Watching your own animation and going “hmm, you know, thats really not working...”

So I’m now at a stage where I can now view over four minutes of the animation with sound.

But the thing is some of it's really not going with the music, I am however quite amazed at the amount of it that does seem to go to the music. There was no planning involved in that either. Not sure what can be done about the part that’s very out of place though...

...It’s the weirdest thing though...the other day i was very down about this, but seem to be taking it better today, that I’ve gone from really not being a happy camper about it, to really quite liking bits of it a lot. I’m sure I’ll be hot cold with it though, like all my other animations. I’ll be hating it tomorrow and liking it again the day after that.

I cant help but feel here though that Ive not done what i set out to do...you see I wanted a soundtrack that just had sound...and actually had recorded some sound. I'd recorded a brass table sound and did some work on my Korg...and I have to say I liked how that turned out.

I have a great love for films that have done that very thing, like Fred Zinnemann’s 1973 classic The Day of the Jackal which is a great, great film and I recommend that fans of simply using the sound on location in your environment check this out, really wonderful film.

I'm also here reminded very recently of how well it worked on a short bit of animation I watched the work in progress on over at CG Talk, Anthony McGrath did a great job with his sound on his Mechanical Arms advert. It really makes it more atmospheric.

But with the deadline rush I had to make a decision, and I had to make a decision fast and stick by it...that’s definitely one of the things I feel that maybe...well I spose its both good and bad...you shouldn’t really have to rush art, but at the same time you should push forward and just go with something...it can be a good decision and it can be a bad decision, (in retrospect)...but its a decision and the project now exists as something.

First sound clip

The little robot going to his ship.

The Soundtrack

This is really doing my head in at the moment...and with only twenty eight days to go, it’s a tad worrying...I have done a section of the film with sound effect that I feel is nice on some of it...and really not working at all on some other bits.

I also started to put some classical music onto it, and had exactly the same results...some of it great, some of it not so great. It's just one of these things...really, ideally, if you go and grab a classical piece of music...then you should shape your story *to* that music...but if you've gone ahead and made a film with no soundtrack...then you already have a shape...a shape that’s different to the classical piece of music.

So I have to decide and decide fast on what exactly should be done here. The soundtrack is extremely important and classical music is so very good, I really would like to go down that road I think but it means altering this and adding a lot of shots to get it to all fit...add more shots?...my god!!...lol.

Will see how this goes.

Tunnel clip

Here's two shots from the chase truck / jeep chase sequence. To cut down on time i had to take the crashed space ship wreck from Errans Alba. Its worked really well though.

Introduction

Hello!

I'm independent animator/director Michael J Dowswell and this is the start of a new blog for my latest short animation “The Rescue”.

This project started in mid December 2007 by accident, I was just playing around in Cinema 4D trying to create a really simple character and before long I had a sequence of shots complete.

Its science fiction, and is very much inspired by a lot of different things...Indiana Jones/Wallace and Gromit/Star Wars/Batman/Prisoner of War type stories.

It's also, I hope, what I keep saying "Experimental Cinema" hopefully.

It's maybe a bit late to start a blog on this, but I dont know...better late than never!