"Platelets" short preview clip - stop-motion animation/cg environments

[Dascurf]

I just posted this rough little clip from my next film. The sets are CG - the puppets are stop-motion and keyed in. This is more akin to stop-motion but you might like some of the CG work too (though very amateurish).

 

Take a look:

 

http://www.justincurfman.com/platelets.htm

 

Love to hear form you.

 

Thanks,

Justin

[NancyGormezano]

Yum. Delicious!

 

love the look, choice of music - had me cracking up - pace might be a bit slow - and is hard to imagine at that pace where it's going as a full length movie (will have to just wait) -

 

but as a clip - its F-U-N-N-Y, funny funny. with a very retro/original look to it - Sorta in the Ed Wood style of movie making.

 

(still have smile on my face)

[markeh]

I think even Quinten Terrentino could learn from this one. Quite funny. And now I must repent.

[martin]

That's certainly "Sick & Twisted" material. I think you should submit only 5 minutes or so to their film festival though. I bet it gets in.

[jamagica]

that is very gross. and I don't mean that in a silly way. If I had known what was in that clip before I watched it, I wouldn't haver watched it. Please don't take that personally

[nf1nk]

I enjoyed it and it should stay rough. I think that, I would have a hard time watching more than about five minutes of this film. It is good and I enjoyed it but it is not something I could watch an hour and a half of. The facial expressions are also very cool.

[robcat2075]

OK, now I remember who Dascurf is.

 

Well, I'm not sure I followed it.

 

It seemed to take a long time to get to where it was going. I think you can do just about anything for five minute and the audience will go along with it, but for a feature I think you'd need to draw them in sooner.

 

I don't think it's "Sick and Twisted" though, it's more "east european".

 

The compositing does look better in black and white.

[Slipin Lizard]

You've got a distinctive style going there.. I think that's the strongest thing going for you. The pacing is rather slow, and the gore doesn't seem all that motivated. I'm not against violent content at all, but it just seems like we're just waiting for the sick and twisted gore fest to start without any real reason. But hey, that didn't stop a ton of horror movies from being made...

 

 

Just a reminder to anyone posting something like this, you should put a disclaimer saying that there is extreme violence or sexual content (the former, not the latter in this case), just to give people a heads up before they watch it.

[Dascurf]

Pacing has always been a problem for me. When you do this stop-motion thing you spend all day on one shot and when you get down to editing you just HATE to cut off a lot of it because you get that "all that work for nothing!" little monkey in your brain and you just can't let it go. Very frustrating sometimes. You all know what I'm talking about I'm sure. But I suppose 50% of most art is sacrifice in the first place.

 

Plus you know how most of the films from the mid-20s to the early 40s have that sort of dragging quality and a sort of haphazard music droning in the background during dialog pauses... music basically put there to sort of drown out the microphone crackling and the poorly delivered stage dialog that translates poorly into film... well, unfortunately, I like that. I think that I sort of unintentionally carry that over into my own work. But, like I said, this is rough and will probably get edited several times before I'm hapy with it. I am just glad that I group for critique. If something like had always existed I am sure that cinema wouldn't be in the rather poor state that it is in right now. Thanks again!

[Dascurf]

By the way...

 

Could anyone give me a recommendation on some good compositing software. I am using a sort of bare bones combo suite from Ulead right now. Something good and light on the wallet. Hey... sounds like a description of my ideal mate...

 

Justin

[Slipin Lizard]

By the way...

 

Could anyone give me a recommendation on some good compositing software. I am using a sort of bare bones combo suite from Ulead right now. Something good and light on the wallet.

 

 

For compositing you'll want Adobe After Effects... its not cheap, but its a great program and will serve you well for just about situation. You could always try and pick up an older version, like 5 or 6.

 

SL.

[cstanton]

Commotion is no longer being developed, but it is (was) a great motion graphics program. Has excellent chroma key tools (primatte keyer), motion tracking and image stabilization, B-spline rotoscope tools, and lots of FX stuff. You can still occasionally find V4.1 on eBay for around $30.00.

 

And Matt Silverman's "Commotion Complete" is still available from Toolfarm for $99.00. Great motion graphics tutorials. His table of contents will give you an idea of what's in Commotion.

CONTENTS:

CHAPTER 01: Interface & Playback

CHAPTER 02: Window Menu & File Menu

CHAPTER 03: Intro to Paint

CHAPTER 04: Cloning

CHAPTER 05: Edit Menu

CHAPTER 06: Intro to Compositing

CHAPTER 07: Intro to Motion Tracking

CHAPTER 08: Paint Tracking

CHAPTER 09: 2D Animation

CHAPTER 10: Stabilization

CHAPTER 11: Intro to Rotosplines

CHAPTER 12: Tracking Rotosplines

CHAPTER 13: Advanced Rotosplining

CHAPTER 14: Keying

CHAPTER 15: Advanced Matte Creation

CHAPTER 16: Integration with After Effects

CHAPTER 17: Corner Pin

CHAPTER 18: 3D Pan & Tilt Tracking

CHAPTER 19: Proxies

CHAPTER 20: Write-On Effect

CHAPTER 21: New Features in 4.0

CHAPTER 22: Advanced Compositing in 4.0

CHAPTER 23: Advanced Cloning in 4.0

CHAPTER 24: Filter Effects Overview

 

If you're looking for really cheap, it's still good stuff,

 

Curtis

 

edit: Don't know if the Mac version will run on the newer OSs, but the PC version runs on XP Pro, should be good for awhile.

[Luxo]

Now I'm hungry.

 

That was, erm, interesting.

 

Naw, really it was great.

 

 

 

When you do this stop-motion thing you spend all day on one shot and when you get down to editing you just HATE to cut off a lot of it because you get that "all that work for nothing!" little monkey in your brain and you just can't let it go.

 

I once read that if editing is not a physically painful process you are doing something wrong. You must do what's right for the movie. Some animators have a shots that they worked on for weeks and weeks left on the cutting room floor just because it stalled the film.

[Kamikaze]

I found it funny that others found it funny , it wasn't gross to me sense I do not believe any animals where harmed in the making of the clip. I love the style, look, feel of the clip, the music makes me feel as if I were watching a vintage porn flick, loved that too !!......I even look forward to updates on your project..

 

Michael