Jasmine Does The Storyboard Thing

Oct 16th and 18th 2018

   Almost forgot about this, oops. The end of week 4 is upon us. Today I did the storyboard thing. I've done storyboarding before and I love it more and more every time. It's a very fast process where your ideas can morph and change rapidly and I love the fluidity of it all. That's mostly what I've been working on this past week. I’m about halfway done my initial storyboards but then I'll have to go over them and revise but so far so good. On other notes I think I'm going to buy some cinnamon buns on my way home today and try them either tonight or tomorrow for breakfast, we shall see how they taste. Can't wait to see what next week brings!

- Jasmine

Jasmine does the Script Thing and Hugs a Turkey.

This is the end of my second week here at Smiley Guy and it's been great! This week I got to work on my script and figuring out the format of that (thank you Erin and Wikihow). I also got the privilege of talking with a few of the department heads about what they do and how their job contributes to the overall animation process. In total, this week has been very informative and was really interesting to me. Next week I think I'll be working on… something. Probably my script more but I'm not really sure. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it :) - Jasmine

Anyways, have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Pippa on Set!

May 9*

So Epic Studios begins shooting this week, so for the next three weeks, Mondays will be my only day at Smiley Guy Studios. Today was hectic. Script revisions were the highest of high priority, because the assistant directors needed them for finalizing the schedules. I also got to help Karen with setting up ACTRA contracts for the cast of Epic Studios.

Tuesday to Saturday, I was on the set of Epic Studios. It was a huge learning curve for me. I’ve been on the set of student productions before, but in comparison to how things work on an actual set, we were just play-acting. Throughout my time at Loyalist, I always focused on the pre-production side of things: writer, casting director, producer. I haven’t really done as much crew work as most of my classmates - aside from directing, I’ve hardly been on set for anything other than a production manager, so I felt fairly lost.

I do the daily sides on-set, which is kind of a hassle to do without a laptop. A new laptop is pretty close to the top of my list of things to buy that would make my life infinitely easier. I also work on keeping the craft table stocked up, and making sure that people on set are fed and watered. I really like the set food - it’s my favourite part of the day. I also took care of the ACTRA sign-in sheet and contracts for actors.

Pippa the Production Assistant

This weekend, I moved into a new place - a basement apartment that I’m sharing with my bestie from college. The apartment is definitely not as sunny as I’d like by any means, but the shady coolness will be a great asset this summer. And although it’s not especially sunny, it’s a nice apartment, at least.

This week, I did a lot of script stuff, which makes sense because I’m the script supervisor on Epic Studios. I got the chance to sit in on the Epic Studios punch-up room, as well as helping Karen with some funding applications and compiling contracts for Epic. There was another casting call this week that I helped Lisa with. I also did script revisions and more script revisions, as well as some ACTRA contract stuff and cast reports.

For the next three and a half weeks, I’ll only be in at Smiley Guy on Mondays. Instead of being at Smiley Guy, I’ll be working on the set of Epic Studios as a production assistant. I’ll be back at Smiley Guy at the start of June, and then I’ll be graduating from college. Everything is happening so quickly.

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.

Callie Love Halloween and Samosas

Halloween is upon us!! I love costumes and I was very happy when I was allowed to wear mine to work on Friday, even though the high heeled boots made me late. My boots are quite irrelevant to what work I got done this week however, so I'll move on. Monday and Wednesday I worked on my script, using Jeremy's notes and I watched more animated shorts to look at what elements made a short funny or memorable. Death Buy Lemonade by Kyu-bum Lee is definitely my favourite (probably because of the pun in the title).

Friday was my most productive day, by far. I sat in on a meeting and listened to Julie talk about a top secret toy (shhhh) being released just in time for Valentine's Day. It was actually a good thing to listen to because it offered an inside look at the back and forth between the client and the studio. Julie also printed out a script of Chirp and used that to teach me how to format my own script. I didn't do much after that except eat a samosa and write this before it was time to go. People are always giving me food here and I love it. Yum. Anyways, Happy Halloween!! See you next week.

Callie = Claire Standish

Cheeawk! by Mary

This is my last blog post! It seems like I was on a faerie theme from the past posts, so here's the last one for you!

As you can see, I love this little kids show, and it was a pleasure working on it during my internship, and I look forward for more in the next month! Smiley Guy Studios has offered me a job here, so I'll still be animating these birds until my school starts. This means I'll also have more time to ask for some feedback on my thesis film.

I had a really fun experience here with friendly people and a relaxing environment and I think I've already blogged enough about what I've learned from the studio in my past posts, so perhaps here's something funny for my last blog post!

Last week Joel sent us a funny faerie Chirp clip from a future episode, and I had to check out the full animatic - no surprise I loved it! I was also wearing my Tinkerbell t-shirt that morning too. Hehehh.

On the same day, intern buddy David and I had a hilarious skype conversation after watching the episode before work. We really got into the Chirp world...so many deep questions were asked and a future story of Chirp turned into some strange fanfiction...PG-13 rating? David and I don't mind sharing this. I hope our energy entertains you!

The Skype Conversation:We made couple-pairing names?!!!!

David Just: squawk is my spirit animal

MaryT: I KNOW RIGHT???

David Just: ok thats it i offically ship tweet and squawk

MaryT: SAFJDNSAKJDNSAKDSADSA

David Just: i had them holding hands in my shot

MaryT: SQUEET!!!! 5EVERE (squeet = squawk + tweet)

David Just: i kinda changed it though so they aren't rrreeaaalllyy holding hands

MaryT: BUT I WANT CHIRP IN ON THIS. CHIRPAWK. (chirpawk = chirp + squawk)

David Just: cheeawk(cheeawk = chirp + tweet + squawk)

David Just: the ultimate OT3 (ot3 = one true triple pairing)

MaryT:CHEEAWKTHAT IS PERFECt

David Just: so much vowels

David Just: its like a hawk screeching

David Just: wait... aren't they siblings?

David Just: everything is so ambiguous!

MaryT: What colour parents would they have if they were siblings???

David Just: couple of rainbow parents duhhhhh

MaryT: maybe the show ships them as siblings....but NEIGH we shall Cheeawk into the horizon in the sunset

MaryT: PARROTS???

David Just: yellow blue orange purple probably the other colours too ;)

David Just: maybe???

David Just: i feel like tweet is an owl though

David Just: hahahah

MaryT: Tweet would be....Hoot

David Just: yeah!

MaryT: What if Squawk had a crow for a dad because of his beak? He'd be....Caw....Squawk Caw.

David Just: yeah!

David Just: and chirp is like... part canary

David Just: from a pet store

David Just: honestly he reminds me to tweety bird so much

MaryT: His mother was....TWEETY BIRD

David Just: YES! :O

MaryT: THATS IT

MaryT: THIS IS LOONEY TOONS NEXT GENERATION

MaryT: LOONIES

David Just: AAAAAHHHH!!! WB will be so upset :P

MaryT: Maybe the Warner Brothers turned INTO the vole brothers?

MaryT: they are secretly the Warner brothers. watching over Tweety Bird's lost son

David Just: we're in way too deep! write the back story n post it somewhere

MaryT: I'll use it as my next blog post OMG

David Just: who's the dad though?

David Just: Multiple dads?

David Just: :O

MaryT: I dunno but maybe LOL oh Tweety.

David Just: i feel like squawk's dad is the crows from dumbo

MaryT: YEAH

MaryT: omg

David Just: tweets could be owl from winnie the pooh

MaryT: Oh my god

David Just: and chirp is immaculate conception from god

MaryT: WELL THEN TWEETY WHOA THERE

MaryT: he's the precious one born in a cage

David Just: sweet summer child

MaryT: the golden child. who's grandmother will never visit him

MaryT: imagine the angst when he'll never see his grandma in person

David Just: he is his own grandma

MaryT: OMG

MaryT: YOU'RE RIGHT

David Just: come on Mary, it's obviously just chirp in a dress ;)

David Just: she doesn't even have wrinkles

MaryT: FOOLING SQUAWK AND TWEET EVERY DAY HE HIRED THE MAIL SQUIRREL IN THIS DAILY SCHEME.

MaryT: TO PROVE TO THEM THAT AT LEAST HE HAS FAMILY.

MaryT: WHEN TWEET FINDS OUT ABOUT HIS EVIL LIES SHE LEAVES THE BIRDS AND MARRIES THE VOLE BROTHERS. SQUAWK FINDS OUT HE FORSAKEN THE CANARY'S HEART AND SINGS A SAD SONG AND ATTRACTS SPARKY BUT THEIR LOVE CAN NEVER BE. AND THEN CHIRP IS ALL ALONE AGAIN.

MaryT: oh i just had caps on. omg

MaryT: messed up chirp angst

David Just: lmao

David Just: so much angst

David Just: holy moly

MaryT: coming up next "the friendship is broken. the season finale. Will they ever be together again?"

David Just: the answer, YES

MaryT: a loud battle cry was heard because love is a war. love is...CHEEAWK.

David Just: lmao

David Just: i wanna draw like a mega bird with 3 heads called the cheeawk

MaryT: OMHG

The end! Well you can tell we're into the show.

Thanks a bunch Smileys!

Lucas is Wrapping it Up

Hello people of the world! This week has been on the less-eventful side but nonetheless, everything is still in motion!

The game is almost done, just minor changes are being made now and I'm prepping for the final version! It's really cool to see all the work finally come together. I'm looking foreword to it.

Unfortunately, the short film that I was talking about last week will have to be postponed. My film-making friend and two of the actors are unable to put in the time due to exams so we'll be doing it during the summer. I am slightly disappointed because I'm a teenager and I crave immediate gratification but it's probably for the best. We'll end up not having to be so rushed and not confined to a small amount of time.

On a side note, I read "Of Mice and Men" and "the Catcher in the Rye" this week.

Still sleep deprived.

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.

One Good Intern Helps Another

This blog is a little off schedule. Just because the last week and a half has been really wonky. I've been at home with a fever since thursday so I haven't been into the studio but I was able to do some work on my own time. First, I'll start with a bit of a progress report with the game:

 

So as of now, I am done programming. I had to do a quick map loader to use the tiled (.tmx) map files in java but it worked out fine. I have a few very basic maps. The player can walk around and attack stuff and it's all very fun. I'm now starting on the art. I'd like to have time for two really polished tile sets. However, with time restraints I may only have time for one. It won't be the end of the world though. 

 

Also, heres the (very very very) rough tile set that I have been working on:

 

 

 

On a side note, I've been talking to Elizabeth about my interest in television writing. She was able to send me some very useful packages from her classes on things including how to make a good pitch, to a character development sheet. Since I've been home sick with a ton of free time, I was able to complete a 12-page treatment (Like a pitch) and I have about 10 pages of a pilot episode. Elizabeth also sent me some samples so I had a bit of a grasp on what the format should look like. 

 

 

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

An Elizabethian Update

I feel like I’m going to need to learn how to make comics to make my blog posts as interesting as Lucas’. Or get some really cool screenshots.

As for what I’ve been up to…

I attended my first production meeting last week! I sat in on it and got a sense of how even just one show is a huge collaborative effort. It was cool to hear everyone talk about the animation parts, because I know nothing about how cartoons are made.

I had an assignment due last week, where we had to create a budget for a web series with a $10 000 budget. Now, I’m not completely sure that I did it properly, but I did know that certain shows with a lower budget and who use ACTRA members could receive a discount on ACTRA pay rates. So I put that into my fake budget. I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t been working with real contracts in the office!

In school I’m working on an American Horror Story spec script. I’m finding it a lot harder to write a drama than a comedy (we did those last semester). I’m also working on a short film script, Romeo Goes to School. It’s about a pug named Romeo, who goes to school.  Not the most creative title but it gets the point across.

That’s about it for now!