COVID Film: Rats

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This is the final composite of the rats scene in Premiere Pro. I decided to replace several squirrels with rats for this scene in the film. The one drawback is that the tail isn’t as fluffy and therefor harder to notice immediately. The shot before this one is of a Neanderthal in extreme close up. I am thinking that it might help to swap the Neanderthal with a more distant shot like this.

I animated the rat on the carpet pulling back, but decided it drew attention from the rat hitting the skull with her tail. I toned down the animation to a subtle head tilt and subtle tail movement.  This balancing of motions it the biggest challenge with each shot.

COVID Film Official Selection

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COVID is an official selection at the Chicago International REEL Shorts Film Festival being held November 10-11, 2023. COVID will be be shown at the 4 pm screening on Saturday November 11. This is the 20th annual CIRSF Film Festival.

The screening will be in the Chicago Filmmakers Theater, 1326 W. Hollywood Ave., Chicago, IL 60660.  This Venue is the NEW Chicago Filmmakers Firehouse Location, located in the Andersonville neighborhood. I am quite excited since this is the first time COVID is being screened outside of Orlando. Tickets to the screening at $15 should you be in Chicago. If anyone knows of a nice place to stay in North Chicago, let me know.

Chicago Filmmakers is a not-for-profit media arts organization that fosters the creation, appreciation, and understanding of film and video as media for artistic and personal expression, as well as media of important social and community impact. Chicago Filmmakers’ twofold mission is to serve independent film and digital video artists by supporting the creation and dissemination of new media arts works and to serve Chicago audiences by screening artistically innovative, socially relevant, and diverse films and videos.

I will be attending the festival and now I am arranging to print 5 by 7 cards, posters and buttons as swag. Should you be ins Chicago, stop by and say hi. Look for the guy in the N95 mask and goggles.

 

COVID Film: Nursing Home Animation

Posted on by Thor

Looking at this image, I realize that I am not quite done with this nursing home animation. The back bar of the walker needs to be erased on each frame so it disappears behind the woman’s dress. The animation I did was too fast for a slow moving woman, so I had to cur about four frames.

I am not sure yet if the green screen will work properly. There is a slight green glow on the woman from a large virus. The problem with having green on the animation is that it might become transparent when I key out the green screen. I couldn’t use a blue screen since she is wearing a blue dress.

Hopefully it will all come together today when I composite the scene together.

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 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 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.

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: 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.