COVID Film: Animating Santa’s

Posted on by Thor

Sunday I started animating Santa’s. I almost finished animating 2 Santa’s but still have to finish a waving arm. So my goal is to animate 2 Santa’s each day. I am working right to left. The first animation seemed slow so I had to put some drawings on ones to add some weight.

The second animation has the same number of keys but the spacing was slightly different so there is more weight to the animation and I could keep everything on twos. The slightest changes make a big difference in the weight of an animation. I like that they are walking differently, so no changes will be made.

COVID Film: Reworking the Asteroid

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After eight hours of virtual teaching I felt like relaxing, but instead I reworked this scene.I repainted the crowd and added the subtle warm glow in the center. I did this to get the colors to tie in better with the shots of Earth that surround the shot.

Since I was working on the shot anyway I also added a waving motion to the flames coming off the end of the virus. That added the extra spark of life to the scene that was needed.

When adding the shot back into the final edit, I made sure the asteroid lined up with the virus hitting the flat Earth in the next shot. I wouldn’t have considered these edits if I hadn’t just started rethinking every aspect of this one moment.

After this was cut into the film I did zone out on the couch and watch a remake of Stephen King‘s, The Stand. This is the one film I have seen recently that seemed to portray the COVID pandemic. The virus in the film however was 99% deadly so it was harder for society to ignore and minimize.

It is surprising that all the film productions though taking COVID precautions on set, portray the world as if COVID does not exist. This enforces the gaslighting from the white house and media that the pandemic is over. Everyone is returning to life as normal as cases spike once again.

COVID Film: Animating Santas 1

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I am planning to replace the beauty shot which is the third from the last shot in the film. My concern is that it features the pig faced doctors from a Twilight Zone episode. Although the reference was done on purpose, it is probably not a great idea to include in the film.

The Santas scene also offers much more opportunity to add motion at the end of the film. The beauty shot only had a beautiful woman move her arm while holding a mask. This will be the only shot I have removed that has also been animated.

The film was rejected by the New York No Limits Film Series yesterday. That is the third New York Film Festival to reject the film. Either New Yorker’s do not want to be reminded of the pandemic, or the film needs some improvements.

I am considering applying to some horror film festivals in the hope that I might find an audience there. I can not release the film on youTube since some of the big festivals want a premiere status to the films they show. I am stuck between a rock and a hard place unable to share the film at a time when it really needs to be shown as a reminder and a warning.

COVID can be viewed on filmFreeway.

COVID Film: Polishing Opening Shot Animation

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Yesterday I got a note on social media from a conspiracy theorist minimizer complaining about the messaging in my art. It makes me feel good knowing this film can make minimizers skin crawl. I wanted to finish this shot yesterday, but I started going cross eyed late at night.

Several issues remain and they relate to the difficulty of using After Effects. I thought that rolling a ball would be a simple task using transform tools. I accomplished the ball roll in Callipeg but noticed that the ball had become insanely pixelated when I saw it play back in Premiere pro. It turns out that any time you rotate or scale an object in Callipeg it becomes more pixelated.

So at the end of the day I was trying to re-animate the ball roll in After Effects. Sliding the position of the ball is easy, however rotating the ball happens around an anchor point in the center of the screen. that anchor point can be manually moved to the approximate center of the ball but when I go to the next key frame the ball moves to the center of the screen where the anchor point was first located. I wrestled with the setting for about an hour with the ball flying off in all direction. Who knew that animating a quarter inch ball roll would become such an issue? I gave up in frustration and went of bed.

Since there is no printed manual, I will be watching a slew of youTube videos about the rotation tool with few of the videos addressing the issue. I did tackle this issue before with the wood chipper scene. I just have to figure out what I did. So my goal for today is to roll a ball a fraction of an inch. Time to face the digital hydra.

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: New Opening Shot

Posted on by Thor

To screen my film which was essentially a story reel at the time,at the Orlando International Fringe Festival, I had to put a disclaimer in front of it. That disclaimer said, “Content Warning: Contains some mature language and content, including depictions of illness and death. Viewer discretion is advised.” After six film festival rejections so far, I suspect judges are predisposed to reject the film as soon as they see this nine second Content Warning.

I decided to start the film with a new opening shot that fills the slot the content warning held. The new shot is a nine second pan down a NYC street following an ambulance which is the only vehicle moving on the streets. The existing audio is of an ambulance siren so this makes perfect sense. I finished the yesterday but didn’t complete the painting since I had worked on several other scenes as well.

This scene opens with a close up on the window and the virus rolls up to the open window as if looking out. The camera pulls back and pans left to follow the ambulance as it rushes down the street. The pan moves from vanishing point to vanishing point.

I am basing the nocturnal scene on a painting I did of the twin Towers from my Stuyvesant Town Apartment back in the late 1980s. This shot is of Third Avenue but the lighting is the same with a variety of apartment windows glowing like stars in the night sky. This is going to be a fun painting to finish.

I am also looking forward to figuring out the animation of the ambulance. It should be fun to figure out how to animate the lights blinking wildly and I need to find a good way to have the headlights illuminate the street. At nine seconds long, this is the longest shot in the film, so I have to make it worthy of the screen time. Should a festival need the warning, I will place it back over this shot.

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

Posted on by Thor

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 Film: Animating the Skull Toss

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In the previous version of this shot I only animated the skull arching towards the crowd.I decided I need to animate the former president throwing the skull as he slowly walks the stage. In the previous animation I did I moved the skull in After Effects. The trouble is that there is little opportunity to change the timing of the animation. I got it to move on the arch but with very even timing.

I tried animating the skull in Callipeg using the transform tool but a very similar problem arose in that the timing was too even. Computers seem to insist one even timing. I finally decided I had to animate frame by frame repositioning the skull for each position so I had control of the spacing between frames.

I am half way finished with animating the former president. His arm moves fast but the walk is ponderous and slow. I am assuming the audience will only have time to see the skull movement and will not pay attention to the walk. I am debating about some tie movement. That will be subtle if I move it at all. For now the idea of animating the crowd or flags is overkill.

COVID Film: Animating a Flying Cow

Posted on by Thor

In this scene I am animating the flying cow. I had animated it previously but that pass had only a leg move. I decided to get the cow into a full on gallop as it flies through the air backwards. I animated the gallop as a cycle in place. The cow will be much smaller and moving backwards. Once the animation is complete and painted, I plan to merge all the layers and move the existing animation. I might also rotate the cow a bit.

The tail animation still needs to be done. I am imagining a rather frantic tail movement since it is wagging and also being buffeted by high velocity winds. The funnel of the tornado was animated as well and I plan to paint it rather roughly to tr and replicate the spinning shape. I will likely add a subtle movement to the virus as well using pins in After Effects.

I have to still animate the flying tractor and broken boards. I will see if I can do this using the transformation tool. I could also do this animation in After Effects. The house is already animated. I used the transformation tools in Callipeg to move it on a simple arc. It moves rather slow so a camera move was added to the first shot to speed up the scene. I will probably keep the same camera move after animation is complete.