Callie is Caught Up!

I can't believe it, but I've caught up in my schedule. I might even be ahead of schedule and I never thought that would happen because of how long I spent in design. It's crazy. I think it is a lot to do with the simplicity of my characters and film, but even so I thought animation would take forever!!! It's very strange to think that I have been working on this project for over half a year (slash even that school is almost over!! This is insanity). Everything has gone by so quickly and I'll be leaving Smiley Guy in less than two months :((


I am being too sad too quickly!! I still have 2 months left! Ish! That is plenty of time to use my new key card and be in this super cool environment. I still have maybe a third of animation left to do and then after that I will have to pick out cool music. I'm excited for that part because having a musical element will add so much to it. There's this trailer for The Shining which has been remade so that it looks like a rom com and it's seriously baffling because it's the exact same movie (like the trailer uses movie clips straight from The Shining) but just through music, one of the most classic horror films has been revamped to look like a romantic comedy. Absolutely ridiculous is what it is, and very funny, but it shows just how much music can do so I can't wait to add it to my film. See you Monday!!

Callie is Determined

I'm writing my blog post today because Friday afternoon I'll be on a plane so it would be slightly difficult for me to come to co op. Monday was a very productive day for me because I finished my entire second background (it took me forever to do the first one)! SO that was good. Today not so much. I learned some more about Photoshop from Aramika but I kept trying to draw and then save my file and it would freeze every time. It's probably my fault though for making the file so large, but still, it's frustrating because I was supposed to get done and I spent so much time waiting for Photoshop to start working again.


I am pretty behind schedule, but I think that's because I forgot to even put backgrounds in my schedule or maybe I lumped it in with design. Apparently that was not smart. Rich says not to worry about being behind because it's most important that I am doing a good job and learning everything properly, but still I don't want to leave Smiley Guy with my film unfinished. I can't believe how fast the year has gone by, there are less than 3 months of school left! After the March break I'll come back and work super speedy. I'm very excited to start animation but the task seems daunting, It will be my longest stage yet and I find that by the end of the long stages I start to become less efficient. Probably because I just want to get it over with start something new. I must overcome that, I'm sure animation will be very interesting. See you next week!

Callie Continues to Build

Friday is a PA day for me and I'm not coming in to co op (I'll be on an airplane!! Yay long weekends), so I'm writing my post for only Monday and Wednesday.

I can't remember what I did last week, only that it was builds. This week is the same except I know what I am doing, and it's wonderful because I am not losing time figuring out flash.

On Monday I built the outline for the light bulb and then today I went into the symbols and built all the eye movements and a few of the mouth expressions.

I had to extend my schedule, like I thought, to finish builds but it should all go quickly from now on. Adios until next week!

Callie and the Colour Palette

I forgot to write a post for last week so I'll include what I did in this post as well as the stuff from this week. It's sort of hard to remember and all the days blend into one another because I'm so lost in what I'm doing. Maybe I'm losing track of time (whoops). I know that last week I finally made a work back schedule and coloured in my characters.

Choosing the colours for the schedule was probably the most fun because I made it rainbow and who doesn't love rainbow? Excel was tricky to get a hang of and I had to copy and paste cells to move things around (which completely defeats the purpose of excel 'cause it took forever).

The colouring of my characters was a lot more fun. I've been working in black and white up until now pretty much and this was my first chance to choose a colour palette for my short. It took surprisingly long to colour just a few drawings in Photoshop even more so because I still can't use the pen and tablet particularly well.

This week I've been trying to relearn perspective. I really really should have paid attention in art because I am having the hardest time drawing backgrounds. Whoever knew drawing a window could be so freaking hard.

According to my schedule I have one week left to finish my concept, but seeing as that's only three days and I have to paint three different backgrounds, I have lots of work to do. I'll probably practice out of co op otherwise I'm sunk. Happy weekend!

Lucas Continues to Shame Us All With His Energy

Ok, this week has been a busy one! I'm just going to go through the list of things that have been pulled together over the course of this week. Seems like the best way to do this.

1. Co-op: So, the write-ups for our final culminating projects were due this Wednesday. I'm pretty happy with mine. I of course, made a game. I borrowed a huge amount of the code from the work that I have done here at SGS so that cut down the time that I had to spend on it my a monumental amount. Despite that, it looks and plays completely different. I also had to do a powerpoint presentation to the class. I think that went really well too.

2. Writing: Last week when I finished my pilot episode, Julie sent me a link to withoutabox.com. It's basically a hub for film festivals. I was looking through the site to find a script-only festival but I was having difficulty finding one that had parameters that fit my pilot. However, I did find a bunch of student short film festivals. I figured... why not just write one of these? So I did. I have a good friend who is in the film program at Earl Haig (It's an arts school). He's going to help me shoot it. I am going to direct. And I'm also doing the casting this week (There are enough drama-geeks at my school would be up for it). We're going to film next weekend. It's only going to be about 5-7 minutes so the filming shouldn't be too laborious. I have however, started making a call sheet for the times that all the actors need to be there. Just so that we can manage the time well.

3. Reading: I know this is a bit off topic, but from tuesday till now, I have read two novels. I felt like mentioning it just because it's been quite intensive. My sister gave me "A Fault In Our Stars" by John Green. It was really good. I went out and got "Looking For Alaska" which is also by him on wednesday. That was really good as well. I need more sleep.

Lucas is Becoming an Inspiration to the Rest of Us

I feel really good about this week! First off, I'm on schedule with the game now! I had a my check with Aman this morning and I got some criticism on the tile set and character. He told me that I should take away the colour of the player overtop of the tiles to make sure there's enough contrast of the two. Apparently, it's helpful for colour-blind people as well as making sure that the player is always clear seen. He is also going to send me some of his previous tile sets so I can make some comparisons. I'm going to make some tweaks on them then on monday we'll lock it. Feels good to not be behind! 

On a side note, I finished my Pilot! I've been doing some work on my own on a TV Pilot. I had finished a treatment and started  the actual spec two weeks ago. Now I'm happy to say that it's done! It's 55 pages. I don't think I've ever written that many pages of anything. Mike said I should send all this stuff to him and we can talk about it. He's already given me some pretty brief do's and don't's of the industry and I'm really exited to hear more. I'll probably start writing more specs. Now that I've already gone through the motions of doing this first one, it should be easier from here on out.

Elizabeth Sharpens Her Producing Skills

Hello!

So I may have to give up the .gif dream. My computer doesn’t have the programs that you need to make them! It looks like Lucas is the .gif master…at least for now!

Last week I helped organize files for an original Smiley Guy Studios show. I was able to take a look at original scripts, characters, backgrounds, pitch documents as well as some animatics. It was interesting to see what it is that Smiley Guy Studios would use to pitch the show!

I’ve also been working on some rough versions of budgets and schedules for another show. Mine aren’t nearly as nice looking or complex as the real ones. It’s good practice though, and I’m getting an understanding of how long animated shows really take to get made!

I have another month of school left! I think it’s going to be a bit of a crazy month but I almost don’t want it to end. I’ve really enjoyed my program and I’m going to miss seeing my friends and teachers on a regular basis.

Here is a sample 'simple' schedule