ADDING FILM GRAIN

Adding film grain is a very interesting thing too...this is all in photoshop though, I've never used After Effects, but believe it could be done in there...I probably should do this, cause the grain thing really does take out the perfect edges that you get with CG.

THE COCKPIT - SERVUS

More of the dirty look, and again in 2.35:1.

WHAT IS SERVUS?

So what is Servus?...some of you may know, and some of you may not know, but its this animation I started in 2007, which was made with the soul purpose of me trying to make the most detailed film to date. You can see some clips here below. Its again one of these conflicted mind projects where I dont know weither to do my own soundtrack or use the classical music. Clip 01 is the classical music and Clip 02 is my own Korg score. Clip 03 is a more polished version (but still very much unfished)

Clip - 01

Clip - 02

Clip - 03

BIT MORE DETAIL

Gradually getting there, I never really know when it's done.

TRANSPORT SHIP IN SERVUS AGAIN

A real conscious battle going on here with me and aspect ratios again...and also about colour and black and white, I've always been so comfy in black and white you see...and loved black and white. The whole dirty look too is somthing i'm conflicted about...just general wall to wall confliction going on really!

Just a bit more detail on this transport ship (its not meant to be a submarine, but seems to look like one)

LITTLE SHIP FROM SERVUS GETS MORE DETAIL ADDED TO IT

Started to add more detail to this little ship which first made it's apearance (in very basic form) in my uncompleted animation Servus...it looks a bit submarine like though.

SO THIS IS ME TRYING TO RELAX

So I've been trying to relax a bit...and did this totally unrelated piece...also, I like to see how fast I can get these things to render.

PROP NOW HAS A PURPOSE?

haha...well a friend of mine said that they look like fuel storage tanks (which I quite liked the sound of...and fair enough they do look like they could be)

To be honest here with this unplanned prop I've made...I've lost the focus again somewhat on the main projects, and am just playing around again. The problem with the long shots in my animations is that your sets have to be really organised and big...and designed well...which is proving to be a bit of a problem with that second interior shot for The Pilot (or I've lost interest). Also the fact that the scen is in the dark which makes it quite tricky...hmmm.

I’ve also got severe, severe burnout again. I don’t know but I’ve been thinking a lot lately how I’m away from the crowd of people who have a job and only work on these sorts of projects in their spare time...that’s not me. I don’t have a job and have been on these projects for six years now...and the burnout across the entire thing is really getting quite bad at the moment. I did try to go and do a childrens book, but I dont know why I stopped that.

ANOTHER PROP

Here's a quick prop, don't honestly know where I can put it (which film it can go into)...but it's good to have a library of these things.

SOME HD TESTS

I've not done much with HD so far (in my six years as a no budget filmmaker) but ive always wanted to...I still have a dual core computer, but, these were actually really fast render times, I had to try very hard with the second image though and some major compromising has had to happen, but I mean it doesn't look too bad!

A QUICK LOOK AT THE FIGHTER IN "WHILE THEY SLEPT"

Here we go!...lots of things going on in the past week, lots of different projects being worked on.

Fighter - While They Slept from Michael J. Dowswell on Vimeo.

A CLIP FROM THE PILOT

Yes!...just when you were least expecting it, right?...well Steve Ogden's correct!, you think a persons working on somthing, and they're actually working on somthing else.

Well, things are a bit all over the place at the moment here!...I just wander across all the projects diving into bits and pieces here and there...this actually started off on the Korg, because I'd not had a tinkle on the Korg in ages, and so activated the beast, and that was a lot of fun, then I wanted to put animation to the music...which was even more fun. ive be redoing other stuff too...i re did the first shot for Rocket-man 2: part 1 and I also worked on the space fighter for While They Slept and rendered out a shot for that too.

But here is The Pilot clip.

The Pilot - Intro - Work In Progress from Michael J. Dowswell on Vimeo.

HOW CAN YOU SPEED UP YOUR ANIMATION MAKING PROCESS / IS IT POSSIBLE? - PART 1 OF 2

As a no budget film director who makes himself ill from working on these short films I think about how to make life easier on myself with regards to getting films completed quicker.

I speak to Cos about this and also was writing to James Wadsworth the other day there, and he raised the exact same topic too...its something that becomes quite apparent when your making these animations...and plagues us all.

I still cant remember the name of the guy who made the Cinema 4D animation that was all set in one room...his basic statement was along the lines of this “all I have to do is model one room...I can make that one room really, really detailed...and not have to worry about anything else...if I set the entire story inside this one room”

I went on to write a list of things that could reduce the time.


1) Make your film extremely short.

2) Have everything happen in one room.

3) Go for minimalist approach where the sets and characters are very basic...we’re talking extra very basic here...it increases the speed you get things done in a big way.

Arguments against all of this:

1) You cant rush art.

2) Detail for many directors / artists (including myself) is a really important thing for us.

3) To restrict yourself into one room means that there’s going to have to be very good character animation...

I always find myself back at looking at a film like Alien and think to myself “this film has got everything right...it's going to live on and on as a classic until the end of time!”

The cold harsh realitiy of things:

1) I will tell you something here which is a fact, the truth here...my short film The Rescue was made in three months, and I worked flat out every single day of that three months...really very hard work, and that was with the firm intention and concentrated effort to make things minimalist with a view to speed increase.

2) Projects for me have always started off small, and then gone on to grow and grow...this I think varies from director to director...I myself always want to have those long shots in there.

3) In the animation world, there really is no such thing as “I’ll just make a quick animation here”

WATCHING SPACE SHUTTLE ATLANTIS LAUNCH YESTERDAY LIVE

I seemed to tear up a bit when watching the shuttle launch live on our TV yesterday...I was NOT expecting that.

It must be something to do with the danger involved every time they launch one...I wonder how dangerous it is exactly though?...but then, that is an awful lot of fuel...and they do go into SPACE. There was something very beautiful about the launch...and of course epic...combined with the danger element (which you can actually feel in the voices of the people doing it...and there’s bound to be because of what happened to Challenger in 1986 and Columbiain 2003)

I was very impressed by the highly organised-ness of it...and the precision involved is incredible for such huge objects? I don’t know anything about these things really, but it definitely feels very impressive when you see it live...the Nasa TV channel was great, I’d never been to that before.

What’s odd in all of this is that the first shuttle launch was in the year I was born (1981)...and I’ve just read here that the shuttle is scheduled to be retired from service in 2010 (that’s pretty darn soon!)...so we wont see many more of these launches if that’s true. Watch them while you can!

VISITS TO THE PHYSIOTHERAPIST / SPINE EXPERT

This was one of those things that I was so against doing...but after quite a few months of my dad going on and on about it (and my headaches worsening)...I finally said “ok then” I truly felt that there was nothing that she could do to help me. I was completely 100% wrong...spectacularly wrong.

She has been incredible...she knows EXACTLY what she’s doing and I am very, very lucky and fortunate to be going there. She’s also extremely intelligent and is literally the only other person I see to talk to in my life that isn’t my parents. This has been incredibly self reflecting and the poor women has to put up with all my stories of disaster...and I think this isn’t entirely fair on her...I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I think in retrospect it's been a bit like a psychiatrist / physio appointment each week...and I don’t think this is fair on her.

Perhaps ive been away from people too much.

THE HOLLYWOOD SALOON IS BACK

They're back!...they're talking cinema again!...Andy Siems and John Jansen make a very, very welcome return to podcasting. You can find it all here. I dont think they realise how much I love their show, but then, it's a bit like people who like my films, I don't understand why people like my films.

SEVERE INTERNET PROBLEMS

It seems that everyday it gets worse...twitter wont load now, and hotmail's still not letting me in at all. I’m wondering if this is the start of the big prediction, that, the internet is going to come to a grinding halt, or if it's just our internet going wrong.

Bizarrely blogger.com seems to be unaffected through all this and also deviantart.com

So does that maybe mean that things that have a .com are ok...could be, could be.

MESSAGE TO COS

Dude my internet is playing up something terrible at the moment, for over forty eight hours now I cant seem to get into my hotmail or activate messenger and even facebook seems to have gone very weird. The only thing working-ish seems to be twitter and this blog.

About The Greebble teaser trailer...Haha!...that was very funny!...Steve’s voices are incredible. Seeing it with all the voice audio on it made a huge, huge difference. I think the way Steve has delivered the lines is priceless.