Phil's Infamous Chair

Just wanted to share this quick shot today.

This has become one of my favorite shots lately. George's set looks amazing and Phil's awesome chair deserved a proper reveal. All the elements came together. The animation is simple. I think this one shot says so much about this film.

Here we see one of the Sherpas unwrapping Otto Von Louse's arm chair in the cabin halfway up the mountain.

Getting Creative with the Sets

Starting off on this film we had but a few sets: Some flat planes, a cabin, and of course our massive miniature mountain. Though simple, the flat planes have become the most effective. Forming canyons and ridges, they have served to create more interesting shapes as our team's accent steepens.

We rose the set to desired incline.

Shooting on green screen means more complex backgrounds may be added in post. Extra rocks break up the flat horizon.

We make sure the set is locked in place; They won't be going anywhere between frames.

The sets have proven most loyal. With all the lock downs we have pierced through them, their undersides look like pin cushions. Swiss cheese or not, they are still doing the job quite expertly.

110%

So I set up this shot, telling Keenan it should only be an eight second shot at the most and, egged on by Roberta, he turns in a shot just shy of 20 seconds!
I can't complain though :)

Scene 3 Shot 2 from Neil Baker on Vimeo.

Some more old footage.

Scene 3 begins. from Neil Baker on Vimeo.

Another quick composite

Obviously not as good as Jon could do, but it gives us a good idea of how scales can be affected.

Walk Comp Test from Neil Baker on Vimeo.

The Long Walk

Six hours of animation = 3.4 seconds of walking footage. It's like that sometimes...

The set up


The remaining sherpas


The long walk


The real director


Keenan animates, captured on Monkey Jam, surrounded by the cameras capturing the scene and him, and... ooh, I've gone cross-eyed.


The rig



The director directs

Jump Test

Thought I'd take Roberta's flea jump and see how well Premiere handles some basic compositing.
I painted out the rigging, added a background, and voila - a quick bit of compositing!

Jump Test from Neil Baker on Vimeo.

How a shot evolves

Some of you may recall my grand plans for the bridge scene. The shot move changed due to time and equipment constraints - so I split the shot into three parts. Here is the final part which told Keenan should only be a quick, three second shot with some Maya augmentation.
It turned into a 14+ second shot - LOL

Here is a horribly compressed version of the shot.

Our Animation staff in Real Time

Well real stop motion time that is.

Here is a sped up view of us working on the set of Small Sacrifices today.

Images from the Small Sacrifices Set

Here we see director, Neil giving this flea a physical exam before a shoot. Each actor must go through strict tests before we allow them on camera.

Juan does his best Eraserhead impression.

And Otto Klaus Von Louse has the power!

Enjoy.

360 shots of bugs for digital modeling.

Go HERE to see and download the images if you are on the Maya team.
New images will be uploaded very soon (some models are on set so they are unavailable)

Storyboards

Due to some ridiculous PDF meltdown by my twitchy computer, I haven't been able to send you all formatted copies of the boards - so I created a new blog for them.

Click HERE to go to the boards blog - and view them there, or print at your leisure.

Cheers, Neil.

Flea Apocalypse!

Here are some images of the fleas and louse in their current states.
Clothing is needed!

Animatic: Scene 1 - Spotting the cabin.

I will start posting scenes as they are completed - please bear in mind that these are extremely crude - I won't be winning any storyboarding prizes just yet - but what I am looking for is timing issues and to open up suggestions for shot choices.

Small Sacrifices: Rough Animatic - Scene 1 from Neil Baker on Vimeo.