About a month ago I reached a major milestone where I had completed the entire film up to around 50% quality level. I had also recorded some temp dialogue and laid over some very temp music to go with it. It was great to see, and gave me a big push of motivation to complete the film. I kind of saw it as the peak of the hill, because even though I still had a lot of work in front of me, most of the creative decisions had been settled, and in my opinion, the creative decisions take the most time to sort out.

 

Then last night I had figured out that I have now completed about about one third of the film up to 90% quality. I feel like the film is speeding ahead now, and almost like it could finish itself with all the momentum it has at the moment! My motivation is at an all time high as every evening I submit renders to my mini render farm, and every morning I am seeing something cool and new which then inspires me to keep going even more.

 

I hope to be able to lock in a narrator soon, and in about a month from now I hope to start thinking about the music, which is when the super talented Nicole Brady will begin to take part.

 

So all in all, everything is going according to plan. I hope to finish the film in about three months from now, which is good timing as that’s when my first child is due!

 

Now back to work …

As I was working through look development, I realised that I needed to paint up quite a few starting position masks for a number of the particle setups. Rather than spend lots of time in Photoshop producing masks that may not end up looking exactly what I wanted, I decided to photograph some naturally created sand splashes of my own. So I needed a light box specifically used for sand animation. Rather than buy one, let alone actually trying to find one, I decided to build one instead. Not only would it end up cheaper, but I get to build something real, which is something that digital based animators never get to do!

 

I bought a custom cut piece of translucent Perspex from a local plastics shop, and some treated pine cut to four specific lengths. All I then needed was a hammer and some nails.

 

 

After putting the frame together, I thought the best way to hold up the Perspex was to put a nail inside each corner.

 

But when I placed the Perspex on the nails, I found the sides were sagging. So I added a few more nails along the edge, and it seemed to work great.

 

 

I then sealed the Perspex with some extra wide masking tape, taking care to make sure that there were no tiny gaps in the corners where sand might find a way through.

 

 

I searched a few different lighting shops and hardware stores for the right type of lighting solution. I was fully prepared to have a whole bunch of cords all hooked up a multi plug adapter until I came across these:

 

What makes these perfect is how they can be daisy-chained together, and I only need a single plug. I bought four, but after a quick test at home, realised that the dark spots between the lights were too noticeable, so I decided to buy a few more. Plus having the extra light means that I can shoot with a lower ISO and a smaller f-stop, both resulting in a sharper image.

 

Finally, I needed sand. The best quality sand I knew of was from the dunes of Henley Beach, so off I went!

 

 

I now had everything I needed, so I put it all together. I found that the Perspex was too close to the lights which caused obvious bright lines when seen from above. Raising the whole frame a little diffused the light perfectly.

 

 

After I tried it out, I found out that the Perspex was causing a static electricity effect, so that when I was manipulating the sand, a small portion of the sand would jump around after being moved. I then figured that I needed some glass on top. So I called a local glass shop to order a pane glass with a low amount of iron so that it was as clear as possible without any of the greenish tinge. I removed the original masking tape sealing, laid the glass on top of the Perspex and resealed it all up.

 

With the glass on top, the sand reacted very much as expected.

 

 

All in all a successful endeavour costing me around $150 all up. Now to put it all to some good use!

Now I will outline the final type of motivation.

 

Type 4: Motivation by Competition

There are times when competitiveness can lead to motivation, and in my opinion, it is the least most common form of motivation. I’ll admit that this may be a little controversial, but nonetheless at least to me, it has been a tool of usefulness.

 

There are certain people in the industry that I measure myself against on rare occasion, a good number of these people I have worked with in the industry, and the rest whom I admire but have never met in person. It is a secret competition though, for none of them know. When I hear of one of these people succeeding, for example gaining some sort of promotion, or completes a great short that has won awards, or has worked on a successful feature film, I try to use this news to spur me on to also do great things also. Competition is a fascinating force in humans, it can turn the most meek of us to do great things in our lives. Why not try and harness it’s power to produce great art and film?

 

Now while the creation of art and film can exist entirely without competitiveness, when used at the right time, they can greatly benefit from it. So do yourself a favour, and when internal and external inspiration have run out, and there isn’t enough guilt to get you through, try placing yourself in a secret race with a talented person, or even a few people. You may be surprised by how much competitive spirit you may have in you when you realise that you are now losing your own race in which you have set up the rules yourself. Now go and win, and if you must, try and beat me to greatness, we’ll see who gets there first!

Continuing on with what I am identifying as the four types of motivation, I will outline the third type. Now I imagine this will cause some eyebrows to be raised, and I also think that there will be some that may disagree with me, but so be it.

 

Type 3: Motivation by Guilt

• Situation 1 – So you have your idea, and it has been living exclusively (or should I say reclusively?) in your head for sometime now. You have told yourself a number of times that you are going to make your film, and it is going to be awesome! You might have even managed to hammer out some concept art, and boarded a sequence or two. But for some reason, you never really make a real effort to kick start your film into full production mode.

• Situation 2 – You are part way though the production of your film, and you have run out of juice. You have squeezed every last bit of inspiration from your mind, and soaked up as much external inspiration as you can, but the engine now fails to turn over like it used to. Everything starts to become a bit of a chore now, and you maybe even are questioning why you are doing this in the first place.

 

Well, what you may be in need of is motivation by guilt. This most commonly works when you first go out try to tell as many people as possible that you are making a film, a great film, a revolutionary film. A film so good, that when it’s released, critics around the world will be singing your praises! And I mean tell everyone, your family, your friends, your hairdresser, your plumber, the weird old man that you see every day at the bus stand. After a little while, you begin to hear all of these people ask you how your film is going. You might tell the first couple of people that it is going well, even though you are fully aware that you have been playing Bejeweled for 8 nights in a row, and have not worked on your film the entire time. You may even be satisfied thinking that it is ok to be telling this white lie to just a few people, but you know very well that saying so causes a little bit of guilt. But then when more and more people continue to ask how your film is going, this guilt builds up more and more, and starts to turn into something more darker.

 

As the 17th day since you have worked on your film rolls around, you realise that it is getting harder and harder to be content with lying to others and yourself that your film is still going well, Hopefully you may start to feel like you are not just letting yourself down, but by some strange connection, you will be letting others down too. Insomuch as if you don’t finish the film and become famous, you will be denying them the eventual opportunity to tell other people that they know someone famous!

 

So now there is a lot more riding on this film, and you realise that you now have to deliver, if only so that your grandmother can boast to her friends at bingo that her grandchild is screening a film in some arty film festival in a far away country where actual foreigners will be watching it. At that point, you pause the game of Bejeweled you are in the middle of playing, and shout out “For Grandmother!” (then you quickly finish the game of Bejeweled you were in the middle of, because there still may be a chance that this game might be the one). But once that game finished, you then start opening up your project files once again. As you then continue working on your film well into the night, only now do you realise that this was the only way to make the guilt that has been building inside you go away. You are now happy with the fact that this guilt, err, guilted you into overcoming what ever motivational block that was in your way before.

Motivation, thou art a slippery beast.

 

In all art forms, an artist strives for motivation and inspiration during the act of creation, and short animated film making is no exception. But unlike other art forms, making a single short animated film can take quite a long time, years in fact.  Maintaining ones drive to continue to the end of a film on these kinds of time scales is not easy in the slightest, and one must use every trick in the book to keep going.

 

I’ve observed that motivation can take on many forms, and in my own personal experiences, I can distil them down to four main types. The reason why I think it is important to differentiate one from another is because motivation in all it’s forms, usually does not last for the duration of the production of the film. In fact, It rarely last for any real good stretch of time. Therefore it is wise to be able to try and jump from the back of one form onto another, hoping that one doesn’t fall in between, and become stuck with no motivation at all.

 

Type 1: Internal Inspiration
A usual starting point for the genesis of an idea. Internal inspiration must be strong enough to carry oneself all the way from the initial creation of the idea into pre-production, and hopefully, at least into the beginning of production, or else the idea probably wasn’t good or strong enough to begin with. During the course of production, internal inspiration can also often spring unexpectedly from reviewing milestones in ones own work, like watching a monthly edit, or a great piece of polished character animation. A sense of self admiration of ones own good work is always welcome.

 

Type 2: External Inspiration
The second most common form of motivation comes from without. Watching a movie, looking at a piece of art, noticing how the light falls while walking on the way to work. This is the second most common form of inspiration, and is usually a great instant hit when ones own inspiration begins to slow down. But like any drug while that hit can be powerful, external inspiration rarely lasts for long. Watching a great film on a Friday night can be the difference between a productive weekend, and a weekend spent trawling websites and too many games of Bejewelled.

 

To be concluded in my next entry.

Rose is still in production, I have completed roughly the first minute of the film, which is a huge milestone, as the look development portion of this short went on a lot longer than I was planning. This was because the style of this film is, I believe, quite unique among short animated films, and even I didn’t really know how the final look of the short would be like. But after lots of trial and error, the look has finally settled with something that I am happy with.

When I was making Sneeze Me Away, I wasn’t working, and was able to focus on making the short full time. But with Rose, I am working a day job, so that leaves only evenings and weekends to work on the film, which also doesn’t leave me with much time for anything else. Not only that, the feature film I am currently working on during my day job is starting to ramp up. The work load has recently increased dramatically to the point where I will probably be working a lot of overtime for the next three months until it is finished. I was hoping to have my short finished nine months from now, but at this rate, that looks like it won’t be the case. Well, what more can I do, but keep doing what I can.

So I was able to integrate WordPress into my new website for this short animated film, how modern of me! Well stay tuned for updates to my second short animated film.