Term 1 - End

Make way for the longest post in blog history....

I haven't been updating this thing in the last couple of weeks because mad amounts of work had to be done. I think the last time I blogged was the weekend before the final week, and so much has happpened since...

The team was working overtime to try and meet the 2nd pitch deadline (23rd Nov), in which we had to present all our pre-production work as well as a finished animatic. Meeting this deadline required everyone to pull their wieght and get on with the jobs I had dished out....

I gave Alec the task of producing the animatic frames in flash earlier in the term simply because I had been experimenting myself and realised the potential the program had. After creating a few rough drafts we decided to go ahead with a fully coloured and partly animated version, and so he set off with my drawings to reference from.

Grigsby was given the job of gathering sound fx for the animatic. He spent alot of time searching the sound fx hard drive, the internet, as well as recording a few himself. This was mighty handy and enabled us to build up a library of sounds ready for the final editing.

Simon willingly agreed to put together our presentation slides, making sure everyones work was included as well as hitting all of the brief criteria. He had to pester people for all their work and organise all of our public folder material ready for the slides. It was not the most creative of tasks but a vital one. Everything had to be branded up, layed out, and condensed into something like 18 slides. He also nailed budgeting for us.

Phil was still bashing out his animatic which I have to say had fallen miles behind due to serious amounts of story changes. He definately wasn't going anywhere near P.O. It wasn't nice to see him have to start all over again so late in the day, and I felt like a right knob at times because the team seemed to be doing so well with P.O. It was no ones fault, but because the story wasnt decided no one could really help with the animatic until Brooks had made a decision. Unfortunately it was never really resolved and he only managed to get the prologue and beginning finalized - which was beautiful and left everyone wanting more. As far as I know he is going to produce the final animatic over christmas.

Spence had been working heavily on Whaked at the time and so sat out the animatic process, but he still popped in every now and then to check progress.

That left me to produce all of the other work needed by the deadline such as contracts, a script, pose sheets, ending thumbnails, and more importantly music. Whilst over seeing the animatic I realised it would be a hell of a lot easier if we had the final music composed now rather than in term 3, as it would allow us to time our jokes to the beat and gain a better understanding of Jeds rythm and cutting pace. I had two meetings with a good friend of mine named John Solly, who has produced beats and sound fx for me in the past. He was more than happy to get involved and so I explained what we needed....

Jeds headphone music - It must open to the beat of Billy Jean, with a funky retro feel. We wanted a similar sound to that of the Bee Gees and saturday night fever. He suggested drums and trumpets would capture that 70's movement. I reminded him that it needed to increase in tempo throughout, lasting approximately 2 minutes, and finsihing with a big climax. I also explained the characteristics of Jed, as well as the story to help him gain an understanding of the whole situation and the emotion the beat should provoke. I also said if any Bee Gee vocals could be sampled towards the end that would be great. He got to work straight away.

So with 7 people all working at once I thought we had it in the bag....

However, time was against us and essays loomed. We were constantly knocked back behind schedule because of lectures and other units getting in the way. Eventually I had to jump on board with Alec and help him draw the animatic frames as well as gather the remaining sound fx because Grigs had to help out with Splay.

The college peed us right off with its lack of Adobe Premier liscences, as we were only able to find 2 machines with it installed. We were lucky enough to nab them for a few days and came ever so close to finshing on the friday before the pitch. At 7.00pm we were kicked out with one scene missing from the animatic - the crucial plug scene. Unfortunately me and Als had to meet up the following day to work on it over the weekend, along with several magners and a pizza.

To cut a long story short, we just about made it - it was exported Sunday night ready for the morning. John had given us the 2nd draft of the music just in time and simon had finsihed the presentation. That left us half an hour on Monday morning to practice.

The pitch went really really well, with a great response to the animatic. We were so nervous about people not laughing, or not getting the joke but it was the total opposite. I am confident the story is ready now, and pre production is officialy over. As soon as all of our Kieron essays are finsihed we aim to begin production right away and hopefully meet up over xmas. The goal is to have both characters and the basic room modelled for when we come back, along with texture tests. The characters simply have to be rigged in the first 2-3 weeks or we will fail.

I'm so proud of my team this term, and although we didnt meet our deadlines we have achieved a working story with successful designs - which is the main thing. Below is the final animatic in all its glory.....