Day 12

Last post of 2009! This is the Janitor character of Pins and Needles.

Day 11

Have a Happy New Year.

Make sure there's none of this on New Year's Eve:

Day 10

Designed a rudimentary cubicle.

Here's a chicken-scratch (in Maya CG terms) pre-visualization of what will be the most difficult shot in the entire film. The crappy model of the Newsom character is in there for size reference, but in the actual shot he'll be running back and forth, throwing his belongings into The Box. The camera stops at the top of the box when he is about to throw the Panda Bear doll in there (but he won't...because it's quite the Trojan horse).




And last but not least...I promise he'll be out of his seat in the next post.

Day 9

I always thought a little Zen panda plush would keep frustrations away in the workplace (though in this story, something is hiding in that plush).

Day 8

Animating the Boss's dissatisfaction over the size of his latte. The Boss is a typical overcompensating figure. His office is huge; but the office space where his employees work has a low-ceiling and he particularly hires people under 6 feet to work for him.

Day 7

Shot 21! (out of 100)/haha

Day 6

Far away shot of the Boss and his Assistant, at opposite sides of the office, doing their work for the morning. They are typing. You won't be able to make that out on the small video file, but on a bigger screen, you will. The bottom is a more enlarged version.

Day 5, continued

It's a long walk back to his desk...

Day 5

There's much ado about that button that Newsom finds on his Boss's desk...

Day 4

Day 3

Day 2

Not my idea of dynamic shots, but I tend to animate the small bits first, so I get a good momentum going and I feel like I'm getting stuff done! /haha

Day 2

Not my idea of a dynamic shot, but I tend to animate the small animation shots first, so I get a good momentum going and I feel like I'm getting stuff done! /haha

Pins & Needles- Day 1

The first shot of the film. The assistant Newsom is running to drop off dozens of files (blue) and a latte (pink) off at his boss's desk before he arrives.

I'm going to try animating this entire film in Toon Boom because I love the flexibility in brushes (I always find myself fighting against the Flash Brush tool with its inconsistency in line and all of that)

Pins & Needles: Day 1

Welcome to Fosho Co. An Awful Place To Work.

Been looking through some office books at Barnes & Noble. I want FoSho Co. (an insurance company) to look like a sleek, contemporary office, but at the same time, very claustrophobic and really uncomfortable to work in.

More Newsom

This NEWSOM is a little heavier than the one on the bottom.

The Assistant

I might do one or two more passes on this character, NEWSOM. This is the main character in "Pins & Needles," an abused assistant that decides to take revenge on his boss, KORCHIN (see last post). NEWSOM I've always seen as very squashed and turtle=like in design because his boss is always walking all over him and he's got a bit of a back problem. I've also been trying to infuse a little bit of Jack Lemmon expressions in the design (a bit of an homage to the great workplace comedy, The Apartment).

Who's The BOSS?

Some sketches for "KORCHIN," the torturous boss of my next film, Pins & Needles. I don't know how far I'm going to go with the 1950's cartoon design (see middle pic--big nose and little legs), but it's a style I've always wanted to go further with. I don't want to go too far though, because I've found if I go too cartoony in design it'll undermine the stakes of my story. Maybe I'll land somewhere in the middle,. Pins & Needles is, like Road Test, Flock Off and my thesis film, set in one location (a motif I keep coming back to...I guess it keeps things contained for a 5 minute film). Animation begins December 1st for a summer premiere!

Office Space.

Early background design for the next short film.

Watch your back

Like Stealing a Social Studies book from a baby...

Who would stoop to stealing a Social Studies textbook from a kid? This guy....

Happy 4th of July.

Have a safe 4th of July. Or the night might end like this:

Gun!

Slides aren't as fun when you have a psycho trying to kill you

Stare Down

Choked up

Cones.

Yeah, I could've drawn em. But I modeled them in Maya anyway. Yes, they'll be used as weapons in the story :)

beeeeeeeeep

you want a fresh one?

ouch

Are You Insured, Part IV

moment of truth

don't miss the bus

Pretty much everything in this bus is rigged to be destroyed.

You still won't like him when he's angry

You won't like him when he's angry

make my day

come with me if you want to live.

...happy trails

Footsies

BLAM.

Is Officer Dot giving Gabe a wedgie?

You be the judge.

Still here...

Outside, drinking a beer and doing a major rewrite to the final action scene...unfortunately I don't think the drawbridge sequence is on the cards anymore. I'll let Officer Dot process a sentiment:

This post has nothing to do with Mother's Day.

I AM THE LAW.

The re-introduction of Mr. Dot, now Officer Dot.

I AM THE LAW.

The re-introduction of Mr. Dot, now Officer Dot.

Are you Insured? Pt.III

Stand-off

DeSeve assesses the damage on his stolen car and goes from 'confused' to 'pissed off.'

Safety first

After Gabe gets into a car accident, he checks to see if Ash is okay...

Get off the phone

Crawl before you run

In this scene, Officer Dot is about to arrest DeSeve but Gabe gets freaked out and drives away. And yes, the animation is very very rough =)

...look the other way

here you go way too fast/dont slow down/gonna craaaash

In this scene, Gabe takes his eyes off the road for a second and, well, it doesn't look like he's getting Little Ashley home on time...

It's Flash from this point on.

Yup. I'm animating the rest of Road Rage with good ol Flash. Since November I have been animating the film through ToonBoom Digital. The main reason why I got the program was because of the awesome vector engine that has a brush tool that is akin to say, Alias Sketchbook. But all good things must come to an end. I'm probably using the program wrong, but I recently animated a sequence in TB and for reasons too varied to get into here, realized that the entire sequence was being animated on a layer that was for lack of a better word, 'invisible' in the program. In shorter terms: It never existed. Which set me off, considering that I'm on a schedule to get this film out by summer. Luckily, all the scenes I have done are exportable as .swf's so those scenes will not be trashed; they will be imported into Flash and worked on. Yeah, Flash's brush tool really, really sucks but I'll deal with it for the next few months...

Ready to do some damage

Early design for Officer Dot's Interceptor (a.k.a. those "Cop in a Box" cars you see strolling around your neighborhood). This thing will drive straight through a city transportation bus!

twinkle toes

So here's the first half of the kid's dance moves (as to why she's dancing, read the post below). With time I'll finish up the second half this weekend...gotta watch more hip hop videos

There's a time and a place to bust a move---this ain't one of them

In the picture ABOVE, the supporting character, ASHLEY (a child who "Gabe" must deliver home, safe) has been kidnapped by "DeSeve" in an act of rage. However, he kidnapped the wrong kid, because ASHLEY is a seriously disturbed 3rd grader. She thinks this entire life or death situation is, like, the coolest, like, rollercoaster ride, EVERRRRR (See the rough dance below). She's truly enjoying the ride, busting a move or two, gets on DeSeve's nerves, and DeSeve proceeds to throw her out of the car (not shown, yet).

RAM.

Keep your belongings in sight at all times

The Last Laugh He'll Ever Have

Scene 12

Things are about to get....ODD

Non Road-Rage related, my friends Mike Carlo and Al Pardo have joined forces to create a new web series: ODD JOB HITLER. The first episode, Pool Boy Blues is up and it gets funnier with each viewing. More episodes are coming ( I'm privy to the other odd jobs that they have in store for the fellow furor and it's going to get more and more degrading for him). So, without further ado, click the image to check it out:

Happy New Year! Now... ...Why Officer Dot won't be riding a Segway in "Road Rage":

Seriously, I got a little miffed when I saw the trailer for this movie. One of the main conceits of the action sequence in "Road Rage" was to do a car chase with things that you haven't seen in a car chase before: A School Bus and mainly, a cop on a Segway. But oh well. It had to happen sooner or later.