Good News

Finally completed the project for the castle  '1000 Years of Norwich Buildings with Snap the Dragon' Had a good response to the animation from Suzie and the rest of the group (however I feel my presentation was a bit poor) This piece of animation has taken (surprise surprise) alot longer than anticipated, but well worth it. I had a meeting yesterday with the Norwich Heart organisation and it seems they may commission me to expand the animation to include more Norwich buildings and then they would like to put it on their website. Also it may appear on screens in such buildings as the City Hall and Assembly house as part of the 'Year of the dragon' festivities next year which is also a bonus. All these outcomes far exceed any expectations I had when embarking on this project! I'll post the full video on here soon when I have the internet back in my house. I have also sent the finished animation to the castle to see if they may like to use it too. 

Major Project Stuff

After the awkward and time consuming proposal organisation it's full steam ahead now with this. I had a successful time filming this and many thanks to all involved. So, all the live action is sorted. I will now edit it all together and key out all the blue and then start the animation part of the project. This project is exciting for me and I really hope I can produce something good rather than a cheesy protest style video (fingers crossed) Experimented in After Effects with the colour keying and the results were o.k. although I have been advised to colour key in Final Cut Pro. I have little knowlege with this program so it looks like I will be harrassing all and sundry to gain some understanding of this program. I had a go the other day colour keying out the blue and ended up with the band looking ghost-like. So, some attention needed there!

Painting

Strange how relaxing painting a huge area one colour can be! Re-painted the floor in the factory, got the camera and story-boarding for the shoot on Thursday. Lots to do!

Getting there with my Castle project - getting the images together of the buildings, will put it on  here upon completion. Think I will use the guitar music that was originally intended for my previous plan of 'A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings' as I think it will fit nicely with the animation.

Weekend

Just got back from Castellon, Spain - played a festival with Toy Dolls. Took my laptop so managed to get some work done for my castle project whilst traveling which was a bonus due to looming deadlines and rising levels of panic. All in all I have enjoyed my MA (which was my main intention) but it has thrown more stress at me than I anticipated. I aim to complete this project by Thursday so I can show the group and get a bit of feedback on my endeavors. Also I'd like to get it finished so I can fully concentrate on my major project. I intend to film the live action parts on thursday afternoon evening if it all goes to plan (fingers crossed!)

More....

Today and last night has mostly been getting my Masters Project proposal together. Putting my aims and objectives into 'MA' language - quite taxing on this brain!

Also been drawing backgrounds, animals and shrubbery for my Castle project. Here's a small movie which illustrates better what I am trying to achieve with this time line of 1000 years of historic buildings in the fine city of Norwich -

Got to make adjustment to the 'moonwalk' aspect but there's going to be extra things going on and 7/8 more historic building to add to the timeline.

Lyrics

Here's the lyrics for the Goober song - 

Verse One

A million undernourished faces staring from the screen,

While a million smug Westerners are living the dream,

A million swans are dying on a poisened lake,

While a million fat buisness men are on the take....

....and it grows....

 

Chorus

Theyre gonna fight that, fight back, fighting in a proxy war....

Theyre gonna fight that, fight back, fight the freedom loving hoards....

Theyre gonna fight that, fight back, we know what theyre fighting for....

Dont say you dont, cause I know you do....

 

Verse Two

A million pounds a second has us standing on the moon.

But a milion hungrry children havent got enough food,

a million hours debating the ethics of trade,

While a million desperate parents sell their kids to be slaves....

....and it grows....

 

Chorus

Theyre gonna fight that, fight back, fighting in a proxy war....

Theyre gonna fight that, fight back, fight the freedom loving hoards....

Theyre gonna fight that, fight back, we know what theyre fighting for....

Dont say you dont, cause I know you do... 

What have I been doing?

Right, a new direction as far as my final project is going -no longer the adaption of a narrative, now a music video. I have chosen to do this as I feel in the future I would rather go down this route rather than the other- but never say never as the saying goes. I intend to make a video for a band I play in, Goober Patrol. It's a song recorded a while back (see blog from last year) The song is a good old hearty protest song, so my intentions are obviously to do the song justice! The band is a punk band and by that I don't mean the insipid fashionable claptrap that parades itself about ,claiming they are 'punk' but being as acceptable as Wham or Travis-  but a band with a political agenda. My aim is to produce a video full of anti-capitalist imagery (as is the song content) Basically I would like to use capitalist networks and media to spread this anti-capitalist message. These networks being those dominating the Internet and T.V. The songs' structure is questions and answers and I aim to have these in 2 very contrasting graphic styles to reflect. Hopefully I'll come up with something original and not full of cliches, which is the risk with embarking upon a project like this. I am including the band in the video and intend to shoot in the shoe factory in the blue room. I scouted it out the other day and the location is great.

Animation For Exhibition - this project is going well, I've been trying to get my snap-dragon character to walk in a convincing manner in After Effects, it's proving to be a bit of a mission currently but not so bad I suppose. Here's a rough 'sketch' of what I'd like to achieve visually with this - 

I couldn't get the animatic or "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings' to upload - no great loss !