Short Film: Update #25 colour colour colour

Despite the dreaded insomnia continuing this week, I’ve actually been extremely productive. Because the backgrounds require more ‘thinking’ work (harder to do this kind of stuff when sleep deprived) I’ve put those to the side for the time being (I only completed one in full this week and that was on Monday) and made good strides with the colouring: something which doesn’t require quite as much brain power as creating the backgrounds.

Obviously I have been wanting to be getting on with the backgrounds, but in actual fact, seeing the Premiere timeline fill up with coloured shots (and temp backgrounds), has definitely been a moral boosting activity. It feels like the film is really shaping up nicely and has one hundred percent bolstered my confidence. I also think that once the colouring is done, the backgrounds will come easier, as this enforced distance away from them has been a positive gestation phase- I’ve already come up with some good ideas in moving forwards with them, including some more experimental stuff… All to be revealed in due course!

Think I’ll leave this post at that, as not much more else to say, apart from yay to lighter evenings thanks to the clocks changing last night! Lovely stuff. Work in progress face colour pic below, as thought it looked kind of cool! See you next time xo

Short Film: Update #24 the struggle is real

Okay, I can’t lie: this week has been bit of a rollercoaster if I’m being honest. I came back from last weekend feeling super positive about the film and made good headway on both the backgrounds and colouring of a fair amount of shots. But, after a few days of positivity (guess that’s how much my brain can handle!) I soon turned to disliking my project/ the backgrounds and considering scrapping the whole thing. Yes, it was that extreme! This was triggered by a bout of insomnia- it always affects how I feel emotionally as well as being physically tired. Oh, the joys… It was particularly bad on Thursday, so I only managed to do half a day of work, which actually was a good thing. When I’m in that kind of mind set, continuing to work is usually not the best idea, as the work I produce is never up to standard, alongside it impacting my wellbeing negatively. It’s best to do something completely different to take my mind of it- in which I did and went on a nice walk in the sunshine, followed by a couple of films at the cinema.

Friday I was feeling much more positive again, after a decent nights sleep and a good skate session, I was able to look at my project in a more rational light. I watched the film through in full and felt really pleased and proud of what I have achieved thus far and I’m excited going forwards. I just need to carry on as I am and have no more silly thoughts regarding my work- or if do, just ignore them, as they’re usually just temporary anyway.

I think when you’re working solo on something such as this, it’s easy to get in your head about certain things, because you don’t have anyone else on your team to lift you up/ bounce ideas off/ rationalise thoughts to. My boyfriend has been wonderfully helpful and supportive in that way and will often watch the project through with me to keep my somewhat self destructive thoughts in check, though I don’t want to drag him into my mental turmoil(!) every time I’m feeling ‘off’ about my project. I suppose this is where a producer or very least a mentor would be handy. I should remember this for future large scale projects…

The above probably doesn’t make for the most fun reading, but there’s little point in saying everything is going swimmingly when it’s not. There’s so much online which is just people’s highlights and I have never wanted this blog to become that. If I read back on this in a few years (or even as a reader of this blog), I’d much rather read a realistic account of making a short film and see what highs and lows one might experience. Because filmmaking is never straight forward or easy and you’re always going to run into challenges which you need to overcome, whether that be mental or logistical or anything else. I don’t want to put anyone off filmmaking by any means and I will actively encourage people to make stuff as I love when people do just that, but at the same time I’m not going to forfeit any authenticity or hide my filmmaking experience for the sake of trying to looking good online.

Ok, free therapy session aside, I will actually share some positives, because contrary to the above, the week wasn’t a total write off and I did get a lot done and stuff I’m very proud of, too! See, filmmaking really does have two sides to it! When mulling the project over in the small hours of the morning whilst not sleeping, I did actually come up with a good idea of how I’m going to render the dress in the nightclub scenes. I thought, can I make it glittery? The answer was a resounding ‘yes’:

The above is a quick test I did using After Effects, following this tutorial. It needs refining, but as a concept, it works. And I’m pretty pleased with how it looks. It’s making me consider whether I should use more textures on the clothing, so it’s not so ‘blocky’, but I’ll get to that at a later stage… I just need to focus on finishing the backgrounds and basic colour first, but it’s definitely something to think about.

And lastly, I’ll sign off with the ever developing colour swatch:

See you next time! xo

Short Film: Update #23 making background progress

After expressing my apprehensions r.e backgrounds in last weeks post, I am pleased to report I have made an excellent start on them this week! I completed backgrounds for 21 shots, so all in all a good start.

I’ve began with the easier ones, to allow me time to get used to the process and the style, plus to give me confidence going forwards. If I can see the Premiere timeline (and my spreadsheet) filling up with nice looking backgrounds, then my confidence is definitely going to be higher than if I had only completed one or two this week and struggled through them. The ones I’m qualifying as ‘harder’ now, probably won’t seem as bad after a week or so of work on this, as I’ll have a more established workflow. Plus when they are the only ones left to do, I’ll have no choice but to do them anyway!

Though a few of the ones I currently have down as ‘completed’ still need a bit of work- after having done a few, I can clearer see what goes with the style better and what doesn’t, so some definitely need revisiting. A lot of this is a continual process and I feel I might be iterating right up until I have all of them done, to enable me to get the coherent look and feel I want to achieve. I thought it was better to get something down for each shot initially to have in the timeline, so then I can have a basis to work on for each shot. If I don’t have anything down, then I won’t even have anything to improve or build on, making the process less effective. It’s kind of like writing: don’t edit as you go, get it all down on the page first, then edit. So yeah, that’s the philosophy I’m bringing into the backgrounds!

I’ve realised I’ve barely said anything positive about them (why am I so hard on myself!), but a lot of the ones I’ve done, I do actually really like. I suppose the ones I’m not so fond of are weighing on my mind more than the ones I am proud of. This is because they aren’t quite done and dusted, therefore at the forefront of my thoughts and creating anxiety/ stress, than the ones which I have essentially put to bed and do not need to think of again for the time being… I think a few days off over the weekend will settle me and allow me to take my mind off them, and come back feeling fresh to go again on Monday. I hope! That shall be the plan…

I’ll sign off with this image of the current colour swatch:

Short Film: Update #22 background designs and another clip!

Having the majority of the outlines now out the way, the past week I mostly continued my progress with designing the background styles and colour for the film. If you have been following my progress on this blog, you may remember I posted a few initial tests at the start of this year (crazy how it’s March already)! I’ll link that post HERE to jog your memory, or indeed for if you are new to my blog and in that case, a big hello and a warm welcome!

With my new designs, I refined what I had done previously, simplifying the style in terms of how many brushes I’m using (now just the one) and creating a cohesive pipeline of creating said backgrounds. They’re conceptually close to the prior ones, still using the watercolour textured background to contrast with the smooth character style, but like I said, just that little bit more honed. I also kept in mind the colour palette I’m using: which as you’ll see, it has a pastel tone to it, something I wanted to emulate with the look. I feel this would suit both the holiday and hospital sections of the film, and be impressionistic/ atmospheric enough without being too distracting, but also have enough detail so the audience knows what is going on and where the character is. I’ll add a few below:

And a little clip of a shot I ended up cutting from the film, but didn’t want to waste, so it became a test clip:

I wanted to test the backgrounds in a variety of locations and shot size, plus a mixture of whether the character is included or not, to see how the backgrounds would translate in different situations and if they all looked uniform and from the same film. I feel they do, but I definitely will need to keep a limited/ refined colour palette when creating the backgrounds. Too many colours will lose any consistency I have across the designs.

Despite being pleased with what I have created thus far and having gone through several iterations of each test shot, I’m still just sitting with them for a little while longer before going full pelt at making all the backgrounds, incase I can think of any further ways to ‘plus’ the designs. I have already had a few days away from them, to enable my eyes to view them fresher while I worked on some other background elements, and even after three days away from them, I can definitely appreciate them in new light. And a positive light at that! I actually really like them and think they all work well together. It gives me hope for my film and to be honest, I can’t wait to see how the film plays out, once all the backgrounds are in place. I do absolutely love the look of them!

But, I am going to leave doing them for real for a little longer just incase, though I’m feeling quite certain this is the way forward. In honestly, I think I might be procrastinating a little, too. I’ll admit backgrounds is where I’m least confident in, because I have never had any formal training in animation or illustration, so somehow feel like I am searching for an illusive source of validation, or someone ‘more qualified’ than myself is going to give me some magic ‘go ahead’ to press on with the backgrounds. I feel like what if [my backgrounds] are all just ‘bad’ and that no one is going to like the film because the backgrounds look rubbish or something. But in writing this down, I can see that my thinking here is nonsense. I watch 100s of animated shorts and I basically live and breathe (pardon the cliche) filmmaking/ animation/ art and have seen such a variety of different background styles. Plus I’ve created animation stuff for years and then non-moving art stuff for years before that, so surely I’m qualified myself to decide if I think the backgrounds are right for my film?! You would think so, wouldn’t you… It would be nice if I could stop having such a low opinion of myself and everything I create. Any tips for this, let me know!! Hopefully on next weeks post, I can say that I’ve made a positive start with the backgrounds- fingers crossed!