Captain’s Log #16: Good News???

Week 16 of Production for the 1080 Studios, oh boy oh boy.

Our deadline is getting close and i am freaking out!!! So much stuff to do. The assignments for the other classes are also due next week, and I’m only 3/4 way done with them. But with the bad comes the good as well. I finished one class module, so now i have slightly more time to work the animation for CPD! Oh yas! And since the assignment for the other classes are coming due soon, that would mean that the modules are coming to their end soon and our schedules would be even more cleared for us to work on the production even more!

YAYYYYYYYYYY (kinda cos we still have to do work but at least we don’t have to juggle 5 modules at the same time).

This week, i didn’t really work too much on the animation, i gotta be honest. I know! I feel a bit guilty, but i had to place priority on other classes a little bit first. But i still did a little bit of work, and that is the eye animation for the second scene of the animation!

It was a quick animation, just some simple frames and it was good to go, though Dana had to change the shape of the eye cos it didn’t really match with the original design of the character. I just followed what i drew in the storyboard. Then i also coloured and edited the new animation in the animatic! Which you can check out on our studio blog at https://1080studios.tumblr.com/ .

I am really hoping we are to finish this animation quickly, maybe a few days before the deadline so we don’t have to fret too much about submitting an incomplete animation, with missing colours or animations. That would be a nightmare.

Anyways, this is your Captain logging off and i’ll tell you more about what happens in the next week! Bye bye!!!

Captain’s Log #15: Monotony of Animation Production

Week 15 of Production. I believe it’s production stage at this point, right?

Week 15 is just the same as any other week to be honest. School work, animation keyframing, sweating and panicking over the workload, etc. This week i managed to finish the arm stretching animation that i was working on last week.

It was really weird to work on this animation because the action for this scene is a bit….unique? Not saying people don’t stretch their arms in real life, but it is hard to find an exact video of a boy stretching with the camera facing in front of him. So i had to record myself doing this action and also sometimes, i would move my arms and analyse where my arm would be or how my body would move, and draw according to that.

I then also coloured and edited more stuff for the animation and added them into the animatic, as a form of updating it. I feel like i’m working really slow, but at the same time, i also have two more assignments due on the same week two weeks from now, so i’m panicking a little bit. Oh gosh.

But judging from our teacher’s reaction, our work pace seems to be…okay? i can’t really tell to be honest.

Anyways this is your captain logging off. Have a safe flight and take care!

Captain’s Log #14: Animation Update!

Week 14 is over really quickly and as per usual, i feel that i did work but also no work at all.

This week i focused on colouring the cleanups from the previous animations i have done, animating a new shot and sending it to the cleanup artist, and also editing the new animation into the animatic! Here is the updated version of the animatic / animation!

The colouring process for the title card was a little troublesome, because during the colouring, my ToonBoom Harmony kept crashing and refused to work, and i still had the shading to complete. So i uploaded the file as a zip to the studio’s shared folder, so Dana can complete the shading in my place, while i figure out how to fix the Harmony issue.

Thankfully, i just had to download a newer version of the software and was good to go for the next cleanup. But Dana wanted to send me back the original file for that title card shot, because the frames for the boy’s skin were not in frame, apparently. I believe she accidentally shifted the frames and that caused everything to shift. I would have just worked on the original file that i uploaded, but she already completed shading for most parts of it, except for the skin, and she deleted the frames for majority of the skin. Which means i have to re-do the base colouring again *cries*

Nonetheless, i still managed to complete it in a day, thankfully, and i edited the completed title card into the animatic! So far, we are doing good but i wonder if we are able to finish the animation in time. A bit worried, not going to lie.

Anyways, this is your Captain signing out for this week. See ya!

Captain’s Log #13: START: PRODUCTION!

Week 13 marks the official start of the production! That means it’s time to start animating.

I am in charge of the character animation, basically the keyframes and in-betweening for our character – BOY. He has no name, just boy. And apart from the POC, I have already started working on the first 10 seconds of the animation.

I actually really enjoy the colouring process, not going to lie. It’s quite therapeutic, especially when I listen to podcasts, audio stories and music while colouring the animation. Thankfully, our character is not too complicated to colour and shade so that’s a win for me.

Apart from that, I also completed the colouring for the POC sequence where the colours were missing.

I am currently colouring the title card of the animation and things seem to be going fine so far. Since it is whitespace week, I am hoping to be able to finish half of the animation by the end of the week. Is it a stretch? Hmmm, maybe? But I know there are more assignments to come in the next week and I cannot handle the workload no more. Fun.

This is your Captain signing off. Good bye!

Captain’s Log #12: THE POC RUSH

Week 12 of Production. POC is due this week, and oh boy guess I’m not getting sleep.

Because Dana was working on the colour scripts for the animation for the past few weeks, she didn’t have a lot of time working on the line art of the animation, so she pretty much did it in the past week, and I had to do a bunch of colouring, with some more animations to work on. *sweats*

A lot to work on in one week and I had to rush some work to make sure that the POC looks, at the very least, decent.

So here is the POC! Hope you like it! It’s a mash with the animatic, so the film looks cohesive.

I am continuing to work on the animation for the film as a whole, so I’m starting from the first shot. Thankfully, Dana is working on the line art of the animation, because I tried doing it, and my hands are so shaky XD

Welp, see yall next week for more! Captain signing off!

Captain’s Log #11: SPEED SPEED PANIC

Week 11 of Pre-production (or is it production already?)

Over the past 2 weeks of break, I have working on animation tests for the Proof of Concept for our animation. I accidentally spent a bit too much time working on the pen drop animation, and I neglected the other animation that I was supposed to work on, because I tot it was working on the POC fully by myself, since Dana hadn’t finish her colour scripts, and Natasha was working on the environment layout.

But then I quickly whipped up some animation keyframes and in-betweens to send to Dana for outlining, so she can send them back for me to colour.

So these are some of the animation test and keyframes that I did for the POC video.

Not gonna lie, I am a bit worried about the slow work pace we have because I am not a very quick worker, so im worried that I will slow the team down, and with the team being slightly behind schedule, it is not looking too good.

*sweats* and POC is due next week too. Not a lot of time so, I gotta hurry and polish up the animation and colour too.

Captain’s Log #10: Animation Tests

Week 10 of Pre-production. It’s actually almost the end of term break, but to be honest, didn’t really felt like we had a break. Sure, the workload has halt for a moment but there are still stuff to work on. Well, for me, I had to work on animation tests for the film.

I accidentally spent too much time on 3 seconds of an animation, until my team mate told me that I didn’t need to do all those extra tasks. So I spent one week just working on one small part down below.

Me dumb dumb. But then I had to speed and draw the keyframes and in-betweens for the next few seconds which resulted in this.

Currently, the line art and clean up I left it to Dana to work on since she has a cleaner line art for her drawings and animation. I am more of a rough sketcher so for me to have clean lines is…….tough. I am gonna say tough cos I can do clean lineart but it will take 100% of my brain power, so I rather no risk it.

So for now, this is what I did over two weeks, including extra assignments that I had to work on. And currently sourcing for internships too. Hot damn, being an adult is hard.

Anyways, this is your Captain signing off. Back to school next week so, good luck to me.

Flammable and Explosive: The Unofficial MV

For Digital Post-production, I was tasked to create a music video using only stock footage / archive footage. I chose to work on one of my favourite songs – Flammable and Explosive ‘易燃易爆炸’ by Hua Chenyu 华晨宇. The song could only be 3 minutes long at max and 2 minutes at the very least.

Finding footage was a huge difficulty considering the musicality and concept behind the song. I really wanted to capture the raw emotions you can feel through the song itself, so to ensure that my music video makes sense and also adds as a visual enhancer for the song, that was hard. That was a challenge.

But through trials and tribulations, I finally managed to complete the project.

Here, I present you, Flammable and Explosive, the Unofficial MV by Xuan Lee.

I sincerely hope I can get a high grade from this, I’m really proud of it!

Captain’s Log #9: THEY SAID YES

Week 8 of Pre-production for the animation.

After countless nights of all-nighters and incessant head bangs on the table and existential crying, I finally completed the animatic. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

To be honest, I finished editing the first draft the night before the submission and I almost let out a big sigh of relief and fell back on my chair. Even if the editing was a bit shoddy, I was just glad I was done with the overall idea for the film. The next morning, right before the class, I polished up the editing, cuts and sound design for the animatic before submission. So for now, this is my magnum opus and one of the most exhausting things I have ever done. Please enjoy the animatic for 2359.

I will be working on the POC for the project so pray for my sanity and my sleep, cos im going to lose lots of it…again. Dear god, at least let me sleep in heaven thanks. This is your Captain signing off! Bye!

Captain’s Log #8: Rush Hour

Week 7 is already over! Oh my gahhhhhh

As if the week can’t get any worse, I have to redo most of my work from Week 2 till now. It’s honestly a shame. And the worst part is that the new animatic and storyboard are due this week (Week 8). AHHHHHHHH Not to mention I have two common tests this week and I have to study for both of them. Well, as of the time of writing this, I have one test left but still the pile of work to do is immense.

I am actually finished with the storyboards, which you can view below:

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The previous storyboard was actually quite different from the original, which I don’t even know how or why. HOW DID WE DERAIL FROM THE SCRIPT XDDDDDD

But I tried to follow as closely to the script as possible and implement cool shots for the animation. 6 pages seems a lot but most of the shots are quite fast, but if it can’t fit in 1 minute, I will probably have to remove some, or change it on the fly. We don’t have much time so.

I’ll continue working on the animatic and pray for the best. A lot to do today so pray for me TT This is your captain signing out, bye bye.