Deezone.com

I’m proud to present a rough cut of a short that I have in development while staying in Toronto, Canada. I’m currently 31 seconds into what appears will be a 2 minute short. The sound track is basically complete which I hope produces some entertaining surprises for everyone. Enjoy what I’ve done so far…

Notes on the technical side of the project:

• Switching to the Apple platform has produced wonderful results. The ease of use and the intuitive nature of the iStopMotion application has set me free of the technical issues that I struggled with on the PC platform for well over a year. iStopMotion gets around the need for a live video stream for previewing shots when using SLR camera by allowing the animator to take test shots before coming the shot to the animation sequence. I’m now free to focus on the process of animating - yahoo!
• Paying attention to the general direction of an object in an animation when shooting each frame is critical to producing acceptable animation. It’s important to pay attention to the scale of a move but more importantly to get the direction right. The aerial scene of the pirate is a good example of the animation breaking down towards the end of the cut when I became complacent in making sure the character was moving consistently in the intended direction. The results are a very “jerky” walking cycle.
• The use of “folley“, in this case the stepping sounds while the character is walking has proven invaluable to producing a believable animation.