Kids Say The Darndest Things

I recently had the pleasure (and pressure) of screening our film in front of over 150 very sharp 8-11 year olds.  By showing the unfinished version of UG3 to this target focus group, we were able to gain important insights into what is working and what we need to improve. The most amazing thing about these kids was the maturity with which they approached the whole experience . Right now the film is in animatic form. There is some finished animation along with segments of composited footage, but the majority of the 30 minute film is an assortment of rough to polished storyboards sequenced to a working soundtrack.  But the students took all of that in stride and gave in to the humor of the characters and content that engaged them. They were a great audience.

The focus groups came about through the help of five incredible SAGE teachers here in Henry County. Cindy Carmack of Rock Spring Elementary; Cindy Fuqua of Red Oak Elementary; Diane Harris of Luella Elementary; Lisa Henriquez of Flippen Elementary and Paula Whipple of Mt. Carmel Elementary arranged for me to come to their classes as a guest speaker. It worked out because they were doing a segment on Space Exploration which happens to be the subject of UG3. I spoke about film making, introduced the characters of the film, showed some of the puppets, stop-motion models, artwork and some finished shorts based on the cast of the longer film. Then we watched the film-in-progress.

After the audience asked questions they took time to fill out an extensive questionnaire .And they were honest, which is what I’d hoped for and dreaded. What came out of that was insight into a few weaknesses that we’ve worked on changing. But there was also a huge amount of encouragement when I saw what they were most enthusiastic about.  The best thing for me (as any filmmaker can attest to) was sitting in a room full of people and hearing them respond to something that you’ve worked so hard on and believed in.  So I must say again to Ms. Carmack, Ms. Fuqua, Ms. Harris, Ms. Henriquez and Ms. Whipple thank you very much for this chance to share with your students.

The goal is to finish as much of the animation by the end of the school year to go back and present a more polished version of UG3 to the same classes and let them experience a little more of the art of film making.

Preproduction Process: Script, Thumbnails, Storyboards

Here's a brief rundown of the preproduction process that I use in creating my animated shorts. Let me first say I've skipped talking about the research and brainstorming part. I may do a little about that in a later post. But after that part is done I write a script. This is page one of a two page script. It's a short about how a planet in our solar system was actually named Herschel for awhile. The highlights are there to help in the voice recording process. The handwritten notes and numbering are for the thumbnails and storyboards. 

 

From there I start thinking more about layout and animation by doing some rough thumbnails of the short or scene - if it is part of a longer animation. I begin with pages of these small frames and start drawing the thumbnails. If something is wrong I don't usually start with a new page, I just mark through the thumbnail I don't like and move on - as you can see with my very first thumbnail.  The short two-page script for this one took five and a half pages of thumbnails to layout the whole thing. 

 

Next I do rough storyboards. They are aobut 4 inches high by 7 inches wide. While the drawings for the storyboards are more detailed than the thumbnails they are still not what I'll use for the animatic. The numbers in the storyboards correspond to the ones in the thumbnails and on the script.  

 

I hope to have the animatic up within a couple of days or so. We are finishing up the rough soundtrack. The drawings are done mostly in Adobe Flash and  will be even more detailed than these storyboards. 

Survivor: Bugworld

Bug World - Survivor, Bug World from Lee Waller on Vimeo.

I mentioned that I would post pieces from older projects as I.G.G. moves along. This is a short section from the 30 minute video Bugworld. It examines the world of ... Yes bugs. This short piece incorporates stop-motion animation, puppetry, motion graphics and Flash animation.

The Best Alien Baby Name Book I've Ever Read

In creating this cast of characters for Intergalactic Gung-Ho Gurus I found that alien names aren't that easy to come up with. Inevitably you end up having the same names (or at least very similar ones) that you've heard used in other stories, cartoons or movies. What to do?

I have found that I like boundaries. With school projects I enjoyed tight parameters on what I could and could not do, what materials I could use and what I was trying to accomplish. It seemed these boundaries worked to squeeze the creative juices better. So for this, I set my own boundaries. 

Looking through different books on my shelf I found The Word Museum by Jeffrey Kacirk. It is full of defunct English words that have great combinations of offbeat definitions and amazingly meaty sounds. For instance Brizzle sounds like burnt and sizzle and it's definition means about that. Eureka! This would be my parameters. All the alien names would come from this book. 

So far, almost everyone of them has (You'll see two characters very soon that came from another idea). It was a lot of fun going through this book and finding the coolest words. The definitions of these words sometimes helped me to define a characteristic or physical trait of the character. 

So if you are looking to name a new born alien, then I would highly recommend giving this book a once over.

Introducing the Characters - Madam Thrunch

Madam Thrunch is the CEO (Chief Executive Overlord) of Gandermoon Studios - the company that produces Intergalactic Gung-Ho Gurus.

She's the ultimate source of fear for Thunderstone. When I put her in the script I knew she had to be terrifying in a funny way. Yes, she's a bit of a spoof on the Emperor from Star Wars.

 I played around with a variety of ideas. At first the cute yet evil bunny character under a dark cloak seemed appealing, but then I got a few gag ideas that work better with a frog-like alien.

These are the designs that started emerging.

I went further and decided to try a take off on the walking hologram projector from the Phantom Menace. The one in the movie walked on spider-like legs. I figured I'd give mine frog legs. This will make it kind of comical to watch. I'm not sure if I'd do it in Flash or Stop-mo.

She has to have an imposing throne. A hint of Toadstool here. 

This is the sketch I'm going to use to start the puppet with.

My Writing Space When Writing About Space

It's 4:45 am. I'm sitting at my dining room table trying to make progress on the script for Intergalactic Gung-Ho Gurus. It's not happening so what do I do? I take a picture of my writing space and post it to the web.

Weekdays I get up around 4:00 am to work on this project. I have to be at my teaching job about 6:45 and afternoons are rather unsure when it comes to what demands will be placed on my time, so my only guaranteed time to get work on the film done is in the wee hours of the morning.

Just a note about the writing.I believe with a project like this, writing is everything. Without a well-written story the quality of animation or special effects won't matter very much.

By the way, I do have an office here in the house, but when I write I have to spread out a bit, as you can see, and my computer desk doesn't have the space.