Its the Little things - POLISH -

Hey Guys,HERES whats been going on- Shel has been finishing the Foley and I believe as of last night she is finished......She has been dealing with the 3 main tracks of AUDIO- Dialog - V.O. - Music.

One of the things that jumped out to me in the last generation burn of our DVD was the VO Quality......we had a SUPER HIGH QUALITY score.....we had a Pretty high quality film...and we had totally SUB PAR dialog quality. This was very obvious to me and It was absolutly necessary to bring up the quality to match the others.
In my reading online about people - BIZ people- who watch short films.....the first thing they do is put your production quality into classes . The easiest way to drop in status is CRAPPY VO. -or CRAPPY lighting - or CRAPPY MUSIC - THIS is with out even seeing the animation quality or story. I didnt want this to hurt our chances for success in the festival circuits with somthing we could fix. Im sure a great story could TRUMP almost all of these other shortcomeings but I dont wana risk it.

....We actually recorded 90% of our dialog at professional studios but there were some pikups that were recorded on home devices....I - not being a sound guy didnt know how to make them match.... so....My first step was to re record the low quality VO in a nice studio.

Luckily ....at my Workplace we have acess to a recording studio and a friendly soundguy to help. ......We re recorded the offending sounds and hired him for a general mixing of the VO. We now have Quality VO....that matches as good as is possible.

This makes me very happy!! QUALITY

onto other things.....I am done with all of the 2d cleanup and coloring....it looks very nice and brings up the quality all over again. We also took out some of the 2d elements and replaced them with small props which add that much more home made quality. Shel made a Sculpy heart - 1rst place ribbon - and a question mark that keep things that much more human....POLISH...

We also are submitting to 10 more festivals this week....which will bring us up to about 18 or so.....thats A BUNCH.....We should here back by dec. if we are accepted?? FINGER CROSSED.This is super exciteing!!! and I hope to share with you guys the entire experiance....I know Ron Cole over at http://wobblytripod.blogspot.com/.....is now a veteran with his film and in fact won {BEST animated short in the New York Film Festival}CONGRATS MAN!!!
....... I cant wait to even feel the thrill of an acceptance.....let alone an award..... We will hear before Dec if we are accepted and my normally very patient self is painfully short on that virtue at the moment.

I did a small showing to some of my animators at work......and they seemed to Genuinely like it. I got some notes and am trying to implement them into the next BURN we create. I when watching it am starting to believe I have somthing pretty cool here {This has been along time comeing}

I can also tell you that this post production on a film takes way longer than I was ready for.....but it really is worth it for the FINAL Product. Its going to be forever right.....so I should make it as good as we possibly can.

Jriggity

Finishing UP!!

hey guys.....shel here......

things are zooming right along.....i'm still reeling from our awesome time at Capitol Records watching Robert Litton make P U R E music magic for our visuals.....


haven’t had too much time to bask in that experience though.....since then justin's been cleaning up 2D, robert and i layed the music track down on our master, i've massaged lots of edits, added the credits, added and subtracted some foley, rendered, rendered, rendered. (it takes about 5 hours to render each new version of the film on my little computer, which crashes frustratingly often -- then i say really mean things to it.)


all this to say......it took awhile for justin and i to be able sit down and see the whole film at once with the music.


and........




...............







....... it works.

(WHEW!!)



it's kinda impossible to get distance of course.....but i feel stuff when i watch it.


that’s not to say there’s not more TWEAKING to do.....every time we watch it we see something (or three) we could fix...... we’ve given ourselves till DECEMBER to lock it all down. good date--since we started in DEC 3 years ago. we're aiming for a JANUARY 2009 release.


.....but in the mean time there are a few 2009 festivals with deadlines coming up now that we just didn't want to wait aWHOLEnother year to submit to so we decided to submit our in-progress copy.....


we've sent DVDs to 7 fesitivals so far.....and will send a few more in November.....


entering the festivals is a HUGE EXCITING step. (picture me skipping into the post office!) justin and i have been daydreaming about this phase for years......and i've been doing festival research for a long time now -- i'm glad i started early cuz there's a TON to sort through. mostly i'm looking at Withoutabox.com (thanks to a tip from stopmo buddy Michael Granberry) and Film Festival World online and the ads justin finds in the back of animation magazine. our plan is to apply to all the big ANIMATION festivals, the big SHORTS festivals and the biggest regular festivals, as well as all the festivals in places where we have family and would love to visit.....not that we could afford to go to all the places but we’re all about DREAMING BIG!!


we’ll keep you posted!

Cover Experiments and Resin Copies!

Hey Guys,

Heres a quick peek at a Poster cover Im playing with....its version 1.0.
But I like the basic look. also.....heres a 3 cool copies of my stinger sculpt...his mold and resin copies came out GREAT!

jriggity

"doulbleyoo O doulbleyoo" WOW - GRAND SLAM!

WOW!

I dont know where to start? WOW!

What a freakin Dream!

Ok......so I ofcouse couldnt sleep the night before we recorded but I tried my hardest. We were In bed by one in the morning and ready for some nice egg sandwiches in the mornin. I invited my good friend B johnson to join us for this momentus occasion due to his appreciation of Art , film and Film music----supporting personal artwork of friends is always a reason to be there as well. I used to go to art school with Bryan back in Pittsburgh and we have kept in touch though all of our professional careers. After breakfast We all packed into the minivan and headed for Capitol Records.
Hollywood is only 20 minuets {without traffic} from our house so gettin there was easy....upon arrival we entered the lot under {Justin Rasch - Director} ha!.....and we made our way to the front lobby. We went through another check point and they told us to head for {Studio A}.

This is the same recording studio that Frak Sinatra and Nat King Cole sang in and recorded many of their songs.......amongst many other Music artists. It was cool to feel the history of the building.....Hollywood is a pretty trashy place but its got character for sure.

We made our way down the hallway to studio A......with pictures on the walls of all the Big Record people from the past. When we got in there we finally saw Robert.....He was a shnazzed up and lookin ready for Bizznezz . He introduced us to many members of his family and we found some seats up front . In the Studio there were 20 plus musicians warming up their instraments and seeming ready to rock. These musicians must have arrived before they were needed as well as their instraments were delivered in advance. We only had three hours to record our whole film....so no time was a wastein .

Very shortly after arrivein they began playin music. A big part of the dream was to have my film shown on the monitor while they played live.....and feeling the music and Images finally come together. Well.....there it was and WOW!! It all started with a chain ....a real big powerfull HOME DEPOT CHAIN..... One of the musicians dropped it and did a ""Struuummof "" with some dark instrament to kick of the intro. ...kinda like in old western gun fight music.....{As the boot in the forground steps into the shot while far into the distance you see the badguy ready for the Showdown}If you can hear that music with those images .....Thats the first notes right there.

Heres a taste-

So cool!!!!.......they played through the intro several times .....looking to Robert for timeing and key moments to hit. There were so many things in the music that I didnt know would be there....low violins.....supporting Bass and chello...neat little moments of MYSTERY SOUNDS....It was so amazeing!!! It was a Home Run...Out of the park....and it was obvious!!

Shortly into the Intro was being recorded the Grandparents showed up....they grabbed a seat next to us and were instantly blown away by the size and scale of the orchestra ! They said ....we had no idea it was going to be this big? We thought it was going to be a harmonica guy and a piano? This was next level!!

They musicians finished up the Intro nicely and moved onto the Rich Sequence....this is another spot where I only had a basic idea ....what was in store for me. SUPRISE!! so much freakin MAGIC sprinkled all over my film.

From the first moment Gerald hears the keys jingle and he raises an ear....{xylophone} Kicks in.....then in Weaves the piano and harmonica ....This is so freakin cool.....As Gerald dives for the corner of the cage the Harp and piano stums his leap.....WOW. This is freakin unbelieveable!!!!

Onto his thought bubble sequences....imagination...This was illustrated with Piano and Harp again. Wow guys.....he thinks and ponders while the plucks of chello and violin support the images.....WOW WOW WOW......

Rich sequence Music-

I always think of Tom and Jerry episodes and music......how they would support the action with crazy music.....this was happening in my very own film. But even better!!!! because I had a full and complete story.....not just a series of gags like in Tom and jerry....and Roberts Score was Masterfully Weaved into and throughout the film.

Little Girl Music -

.....It was weaved by the same Musicians that do the hollywood feature music we all know....from {Harry Potter to Cool hand Luke}......Quality is what we have here. This is Tommy Morgan....the best Harmonica Player in the world. Over 700 feature films hes played on.....as well as countless television shows we all know. I was completely honered that he play for our little film.

I could go on and on and on about all the Amazeing pieces of Music accompanying my animation.....but it all come down to WOW. I promiss you guys that this film just improved 100% over what it was....or could have been with out Roberts talent .You are going to be getting a professional film when all comes together.....worth every penny of your hard earned Stopmo bucks!

We also had a friend of Roberts film the entire scoreing with a nice camera.......so well have more juice for the special features.

I want to give a big thanks to Ryan McCulloch for the Robert Litton recomendation.....and I totally understand your thoughts on......{the second I got done with the score I wanted to start a new film just so I could score it} Ha!! It didnt even take me that long.....I was ready after the first sequence!!!!THRILLING!!

AfterGlow!
over and out guys....

heres the BIG song....credits....POWERFULL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jriggity