Gorgeous Knight Title Sequence

When I finally got the musical score and the credits for the opening sequence, things changed.  As I've said before, music means quite a bit to me when it comes to emotional content.  And after listening to the wonderful music from composer Malek Jandali (YouTube) things changed quite a bit.  For one thing, because the music is so awesome, I played on some of the many brooding subtleties found in his music as a precursor for the scene.

Instead of trying to tell a story or using complex animations like we had originally discussed, I created a simple stone wall with missing person's posters on it.  I combined it with a dark maroon motif, windy dust and particles, windy sounds, audio from missing person's reports, police chatter and lights reflecting on the wall, posters flailing in the wind, and a play on specific letters throughout the animation.

The "KNIGHT" part of the title I animated in using a halogen bulb effect, the letters all flicker randomly for a moment before turning on.  I used this same animation to animate single letters in the rest of the cast and production crew.

I wish I could show you the whole animation, but that will have to wait until the film is finished and released.  Until then, here are some screenshots:

Motivation

Being of sound mind, body and attention deficit syndrome, I am often amazed at my level of motivation when working on projects or thinking about them.  Most of the time my motivation is really bad.  And other times, my motivation is so high, I won't do anything else until it is done.

Looking back on the last year or so my motivation has been extremely random.  I'm not one for tedium, I like to see results fast or I lose interest.  One of the ways that keeps me going on projects, especially if they are long sequences is actually working on the final compositing during the creation.  For instance, I'll take single cuts rendered from Cinema 4D into After Effects, do some color fixing and compositing, then immediately take them into Premiere for sound and music for review.

Honestly though, my motivation lies with a foundation of music.  If I don't feel the emotion of what I am trying to create, then I lose motivation... fast.  This is probably the main reason why I'm still doing Tron effects.  Daft Punk created something very special with the Tron soundtrack that for some reason severely resonates with me like very few things do, it's difficult to explain.

So that music is still speaking to me emotionally, so that's what I work on to recreate that emotional epic ride that I felt in the theater.

But, the lack of motivation is exactly what I'm staring down the barrell of right now.

Working on the title sequence for Gorgeous Knight, I've been waiting for musical scores to accompany the intro.  The other three effects shots were easy in comparison, they were simple shots that didn't really require much emotion to complete.  But this intro needs special care to make sure the emotion of the music captures the feeling of the video, and vice versa.  It's all about complimenting each other.

I have yet to get the scores, and every time I sit down with an idea I can't get off the ground.  They are supposed to get me the scores today or sometime really soon, so hopefully I can then understand the emotions and finally have something to work with.

New Tron Project

Yes, I've started another Tron project.  After 4 months of seeing all the crap animations appearing on YouTube, I know I can do so much better.  I've proven it once with my Tron Intro animation, but this time I'm going all-out, I'm going to use every piece of modelling and animation I've ever created for Tron in one complete animated short film.

It's tentatively titled "TRON: Defiance".  It's based in the TRON world but somewhat unrelated to TRON Legacy.  It's about an assasination attempt on CLU.  Basically, a lone, unnamed assasin program infiltrates TRON city and the Grid, plants a bomb on CLU's craft, destroys it and narrowly escapes Rinzler.  Simple, epic, and no dialog. :)

I've already got the entire film outlined and visualized and the first 45 seconds completed, so it's definately happening.  New, never before seen models like the Light Jet, a fully modelled Tron city, stealth suits and gliders, and CLU's personal craft will make an appearance, as well as a completed and fully-realized Lightcycle arena and a new style off-road lightcycle.

Music is all planned out, I will be using two scores from the movie, "Recognizer" for the first half (infiltration) and "Flynn Lives" for the second half of the film (escape).

The only things I am worried about are sound and character animation.  I'm going to try and use some sound from the movie, but character animation is going to have to be created by hand.  Although with some camera trickery I might be able to get away with minimum effort, but we'll see.  For the first 45 seconds, static models have worked pretty well.

For the visual aspect of the film, I've employed a "dirty" digital feel to help contrast the 3Dness of the film and given more natural camera movements using tracking from handheld cameras.

I was also thinking about creating a TRON credit sequence at the end of the film, it would be kind cool to show that off as well.

I am still working on other things, but they are at a lull right now, waiting for things to be filmed so that I begin working on them.  Until then, I'm working on Defiance.

Out of the Blue

My website has been hosted by SquareSpace for over a year now, it's been a great service.  I've enjoyed 4 GB of storage and being able to upload very large files and the ability to provide secure logins for external clients to login and retreive files.  It's been a great, client-facing, high-support site with a lot of options.

In their online help section, they mention that they do not support file sizes larger than 20 MB, their reasoning was that "Uploading via a web browser is somewhat unreliable with very large files. Also keep in mind that most cable modems and DSL connections upload at 15 kbps", this is their reasoning.

Now, I upload at about 300-500kbps/second and uploading through the browser has been pretty reliable for me.  So I just ignored this, because it says that they only SUPPORT file sizes <20mb which means that you can upload file sizes larger than 20mb but they wont support you if you have issues.  Totally understandable!
However, I get an email from SquareSpace support saying that they have not enforced this <20mb file rule and will now be enforcing it full-stop.  If any files are found after 5/4/11 that are larger than 20mb, they will remove these files automatically.  Oh, now it's a rule all of a sudden?  I'm paying for 4GB of space but I can only fill it with <20mb files?

Well, so long Square Space, you were a great hosting site that enabled me to be professionally client-facing with impressive results.  But seeing as I work with video and that I very rarely have video file sizes less than 20mb, you no longer work for me.

For now I will stick with Drop Box, which works great for sharing large files between individuals.  But I will need to create a new website for Angler.digital for a more professional, client-facing site.

I think I'm going to turn it into a less personal, more professional blog here on Blogger.

Let me know what you think of the new site: http://anglerdigital.blogspot.com/