Mischief

[Dalemation]

I just wanted to bring peoples attention to this film made by a friend and work colleague of mine, Charlie Hopkins. This is the first thing he's created with A:M and he's only had the software for a few months! It's now on A:M Films (thanks Ken) and I know Charlie will be very interested to know what people think.

 

Mischief Movie

[ChrisThom]

Nice job!

 

The only thing I noticed is that in tghe middle of the film after the robot gets hit in the head, he leans forward and you can see through his body to the boxes.

 

All in all a very nice piece.

[martin]

Wow, that's a really well done, storytelling film. Good direction and sound.

[NancyGormezano]

Very much like the look - it definitely shows what an experienced animator can do, regardless of medium or tool - good old fashioned fun cartoon violence - Yayyyy!

[Steven Cleary]

That is superb! I really get the feeling the ball has some life in it. The parent ball looks appropriately sinister with it’s expressionless glare. Great use of colours; not too bright. The shot selection is spot on and I particularly like the stillness and timing: there’s nothing that bothers me more than excessive camera movement!

 

The sound and music are sublime. When I saw the last shot of the robot raising it’s arms, I immediately thought of Tom from the animation ‘Bertha’, one of my favourites. I thoroughly enjoyed this animation and thanks for pointing us towards it, Dale.

 

Pass on my appreciation of his skill to Mr.Hopkins,

 

Steve.

[Chopkins]

Hi there I'm Charlie Hopkins director and animator of mischief. I would like to thank everyone for their kind words and support for this little film. Its quite overwhelming receiving such positive feed back on something that I used as an experiment to learn how to use the Animation master program. Its very encouraging, and very liberating.

 

Thank you all again. And I'm looking forward to getting stuck into my next film.

 

All the best.

 

Charlie Hopkins.

 

Chopkins@hotanimation.com

[Paul Forwood]

Well done, Charlie!

 

With a test like this I am now expecting great things from you!

 

I look forward to seeing more of your work.

[lightningad]

and speaking as the sound designer on the film, I'm really impressed with what Charlie achieved in his first foray in CG.

 

His animation was a pleasure to voice as he obviously had a mental soundtrack whilst shooting the piece. Its a real skill to allow a character space to breathe, think and react to the sonic elements that have yet to be created.

 

And one final point, that no-one else mentioned...for me, one of the most vital aspects of any animation is giving the characters a sense of weight and gravity. Without that, they are just puppets floating about. These characters have a weight, which informs their motion and conveys a reality to the viewer.

 

really well done, Charlie.

 

 

here's to the next one!!

[Steven Cleary]

Chopkins - Just as a matter of interest, what kind of setup did you use on the robot? I’m curious to know whether a stopframe animator prefers an FK or IK rig. The movement doesn’t have that typical floaty look of CG: how did you approach the keyframing?

 

lightningad - If you don’t mind me asking, how did you create that mechanical voice for the robot? It’s really well done and it’s made me think about digging out my Casio keyboard with strange audio effects. Ooo, I do like cheap old keyboards

 

Steve.

[lightningad]

lightningad[/b] - If you don’t mind me asking, how did you create that mechanical voice for the robot?  It’s really well done and it’s made me think about digging out my Casio keyboard with strange audio effects.  Ooo, I do like cheap old keyboards

 

Steve.

if i tell you, you gotta promise on threat of death not to tell anyone else!!

 

Its not electrically generated at all - simply get a long flexible pipe (5' in this case) and growl into it. have your mic placed at the other end and move the pipe around in front of the mic whilst making the growls. This was then edited in Digital Performer to get the good bits. All the robot voice and servo sounds are my own voice, a plastic pipe and a good mic. The ball voice was my dog, coaxed into growling and then pitchshifted and re-edited.

 

The feet sounds were me bashing a flimsy metal strip light fitting on a carpeted floor.

 

I also like old keyboards, but i never use them for sound fx creation (and i do a lot of that - its my job!) The best advice i can give anyone wanting to improve their sounds is to listen to reality. Analyse what you hear and then try improve on it. You will usually find that recording the actual real object will not give the sound you thought it would. You almost always need to augment it with other sounds. A good source of ideas for foleys ( the filmaking term for sound fx creation) is the website www.filmsound.org.

 

you might get some good sounds from the casio by throwing it against different surfaces!!

[ChrisThom]

Boy Adam, you're like a real foley artist over there!!

[Steven Cleary]

Hi Adam,

 

Hey! Leave off my lovely Casio! It was cutting edge technology... at the time... for home users *sniff*

 

Thanks very much for the info on the creation of the sounds. [Note to self: buy... some... pipe] I always find the description of how sound effects are created interesting. I’ve got a soundtrack to make for my own project soonish and you’ve already given me some ideas. Are you often found buying strange bits of broken hardware down at the tip for sound effects?

 

Steve.

[Kamikaze]

Hey, that was intertaining.......Was the toon settings used the default settings?

nice story telling also.

 

Mike C

[Chopkins]

Steven Cleary: Hi there, I approached this project as a stop motion film maker firstly. I had been trying years to get a film made cheaply with out taking up too much space or time. unfortunately stopmotion animation demands all of these things.

So I bought Animation Master to solve this problem. Once I got it, I then realised I had to learn how to use the programme, so I decided to use Mischief as a way for me to get to grips with it. My approach was completely naive, I had little experience with CGI in the past so this was a big learning curve.

For the bones I used the A-M rig, back then I wasn't too sure what IK or FK meant, so once he was rigged I basically treated the robot as a stop motion puppet and animated him as so, one frame at a time, without key framing, it took longer but I do prefer that method, stops everything becoming floaty.

So that was that really, I effectively made a stop motion film with Animation Master, and I used the camera angles to make up for a lot of what I didn't know how to do within the programme. And I learnt as I went along.

By the end of the film I learnt a lot and I now know how best to approach a project in the future.

Since Mischief I've bought the 2002 A-M manual and I'm currently working with it to make my next film, and so far things are going well.

I'm still going to take the stopmotion filmaking approach because I find the end result has a more man made approach.

 

Cheers!

[Chopkins]

Mike Cossey: Hi there. Yeah whilst making the film I basically used to toon reader Default settings with the only adjustment I made was to the Motion Blur setting, to give the whole thing " a real world " look for the movement.

 

Cheers!

 

Later, Charlie H

[lightningad]

Boy Adam, you're like a real foley artist over there!!

like i said - i get paid to sit and make weird noises...i don't know of a better way to pay the rent?

 

But projects like this one, i do for the fun of it. Creative collaborations with chums is a great way to stimulate the grey matter, and lets you explore areas that you don't normally get into!

[Steven Cleary]

Chopkins,

 

Having only completed two frame by frame hand drawn animations, I’ve just scratched the surface of this technique. Still, I have to say, they are the most satisfying animations I’ve made. I hadn’t actually thought of animating frame by frame in 3D CG work. I will have to try now after seeing the different (and unique) look you’ve created.

 

Many thanks for the details on your methods,

 

Steve.