fifth day

Well, we finished several milestones today including but not limited to the Master Asset Sheet, the Master Shot Sheet, and the Thumbnails for the Storyboards. There was very good progress today in terms of what was accomplished, everyone should be proud of themselves. We are going at a very good pace. More and more people are getting the flow of things and the department heads are also learning to manage their teams better. Marshall has accomplished quite a feat with this short production class, not only that, he sacrifices some of his own wallet every morning, so thank you Marshall; for not just enriching our minds, but filling our stomachs as well. Already most of the students have gained irreplaceable knowledge on the creative processes that go on in a production pipeline, as well as the production pipeline's architecture in general. With what knowledge I've already gained so far, I feel as if the class has already payed for itself. I'm sure many of the others feel the same way. We're going to have a 5.5 day on Saturday, when Marshall gets back from his previous engagement. The lab is still open from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm so anyone is welcome to come in and work, but it's not required. Everyone get lots of rest and be ready for Monday.

First Week

Well I made it through the first week without getting totally derailed by extraneous responsibilities. I've had sick kid management, but I think that's a decent trade-off for other potential disasters. As a precautionary measure I hope to focus on getting the comet up in all its destructive glory. (Are you sure we can't wipe out the village?!!??) If I can finish that, I can just fill in gaps on modeling and textures, so if I have to bow out, it won't have a catastrophic impact. Naturally I'll work on whatever concept art Jonathon has outstanding. :]

I can't wait to see some of this!

btw: if, in fact, the comet DID hit the village, we have an opportunity for a number of sequels, which would probably involve the undead. I can go either way. Living ... not living....

fourth day

So we went through today and finished up our script for Astronomer. After establishing the script we've built extensive shot lists and asset lists, in order to continue the production of our short. Many of us showed up slightly late and a bit tired, but there was a lot of work that was still completed at the end of the day. I myself have become more submissive to the whole process and I'm trying to allow it the room to start moving forward until it becomes a giant Avalanche of productivity. I hope that all of us continue to work hard at this short production. There have been ups and downs, but I am confidant that all of us will pull through to the end. Everyone please keep up the good work. Good Luck.

third day

we've chosen a story, written it out.
my task today is to turn in into a screenplay.
we will have an asset list, production art,
start on thumbnails and an animatic (for timing), by days-end.

the class is now in full-blow production.

after the tension of creating the story, choosing between many strong ideas, and debating the possibilities, sometimes with a passion, when the decision was finally made, there was a mild bemused applause. then we broke into teams, chose team leads, and got down to business.

there are some cynical students (tho this is subtle, and not malicious), there are some waiting for their turn to come up (yet they still give input), but all are now engaged in the creative process. there are some bumps, some doubts, especially when some consider the extremely close deadline that is looming. but we will not give in to doubt nor fear. I have maintained that we would not let technical considerations determine our story choices (and I'm the technician amongst all of them, if there ever was a naming-convention, directory-structuring, name-every-node, complex-shader-hierarchy, process-driven, attribute-connecting, script-stringing fool, it is me!), but rather, use the script to drive creative solutions to technical impossibilities.

i've scheduled meetings for the rest of the week. departments will form, do their work, and disolve. some will remain. some will split. i've got responsible individuals in areas of authority, and everyone is learning the value of criticism and open debate. a difference of opinion is not a negative nor personal thing, as long as the facts are discussed, and everyone defers to the responsible decision-maker.

we will have a high-calibre, quality animated short told in one voice. i can see it in my head (and have had glimpses of it since Clint first started telling the story). There are scenes and camera angles that demand themselves to be made. there are rich and engaging characters, each with their own pasts. i feel a bit like Christian Lorenz-Scheurer (www.christianlorenzscheurer.com/), inventing worlds by the sheer power of speech and line. And the students are full of ideas, a great group of advisors. we've got a good team.

second day

today's movie is Iron Giant.
there are excellent camera shots and characters in this one.
this is the story of the growing concious of a metal giant.

After reviewing 9 story pitches yesterday, I am impressed with the creativity. There were some who were holding back, or holding their cards close to their vest. But, after the ideas were pitched, almost everyone had something to add.

we've got to choose a story today.
there are several good stories and a couple of top contenders.
we post these on the forum, and several posts were made overnight, mainly for one idea. this might be good indication of the strength of each idea.

We are all eager to get into production. By the end of today we will have put everyone to work in some way or another.

first day of class

almost everyone is here.
we've started by watching Flash Gordon (with the Queen soundtrack), which has a good story and excellent production values, with plenty of practical and special effects.

the lesson:
creative input > creative output.
the very definition of "writer's block" is staring at a blank sheet of paper.

so, the previous two weeks we've been seeking inspiration, studying story, observing connections, and noting stereotypes. We've watched the Matrix series (including Animatrix), Equilibrium, and the Wizard of Oz, among others. These are not shorts, but we'll get to those. Paramount to a good production is Story. We'll get the technical and artistic aspects of short production down, but the story is the most precarious, and our greatest opportunity for success.

OMG it's a Mob Blog!

"Captain's log, star date 01032007
It's not because my (well, our) wedding announcement had a Star Trek touch, or because I own an English-Klingon dictionary as well as a USS Enterprise telephone, or because I went to a Star Trek convention in Düsseldorf once, that you can call me a Trekkie."
-http://no-copy.typepad.com/no_copy/2007/03/captains_log_st.html

So at the end of this class we're all going out and having a celebration... right?

my girlfriend is a USB key!

we're watching Mezzo in lab...
"Shell of Memories" (episode 6)is about a guy who starts going out with this really sweet (typical japanese anime airhead) girl...and then one day she runs out of batteries!!! he takes her to her "father" and then busts up the lab where they are keeping her "alive" for one last conversation...they download her into a memory stick! so, he ends up with his girlfriend on a "USB key"...!!

ad campaign

because the school will not be printing a schedule, and there might not be a .pdf version available on-line, I've created ads to post around the school in order to promote the 3D Animation Short Production class. This is a course at an unusual time, during the MayMester, which is in-between the Spring and Summer semesters.




model: Ivan



model: Adam



model: Elizabeth



model: Albert



model: El



model: Jessman



model: Ian

denny's: the cliche

Ron and Ivan went out to "dinner" with me after the game development class tonight. Neither of them are in the game class, but both are interested in the 3D Animated Short Production course that I'll be teaching over the Maymester at Collin College. (all these terms will become familiar to you after a few posts...) Both of them are also the calibre of men that accomplish things and lead others to accomplishment, yet are still looking forward to the next accomplishment.

So, we discussed the various ideas for the upcoming class. Will we be doing any pre-production work? Who is interested in taking the course? Will we be able to polish the piece after the course is done? Who will be the intern?

I laid out my incipient ideas for the structure of the course, the production schedule, the ideas of fairness versus credited roles, volunteers being treated as if they are paid, the cycling of duties so everyone gets experience and exposure. Ivan is busy fitting this into his own plans for commercial and community production and success, increasing his speed and quality. Ron and I discuss dispositions of various students, and how to keep everyone happy, motivated, and productive. The task looms large, and we want to front-load the process with the few weeks we have until May 14th. But, we cannot let things magically appear in class, since I want to have students thoroughly investigate the short production process as it happens.

I tell my story about performing uncoveted tasks by torturously long means in order to finish the G.I. Joe movie at ReelFX. But, it is difficult for me to judge, because I do not really despise any part of the 3D production process. My contribution to computer graphics terms is "polys per pixel (ppp)" and describes the bottleneck created by unnecessarily heavy geometry when it comes time to render! I hoped the term by it mere necessity would sufficiently scare the director, the modelers, and the rendering and compositing crew. Suppose you have a scene with 9,000,000 polygons in your geometry (which we did) and you are rendering for NTSC at 720x486, so that you have 349,920 pixels on the screen. That means there are 25.7 polygons for every pixel you actually render. In construction terms, that's a cube (6 polygons) with 5 extrudes (each producing 4 additional polygons) for every pixel! Or, you're only seeing, at most, 4% of the actual information present in the scene (if each pixel were just 1 polygon, which is still inefficient)! So, we found another way to render all the establishing shots, by rendering one still hi-res undershot, and painting mattes on top of that. those undershots took hours to render, one small swatch by one small swatch, on large numbers of machines after hours, saving often and recovering from memory crashes, even after simplifying much of the geometry . (this is the uncoveted task by torture...) The goal is to complete the task by any means.

I mention to Ron that I don't want people to do all-nighters and the class is officially from 9:15am to 5:00pm. But, I'll be there from 9am to 9pm, to accomodate everyone's schedules. We want to work remotely. We want to log each task, each day, and all of our experiences. So, we need an electronic presence. So, 3dasp.blogspot.com!

future topics (for me):
*6 years ago there were 10 guys who started to make an animated short...
*Why can't they get the name of the course correct in the schdule?!
*pre-production momentum

you see where this is heading, don't you?