COVID Film: Flaming Baby Reworked

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I always felt uncomfortable when a smiling baby appeared in the midst of the COVID film. It was what I had painted at the time but it didn’t fit with the overall flow of the film. I decided to change the baby using the previous shot as reference. The depth map worked out really well turning the baby’s head as he cried.

Looking at this Volumax depth map now, I realize I could probably paint some better depth for the open mouth and ear canal. The painting is extremely blown up so the line work is thicker than any other shot in the film. I think I will go back and redraw the baby to help it tie in to the resolution of the shots on either side of it.

I could animate the mouth a bit but I am not sure that is needed. Since things happen so fast, I face this challenge often, wondering if animation will help or over complicate a shot. I keep adding animation since I am entering the film in the animation category in film festivals. Yet this film is something different. It defies being easily categorized.

I also know that I am presenting something that no one wants to see. The nation has embraced a new normal in which COVID isn’t ever discussed. There is a strange collective amnesia in the rush to pretend that all is as it was in 2019. This film defies that wishful thinking.

Comedy of Errors: Poster Evolution 2

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The second pass at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater poster focused on a Mardi Gras parade. Two of the characters were identical but since they looked alike it felt like a mistake. I set up a woman with shimmering wings as the focal point but she didn’t really relate to the play directly.

Everyone liked the street scene I had set up and the musicians. The title didn’t have enough of a Mardi Gras feel so it would need to be reworked. The glowing lights of a nocturnal parade felt right. The large mask as a decorative element really wasn’t needed so it would fall to the wayside.

Though there were plenty of changes still needed it felt like I was on the right track.

COVID Film: Zeros Bomb COVID

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This shot is a fast pan from right to left following the planes. I felt there wasn’t enough motion in the fires or the rising smoke, so I dove in to re-animate. Before I had added subtle animation to the smoke by scaling up that layer. This time I added some pins in the smoke and moved them to add more motion.

I added some pins to the fire as well and had it rise. The added motion is still lost because of the fast camera move. The only way to add more motion is to go ahead and hand animate the fire. That is something I an considering as I seek out any lessons on effects animation.

Nothing else had to be changed, so I left the Zeros and the bomb as they were. Looking now I notice that the propeller on the larger plane seems to hold still. Adding some blur  effect could help add motion there. The plane flys by so fast that no one would even notice.

COVID Film: Let Them Breath COVID

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I discovered the best way to animate Marie Antoinette was to lop her head off. I spent an afternoon animating her head turning but left out all the rivets since they would be a nightmare to inbetween. I thought I might be able to take the paint of the mask and us if it as the base for each or the frames as color. However when I transformed the painting in Procreate, it got pixelated. The animation and the paintings I had done were abandoned.

Instead, I lopped her head off and made it a separate layer. Her right arm wads also animated to slap down on the globe as if she was being emphatic about saying, “let them breath COVID.” The head turn was then done by applying a few pins in After Effects and key framing a very subtle head tilt. That simple head tilt accomplished everything I was trying to do with all the animation I had done in.

I treated the hand slap as a cycle so it repeats in After Effects but in the final film, just the initial slap is shown. Now this is one of my favorite shots in the film.

COVID Film: Finishing the Ambulance

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This opening scene had a complete overhaul because of pixelation issues. Every ambulance was redrawn in a 4K scene that was twice the resolution of the last pass. Since I re-timed some of the animation the entire scene had to be repainted as well.

In Callipeg I scaled up the background so I knew how the colors would read against the cityscape. Because the background was scaled up, it is slightly pixelated, but I will be using the original Procreate file in the final render. I will probably have to make the After Effects scene double the resolution, since last time I had to scale down the background painting to place it in the 1920 by 1080 scene window. The actual background is rather square in proportions so there was a lot of blank space in the After Effects scene.

When the ambulence drives down from the distant horizon I used the transform tool rather than redrawing all the keyframes to the distance. One thing I wish Callipeg offered was an ability to set the timing of the transform tool on 2s or 3s if needed. It always animated the movement evenly on 1s. I used to transform tool to move things like the headlights and a blinking red spotlight. The transformed elements moved on ones while the animated ambulance moved on 2s. That lead to some stair stepped movement. I ended up having to go into every other fame and adjust the movement by hand anyway.

The camera move was done in Premiere Pro last time. I might try and do the camera move in After Effects this time since it will be a very high resolution scene. All this is experimentation to try and get around the loss of resolution that happens between Callipeg and After Effects.

COVID Film: Another Pixelation Issue

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After resolving a glaring pixelation problem in the Satanic Ram shot, I decided to go back and take a look at the opening shot. This close up shot shows how horribly pixelated the ambulance was. I decided I had to redraw each ambulance and I am now in the process of repainting each of them.

The green screen allows me to transfer animation to the final composite in After Effects. I turn off the green screen while I paint to see how the colors work with the background. Reworking the shot was also an opportunity to smooth out some of the animation timing. I left out details on the front grill since that will all be covered by headlight  beams and glow effects.

So yesterday I finished redrawing and painting the ambulance body. Today I get to paint lighting effects. Last time I transferred each of the paintings into Procreate since I like the brushing available in that program. This time I will see if I can get the same effects using the brushes in Callipeg. I will be watching videos of NYC ambulances to see the timing of the lights as they blink. With more resolution I can pay closer attention to each of the lights.

I just learned that YouTube and other social media sites censor any mention of the words “COVID” and “Pandemic”. Tic Tokers refer to it as “the “vid” or “during the panini”. With such censorship, this film will have a hard time finding an audience. I need to keep the film off of social media since many of the largest film festivals require that the screenings be a premiere. They will not show films that are being shown online. It feels awful holding the film back while festivals refuse to screen it.

Novavax was approved today. That will be my vaccine of choice to combat the new COVID variants. I asked my doctor about Novavax last time I was in for an appointment and he didn’t know what it was. The more expensive mRNA vaccines, Moderna and Pfizer only influence the spike proteins. Novavax is more like traditional vaccines and it affects the entire COVID virus.

COVID Film: Pixelation Solved

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The solution to resolving some very pixelated Ram’s hands was to double the size of the scene in Callipeg and re-animate the entire scene. All of the hands needed to be redrawn at a much higher resolution. Even the ram itself was becoming pixelated each time I exported it from After Effects. I decided I could not use the exported movie from After Effects to work on. The only files that had full resolution were the original Procreate paintings.

I decided the original file can only stand loosing some resolution one time. Resolution is lost when exporting files between Callipeg and After Effects.

I decided to rework the opening shot which also has pixelation. I am hoping I can just do cleaned up drawings on top of each of the ambulance drawings. There is a chance however that I might have to re time some of the animation and then re-paint each cell. At first I thought I could live with the pixelation since the ambulance is small and in the distance, but now that I found this solution I have to try cleaning up the shot.

I couldn’t resist submitting my film to another film festival in Brussels yesterday. I checked to see what the pandemic charts looked like in Brussels and the numbers seem so small compared to America. Hope runs eternal.

COVID Film: The Peak

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This shot seen in After Effects, was added to the film to replace a shot of a plague doctor deer in a flaming church. The plague doctor animation just wasn’t cutting it. The shot was placed in the film simply because it was the end of a long series of shots that featured skulls. I decided to relax that skull initiative and use shots that result in better animation options.

In The Peak, the hospital bed slips from its perch and starts to roll downhill. The camera cuts on the action so the viewer is left uncomfortable but uncertain if the patient will indeed crash down the mountainside. The depth map makes it feel like a helicopter is flying by the peak shooting the scene and I am pleased that the clouds also move in the breeze. It fells s bit like the shot of Julie Andrews singing in the Swiss Alps in Sound of Music but with a tragic undertone.

I am now going through the entire film looking for the best animation options. Movement trumps the theme of the shots.

Typing up these notes each morning helps me double check work that has been done. In the shot of the Santas, I discovered that eh body bag wasn’t fully painted and I went back to repair the oversight. This morning I just realized that one Facebook logo slipped by my alterations, so I need to make that repair this morning.  Another FB logo needs to replaced in the Freedom of Speech shot. Juggling over 200 shots means dropping a ball every so often.

COVID Film: COVID Replaced Facebook

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The compositing of the whole Santas scene was also simple and straightforward. I am so used to things going horribly wrong after a week of animating that I was expecting some hangup but the scene fell into place with ease.

I decided to replace Facebook with COVID for this shot in the film. I also dropped a mask on Mark Zuckerberg so he is less easy to identify. My thought is that having a corporate logo in the film could keep it from being screened.

I was pleasantly surprised with how easy the change was to create. After replacing each Facebook logo with COVID or C, I then exported the images into After Effects. The animation of the flag was going to be a challenge I thought. However when I replaced the Facebook flag with the new Covid flag, the scene was automatically updated and I didn’t need to dig into the animation again.

I think the next scene I will tackle is animating some smoke in the Pearl Harbor scene.

COVID Film: Animating Santas 6

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I finished animating the Santas on day 6. I will add one more waving hand into the scene since the hand jumps in rather fast on screen left. Then I need to add shadows and a group of workers in hazmat suits. So I am hoping to animate three figures today but as a group.

I am starting to think I have to find replacement shot for several scenes with corporate logos. I have one scene of the insurrection where I replaced all the flags with Facebook themed flags. That single shot may keep Film Festivals from considering the film for selection.

In most movies things like soda cans are replaced with fictional branding. You never see a Coca Cola or Mountain Dew. I may have to do the same for my film. Facebook might become Factbook or Fictbook. I might also just pick another insurrection scene, since I have many.