Reflection

I tell you its damned, damned weird thing being a independent animator...I felt so extremely low when The Rescue was coming to a end. I’m not even entirely sure if I can tell you what it was exactly...I maybe just looked at all the faults and could see no good things in it at all.

The thing is that your so extremely tired with exhaustion that perhaps your brain isn’t quite working properly?...and suddenly the project is in a viewable state, a starting to end viewable state, that has taken such a long time to get to that point...if your very stubborn like me, you glance across at it and you kind of feel in a way that you are looking at something that’s just no where near finished or how you want it...this for the sleep deprived stubborn man is too much.

NOTE: Your deadline got you here though, deadlines are both great and not so great...great because they get you to work like a crazy man, and results certainly do start to happen...you get a lot done with the shear “oh sh*t, I’m approaching the deadline!!” thoughts running through your head.

NOTE: Not so great, because things end up being rushed, this for me was always the character animation which is really terrible because character animation is the very soul of a animation.

It seems that you need to distance yourself from the animation and when that eventually happens...as time goes on, time fixes problems...I started to get more positive about it...Much, much more positive about it. At the time though it was just hellish. I felt like giving up altogether. But with time...you finally see how much you’ve learned...you make a film, you learn something, you make another film, you learn something else. That applies to life as well.

And I started to get really happy. All the things that went wrong are now knowledge...raw knowledge that is vital stuff, you have to work at it for years to get at this stuff. It goes into the next project and things WILL get better.

The Rescue: Part 3 of 3

Here we go, one day before the deadline I set myself...It now excists as somthing!

I’m not gonna beat about the bush here though, I'm very, very frustrated with my animation...and the way I think I see it...is...that it’s at the top of the bad pile and the bottom of the good pile, it’s a failure to me, because it's not a technical marvel, It also feels like a animatic at times, a rushed job.

July 19th 2008 Report

Very difficult to write this report, but here we go anyway.

The news is in that it might cost over two thousand pounds to use the Shostakovich music. And when you add the Bruckner to this, it comes to about two thousand five hundred...there’s some negotiations to get this figure down but I cant see it being reduced by much...I don’t know. The worst part of all this is that I don’t think I can spend that amount of money on this animation...because, I simply don't feel it's worth it. I feel terrible that the thing might not be set off on merry way into the world, to go off and visit the folks at the TCM short competition, I really do.

I didn’t realise that Mr Shostakovich was not past the eighty year copyright. The thing is though, his music is incredible, can't begin to tell you how big a fan I am of his stuff.

Dowswell on Dowswell part 2 of 2

It also (over the years) has become very apparent to me that I have this sort of impatience and worry, that too much time is going past...that I wont get to where I want to be quick enough. I want a animation done and I want it done fast...this is really shooting yourself in the foot, because to get something of a real high quality (that runs for nine minutes) takes or should take a lot longer than seven months...you really, really cant and shouldn’t rush these things. (this is a recurring thing I keep saying)

I do however want to march on with my next short and will be making a conscious effort to get it detailed and far shorter.

Dowswell on Dowswell Part 1 of 2

I’ve never found lighting or composition hard at all, I find that stuff remarkably easy and fast to do...but the actual animating part I do struggle with a lot. I would make a horrendous technical director and I think you can see its very apparent in my work...because, I *am* the technical director for this as well as all the other things. It brings me back round to how a solo project really displays your strengths and weaknesses...your passions and your laziness.

I wish though that I could just get on with making the film that I want..that the technical side didn;t crush the creative side. Part three of The Rescue has got very far removed from what I intially wanted. And i hate to say this...I really do...but, it's almost like its a animatic...but even worse...a first draft of the script to boot.

There's a lot here that I wanted to put in to highten the action, that I've had to leave out...and I'm really not happy about it at all. You just want to do your directors thing and say..."Right!...right I want the truck to go over a bump and respond perfectly TECHNICALLY to going over that bump in the road" or be able to say..."Hey right, get this!...I want the baddie robot to shoot out the glass on the jeep and have the glass fragments all go all over the place and sit perfectly TECHNICALLY with PHYSICS and all on the back end of the jeep"

July 15th 2008 Report

It’s really getting there now...the edit is filling up...I reckon 30% or 35% to go here! Still nothing to report on the music situation, somebody in London is proving very hard to get hold of.

The Director Likes Shostakovich's Music

So my emergency producer has been phoning up the licence people to see how much it's going to cost to use these three classical bits of music. The Bruckner is gonna cost £150...and we don’t have the price on the Shostakovich just yet. But we’ve been told that its going to be more than £150.

It was a interesting day though, because I had heard my producer talk about me on the phone with my own ears. I'd never heard sombody say or call me a director in spoken word aloud before, so that was a first. Now this may all sound terribly self indulgent...and I spose a blog perhaps is...though, well I like to see these blog things as part of the publicity campaign to build up awareness of your film, but also I like writing things out into a blog to kill time...to distract, to look back on (I don't see any harm in htat?) but...it brings a smile to my face that I’m actually making films...sure, I’m completely unknown and very few people actually seem to (when you think about it) watch short films...but it still makes me happy that I found out what I want to do for the rest of my life and that I’m actually doing it...I also find it hard to believe that I am...but I am.

July 7th 2008 Report

Ok...phew, I cant believe how much I seem to have got done, it’s crazy. I figured out a short while ago today that I’m at 48% complete on Part 3 of this thing. That’s sill a fair old chunk to do though...but, it's getting there. The big question of course now, is...can the 52% be done in fifteen days?...

The Rescue: part 2 of 3

Here's the second bit, I'm not sure about the end of this, but it'll have to do for now.

Music by Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich

Splitting It Into Three

Have now decided to make this a three part thing instead of two parts...be prepared for some of those long shots. It’s the only way forward I can see this going. Part two wont be too long, but part three will be quite a length and have the big action scene.

The Rescue: part 1 of 3 (with a new ending)

Here we go again, I feel this is much better than before, the giant sphere (three shot sequence) at the end before just was not working, so have done more outside shots...I also have more ideas for how this can go next... I just hope that all this time spent polishing is not going to go towards me not making my deadline...

Music by Anton Bruckner

The Rescue: part 1 of 3

Has been up a tiny while on Revver but thought I'd upload here also.

Music by Anton Bruckner