Thinking about the CCR

    So on Wednesday, in class my teacher gave a brief presentation about the Creative Critical Reflection portion of the AICE Media AS Final. She mainly reviewed a few points and mentioned that there were examples on her Canvas page. A bit before filming I had skimmed through her page, and did find the rubric for the CCR which did help me a little bit towards being prepared for it. Up until that point I hadn't directly thought about genre all too much, hence the Visual Comedy blog post. 

    Since the presentation I have been thinking about it a lot more and I've started writing the outline to my script. I'm writing out the 4 main questions in a Google Doc and answer them each properly before moves around certain portions to create a nice flow for the CCR. Since the set for my opening hasn't been torn down yet, I might try to find a nice angle of it to serve as the background. I'm probably going to stick with primarily a typical standup style video with some behind the scene photos, used footage, references from other movies and mediums that helped me put this project together.

    I'm not super nervous about the CCR, since these blog post have helped me better understand my experiences and how I've changed over the process of this project. I just need to finish the script for it, so that's want I'm going to do now. I'll see you soon.

Jammin'

 So I've added music. While Zinc Vacuum did say that I had permission to use any song from their discography, I stuck with Orange. I felt including different songs might feel off because they all convey different moods and moments. The song is structured with two main choruses and a valley of sound in between. I initially wanted one of the loud choruses to be for the title card, but the pre-chorus synced up surprisingly well with the grabbing and throwing of the sketch book. To add an extra oomph to it, I copied a classic Daft Punk tradition of putting a low-pass filter and then coming back at full force. So now I need a piece of music for the title card.

Daft Punk's 2nd live album with many uses of low pass "fade in's"

    I first tried to see if I could repeat the chorus and have it serve as a motif of sorts, but it didn't have the same punch and felt a bit lazy. I listened through the rest of the song, and after the last chorus there is a synth that rises and falls as the rest of the instruments fade out. I tried it out for the title card and I liked it. I did raise the overall gain of the clip since it was originally lower. 

    I'm still experimenting a little bit with the music. I have one version of the the chorus that's shorter, while another version has the chorus playing for the full duration. It mostly depends on the final graphics I'd place for the credits. Right now there are some place holder credits just to visualize timings. At the current state in time, I'm leaning towards the shorter chorus since it wouldn't seem as dragged out, and as a practical purpose, if its shorter, I don't need to animate as much. In terms of the line edit of Extension, it's for the most part finished, I just need t add in the animated portions tweak some audio at the beginning and we should be fine

Unplanned for Success

     So here I am I'm like a week into animating. (Full blog about that coming soon) Brief spoiler, but throughout most of the animation process I've been listening to music. All different playlists that I've made and albums I like. And yesterday I was listening to the Score/Instrumental playlist I've made. While listing I began to think about the music for the opening. It's funny, if you were to ask me how the video would look, I'd be able to give a specific answer. If you were to ask me about how it would sound, it'd be a slightly different story.

    In between all the Italian Jazz, Video Game OST's, horror movie scores, and ambient music I was reminded of Orange by Zinc Vacuum. I don't fully remember how I found the track, I just know that I somehow got a hold of it through Instagram back in late 2020 and I've been following them since. I've always appreciated the loud and crashing chorus, and I've toyed with the idea of including in certain moments or scenes for a number of projects I've wanted to make. I looked up their account again, and saw they had a relatively small following and had direct message open. I thought to myself, "Why not?"

    This morning, I drafted up and sent them a message, and in a few hours I got a response! They said that if I wanted I could use any music they've made, as long as I credit them. SOOOOO LETSSSSS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Anyways, they were super nice about. We confirmed the official credit which will be, 'Music by Austin Barnette from Zinc Vacuum'. I also mentioned how when the project is finished I'll share it with them.

    I have also added parts of the track Orange to the timeline and now have a better idea for the sound of Extension. I do plan on sharing it with a few people to get some secondary opinions, but for now I am really excited for the final product!

If you want to see more about Zinc Vacuum (previously known as Austin Barnette and the Wall of Sound, I've linked some of their socials below:

https://www.instagram.com/zinc.vacuum.music/?hl=en

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_299CJms3BU8Qegu6Wb0iw

The Easy Part

     So I finished filming and it's now time for EDITING! I like editing because you begin to see how things are shaping up to look like. And sometimes it's a fun trying to figure out what the best order for the sequence would be. Sometimes I could spend upwards of 6 hours in a single editing session, but this wasn't necessarily like that. It was actually much easier because I already edited my opening:

https://frameisokay.blogspot.com/2022/03/editing-before-filming.html

https://frameisokay.blogspot.com/2022/03/timing-and-math-yay.html

    Having a storyboard to follow is really convenient because you don't have to think on the spot about the timings or order, you just follow the plan that was already laid out. Granted it's only a line edit and doesn't have animation or properly mixed sound, but the timings and shots are all there. Unfortunately, I did notice 1 single continuity error and I'm probably have to refilm it. It shouldn't be too bad though since it was during one of the establishing shots of the workspace. if anything it's just annoying because I'm probably going to spend about 30 minutes setting up and tearing down just so I can get an 6-8 second shot. But you know what, this is a lesson and I'll be sure that for whatever my next major project is, I'll keep an eye out for things like that.

    Anyways, I'll let you know how that goes. In the mean time, I'm going to work on animating...

    

How Did Filming Actually Go?

     I've delayed it enough, and I feel it's finally time I write out the actually experience of filming. I wanted to start production earlier in the day, but my sister had her friend from college over in the earlier afternoon. I had started to set up the set around 3:00 PM. Moving furniture, finding old props, placing props, making parts of the set, and setting up lighting took about 6 hours. Though I should mention that I took a break at one point to eat, so the total time is probably a bit less. By the time I started filming it was around 9:00 PM. 

    I'm personally used to filming at night, and I honestly prefer it because that way, you can fully manipulate the lighting without having to worry about outside light. And it wasn't that bad either because I was filming on my own and didn't have to worry about pertaining to someone else's schedule. And more importantly, I'm use to filming things on my own and having to problem solve to make it work. One such strategy, I used was taking advantage of the Canon Connect App. For the opening, I decided I'd use my Canon EOS 90D which can connect to my phone via the app and Bluetooth, so that I can both monitor the shot and make any adjustments.

    I started off with the 2nd chunk because I knew that was going to be the most time consuming shot. Because I had to react to animated characters that aren't real, I had to make sure my timings and reactions were right. To help with this I made tweaked the 2nd chunk reference video, so that there would be auditory cues for me to react and help me know where to look. I only included cues for when I would have to react or look over. The video would be playing off my laptop and would be placed on a chair right below the camera. And to help me a little bit, I mirrored the video so that I could more easily follow where exactly I have to look.

The video I made

    Luckily, it only took a few tries to get right. Following that shot I tried to get shots that had a similar character placement like the shot of my hand and the computer screen or the over-the-shoulder sequence. The hand/computer shot took a while to get right. To make sure I was on beat with the pen taps, I had my laptop play a 240 bpm metronome. For the shot I wanted a rack focus, so I used the Canon Connect App, to adjust the focus. While filming I had to count 8 beats before I would select the next focus point.

    I skipped around a little bit getting shots. Towards the end, I just need the shot of the "One Day" computer on the sticky note next to sketches. And somehow it was only at this point that I realized I need to make the sketches. So for about an hour I was drawing the sketch on the right of the photo below. By the time I fined drawing that it was about it was around 2 AM. As much as I wanted to get last shot of me on the phone before the title card, I was just too tired. 

    I ended up filming the last shot the next day (or I guess later in the day). For this shot it was fairly simple, but I just had my mom help with watching the camera. And since this shot required dialogue we also found a way to hide the phone lavalier mic I have. The best setup we found was just using a band-aid to keep the mic in place and having the wire go through my sleeve.

    Overall I had fun filming and I like how a lot of the shots came out. Though that's not to say it went perfect. Of course there was the oversite about the sketches in the "One Day" shots. And probably because it was late there is a continuity error in one of the shots. It's not the worst thing in the world, but I'm planning on re-filming the shot since it's a fairly simple one.

Lighting the Scene

     So now that I've talked about the set, lets take a minute or a two to talk about the lighting. I am personally under the impression that lighting, is very much an underrated aspect of filmmaking. It seems redundant, but without lighting you can't see anything. Because of that I love designing the lighting scheme for a scene. Sure, its tedious having to move a light slightly to the left or right in order to find a perfect position, but it pays off the in the end.

    For the lighting of the scene, I again referenced real photos of the workspaces animator use. I wanted to create a warm atmosphere. Warm hues tend to be a bit more welcoming, and generally if you're working in a space for a long period of time, you'd probably want to have a warm light as oppose toa dreary cold light. And especially if an animator has to use a computer for long periods of time, its better for their eyes to have warm light rather than cool light that could irritate their eyes. 

    I made it a priority to include practical lights in the scene that would help to motivate the lighting on the subject. I tried to work in props that emitted light and would make sense in the context of the scene. The first things I considered were two lamps, one a table top lamp and other a regular one. I placed then on far ends of the frame to light up the left and right of the scene. To achieve the warm look and feel, I swapped out their regular cool LED blubs, for two tungsten blubs that were in a box in my garage. Not only were the not as bright, but they also fit the mood I was going for. These lights along with a salt lamp, gave the background a warm look to it. They also served as backlights that would help with distinguishing the subject from the background. I also included some practical cool lights in the form of my computer monitor and the tracing surface. This mostly serves the purpose of just adding some variety to the scene.

    While back lights are cool for making silhouettes, that's not exactly what I'm going for. So I also included a key and a fill. For these lights I used two GVM 800D-RGB's light kits. I placed the key light downstage right (it might be late to mention, but last year I did take a theater tech class that taught me skills that I would end up using in this project). The key light was set to about 5300K to achieve the warm look. This light would light a major of the subject's face as well as give the background a general coat of light. While this set up would light the scene pretty well, it still felt flat, so I turned on the fill light. 

    For the fill, I wanted a different color light to contrast the key. I wanted to create an illusion of shadow. This was a technique I learn about last year when I saw a video about lighting design in theater. The concept is that rather than lighting a face and having the other half fall into darkness, lighting designers would use contrasting hues to create a fake shadow on someone's face. This serves to gives form to a subject, while also properly lighting all sides of that subject. Since I've been building up the warm atmosphere, I decided to use a purple fill light. Purple of course is on the opposite side of the color wheel than yellow, meaning that they'd heavily contrast one another. The purple hue could also been seen as moonlight and can be implied that the animator is working late at night.

    Overall I really liked how the lighting and set design came together. When I was setting up for film and planning it all out, I took both aspects in account and made sure they would complement each other. Before I leave, I'll leave you with a still of how the set and lighting ending up in the final shot.

"His blog is Intense"

 Originally I was planning on writing about the lighting in my opening, but the other day in class we actually had a group critique of our current progress. The class was randomly split into groups of 6 and we just talked about our project and problems we've encountered.

From Left->Right; Top->Down: Vale, Gianna, Hannah, Andrea, Clara, and me!

    Up until now, I haven't really known what other people's openings are about, so it was nice for a change to talk to other people about how their projects have been going. I love the collaborative process of making things. The simple fact that no one thinks in the same way as you, begins possibility to so many new ideas. Like at one point Vale mentioned how she was struggling to pick a title for her opening, and Clara gave a suggestion that clicked instantly with Vale.

    In our discussion we talked about certain problems like finding music and locations. I recommended that if they were looking for music to search on Epidemic Sounds. The site has all kinds of features to help find the perfect song, like searching by genre, bpm, mood, and artists. Like for me I mentioned how I wanted to include some music for when there's the cosmetical explosion/credit sequence, I believe it was Clara who recommended I go with some Alternative Rock. Putting aside my love for that genre, I thought it was a good idea since and help bring a heavy presence to the sequence. 

    Another highlight of the experience happened as I was about to explain my story and my blog. Before I could formally start, our teacher interrupts and warns the other group member saying, "his blog is intense." That then proceed to all of the commenting on the fact that my blog posts tend to be long. I thought that all that was pretty funny.

    Overall I really liked the group's discussion. Like I said it's nice to finally know what other people are doing for their projects and how they're all going about it. I also really liked some of the ideas that other people were working on, and I am excited to see how they turn out!

    

    

My Interior Design Phase - Pt. 2

     Finally the long waited sequel to My Interior Design Phase - Pt. 1. In the previous blog post I wrote about the big structural changes to my work space. In this post I'll be talking about all the small details that came together to bring the set to life. And there are some details that are hard to 

    Let's first go over the back wall. I wanted to concentrate on this part of the set since its visible for most of the opening. Going left to right, the first slot has a salt lamp. The lamp doesn't really brighten a whole lot, but it adds some color to the frame and serves as more as an aesthetic addition. The next slot over is the book section. 

    There are books from filmmakers and books about filmmaking to show the animator's interest in the field. There are also 2 photo albums, one for photos taken by the animator and the other a collection of photos from musician, Phil Elverum. And of course there are a few books that were later adapted into films like The Martian and The Shining. The third slot is fairly simple with it just being place for a small digital camera. Some of the photos on this camera would be printed and put into the animator's photo album. 

    The last slot has a wooden manikin figurine on a wooden motorcycle. Mankins are often used as references for making characters of certain body types, so it'd make sense that an animator would have one. And the figurine sitting on a motorcycle is meant to display that the animator has fun with their job. Having the manikin seat on the motorcycle gives it a bit of life as opposed to it just standing on display.

    Above the organizer there are a few folders, some sketches (some of which you'll see within the first few shots), and a pile of magazines from Empire. While barely visible in the actual scene, I really liked the addition of the Empire magazines. Being a magazine focused on filmmaking it'd make sense that the animator would have a few of them. And as a nice tough, the top magazine of the October 2021 issue from Empire, a.k.a. the Edgar Wright Special Edition that was release along side his most recent feature, Last Night In Soho. If he's going to influence me and aspects of the project, I might as well include him in it. Fun Fact: I started reading through issues of Empire because Wright said they were his favorites to read.

Empire magazines and sketches

    On the actual wall we have a few things on display. I personally believe that if anywhere is meant to be some kind of work space it needs at least 2 things, a clock and a calendar. The calendar was the first things I put up since it was already on the wall, so all I had to do was just move it. I wanted a blank month, so I skipped ahead to June; this was I able to cross out all the days leading up to the final due date (Friday, June 17).

    Next up was the clock that was initially going to be a small stand for a clock, but I decided to switch it to a clock that could hang on the wall. The choice was made more for practical purposes, since when I initially put it up I realized it casted a huge shadow on the calendar. For the new clock I stole the clock from my dad's office. And placed it on the far left. 

    For the chalk board, I luckily had a sister that bought one that never used it. I was going to have it above the 3x4 organizer, but it was too tall; I ended up placing it to right of the organizer.  The chalkboard would have "Friday!" in large text with cross hatching surrounding it. Cross-hatching is a drawing technique that is fairly easy to implement and tends to have an aesthetically appealing look to it. And the crosses imply the animator has procrastinated their job, by instead choosing to stress about the due date than actually work on the final piece they have to make.

    As I was setting up, I realized that the clock, calendar, and the chalk board progressively got bigger and bigger, so I decided for the quark board to be in between the the sizes of the calendar and the chalk board. I've had some quark rolled up in some closet for the last several years, so I crossed my fingers and pulled it out and unrolled it. Luckily for me there was nothing majorly wrong with it, so all I had to worry about was trimming the edges. Okay so now I have a nice piece quark up on the wall but with nothing. I thought that the quark board can show off some of the storyboards the animator has previously worked on. 

    Luckily for me, about a year ago I made a different music video to the song Take On Me, where I tried my best to mimic the original's art style. In order to do that I physically animated with graphite and paper at about 6 frames per second. This meant I didn't have to work on making new storyboards since I could just use the ones I already made. I eventually dug up the folder with all the drawn out frames grabs 2 pages each from 2 different scenes. There was an issue though, the frames were too lightly drawn, so I had to add a darker outline around the frame and some of the subjects in the frame. This made each frame pop out a bit more and if it's out of focus you can still assume that they're storyboards.

Frames I drew for the Take On Me music video

    With that out of the way, let's move on to everything else. On the right, its fairly the same to how it usually is. It's a general work station, so it has the mouse, keyboard, and a tons of sticky notes with reminders and notes. There's also an agenda that serves a similar purpose to that of the calendar. And below the monitor there are a few pieces of memorabilia collected over time from the animator like the photo with friends. This is mainly to show that this person does have a life outside of their work.

    On the left desk, we have the tracing station. My mom recently has wanted to get a bit more into art and bought a tracing surface with a  backlight. A common element in the references I saw were all the tracing stations people had. The only issue was, the tracing surface didn't have a kick stand, so I had to jerry rig a kick stand with some blank canvases and a lot of tape. Since the surface did light up it provided another light source in the scene. Next to the tracing station, is a script that is further implies that this person is just one gear in a massive machine full of other filmmakers. This also adds a bit of pressure on the animator knowing tat other people are relying on them. And of course how could I forget the massive 3 foot Akira poster. When looking at the photo references, many animator would display projects and items that have inspired them. Akira has not only influenced me in real life, but I have a feeling this character would also be a fan of Akira.

   And lastly on the main brainstorming desk, there are again more sticky notes with memos about certain due dates are notes to consider. There's also cup full of Pilot G-2 07 pens. Personally they're my favorite pens to use when it comes to sketching things out, and tends to be a favorite of many other artist that I know personally as well as online. The collection of pens implies that the animator tend to be very specific with how they go about things; in this case it shows that these are the only pens this person likes to use. and on top of all that, personally I think it's a funny sight seeing 15+ of the exact same pens.

    And like that I'm done taking about the set design. You should hopefully be able to assume that not only I tried to put a lot of effort in this project, but also a lot of myself. All the elements that came together were real things I've used and made, so I feel that made it easier to give off the impression that the set is a real lived in space. I'm honestly Super happy with how closely I was able to follow through with the initial sketch I made, and I'm really happy that it just looks cool. I've even joked with my mom that I might just leave it all as is.  Anyways, I promise the next blog post shouldn't be this long, but I hope you had a bit of fun reading it. Until next time, I'll see you soon.

My Interior Design Phase - Pt. 1

    Hello, helllo, hellllo! So I finally did it I filmed my opening. As much as I'd like to write about every little aspect about it right now, I'm going to stop myself and talk about the experience bit by bit. This blog post will focus on what I found to be the most fun part of the experience: production design! 

    In class on Friday, I took the time to sketch out the ideas I had for the set based on the photo references from my pervious blogpost. I've already go over the 3 different desk, but the recap, the right desk is for day to day task and putting animations together, the middle desk is where brainstorming task place, and the left desk is a station for tracing. The 3x4 cube organizer is meant to serve the practice purpose of storing things, but the top row would serve to show little hints of the animator's character. And of course the back wall would have a chalk board, quark board, and calendar. And lastly, but definitely not least the Akira poster that would serve as a visual representation of one of the animator's inspirations. Now all that is only really cool if I ended up following, spoiler alter, I did and more.

Desk workspace prior to production

    Similar to how I would tackle most creative endeavors, I first focused on the big details. The metal rack and the electric drum kit were the first to go. I also move the side desk from the original setup to be up against the left wall. Then brought in a white table to serve as the middle desk and provide a bit of symmetry to the mirrored desks on the side. I had also brought in a table to act as the brainstorming table. I also swap the placements of the red lamp and black lamp. I thought the lower light of the black lamp could help to light the back wall as well as appear in the frame and serve to motivate the light.

    Then it was time to tidy up a few things. I put the books in the 3x4 organizer as well as a camera to show some of the interests of the animator. I I also decided to move the black table top lamp to be more on the right side of the frame, in order to free up more wall space. With the realestate I moved my calendar over and added a clock as well as a chalk board. I would soon also add a quark board to the back wall where the table lamp would to reside.

    After spending sometime on the back wall I considered tidying up the left wall. I  realized it was time for me to take down my Hereditary and Green Room posters so they wouldn't appear in the shots. But like they say "when one door closes, another opens" and that's when the Akira poster comes in. I had also pushed back the metal paper organizer and added an inclined surface for tracing

    By this point, you can begin to see the general structure of the set coming together. That being said, I'm going to stop here, so that in the next post I can ramble on about all the small details that are sprinkled throughout the scene. Around this point of the prcess I began to get excited with how things were looking, so I'll be sure to tell you all about it soon. In the mean time, I'll leave you with a photo I got from outside my house, during the set up process.

Setting the Setting

    Up until now I've talked about the story, the animation, shots and stuff of that nature, but leading up to filming I've been taking some time to think about the set.

LOCATION

    I kind of knew from the very start that I wanted to film in my house. Most places in the general vicinity are very similar. If it's not another house it's just a Publix. Not to mention that here in South Florida, the weather tends to be fairly inconsistent. The only thing reliable about it is that it'll be humid. And the main reason I'd want to keep exteriors to a minimum is that fact that I have very little control over the lighting. Hence why the story takes place indoors.

    While developing the story, I'd reference the floorplan of my house the possible different angles I can get. Though that doesn't mean I can just set up a camera and start filming. Since I'm filming in my house, I have basically full control over how things are arranged. If I really wanted, I can clear my room. I'm not going to do that since the story doesn't require it, but I'll do it if I have to. With basically full control of the location, I get to play around with something very cool.

MISE-EN-SCENE

    I already know for a fact, that setting up to film will take so much longer than actual filming. I'm going to clear the space just so I can add stuff and decorate the scene. I've looked up workspaces that are catered towards animators, and I want give off a similar feel. 

    Of the bat, the main thing that jumps out at me is the little details. Sketches, storyboards, ideas, references, and inspirations all work to build up an atmosphere that's been worked in. It also conveys the kind of qualities a character has, like whether their organized or niche. I'm planning on placing a quark board to place storyboards on, a small blackboard to brainstorming, a calendar, photos, and an Akira poster to the movie up on the wall to add noise to the background.

    For the scene I'm going to be using 3 desks; 2 that form and "L" shape and another that's split off.

My current desk set up is in an L shape so mimicking the desks of the photos shouldn't be too hard. One desk will have a computer setup for day to day tasks, while it's neighboring desk will be the brainstorming station (just a mostly clear space to put ideas to paper). The split off desk will have an inclined surface for tracing.

    For the desk, I want there are be a lot of sticky notes all with ideas. That part shouldn't be too hard, since I burn through a stack of sticky notes about every month in an effort to clutter my desk. The set decorations should inform the viewer that this character is no stranger to animation, but they just happen to be in a roadblock.

LIGHTING

    The second thing that caught my attention while looking at those photos was the warm ambience. I never really thought about, but it makes sense since if animators tend to spend long hours working on projects, that they'd spend that time in a space that feels comforting. A decorative setting also provides an opportunity for motivated lighting. Cool light from the computer screen and help differentiate the subject from the warm background. Small lights in the back can also motivate the warm atmosphere. 

COLOR

    An idea I wanted even before looking at reference photos was for there to be a mostly neutral color palette for the live action portions of the opening. The animator will be wearing a beige shirt with a dark gray flannel to go with the neutrals of the frame, but also create contrast with the dark gray. It'd ground the world, before the introduction to animation. The animation could be colorful and vibrate in order to contrast from the footage. Though I have to be careful with it since, I don't want to overload the frame and make the animation stand out too much. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

    I am may have forgotten to mention it before, but I'm going to be the animator (in the story). I mean its only natural that I act in a story about writer's block that was based on my experiences with writer's block. And if you're familiar with the storyboard, you should know that the shots are locked down and don't move much (at least during production). If problems arise and its inconvenient doing certain things, I have my very supporting mom and sister that can help out making sure my placement in the frame is good and that I'm in focus.

    Fun Fact: this blog post was initially going to be call "I'm Insane" and I was going to talk about certain worries I had and the solutions I was think of, but I'm actually perfectly fine right now. This blog post has really helped me stay calm, and as a nice benefit, I have a pretty clear idea of what to do when I film. If all goes to plan the next blog post should be about something in relation to production, so look forward to that. Until then, goodbye.

Visual Comedy

    If you haven't yet noticed the reoccurring element in some of my blog post, you may not be too familiar with the work of Edgar Wright. He's a british writer and director who is best known for the Three Flavors Cornetto Trilogy, Scott Pilgrim VS The World, and Baby Driver. The moment I got home from the theater after seeing Baby Driver, I looked him up and his other movies and since then I've been enthralled by his work. Not only does he make interesting stories with characters viewers can sympathize with, he's also a master at using the medium to it's fullest potential. 

    Many filmmakers when they approach comedies, they mainly focus on the dialogue and performances. Granted that plays a big role in how the final film ends up, but when every other comedy focuses on the same thing, they all begin to feel same-y.  Meanwhile Wright is thinking up how he could create visual comedy that adds to the story. This video from Every Frame a Painting, sums up many of the techniques that Wright used in his first few movies. He'd find ways to used blocking, movement, editing and auditory cues to highlight visual gags. 

    While visual comedy originated from early films to make up for their silent nature, it's more a else faded from modern filmmaking. That isn't to say the visual comedy has completely died off, it can still be seen in some films, but it's most commonly found in animated films. Hence why I've turned to Edgar Wright. A huge part about animation is how things move, so I'm kind of forced to include visual comedy in my opening. And no where is this most evident than in the second chunk.

    Upstaging is a technique where something diverts attention from a subject. The impact lines, that zoom across the frame and foil the animator's ideas, upstage the frustrated animator. There was also an emphasis on how the failed ideas leave the frame, which was one of the points that was mention the video from Every Frame a Painting. But I felt there would be a disconnect if it was just the animation that had exaggerated movement, I want the character to have it too. It's had to show on paper, but I definitely plan on making sure each glance and movement is in time with the animation. I included this test video in a previous blog post, but I'm sharing it again since it's relevant. I also plan on including some visual comedy in the credit sequence like the credit track.

    Another inspiration for this project from Wright has been his recent documentary, The Sparks Brothers. In this documentary, Wright choses to highlight the strange history of Sparks through interviews, archived footage, and animation. What better example than literally a directors that has mastered visual comedy and has using mix media to tell a story. 

Animation in The Sparks Brothers

    One last thing I want to mention was another video about visual comedy that I recently watched. The video focus more on the art of visual comedy rather than any one particular filmmaker. It goes into depth about how visual comedy has been used throughout the decades and in animation. There's a lot to be said about, and its just a fun video with some good example.

Staging For Visual Comedy

    

    

Timing and Math (YAY)

    So something I was low key worried about was making sure to pertain to that 2 minute max time. I was initially worried about going over time, so I tried to be a bit conservative with what I wanted to include. I began to think of the story in 30ish seconds chunks, but I was never too specific with things. After timing out the second chunk with its animations, I really helped me put things in perspective in terms of time. I got an estimate of about 25 seconds for that portion of the opening, which gave me a bit of comfort because if the second chunk wasn't super long, the other chunks shouldn't make the opening over 2 minutes. Though as much as I like to test my luck, I didn't want to risk my chances and have the opening be too long. 

    This all brings me to today. I put time estimates for each short that I've storyboarded. The first chunk gave me a bit of trouble because I wasn't too sure about how long each of the shots should be, so I thought about the pen tapping. From there I thought about using the taps like a metronome. I then proceeded to tap my pen and follow the story board. I found it best cutting after every 8 taps, but what exactly are 8 taps equal to? For this part I consulted to YouTube and looking up videos with metronomes and that either matched or were close to the pace I was tapping. I started at 160 bpm, and went on in increments of 20, until I reached 240 bpm. Not only did this closely match the pace I was tapping, but it also had some unexpectedly nice benefits

WARNING MATH AHEAD:

    By dividing 240 bpm with 60, you'll get the amount of beats there are in a single second. That number is 4 beats per second, meaning that the 8 beats that I had for each shot was 2 seconds. Another cool benefit with having 4 beats per second, it makes filming in 24 fps easy to work with. For every tap in the first shot, I'll have 6 frames to animate the impact trails. Where as if I were to film in 30 fps, not only would I have to animate more overall, but also 30 isn't divisible by 4 (at least in a practical sense). 

    At the current moment, the first chunk is about 27 seconds. In that time, it establishes the environment and work space of the animator. If on the day of filming I feel like including some more shots of the settings, I'll get them with 2 second length in mind and try to find the best place for them in editing. I'll talk more about it in a little bit, but I have time to spare if I really wanted to include some more shots in the first chunk.

    I've already talked about the timings of the second chunk, so I'll keep it brief by saying its about 25 seconds. Speaking of things are are about 25 seconds, the opening credit sequence is estimated to be around that time. realistically speaking there will probably be about 5 seconds more to include wipes other animated elements in the credit sequence. And lastly there's a phone call that leads directly into the title card. The phone call itself is pretty brief, about a sentence of dialogue. The title card while probably be about 5 seconds. And like that, the total runtime is about a minute, thirty. If I'm fully honest, I'm kind of surprised and happy that each chunk is more or less the same in length and of course under 2 minutes.

    One last thing I did, was make yet another test video to visualize the first and second chunk together. You should get the drill by now, "its not how the final thing is going to look, trust me!" Hopefully with this you can get an idea of what I'm going with establishing the setting, tapping pen, and the editing. I like it, thought like I said before I might add a few more shots to better establish the work space the animator resides in. Besides that I am excited to film this hopefully soon and then edit it. And like everything else, I'll be keeping you up to date, but for now I must say good bye.

 

Who Did This????

     Ah credits, often an overlooked aspect, but it's pretty cool seeing all the people that were involved in the making of a production. And it's also fun when you start to notice repeating names whenever you watch different movies. But let's to the meat of things. I've been thinking about the credit sequence and about which the order and such. Initially, I couldn't quite figure out the order, and I think that's in part to the fact that there were two parts that I could've put credits in. I could've had credits at the very beginning on a black screen with text as the frame is super zoomed into the ink of the pen on paper. And I knew for sure I wanted to include created in the fully digital portion of the opening after the sketchbook hits the wall. I began to think about how I could divide it, and which credits to include where. I kept switching around the order, but in the end I decided to make things simple and just have all the credits during the animated sequence.

    Now all I have to figure out is the order. I watched a few openings and made an overall list that I can follow. I watched the opening credit sequences from the following movies:

Scott Pilgrim VS. The World

Ferris Bueller's Day Off 

Baby Driver 

    From these openings don't follow the exact same order, there's is still an overall order that is similar. First few credits are usually the same order with the production company, cast, followed by the casting director. The next few are usually the same but the order is often different: music, production designer, editor, and cinematographer. Last few are some of the more important roles that play a big part in how the film ends up: producer, writer, and director.

    For my opening, I'll start with the production company and cast members. Since I do plan on using music, I'll include the artist as the third credit. The next might be for character artists because I might collaborate with a friend to make another character design that I can include. If they end up making another character, I'd put the two of us as character designers. The last bunch of credits, editor, animator, cinematographer, producer, writer, and director, would be included in the credit track idea, so I can save time.

    To help visualize the idea little bit, I made a test video with the idea for the credit track. The main thing that's missing in this video is text sliding over/camera tracking right. The text and background as well as aren't final since, the purpose behind the video was to both get a rhythm for the track and see if it's understandable. So far I think it looks cool would be more interesting than just fading in/out job positions while my name just stays there.

    

Time in Motion

  My original idea for this infamous second chunk of the opening, was for it to be one long take in which the animation would come in. For the most part I still want to do that, but I need to think about how I could keep the frame interesting over the length of this part of the opening. One thing that's subtle, but can do a lot is gradually moving closer or further away. If I could I'd love to physically move the camera closer, but that'd be another moving factor in this mini stage play I'd have to do for this shot. I'll try it, but if its not working I'll probably just resort to filming the shot from a wide angle, and zoom in/out digitally in post.

Bo Burnham used digital zooms for much of Inside (2021)

    I've also spent today making a test video for the timings list I made yesterday. Now listen, I'll be first to admit it doesn't look too clean, but that's okay. The main reason I made this video was to see whether the timings would work and if the flow wasn't too slow or too fast. It really just translates the list into a visual format that's easier to digest. 

    I myself like how it came out for the most part. There are some portions that seem a bit fast, but I'm taking the video with a grain of salt because the actual movement of elements weren't touched up. Typically in animation, things very rarely move at a constant/linear rate. Instead they often have smooth rate of change/interpolation. Besides a handful of moments, nearly every movement had linear interpolation. The final opening will have some form of smooth interpolation for most moving elements.

    On the topic of animation, I actually went ahead and drew out some possible movements for some of the characters. In the video reference, Box Boy's seems to appear out of thin air, but because of the way I had drawn it in my sketchbook. It'd first be his head that spins into place and his body would follow. Either by the body dropping from below the box or the body being ragdolled into place. Eventually the lines will come in and screw his head off, in which his head will follow a similar pattern just with some more motion trails.

    For Hot Head, I wanted the flame is sort of spin into place; sort of like a solar prominence. For Line Guy, I was a bit halted by the fact that I could only use vertical lines. Personally for me I love creating form in when I draw, but it's a lot harder to do that with just pain lines that don't intersect. To help convey the turn of the head, I'd heavily rely on the position of the eyes to serve as a basis to which way he's facing.

    

    I'm not completely ready to begin filming, but I'm getting there which is cool and kind of scary. I'm going to try to finalize the storyboard tomorrow, so that I can finalize some of the animated elements and their movements. After that I'd probably just finalize some decisions about the location and costumes, but until then I'm going to leave you. See you soon.