Film Updates: Saturday February 6th

Ah. So I've been trying to get the scenes in my film done. For some reason, it's really hard for me to do all the scenes i set myself to do. Especially this week. I've decided as i was going through it, that maybe it's a better idea to try to stay in one place and work consecutively instead of jumping from place to place. Like, this week, I'm supposed to be animating the scene when the boy runs out of the house and down the street and bumps into the girl. I felt that it really worked when my mind is in that one place. I worked out the set up of the room for the first couple of scenes and it really worked having me Fortunatley, i was pretty smart with a lot of my shots this first week. I cut down and combined several shots to make my life easier. I'm not sure how much of a chance i have doing that with the scenes to come but...we'll see.

I've been animating without the light a lot recently and I think that's greatly improved my animation. That in combination with great speakers from the last few weeks has really inspired me as an animator. :D Even though I've sorta settled with the fact that i'm probably not going to be an animator, I still wanna try to be pretty decent. I figure with the large amount of scenes that i have to do, my animation will improve for sure. hahaha. I mean, even in a few scences I've done recently, i've gotten better. I'm realizing that i dont need to draw as literal as I usually draw. That i can do rough shapes and such just for the sake of MOVEMENT and that'll be enough.

I'm trying to do a bunch of things at once. I have all my scenes in a big stack of papers right now, separated only by the small animation paper that i foolishly cut from printer paper. I find that one of the best ways to do a bunch of scenes at once is to really do a bunch of scenes at once. I go and i pose test something and move on to the next scene. I'll shuffle through the list and move each one to the next step as i go. I find that i sorta work really fast and I get to results that i personally enjoy quite a bit. I feel like right now, the scenes that i have done can be easily fixed and improved in time.

I think right now, this week is good for me because I ended up not having AS much work as I thought i originally had. One of my friends gave me some advice recently. He told me that I should reallly try to cut my film down and have a shorter, leess ambitious version of my film. And while, I totally understand where he's comming from, I feel like...right now my film is at 2 minutes. There's a SHIT LOAD of story that's in that 2 minutes. Now, if i cut that down to maybe...1:30 that just wont really do. I have to do everything I set out to do. And I've settled with the fact that if I dont get it done this year, I will get it done next year. But I dont WANT to wait next year. I want to get it done this year. Even though i'm technically behind schedule this week, i've done a lot of work in a short amount of time. I believe that my work ethic will only improve from here on out. I really believe in this film idea and the situation and the characters behind it. I think it captures a moment that isn't discussed in most american films..

i've been thinking recently that there really aren't enough films that capture trans characters. The past few weeks i've been watching Queer films. I watched both Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Too Wong Fu. Both similar movies staring 3 drag queens that go to a less than friendly neighborhood. and blah blah blah. These are about Drag Queens, not trans women or men. I watched two more trans themed movies, Boys Dont Cry and The Crying Game. The MOST impactful movie was Boys Dont Cry. It was about a trans man that ends up getting murdered and raped. It was a really sad sad movie, but it really expressed a lot of very real trans issues that I have NEVER seen before in cinema. The main character, played by Hillary Swank had to deal with issues of passing and adapting to the gender he was not born as. I feel like these issues are so powerful. And i feel like they're topics that are hardly ever seen or discussed in cinema. Being trans myself, I didn't know much about trans women until i investigated and looked into it. I discovered that there was an ENTIRE WORLD that goes pretty much unnoticed. Trans women are far more common than  you think! And there's so many issues and stories to be told that just aren't being told. I've had these thought brewing in my head about next years film that I may want to make. The character would be based off of a friend of mine, Eve, who works in a Diner as a waitress. She often has issues with being trans in the work places as people do not know she is trans. Children ask questions and people cock eyebrows at times. It's a truly interesting situation she's in. I'm really inspired by the paranoia associated with being a passable woman and being able to work a job where they do not know that you are trans. I think that there's just so much story and emotional pull behind that. I mean, when we see characters portraying genders that are not their biological genders in film, it's a joke. It's a big laugh. Something to do for cheap giggles. But I want to portray something that is more realistic. As i live my life, i just run into so many new and intresting stories that i want to recreate. I'm starting to think that maybe this will be the road that i tread. Being a film maker that focuses on trans issues. Who knows.

In the mean while, lets get THIS film done. hahaha. I finally figured out how to get my pencil tests onto the computer! I'm so proud. hahah!!!! I plan on updating this blog quite a lot to talk about the progress of my film. If not for other people to see (because i know there's people that lurk and never comment)  for myself to look back on. :D

So here's what I have so far for my film! Everything you see was shot on 3s and for the pose tests, 6s. You'll notice that almost every scene is in a different stage of completion. hahaha. I'm only really happy with 2 scenes. I'm sure you can pick out which ones.


Film Update: 2 week progreess from Kit Wilkins on Vimeo.

Well that's what i have. I'll update you soon! :D

Film Updates: Friday Janurary 29th

AYE.
Oh my god. You know what...I'm starting to freak the hell out.

After my first week fo doing my schedule, I've only really touched 3 our of my 9 scenes that I need to do to keep on schedule! :( God I'm freaking out. I did a little math. To see if I did only 3 scenes a week, how many scenes would I end up with. I came out to about 36. That's LESS than half of the scenes in my film. Wow I'm scared. I also, while trying to mark off the scenes that I've touched, I realized that wow, the backgrounds I did and the scenes I assigned myself do NOT flow together. D: I dont have backgrounds for some of the scnes I gave myself. So I'm having to switch stuff up and rearrange it. I've decided that I CAN'T paint backgrounds every single weekend. It  isn't necessarily a task that takes me a long long time, but it DOES take a lot of time and there's a lot less for me to figure out when it comes to painting. I think Im going to alternate painting every other week and just draw the backgrounds during the week. I think that's a lot smarter. A lot of the backgrounds here didn't take any longer than an hour to draw.          Then it took me a lot of hours to color. I gotta figure out what ways are the BEST to use my time. i think I should really devote time to animation since that's what's going to be noticed more so than anything else. So I'm going to start putting the emphasis where it needs to be and perhaps do the harder things first and easier things last. If i can do all 9 by sunday,i I'll be happy. If i can do at least 6, that's better.

I thought I'd share the thumbnails of the two scenes.

I know i probably shouldn't be freaking out...From a lot of people I've talked to they haven't started their film yet. But i mean...we have 12 weeks. Gotta get started ASAP!!!

Film Updates: Monday, Jan 25, 2010

Hello interwebs!!!

SO. If anyone read my previous post, you know that I'm jumping RIGHT into my film. I really want to get my film done and looking the way I want it to look. Right now, i've given myself the assignment of doing about 6 backgrounds a week and 9 scenes a week. Now what i call a "scene" isn't necessarily fully animated or really complicated to begin with. When going through my film, I realized that I have a lot of really quick shots and scenes. I dont necessarily have huge complicated complex action-filled scenes like some of my colleges. Non-theless, there's about 80 or so of them all together. So i've really got to make sure that I do them in a timely fashion! Even if they ARE simple. Since I havent started animating, I do not know how truly realistic doing 9 scenes a week is. However, I do know that I dont really plan on taking each scene deep into cleanup. I've tried to give myself a lot of time in april to edit, color and compose my film together!

So as part of my schedule, I'm completing 6 backgrounds  a week. Now since I didn't totally start working til sunday I'm a little behind. However, I mangaged to do all 6 backgrounds by the end of today

Deciding the colors for the room was HARD. :( Looking at all my 50s stuff, I really wanted to do some gaudy colors. But I realized that while looking at those ads frm the 50s, those were mostly marketed twoards women and the room they're in is supposed to be the parents room. So i decided to go with a pink and blue/green sorta scheme.I think it works pretty well and sorta gives me the mood i want. I dont think brighter more vibrant colors would have really given me the proper feeling I was looking for. Also, when I look at these images, specifically the first one, I can FEEL the 50s inspiration! :)

On pretty much every one of these I need to go back and fix some stuff. But honestly, I'm happy with these. backgrounds are NOT my forte and I have no doubt in my mind that by the end of this film, I'll be able to do backgrounds likea  pro. hahaa. I know that my backgrounds probably wont be as good as most people and blah blah mcblah but I realized that I really need to worry about myself.

I have faith in myself that keeping my head down and keeping myself focused, I can get this film done and I can have a good looking film that I wanted! It'll probably kill me, but at least i'll die knowing i tried my very hardest.

Scheduling my film. HOLYSHIT.

kay guys. Soooo I just spent the last about 5+ hours organizing my film and giving myself a schedule and trying to work out when I should do stuff and how.

I really crappily made at outline of every scene and background that is to be done in the film.

D: Now if you go through all that, you'll see that there's a few areas where i spelt out of order. hahaha. But whatever. hahaha.

As far as I'm concerened, this is good enough hahaha.

It's clear, I get it, that's all that matters.

So from there, i went and made a Calander. I made a list of the hard scenes, the easy scnes and the middle scenes. After doing that, I picked 3 easy, medium and hard scenes to do every single week. Now...I know this is sorta unrealistic, but I wanna try for it. I really do. After looking at my film, i realize di have so many short scenes that really aren't that hard that i could probably do it.

I've decided that I'm going to animate during the week and do backgrounds during the weekend. I think thats probably the best way to go about it. I really want nice backgrounds and crap. I just want it to scream that i worked really hard. D: To make backgrunds easy on me, I tried my best to match up the scnes with the same background so that I have one less background to do.

Here's my calander in case you were interested. :)

 

Ugh. the fact that we only have 13 weeks just scares the shit out of me. :( I really really really hope i can finish my film. I mean really!

These next few days will  be so crucial. I've paced my schedule to give me some wiggle room if I need it. This is probably going to kill me... we'll see. D:

I"m so stressed out already. :(

FILM. FILM FILM. D: COLORS COLORS COLORS.

Soooo

Winter break plans went to shit. I didn't make backgrounds. Not at all. I did get a lot of other things off my chest, which i think in retrospect sorta works in my favor!

BUT, the one thing i did do over winter break is start to play with colors. And sorta try to get a grasp of what colors I should use. I decided to take swatches from some 1950s paintings that i really liked that inspired me and sorta gave me the feeling and colors I felt I was going to use in the film

Soooo. That's basically what i got. this was a really interesting exercise. I realized what I sorta already knew. Every single group up there has a strong striking red color, a strong yellow and a sorta mutted blue. The 50s seemed to be all about the use of primary colors. Soooo I went from here to try to apply the colors to the kids.

The first few, i tired to stick with my original ideas for the colors of the characters. However, backing away from it and looking at it, that side is clearly more boring to me than the later part. I'm really favoring the ones at the corners that use more colors. I think they scream 50s a lot more. I posted on a forum and someone madea pretty good point. They commented that the clothing in the 50s wasn't as bright and fun as the clothing in the 60s. BUT. I dont know how much i should actually mind that. hahahah. I mean honestly, we have this idealized view of the 50s that is bright and fun and quite campy!. hahaha.
So after I did the kids, I wanted to do the tree houses

NOw, I'm still not sure what i wanna do with the tree house, but i'm really leaning towards the first one in the second row. We'll figure it out. ;D

after doing the treehouses, i had to figure out what kids looked good wih what tree houses.

Sooo many choices!
D: I dont know what to do.


This weekend i worked out my story reel. I think i made it better. It's a lot shorter now too! Which is probably a good thing!!


My Mother's Hat- Story Reel Edited from Kit Wilkins on Vimeo.

So there it is

I cant wait to work on it. I'm gonna have to make a calander
I'll post it!!

Dwarves and a Gecko!!

my layout assingment for "scale".





So here are my dwarves for character design!
yei.

Story Reel and "finals" week

My Pink Hat-Story Reel with sound from Kit Wilkins on Vimeo.

Hey guys! Soooo. This week I finished my story reel. I was pretty fucking happy with it, especially since i pretty much killed myself over making it. lol. I started boarding pretty early and that really paid off this year! I'm really glad that I've sorta tried to push myself and get a better film this year! I have my faith in that if I keep on making goals and getting them, I'm gonna have the sorta film I want. The story and the subject matter is all really personal to me, I guess. I want my film to be good enough to be entered into festivals, specifically Out Fest. That would make me happy. BUt I know that if I want that, i've gotta work really really really hard. I think i'm prepared to do that. I will have to really wait and see. :) i'm getting so jazzed about my film. I feel like I've come a long way from last year and I"m so happy i have. I guess I was just ina different place last year. If there's anything I learned this year, it's that challenging yourself is the most important thing that we can do as animation students. I mean, before this year, i would have just not drawn the animals in character design and I would have avoided anything that wasn't within my tastes. Here I am trying to make a cutesy playful film that's a long away from Cannibalistic Prostitutes. And to be honest, it IS challenging in a way to make a film like this...but at the same time, I can relate to this. I've been a kid, I've had imagination. This is more familiar to me. I've never been a hooker (dont think I haven't thought about it. hahah) so I didn't really know how that worked. And there wasn't anything that I was trying to say so I got bored with it. This film means something to me. This idea means something to me. And I have faith that I'm going to stick to it and hopefully do a good job. I know that i'm sorta asking a lot of myself. There's a tree house transformation, different perspectives and backgrounds that i've gotta make. It's all very scary. How prepared I will be when I return all depends on what i do in the next week. There's so many distractions around me. I've got to put them to rest and focus on what's important. This last week, i have a few goals. I want to figure out all the backgrounds that I'm going to need and how i'm going to paint them. I know I want fully painted pretty pretty miyasaki-like backgrounds. I dont know how i'm going to do it. That's a challenge and I think that if i can come out of this knowing how to do that, i'm powered up my skills. :D I dont know, it's all very scary. What if I don't make a good film? I mean, 'm the sorta person that's used to thinking negatively so that if good does come, it will be suprising and more pleasing that it would be if I had expected it. I'm crossing my fingers that everything will be alright.

When I showed my reel to my story teacher, he gave me a pretty surprising reaction. He really liked it. A lot of my peers came up and told me that they liked it too. I wasn't expecting that but I worked so hard on my reel that I was happy I got good reviews. Because I had done it to the best of what I considered my abilties, when my teacher gave me critique, i totally agreed. He gave me two notes. The end doesn't work and the falling doesn't work. He was worried that the falling was too comical. Some people did laugh. He told me that the very end doesn't' work because it seems to abrupt. I need to show the mom actually accepting him. He suggested that maybe he be wearing the hat when she comes in and she doesn't like it but then realizes that it makes him happy.....WOAH i just got an idea!! Maybe she can walk in, look at the hat and then see his smile. Like a shot of her looking with a slightly frustrated look on her face and then a pan from his pink hat to his smile. Then a shot back at her slowly changing her mind and reluctantly accepting him and hugging him...i gotta reboard it and see how it works! Lol. I type the way i think. hahhaah. I'm glad that he gave me advice because it makes me feel challenged. I have an assignment to fix this one part of the film. I felt weakly about that part and I think he picked up on that.

When doing the sound, I sorta...on the fly added dialouge. I'm not sure if I want dialogue...for one, I don't know how to animate it...and for two I'm not sure if I need it. Hmmmm... What are your thoughts?? Do tell. :) I mean, on one hand it's easier to tell the feelings when they're said outloud. But on the other hand, i don't wanna animate poor dialogue. haha. Though i guess...i need to do it some time. And if i avoid it now, that'll only make learning it harder. AYE! AHHAHA.

Well I've sent my reel to my composer and he said he should be working on something. So i'm really excited. I found a guy that's willing to mix the sound. Now all i need is a foley guy. hahah. Oh crap, only 6 seconds for credits. hahaha.