Things that never made it.

This shot never made it into the final edit of '...Francis Cooper...' but it was one of my favourite backgrounds. Nevermind. I also did a spinning bike wheel and a kitchen floor. Here they all are...

Keith Reynolds homecoming

'Keith Reynolds can't make it tonight' is in the official selection for International Animated Shorts at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. This is not far from where Scott Johnson, the narrator, comes from. Thanks to the British Council and their grant gun I'm going to be going and so begins my quest to finally meet Scott Johnson and finally make him see the film (on 35mm film - I can't wait to see it on that).

Problem #1

1. When I put my car in with a basic unfinished house shape it doesn't work anymore.

toy car.

Finished the outside of my car and moved it around a bit. Needs lights.

composition: move car around - day 1

Started on my After Effects car today. It is four wheels and a base so far. The front two wheels move together when you rotate them. So they can go from this:

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to this:

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and even... to this:

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The end of Encounters Film Festival 2008

I spent most of my last week at Encounters Short Film Festival 2008 in Bristol. Enjoyed myself as 'Keith Reynolds can't make it tonight' was screened in two of the short programmes and ended up gaining another special mention for the 4mations International Newcomer in Animation Award which was nice.


'The surprise demise of Francis Cooper's mother' also had his World Premier at the festival in the UKFC Digital Generation section but was not in competition. It was interesting to see the two films both in the same festival. I think 'Keith Reynolds' got one of his best reactions I've seen it have when I watched it on Tuesday. It's harder to tell what people thought of 'Francis Cooper', as it's a darker film in general and not as funny, but people who spoke to me before they saw it weren't too ashamed to come and speak to me afterwards so that is something.

I think maintaining an interesting blend between what is happening on screen and what you are hearing is something I need to work on. With 'Keith Reynolds' I think people like the fight scene (see preview) because of this. Looking at 'Francis Cooper' I notice scenes where the visuals don't add much or anything to driving the story and I could have thought of more interesting things to show. I had a problem with 'Keith Reynolds' in that I was contained to a side-on view of the building - with 'Francis Cooper' I was contained to six days of the week, visiting each character on each of those days - and so for my next film I'd like to make what I can show and when I can show it as unconstrained as possible.

I do think I learnt a lot visually making the film. I think in still form 'Francis Cooper' looks a lot nicer than 'Keith Reynolds' and I'm pleased with that because I didn't like reading write-ups about how ugly some people thought Keith was! Being able to feel comfortable feeling as though I can create nice visuals I can hopefully focus a bit better on what I'm going to show rather than how I'm going to achieve showing it - which should mean I can be a lot freer in what I make which somewhat helps to solve the problem I mentioned at the end of the previous paragraph.

Anyway, Encounters is over and I was happy to see 'Stand Up' by Joseph Pierce and 'Skhizein' by Jeremy Clapin win awards as I like those two films as lot. Well done.

Proposals again

Been mostly working on pitches at the moment. Some for developing TV seriessss and others for adverts which have been quite fun. Last Monday was the deadline for submitting a Digital Short again so I decided to do a proposal for that. Mostly as an excuse to put things in my head in a way I can look at them. I did a character design (right) and built something in After Effects to go along with it (below). I'm getting quite into using After Effects since doing Francis Cooper.... This film if it ever gets made would be more like Keith Reynolds and be set in America again. Think it was my trip to Chicago that did that. Will keep working on it on and off this week I think. I want to build a car in 3D space so will see how that goes. Trying to make good use of my time off at the moment.

Encounters Film Festival 2008 in Bristol starts today so I'll hopefully be going along to that a lot too. Err.

Chicago

Curtocircuito Short Film Festival - Best International Animation Award (3600 €): Ex Aequo: Skhizein”, Jeremy Clapin & “John and Karen”, Matthew Walker

Special mention:
“Keith Reynolds Can’t Make it Tonight”, Felix Massie

This is the closest I've come to winning an International Award. Am pleased.

Am also pleased because, thanks to the British Council, I was able to go to the 44th Chicago International Film Festival which was great. Favourite features I saw were 'The Noise In My Head', 'Family Values', 'Gomorrah', 'Pressure Cooker' and 'I've Loved You So Long'. Was also able to see all the shorts with my favourites being 'Eyelids' by Brad Bischoff, 'Sugar' by Alex Beh, 'Standup' by Joseph Pierce, 'John and Karen' by Matthew Walker, 'The Business Trip' by Sean Ellis, 'Jerrycan' by Julius Avery, 'From Head To Toe' by Josie-Anne Lemieux, 'Self-Portrait With Cows Going Home and Other Works - A Portrait of Sylvia Plachy' by Rebecca Dreyfus, 'Peter and Ben' by Pinny Grylls, and 'Sick Sex' by Justin Nowell. Sorry - that was a long list. Here are some pictures...








Will make an effort to go to more festivals from now on.

She can't really work out how to to fit it into a conversation

The surprise demise of Francis Cooper's mother has another screening on December the 3rd at the Northern Lights Film Festival in Newcastle and Gateshead. There is still no preview online anywhere but, in case you missed it, there is a screenshot above this paragraph.

'Keith Reynolds can't make it tonight' is being screened in Chicago this Sunday at the AMC River East. At 2.15pm.

Films at Encounters

Francis Cooper will have it's World premiere at Encounters Film Festival in Bristol in November. It's part of the U.K. Film Council: Digital Generation 2 screening (Fri 21 Nov 16.30 Watershed Cinema 1).

Keith Reynolds is in two screenings: Emerging Talent 2 (Wednesday 19 November 10.00 Watershed Cinema 3 and Sunday 23 November 16.00 Watershed Cinema 1) and Best of British: Made in the South West (Tuesday 18 November 20.30 Watershed Cinema 3, Thursday 20 November 10.15 Watershed Cinema 1 and Saturday 21 November 14.45 Watershed Cinema 1).

I'll hopefully have a little preview of Francis up soon along with some promotional stills.

Cippi in...

Over summer I animated a farting chipmunk (among other creatures) for some short films for a chewing gum brand in Italy (Air Action Vigorsol I think). You can watch most of them at www.cippi.net (more added every so often) or one of the episodes I worked on (in quite bad quality - sorry, not my upload) below.

Directed by Matthew Walker (award winner).

You can see the original TV spot here:

Buzz, your girlfriend, Woof!

Forgot about this: a little dog I did for a pitch I didn't get:

If you prefer us not to do this please let me know

Mix went fine. Credits went a bit wrong. Had to change the badge on the front of Emily's car. Delivered to Aardman and I think they've delivered to the UK Film Council. That's it.

Forgotten what I used to do now. Been playing Mario a lot.

Keith Reynolds in High Definition

I haven't been able to update the festivals list for Keith Reynolds can't make it tonight in a while but it has recently been selected for competition in Chicago IFF, Bristol's Encounters and one in Taiwan. I think it's also now backed by the British Council.

There's a better quality preview version on Vimeo too:



I made a High Definition version as well if anyone needs that.

Oh. My. God. I really didn't mean to do this.

Here is, multi-award winning, Matthew Walker watching the final, pre-foley/tracklay/mix, version of Francis Cooper. He said, "'s really good" but then he doesn't like the Matthew Broderick Godzilla film so I don't know what to make of that.

This morning I went to have a look at the tracklay and suggested a few changes which were added and then promptly removed because, it turns out, I don't know what I'm talking about. This afternoon I'm going to add the titles and credits. Tomorrow is the final mix. Monday it gets put on tape and delivered.

You know, looking back I think we need to hear that fork...

Had a Foley session this morning. Not done one of those before. I sat on a sofa in front of a big screen and ate strawberry jam on toast while a man in a small room broke celery while another man recorded it and another man supervised and came up with good ideas. Probably one of my favourite mornings in a long time.

Francis has now gone off for Tracklay and my next meeting is on Thursday before the final mix on Friday. I don't have anything to do now except for to come up with a name for it. At the moment it's...

"The surprise demise of Francis Cooper's mother"

...but nothing is final yet.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Production is over. Didn't have a beer though. Just came home and watched Dragons' Den. It was a repeat as well.

The scars on her thighs faded over the years

Joe delivered the soundtrack on Thursday so we put that in the edit and it works fine. So much so that I'd like to take him and his wife out for dinner and buy them both a beer. Dropped in some more composited shots to send a as-finished-as-possible edit to the sound post production house for them to look at ready for foley on Monday. There are now three more shots to do. One is half animated the others just need compositing, hopefully. I am going to do that compositing this evening.

The plan for tomorrow is to finish off animating the "living room" scene previously listed in the "easy" column but which has turned out to be "quite, inexplicably, hard". Once that is about done I phone "Ben" who will help me render everything out from Final Cut Pro. Then the two of us, and perhaps his wife, go for an end-of-production celebratory beer.

Then there are three more slow motion bits

Animated three more slow motion scenes today and composited one. Also composited the church shot yesterday so that's off the list. Also the "walking past" thing in the column down in the last post is animated and ready to be comped. Ready to comp "cycling" tomorrow too I think... Then there will be two scenes left to animate and three to draw. Totaling five to comp. I think.

3+1+1+1+2+3=11

Just need to adjust that panning shot.*

*mustn't forget this.

Her mouth was open but no words were coming out

Coloured in two squares on my chart today. Hoping to colour one, maybe two, more tomorrow. That would leave me with nine shots left to either animate or composite (or both). The idea of being able to work on something else after this is all done is too appealing for me to not get it done so I'm sure I will.

Here's another thing for me:

Easy	Medium	Hard
Church Living room Tear Spill Cat	Pan 4x4 Screen Cafe	Walking past Cycling

5+4+2=11

Days after he buried his own wife

Been two days and that list is looking pretty similar somehow.

Changed his screensaver to that

Spent today animating a virtual aquarium for one of the new ending shots which has been relaxing. One day I hope to make screensavers for a living.

Wore a shirt to work today too.

I'm now making a list of shots which I've started and have almost finished. Here it is:

• Church - timing/expression/falling smile
• Walking - animate walk/background
• Screen - add rest of background/3D build (and bubbles)
• Flying - do face and hands/arms
• Cycling - rest of animation fix face and comp
• Living room - quite lot
• Coffee cup - extend and comp

Then there are five others.

This is it, he's about to die

The new edit comes in at 6'41'' and I think that's how it will be now. The new deadline for animation is just before mid-ish-September so I'm back doing that now.

Think it's better. Quicker to get into and easier to watch. Less than a month to go (again).

Revised agreement

While the film was at the editors I decided to do my own edit and managed to shave 40 seconds off¹ by the end of last week. Then today I shaved another minute off² so it's at 7'00''.

Then the editor's edit came back and his came in at 6'15''.

Right now I'm building the edit again in Final Cut Pro as opposed to Premiere because because and using the final renders rather than a compressed file I used for what I was just talking about so this can be my edit file. Then I have to show some people on Thursday or something. Both of the edits. Then I don't know what happens. I suppose some sort of particle accelerator will be involved though.

1. Mostly stuff that's already animated of course.
2. Again, mostly all already animated.

They are wonderful

Don't think we're aiming for a completed animation deadline for next week anymore. Fresh pairs of eyes are looking at it and it's too long, too awkward in places while being a little boring in others, and the ending's not communicated. It's going to an editor!

I've known it was long and was worried it was boring but it's hard to tell when all you do all day is look at the same thing because I suppose you would find it boring. Unless it were Home Alone you were working on because you would never get bored of that. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens and I hope it can be better than it is right now because I'm quite pleased with how some of it's looking aesthetically and I've definitely learned a lot but it would be nice to have learned a lot and been part of a good film too. Because that would be two things. And the more the better - unless it's boring of course.

...because normally she doesn't have to excuse herself from lunch

Still going. Working on Tuesday on a Friday now. This film is long. If I'd made it about three minutes shorter I would have finished by now*.

*Actually I wouldn't. I would have checked my e-mails more and be in almost exactly the same position as I am now.

She was too frail, too weak

Still colouring in rectangles. There are 13 to go and I have 11 days left. Quite ready to finish now so I can think about something else for a little while and get to go where Keith Reynolds is going.

Keith Reynolds has still been getting into a few festivals. He was in Melbourne last week and he's off to Sarajevo next week and Paris and Ottawa sometime in September. Hopefully he'll send a postcard or something while I'm stuck here.

Think I've got an idea too.

what she's done

she's finding it hard

As you can see, the completion rate will continue as it has for the past four weeks of production. Then, just as it looks like everything is going to go wrong, a little under 50% is to be completed in the last two or three days.

the smaller things she's ever killed

Francis Cooper said hello and goodbye to its 5th animator so far; Lazenby (like George Lazenby). Now well over a minute has been animated and it's not even well over a week since I last updated. I'm still no mathematician.

So, taking into account age

After just two weeks, probably over a minute of the film has now been animated. I'm not a mathematician but with the animatic coming in at 8'30'' and with less that five weeks to go I make that bang on schedule.

She didn't really know what to do in 3D space.

This weekend was spent putting Emily Maddison in 3D space. She now pulls out at a junction and drives down a street. Her car moves on seven independent layers and, as she turns, light is cast on the right side of her car. It's a technical marvel. Not since the "bullet time" scenes in The Matrix have people been so blown away by visual effects like these. In addition to this the individual pores on Emily's skin (not to mention her hair - which incidentally took a team of 20 artists 3 months to animate) means it takes a 2 x 3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon powered computer with 16 GB of RAM 15 minutes to render out the final scene which is just 20 seconds long; adding £600,000 to the budget on render time alone.

She didn't really know what to do.

I'm back from Annecy and working on the Francis Cooper film. We went to London a few weeks ago to record the narration which has turned out well I think.

I've now got an animatic and one scene animated. I'm working on the second now with the help of detailed diagrams labeled with numbers.

Matthew Walker, award winning animator and director, is sitting close by building his latest animated character which he will shortly begin animating for his latest animated classic.

Outside there is glorious sunshine. Perfect for playing Nerf.

Panoramic faces

If you missed it...

...you can see The Worst Thing Ever? here on iPlayer (for five more days only! UK only I think...) or bits of it here (just click Libby's tips in the drop down boxes).

BBC1 16:20 / 19.03.08

Tomorrow at twenty past four on BBC1 is The Worst Thing Ever. A Newsround special that I co-directed animation for with Emma Lazenby at Arthur Cox. Matt (over there <--) directed some animation on a BAFTA winning special last year, The Wrong Trainers. You can watch his part here. It was nominated for a BAA this year, too. Hector (remember?) won a BAA. Well done Sarah and Sally.

Also Keith Reynolds is in the official short film selection at Annecy this year. So is Matt's (over there <--) John and Karen and also Operator. And so is Sally's A-Z. And Sarah's Don't Let It All Unravel is in Panorama. Well done Sarah and Sally.

BBC1 16:20!

TITLE ON BLACK: THURSDAY

When it's masculine, Frances is spelled Francis.

most of the film has now been storyboarded. Next week some edit time has been booked to do a scratch recording of the narration and start (maybe finish?) an animatic. This will be interesting because

1. I'll find out roughly how long it will be.
2. I'll have something I can watch right the way through.

Me, Matt, and Ben drew those. Don't worry - the envelope was going to be thrown away.

Keith Reynolds wins something

Keith Reynolds has won a regional (the Welsh one) RTS Student Television Award.

Did she? She...

You know, being a kid can be pretty tough - especially if you have a giant cheeseburger for a face. Welcome to my world.

"I don't understand... how can the sink be above the washing machine?"

F: This is taking ages and is hard.
T: Cheat. Take photos you like, mash them together, and trace them.*

*I'm not going to do this.



D: I've just read it and it all seems fine to me.

Backgrounds and scripts

The script might be done. I want to do an animatic with it to see how it's working with the pace and visuals soon. Still going with the animation tests. I've not done proper backgrounds before - they're hard.

i can't colour in on balanced there

Seeing as it never gets updated anymore, I've decided to incorporate my old i can't colour in site into this one. All the animations are still there and all the old URLs and embed files should still work. It's even a bit quicker to navigate!

I also noticed that some naughty scallywags had put The Pan on YouTube and taken all the credits off. Lots of people seemed to be enjoying it but they seem to think it was done by some other Felix.

So, and this is probably a good thing anyway, I've decided to put my own "official" version up. Along with The Rotation and The Blob.

Here they are...

The Pan (2003)

The Rotation (2003)

The Blob (2002)

...and you can still see them all at http://www.icantcolourin.co.uk/ too!

Frances Cooper animation test. Day 1...

He's not as fun to animate as Emily Maddison.

Had a meeting yesterday which was mostly going over finer points of the script which is encouraging because maybe that means that generally things are working with it.

Another list:

• complete a version of the script to send to South West Screen
• do as many animation tests as possible
• start an animatic?

Emily Maddison animation test. Day 1 1/2...

THE RULES

• anything covered by clothing is drawn with the brush tool.
• anything not covered by clothing (e.g. hands, bare arms) is drawn with the pen tool.
• the only exceptions to these rules are hair and faces which are always drawn with the brush tool.
  

I've started the animation test...

It's going alright. The above image is a rough composite in Flash which made this computer run really slowly so I think I might end up rendering everything on separate layers for the final thing. It will probably save time in the end.

I'm going to change the backgrounds a little and add reflections and so far it's not taking too long to do a few seconds so things are looking alright.

The script is almost down to 10 pages too.

Barry, bald

Brush or pen

I like the brush one but it will be harder to animate with. I will do a test to find out how much harder.

Emily Maddison's head

Started work on making the character models today. Here is Emily Maddison's miserable face.

Frances Cooper first draft

I think work has finished for a bit. This means I can work full time on my digital shorts film. This one.

It's set over (perhaps precisely) a week now. Friday to Friday. The first draft is done. It comes in at 17 pages long for me (but 13 pages for the script editor for some reason). This translates to about 13 minutes which is twice as long as it should be.

I think I can read it in about 9 though... which might be ok.

1p, 1p, 1p, 2p, 1p, 1p, 1p, 2p, 2p, 1p, 1p, 2p, 2p, 2p

This only took about 20 minutes to do.

She feels a bit sick, actually

Things that are wrong with it

Things that are wrong with my script so far:

1. It's not finished yet.
2. It's 13 minutes long.

Things I need to do to fix this:

1. Finish it.
2. Make it seven minutes long.

How I can do this:

1. [not sure yet]
   
2. Cut almost half of it out.

sbjct: Hey! This is it! This is genuine! sndr: THE Tom Cruise

Hi Felix Massie!

Please do not be alarmed or sceptical, as my email address suggests I am indeed Tom Cruise! THE Tom Cruise! I doubt I need to say more than that, I am sure you have heard of me! Everyone has! I'm well loved all over the world for my roles is such films as Cocktail, Days of Thunder and Austin Powers 3: Goldmember!

I'm sure, right now, you are asking yourself "Why is the amazing international film star Tom Cruise emailing me, Felix Massie, a simple animation student from Wales in England?"

That's a good question!

The answer is simple! The other day my enthusiasm level was at an all time low in a pre-production meeting for Mission: Impossible 4! It was so low I was almost sitting down and my fists were only half raised in the air, level with my ears! I decided I needed inspiration! I started googling my name to find some motivating articles about how great I am and somehow I came across your website and was instantly taken with your stick men animations! After watching a few of them I instantly leapt up, punching the air with my fists and shining my pearly whites at the execs around the table before me! I span my Sony Viao MW400 laptop around on the desk and pointed at the screen with my thumb extended, a slight lean in my shoulders and a tilt of my head! "This!" I said with quite assurence "This is the direction we need to head in!"

The execs looked at me with a mild sense of confusion, a look I had seen many times! I knew how to deal! I stood up, leaning back slightly, casual! "Guys! There's is a reason the M:I franchise has been so massively successful!" I say, click of my fingers, thumbs pointing at my chest "Trust me!" and of course they did!

So, Felix Massie - may I call you FeeLo? Good - I am emailing you because I think you are the perfect candidate to bring Mission: Impossible 4 to the big screen! Seriously! We took a risk with JJ Abrams for M:I 3 and it paid off! Now I want to take a bigger risk with you FeeLo! I want you to direct M:I 4! I think stickmen is the way to go! We have a massive budget once again and naturally I will be playing Ethan Hunt but this time it will all be stick man! Mission: Impossible 4 - In stick men! You can picture it can't you! Amazing idea yes? Don't I know it! Audiences will lap it up! I can feel it in my perfectly manicured gums! Stick men fireing guns! Stick men avoiding explosions! Me, in a fist fight with 12 stick men all at once! Stick woman love interest! I am so excited about this I am literally leaping on the sofa as I type this! I've not done that since Oprah!

So that's the cookie! You in or are you in? I think we can really make something special with this! Let us be amazing together! Just confirm your interest with me and I will get back to you with further details! We will get you over here, we'll bang out some ideas! I'll take you gliding! You can meet Katie! This is it FeeLo, you've hit the big one! Don't let me down I know you won't! We can do this! YES!!

B seeing you!
Tom (Cruise) The T Man! (T = Tom! As in Tom Cruise! Me!)

Paddington

I've just got back from London after going to a Digital Shorts training workshop at The Richmix Venue.





As well as taking photos, I met some nice people and learnt some useful things. I had my first go at directing actors face to face which was tricky. At least I know what not to do again though : )

I also re-pitched my digital shorts idea which was good to do because it's come a long way since the last time I did that. I still don't have a full draft of the script but I'm working on it. I'm looking forward to having something I can read right through.

I can only just about remember it being this hard last time.

Felix