Zoidoid's Adfest Entry

[Zoidoid]

=7.31.07=
Done! Hooray! Good luck to everyone participating, and congratulations to everyone who pulled together an entry!

=7.24.07=
Rotoscoping by hand isn't much fun, as it turns out.

=7.18.07=
Small teaser effect for the short. This is not finalized, of course, and is subject to change. In fact, the graphics have been altered from the version that will appear in the commercial due to spoilers. This is my first time compositing an effect. This was accomplished primarily using After Effects. Unfortunately, the video looks highly compressed and not nearly as sharp as this screenshot which I grabbed from After Effects (using Print Screen). Any tips on how to create a really nice and sharp small render?

Click the image to see the footage...

http://www.bonesrattle.com/tageslich...ck_dvxuser.mov

=7.17.07=
We did end up shooting this past weekend. I havent had a lot of time to sit down with the footage and do any serious work with it yet, but my overall impression is that it went pretty well! Still, I won't rest easy until it's finished. There are quite a few tricky bits that still need to be tackled. Here's a screengrab from the work-in-progress. I'll slowly post more non-spoiler stuff as the deadline approaches.



=6.27.07=
I've been spending most of my time working on the storyboards and shot list. There's a lot of information that needs to be fit into a thirty-second spot, so every shot has to count. There are at least three major effects shots. I say "major," but I imagine they're only major to someone who is as utterly new to this as I am.

Last night, I worked up a test of the most important effect and decided that it looked good enough to confidently say that the concept for the short is viable. I would post a screen shot, but it would give absolutely everything away, of course.

Some music has been written and recorded for the short. At this point in time, it's just a piano piece -- something to keep in mind while planning out the rest of the short to make sure that the two coincide well. Eventually, the piano piece will be given a proper recording in a friend's home studio.


=6.21.07=
I wanted to create a thread here to declare my intention on participating in AdFest. The more I tell other people about it, the more I'll be motivated to do it. If I don't produce anything, then this will be the perfect spot for everyone to properly deride me.

Updates forthcoming, of course, but who knows when!

Oh! I forgot to mention that the short will feature big bright red balloons, which I think is exciting.

[Larry Rutledge]

[Brandon Rice]

99 Red balloons?

[Zoidoid]

99 Red balloons?

Well, that was the idea. I just spoke to the producer and he said that ninety-nine red balloons is outside our budget. We're cutting back to .99 balloons and hoping that, with the help of computers, it won't diminish the impact.

[Barry_S]

Welcome to AdFest, Z. With a team of animators and $10,000 in matchmoving software you should be able to knock that $50 of balloons down to $2 (lead balloon + understudy). You might also want to consider balloon rental.

[gabrielflorit]

are you going to feature a singer-songwriter from sweden/argentina doing a kylie minogue cover? is kinetica a tv???

[Zoidoid]

First post updated with progress! Reading over it, I sound like I'm making an awfully big deal out of what is objectively a pretty small project. Still, when you're as inexperienced as I am everything looks like a big project.

[cinealma]

First post updated with progress! Reading over it, I sound like I'm making an awfully big deal out of what is objectively a pretty small project. Still, when you're as inexperienced as I am everything looks like a big project.

Believe me, you're not. I'm stsoryboarding the s*%t out of mine and trying to figure out how I'm going to make ONLY 30 seconds. Hang in there.

[TowerFan]

Good luck Zoidoid! I'm glad there are a few noobs to the fest like myself. This is a great one to cut my teeth on and I can't wait to see all the entries. Keep on shootin'!!!

[Zoidoid]

Filming tomorrow! I would be completely excited, only I'm quite unprepared. So I'm half excited and half nervous. I'm going to be running around like mad after work today trying to get things prepared. There are still two or three effects shots that are only theoretically possible at this point. I'm hoping to run some quick tests this evening to make sure they're feasible. Wish me luck.