THE CANON

Ok this a model i did a while back, but today I opened up the file and added a whole lot more stuff to it...its actually from The Pilot but I'll make both designs from each film a bit different.

SECOND VERSION OF THE OPENING

Vimeo is acting very oddly again and so another upload here.

SUSAN BOYLES FIRST APPEARANCE ON BRITAINS GOT TALENT

Now I don’t watch the show, but she has become so famous that I had to see what was going on and check it out.

Now this video was again completely out of the blue for me on the onslaught of emotions that hit me as I was viewing it...but I tear up...every single time I watch this. I don’t honestly know why...a lot of people say if your in some kind of mourning then you get very emotional...but there have been no deaths going on at all over here.

Trying to kind of hammer out exactly what the situation here is I don’t really know, but its very similar to how I felt about Little Miss Sunshine I thin...which again was a very powerful film for the emotions for me.

I mean she’s not even really (or doesn’t appear to be) nervous at all. Which means its possibly unusual that there’s no relation to my feelings with that because, I think if she had been really nervous I would relate to it a lot.

It might be just the fact that she’s an amazing singer who demonstrated her skill with her voice there and then and did a perfect rendition of the song (which i dont think i'd heard iether and seemed to like that too)...very strange... ( but yeah, the sustained notes on all it were terrific!)...and is from the middle of nowhere and is unemployed...which triggers it off...and the fact that some people seemed to treat her badly before she sang...I can relate to all of that in a very big way, so it might be that.

Who knows what is going on here in my mind...I don’t watch the TV, and I don’t have a social life...so maybe seeing lots of new faces in this clip triggered off emotion too.

What is really rather upsetting is the way that some people change around you when they realise how talent you are...strangers change and suddenly like you when prior to knowing anything about you were completely different.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk


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THE LAST GUARDIAN TRAILER

I just gotto (and I know I’m really quite late on this one...but better late than never eh!) mention, this, because, it is one of the most exciting things that has happened this year...as is the way, and as shall always be the way - when the latest Fumito Ueda game trailer arrives for us geeks to marvel at.

I am absolutely 100% serious when I say that it is as if, say, a trailer for a new Stanley Kubrick film was shown?...it's of that magnitude for me.

I eventually saw it in HD and I can tell you I was a happy geek.

You can see the trailer for it here



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THE BRIDGE OF THE CRASHED SHIP

Did this today. This is the bridge on the crashed ship (below)...i'm really a bit worried about animating this character though (I'm no character animator thats for sure) so i dont know if its possible to get the shots i want with this...I would really love to have him struggling around trying to get off the bridge and outside. Its also been quite tricky making it feel like the ship is not level.

If some big hollywood producer is reading this...if given the chance to make a propper job of this, I would have the main character as a human (and not a robot) (and a real set)

JUST A TEST

TEST

CRASH SITE CLIP (A BIT MORE POLISHED)

Now this is where I start to question what i'm doing a lot, because of that age old problem of me moving the camera a lot in each shot (something that people I respect tell me is a thing that can get out of hand)...and fair enough if you take the time to look at some great films (which I rarely seem to do...and I SHOULD do...this is very bad Dowswell, this is very bad!...) they balance things out very nicely with a mixture of shots...and if you look at films like Michael Bays...the camera seems to always be on the move...to the point where it really is too much...I spose that’s the lesson here, not to do something over and over again.

Saying all of this, it's only two shots long!

You can have a peak here

CRASH SITE CLIP WITH SOUND

The question is...is this soundtrack a little over the top?

You can have a look [here]

CHANGE OF LIGHTING

You really can tweak forever...and the problem is...I do.

CHARACTER FOR UNTITLED PROJECT

Have been tweaking around with the servus slave character for a slightly different look for this new thing...I maybe should have tried a bit harder to do a completely different character alltogether...hmm.

UH OH!

Well...what can I say?...I managed to settle down and work on Servus for a while there...for some reason (which I don’t even really know or understand) I was able to work on it for a bit without any kind of jump to another project...I really did not expect a jump to something completely new...but today I started on something completely new again!...well ok, the ship is from Servus...but I’m hoping the characters will be human types in astronauty type outfits.

You can have a quick look at it ...[here]

WHO AM I?...WHAT I AM?

You know the thing where your in a situation of meeting a new person, and they ask you the question...yep that question about what is it you do?…and you have to give them some kind of a answer?

What exactly am I?…aspiring director?...yes...no budget filmmaker?…yes….working director?...no...but that means working in the sense of money being generated by it...paid director would be a better way to phrase that....paid director...no. Working everyday of my life on films?...yes...complete and total control on all elements of your film?...yes and no...happy?...yes and no.

What is it you do?..."well, I’ve been working in my parents house in my bedroom on films for six years and have no income and have never had any income"...at which point the person usually looks at me and doesn’t say anything. But this provides me with a huge doubt problem...if I try and go for some kind of a job...what is the company at the other end going to say about all of this?...I mean I literally have nothing on my CV aka Resume that’s work that has been done for the industry...this makes me a bit apprehensive about emailing a company like Studio Aka...BUT, there must have to be a point in everybody's career where a company took let the person with no industry experience jump on in and do something. So I probably shouldn’t worry about it all.

A REDOING OF THE LIGHTING FOR THE GIANT HOVERCRAFT SEQUENCE IN SERVUS

I just hope that this is better than the previous, it’s been something that I’ve tweaked a lot over the years, and now I’ve discovered a way to put in a duller light and apply soft shadows to it...so basically you have hard shadows on one light, and soft on the other, which reduces the render time significantly.

Cinematography has also changed, I've gone a bit wider...which again is a tricky decision.

I think the downside to this image though is the black areas, they shouldn't really exist...and are really the reason it renders so fast.

SERVUS - DEPARTURE CLIP

Here we go. I'm going to do a sequence that will be inserted before this point in the film. This is the big travelling section. The dirt / eroded layer was being very difficult and frustrating so it's not on this.

Servus - Departure Clip from Michael J. Dowswell on Vimeo.

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.