Fred the Janitor

[Simon Edmondson]

As you will (not ) hear, the sound on this short is not done yet. The first 40 seconds or so is silent and the music has a click track running through it. At least its obvious that they weren't lifted from the original ! My friend is going to do that in the next few days...

 

This is an assembly edit of the project. There are three versions of it. This one, one were the lights don't change colour and the camera moves a bit more, and one using a Toon render. The movements are the same in all of them, only the setting changes.

 

The quality is not very good as its taken off a medium quality lower res version. The original is in 1080 HD and this is 320 x 240 three generations down the line. If I sound like I'm making excuses (?) I possibly am...

 

The PFG at the begining and end is my animating alter ego. It stands for Pretentiou Fat Git. To borrow and old joke, "Wherever I go, so does he go "

 

I would welcome any feedback you are able to offer. Good bad or, don't darken our forum again.

regards

simon

 

 

Fred_Low_res.mov

[Rodney]

Okay simon... wow... you've got a lot going on there!

 

Let me get some words back from you and that'll help me figure out where to focus.

Here is where I might focus if I were doing the work.

 

1. The most important part is the end... the big payoff. There are some pretty substantial areas for improvement here that are very similar to your earlier short. The off balance fall is not playing right and doesn't flow in the full scheme of things. We've just seen Fred do all kinds of jumping and dancing around and then... no payoff at the end. There is no motivating factor that suggests Fred would lose his balance and fall except if he knows the video is coming to an end so he falls because you animated him doing that. (Not good enough I say)

 

Here is a mild suggestion but it's only my exploration of what might happen... not a suggestion per se:

When he gets to his last cue and the music begins he might recognize the odd music... pause a beat.... shrug... and anticipate deeply as he begins to start playing again... as he overexaggerates his motion to the beat he then starts to lose balance in three stages... leg up... leg UP.... leg too FAR UP! Now he is off balance and can start to react as he is falling.

 

 

2. Progression/Transitions. While you can do this in post it's important to think about it now. The key to a good transition is to cut mid shot. Because you are starting with a new riff every few seconds this is a little more of a challenge but I believe it mostly means that you need to concentrate your transitional progresses on the fading out. This should be done via audio but I am more concerned with images here. Think a completely black image. Now think of a white dot somewhere in that blackness. That white dot is your focus and it needs to be on Fred. Everything else fades to black. If you are familar with the term Vignette... that's similar to what I am talking about. (This effect can be achieved in A:M but in many other programs as well).

 

As far as Progression goes you also want to think in terms of opposites and increments. Think for instance; cold and hot. What is your hottest part of the sequence (It probably should not be the final payoff... because it's a gag you are building up... building up... building up... and then go in the opposite direction). Out of all of the different pieces of music each has it's intensity and that intensity grows (in some form or fashion) with each shot. Usually you want that change to be unnoticed during the build up so that's why it's incremental. You start this in a way with the intro... everything is dark. But do this with your main section too... and then go intense and let it fade off in the third part. If this doesn't make sense... I can throw more words at it.

 

Edit: I just remembered an important tool of progression you can use for each of the music shots. For your consideration:

As each new piece of music begins start zooming in slightly with the camera (you can do this after all of your images are rendered... you don't have to rerender them again!). If more appropriate you can pan, tilt or shake the camera to capture the specific music you are on. Then as each new piece of music begins... BAP! You are back out and progressing back with the camera into the shot. The general rule: When thinking of progression in your scene where appropriate don't forget to progress the camera. Otherwise there will be less life in the sequence over all.

 

 

3. I smashed #3 in with two so I'll add this:

 

Minor quibble: I don't think the mop/broom standing up is going to cut it without something keeping it up there.

Possible Suggestion: Have Fred hold it as he decends but then push it upward as he goes down (this is an important element of animation... a secret... so don't tell anyone... as you animate one thing going one way, animate another going the opposite way. Shhhh... our secret). Now an important part of this mop going back up is that it doesn't get all the way back up. And when it runs out of energy it starts to fall down to the floor where it accentuates the end with your trademark bounce (seen in your last episode).

 

You've got the essence there now you need to work on the presentation and payoff.

What you've got now is looking good. Keep it up!

[Rodney]

This is an assembly edit of the project. There are three versions of it. This one, one were the lights don't change colour and the camera moves a bit more, and one using a Toon render. The movements are the same in all of them, only the setting changes.

 

When you get all of these done you should consider merging them all together into the final shot.

Fading in and out of each one will let you dial in just the right intensity and let you choose the style that you want.

 

If you can provide three (small) movies with each of these shots I should be able to put something together to show you the process. You can do this yourself in A:M's Compositor using four or five Mix post effects to blend all the shots.

[Simon Edmondson]

Rodney

 

|Thank you for your comments. I will look to the changes you suggest in the next few days.

 

The idea was that he started the beat box and it played a sample of each of the tracks on it. The fall at the end came because he was anticipating a continuation of the same and got "The Birdie Song" instead. The bit with the lights was because he was supposed to be living the fantasy of playing on stage. Rudely shattered by the song at the end and his fall down.

 

Something I hadn't considered, and perhaps should of, is that, outside of Europe, the Birdie song might not be so well known. It was one of those summer hits that stuck in the charts for months at a time, always at around the same level and was bought by people coming back off their holidays. It had a certain dance that went with it and was considered extremely 'naff' by anyone who took their music seriously.

 

The whole idea came about because, when I was 18 ( now 55 ), I saw a group of kids in a rock club, not just playing air guitar but being the whole group. There was a bass player, guitarist and singer on the floor and sat at the tables, a drummer and a keyboard player. That was funny enough but, when the record changed, they all swapped around positions ! They kept it going most of the night too..

 

Thank you once again

simon

[Simon Edmondson]

Some revisions and the addition of sound. My apologies to Rodney if I haven't followed his suggestions as closely as I perhaps should have done. I'm going slightly gaga on this one.

 

For some strange reason the sync seems to have slipped in a couple of places. I'm working on that .. A bit bothered by the overspill of the spotlights but not sure if I want to go to another three weeks of rendering ! Hey ho.Fred_white_light.mov

simon