Comedy of Errors: Poster Evolution 3

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The final version of the Comedy of Errors Poster involved removing the winged lady or just clipping her wings, and adding more parade revelers. One of the twins was removed, and the whole focus became the parade. I added sparks falling from the sky as if from fireworks.

The third pass at the title treatment worked best. It was hand drawn for added control over the letters. Copying some letters saved time. Thank goodness there were so many Es and Rs.

I learned quite a bit about using elements from one poster and adding new elements as the poster evolved. Each character was kept on their own layer in case they b=needed to be moved. People were indeed moved multiple times to fill out the scene.

This might not be the final pass a the poster but it was the one I could locate on my hard drive. I just noticed I had already signed the original poster. I threw another signature on this post since it is kind of a habit.

Comedy of Errors: Poster Evolution 1

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With the first pass at A Comedy of Errors poster for the Shakes, I played with twins imagery. The show is set in New Orleans during Mardi Grass so masks and vibrant colors were incorporated. I used an abstract peacock imagery as a backdrop which was also symmetrical.

It was decided that the twins imagery wasn’t needed. What did stand out was the hint of a Mardi Gras parade in the background. The parade was to be the focus.

Comedy of Errors was performed at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater from September 6 to October 1, 2023. Since I have been so focused on my film, I didn’t get to the theater to sketch. Photos I saw on Facebook clued me in to the fact that I was missing a fun time.

COVID Film: Pixelation Problem

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I came close to completing this shot yesterday. However when I imported the Callipeg animation into the final Premiere Pro edit, The hands seemed glaringly pixelated. The painting this scene is built around is vertical but the film is horizontal 1920 by 1080 pixels. In After Effects I had placed the vertical image into the 1920 by 1080 frames which meant the image was reduced by about 50%. That 50% reduction insize is enough to make pixelation an issue.

With that slightly pixelated image imported in Callipeg, I started copying and pasting the hands to move them around. Moving those copies around resulted in further pixelation. In Callipeg the ram image only took up maybe 1/8th of the screen real estate. To try an overcome the pizelization i decided to redraw each of the hands. The end result is what you see above with full animation but still blurry hands.

My next choice was to scale up the image in Callipeg and redraw the arms again. I saw a video that showed an ability to scale multiple layers all at once, so I did that to get the job done fast. Unfortunately Callipeg could not scale the layers all at once. Some were scaled and others reverted back to the small size. On top of that some frames were shuffled to other layers. The result was that all the drawings were scrambled and impossible to reassemble into the smooth animation I had worked so hard on.

Today I will likely re animate the scene but at a much higher resolution. The Procreate files are at a high enough resolution. I think the problem began when I scaled the image down in After Effects. I will have to double the image size in After Effects to maintain the initial resolution. then in Callipeg I will fill the screen with the ram character rather than the entire painting. I will have to redraw every hand to keep the crisp line work.

The final After Effects composition will also have to be reworked. Having the depth map a bit blurry is fine but the image will have to be at double the resolution. I just hope my laptop can handle a scene so large. I made the mistake of creating a 4K scene earlier and it caused my computer to crash.

COVID Film: Animating the Ambulance

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Yesterday I finished the background painting for this shot. I added a depth map but for a long shot like this it added little to the overall depth of the scene. The right wall was painted as a separate layer as well as the interiors. The shot opens on a close up of the window. As the sound of the ambulance becomes audible the virus rills up to the window as if to look out. Then the camera slowly pans to the left while zooming out, following the ambulance.

I finished keying the animation for when the ambulance turns the curve in Callipeg. The plan is to use the transform tool to move and scale down and up the final keys to the horizons. Animating the blinking lights is going to be the biggest challenge of the scene. I suspect I will want to import the keys into Procreate where there are much better brushes for painting bright lights.  Actually Procreate is coming out with an animation program called Dream in November of this year. It is a shame I can’t use that program for this shot.

Anyway I have a lot to figure out today, so I better get to it.

COVID Film: Animating Genie

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My main objective with this scene was to have the Genie’s arm move so it ties in better with the previous shot. With that accomplished I then animated the the lower red cloud, sand the four COVID protons circling the large virus. The Genie’s head was then thrown back and the pixie dust was morphed to add movement. All this was easy enough to do in After Effects.

When I watched the scene the Genie’s hair seemed lifeless. I therefor imported the skull into Callipeg and hand animated the hair overlapping. Part of me wonders if I over animated the overlapping action, but it works so I accepted it. Aladdin, on stage I left alone. He isn’t the focus of attention.

The next shot I worked on was the cell tower conspiracy shot. I had under animated that shot and had to go back  in to punch up the movement to make it noticeable. Animation seems to be a non stop balancing act of finding just the right amount of movement for each shot.

COVID Film

COVID Film: Animating Uber Driver

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In this shot I decided to simply animate the driver rubbing his temple. The shot is just over a second long and many people will probably not notice the animation, but it adds some subtle life to the scene. I might animate the trashy lady’s fake cough today. It would be easy enough to do with pins in After Effects.

COVID was rejected by the Warsaw Film Festival and the New York City Short Film Festival. I get that this film is a hard sell. Most people think the pandemic is over and want desperately to get back to their 2019 lives. This film rather rudely reminds them that the pandemic is very much not over. If it were a light comedy, it might get screened in more festivals. But it is what it is.

Today I plan to start off by animating the genie arm which is a scene that follows the Times Square skeleton selfie. The Times Square skeleton is moving his arm to aim the camera and this scene will follow the same motion. I might animate the magical genie viruses but we will see. Most of the big animated scenes are completed and now I am going back and refining animation and adding subtle touches like the temple rub.

If you want to see COVID on filmFreeway, here is the link... This particular scene might not be cut in yet.

COVID: Burning Liberty

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With the Burning Liberty scene, I animated the three black cloak clad skeletons as they ignite the pyre. Each moves in subtly different ways. The rest of the scene is a depth map which pans upward. Liberty’s crown and upper arm had to the protected from warping too much. Since the scene flashes by so fast, the animation might not even be notices so I better go back and make sure there is a slow out on the camera move.

Yesterday was quite productive. I also animated Mike Pence clapping his hands, reworked the end credits a bit, and added subtle animation to the 5G tower scene. Today I plan to work on the woman waiting to vote, three plague doctors and some angel wings.

The list is growing smaller but I keep writing down notes each time I view the film.

Recently when I render scenes in After Effects, a single frame blacks out with a long error message. I should really try and figure out why that is happening. For now I am working around the errors by slowing down the clip speed to crop out the error frame. This isn’t a tech savvy solution, but it keeps me moving forward.

COVID: Animating Zombies Day 4

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I have no doubt that I will finish animating this scene today. The partially transparent zombie has just had 3 keys blocked in for position. Next I will need to add the contact drawings, and the up and down drawings. After he is fully inbetweened I will need to figure out what to do with the rest of the background crowd. The zombie I will animate today is sandwiched between two more attractive zombies. I may just leave his arms stiff at his sides and see if that works. I will also rick him side to side so his weight is over the weight bearing foot in each step

I have several more zombie crowd scenes to animate so I will get more time to experiment on broken limps and shuffles.

COVID: New Year 2022, Halfway

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Yesterday I pushed past the halfway point in animating this scene. I have four more hazmat suited men to animate. At this point I know exactly where to place keys to get each to work so things should go smoothly. Though everyone is walking in lockstep, each man has a slightly different gait and am swings.I could push straight through and finish today but I also need to teach a class so I suspect I have two more days on this scene.

With the blank spots in the timeline, this looks a bit like a game of Tetris. Those blanks need to be filled with sketches. I am noticing as I animate that I need to touch up the background a bit more as well, so I will do that once animation is complete. This might be the last large crowd I need to animate, but I will have to check the film to be sure.

One Irish film festival said that they only accept film that are 24 or 25 frames per second. My film has been created at 29.97 frames per second. has I realized that I would be doing so much animation, I would have created the film at 24 frames per second. Hopefully there is a way to convert a 29.97 to 24 when needed. I will cross that bridge later when I have time to research.

COVID: Restaurants Reopen

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I added animation of the hazmat bartender serving a drink to this shot. To save time, the upper body and head are copy and pasted onto each frame of the animation. The body was moved like a puppet and the arm is the only element that needed full animation. This shot kike most others is less than a second long and the animation helps draw the audience eye to the lower let corner of the screen.

This shot was done in Key West along with an animation student. My student was doing studies of Spiderman themed characters. Today I am animating a zombie walk and that is a real challenge since it is more of a limp while favoring one foot. For reference I am looking at videos of drugged out street walkers on youtube. It is amazing what reference is available online.