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Hash, Inc. - Animation:Master

Franz Kafka short


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Hi fellow virtual pupeteers!

 

Just wanted to share some preview stills from "Trapez", a 5 minutes short I'm currently working on.

The film is adapted from the short story "Der erste leid" by Franz Kafka.

 

:-) Tore

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Great stylism! Using A:M?

 

Glad you like :-)

 

The software used: A:M 15.0J+, Pixosaur 3D Painter (handpainted textures), Twistedbrush (backdrops+some textures) and good ol´ Gimp. All the renderings are done 100% in A:M (one run / no compositing).

 

I like to be able to manipulate the »photographic« quality of my renderings, and I am working more like if I was doing stop-motion than traditional 3D. A:M with its fast no-nonsense interface, and fast and excellent rendering, keeps the creative flow running.

 

As I´m animating frame by frame, hardly never using interpolation, and with very little camera movement, I dont need complicated rigs or physics simulation, to »get in the way« of the animation process.

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Awesome!

 

I love how you are taking this out of the look of CG and into the Stopmotion realm.

If I have any suggestion it would be to really target any area that looks CG and replace that, obsure it or otherwise blur it in.

The measure that comes to mind is that if someone doesn't think it's made out of some physical material that has been painted over by you, something else should be added into area to suggest that. (example: a protruding wire or something that could be interpreted as a imperfectly manufactured or overlooked defect) It looks like this is already your plan.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the behind-the-scenes on your blog!

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Well, that is a very precise description of my intention :-)

 

All surfaces in Trapez is either 100 % handpainted by me or they are decaled with photographs of existing materials like plywood or paper and then given a hand painted touch-up.

 

Even black and apparently smooth surfaces has been crosshatched with a "pencil".

I make extensively use of Pixosaur 3D painter and TwistedBrush in conjunction with a Wacom tablet to make the process as intuitive and expressive as possible.

 

Glad you like my little blog - have just put up a new post today.

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Slowly, ever so slowly, my little film comes along. Most design decisions have been finalized by now I guess, and hopefully all the strange technical glitches have been ironed out. So now I've begun animating...one frame at a time. As a stop motion animator once said: It's like dancing ballet, just very, very, very slowly.

Looking forward to A:M 16 in an usable version, so it will be possible to cut down final rendering times.

 

In the meantime some more stills to look at :-)

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What parts are not usable for you? Have you submitted descriptions and steps to repeat the problem(s) to A:M Reports?

 

Still a lot of stability issues in 16rc1 - and rendering of volumetrics/fog/mist (which I use intensively) is problematic in several ways. I have reported most of these problems, as I've encountered them.

But until the release of 16 is out I just stick to the very stable 15j, I guess.

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Bravo! Bravo!

 

Excellent imagery, lighting, camera work; fabulous, interesting sound design, love the stop-mo puppet style! Wonderful. Congrats!

 

My only crit would be that the sub-titles distract one's attention away from the terrific imagery. I had to replay it in order to get the story, as I was entranced by the style. Your voice quality is excellent. If at all possible, perhaps it might be better if you were to also have a version with a sound track using your voice, in English, without sub-titles?

 

Loved it!

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Absolutely outstanding! Stunning and dramatic design, lighting and sound! I agree with everything that Nancy mentions in her post.

My problem with this piece is Kafka himself. Like so much of his work it is very depressingly ambiguous and leaves so many questions to be answered.

Is this a simple observation that when people are permitted to devote all of their energy and time to developing and honing their particular art, at the expense of all else, that they become fragile, isolated, temperamental, neurotics who cannot relate to anything but their own obsession? The title,"Erstes Leid", translates to, "First Sorrow", but who's sorrow is it, the trapeze artist's or the ring master's?

 

Excellent work, ToreB! You are a very talented guy. :)

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Hey, what great comments!! Almost blushing...well, I AM in fact blushing :-) Nothing is better than getting positive feedback from people who really know what they are talking about, and who's opinion matters to you!

I certainly will indulge in pride!

 

Regarding subtitles: Here in Denmark nearly every tv airing and theatrical release (that's not in Danish) are subtitled. So we are pretty used to them, and it gives the opportunity to experience the original acting (even if in a language we don't understand).

In the case of Trapez it is of course a bit different, as the voice is a narrative and not acting per se. But even so: I do not speak english well enough to make a performance I would be satisfied with (not sounding like Schwarzenegger!), so I guess I'll stick with the subtitle compromise - for now anyhow.

 

@Paul: I agree with your Kafka characteristic, but personally I kinda like that ambiguity: it's like life is itself - to me anyhow: so wonderfully free of meaning and answers, and at the same time ripe with suggestion. In the case of our poor trapeze artist though, I read the story as it is both the ring master and the artist who experience the first sorrow. The artist for the reasons you so precisely describe, and the ring master as he genuinely cares for the artist.

 

Og så var det jo rigtig hyggeligt at få en hilsen på dansk også - helt ovre fra Menifee Valley :-) Rigtig mange tak for de pæne ord!!

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That works very well! Wonderful art direction.

From your blog:

I want to achieve an organic feel that is very far from the bland slickness of normal computer animation. And hopefully the unavoidable jerkiness and roughness of the resulting animation will by far be outweighed by the amount of life and personality.

I think you were successful :)

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Any of you have experience with submitting to festivals? Some advice would be much appreciated!

 

Is "Withoutabox" an option, or is it over the top for a small production like Trapez?

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