Voiceover talent on board!

I finalized an agreement with a kick ass voiceover guy tonight. He was very generous on the agreement, mostly due to the fact that he's a huge Israel fan (even been to a couple concerts of his when he was alive). I'm extremely excited, because the voice is exactly what I was looking for. He's a veteran professional, and his talent really brings this short to another level. I couldn't be happier. I'll post more details in a bit. Im just excited and wanted to share that. =)

Some Useful freeware

Two particular pieces of software that have saved my life during this project happen to be free. The first, Renamer is a simple program that does...you guessed it, renames stuff. When Your dealing with 36,000 + images, you'll find yourself needing to rename many things in bulk. This program is a little tricky at first, but it rocks once you get the hang of it.
The second, Audacity. Audacity is another free program that is used for editing audio. To program is extremely easy to pick up, even for those that have never edited music. It has some very useful features, including a ton of filters. And, of course, its free. Can't beat that.
I highly reccomend any digital film maker to grab these.
And no, I didn't get paid to put these here. I did it for free. heyooooo

-eric

Title...........maybe =)

Here's the current title screen. Im still not sure if I like this one or "IZ - Spreading the Aloha".
Either way, i'm pretty sure it will start with IZ.
Things are going great. Im about 95% done with all the compositing. I've started editing. Most of the Sound Effects are done.
I've also been tweaking the writing (narration) to sound more Hawaiian.
I've contacted a kick ass voice over guy, and I think he's on board for the project. Keeping my fingers crossed, as this guy would really take my film to another level.
Depending on when I get the narration, im pretty sure this thing will be done by Sep. 10th. Then, its off to the festival's. Starting with Sundance (which is obviously a long shot, but worth a try imho).
Wether or not this thing does well in the festival's, im still very happy and proud of the final product. This was my first film, and i think I did a pretty good job. Especially considering the manpower (1) and the speed (3 months!!!). Just to put it in perspective, most 5 minute animated short films take about 1 yr to make with a team of 4-6 people working on it. With the exception of some of the animation quality, I think my film holds up very well to these other shorts.
Ok, enough talk about how amazing I am. lol. Im really not, im just proud =)
Enjoy..
eric

Small clip

Getting closer!

Thats a huge batch!

Bah, organization is starting to catch up with me. Err, bad organization that is.
Right now, as I'm rendering my final scene, the total amount of total rendered space is nearing 75 gigs. That is a LOT of rendered images. Thank god for my new external harddrive.
You figure, for each second of film for this short, I have 4 passes (sometimes 5). Each second is 30 frames (30 pictures). 30 times 4 is 120. So, for each second we're looking at 120 pictures. Considering there will be around 300 seconds of film. That's a lot of images to keep organized.
And it has turned out to be quite a pain. 36,000 +
Ive spent that past couple days fixing little problems.
I've also completed about 50% of the compositing. Once that is done, I'm going to create the opening title, add the audio, and possibly put together a little teaser/trailer.

Random shot

Random greyscale shot of the beach and grown up Iz.

What should the name be?

I started working on the opening title of the film and realized I still havn't really land on a name for the film yet. Anyone have any suggestions?
So far im thinking......"Aloha and Aloha", "Aloha Bruddah Iz", "Bruddah Iz", "Iz"

Help!


Thanks,
Eric

Score

I made a pretty good choice last night. You know, Ive been putting my blood, sweat, and tears into this thing for a couple months now, and im still not really sure what the final product will be like. I guess you never really do when you make something like this. So, last night I decided to take a couple hours and put together a rough draft version of the film. I guess you could call it a souped up animatic. Complete with narration and music.
After viewing it about 100 times, I have to say, I dont think Ive ever been more proud of any achievement in my life. Any animator will tell you, putting a short film together is no easy task. With or without a team.
Im happy to say that with a few more weeks of hard work, I will have a good little short film that I can be proud of.

As of right now.....................

Modeling - done
Rigging - done
Texturing - done
Lighting - done
Animating - 95% done (just one scene left. Wahooooo)
Rendered - 80% of the film (my 2 computers have been rendering around the clock for the past 3 weeks. 24 hours a day. Its a pain, but the end result is worth it.)

Compositing - 10% (This should go quick. Ive landed on a look that I want)

Audio - 0% (I found a professional voiceover actor that has the perfect voice for this, but I havn't approached him just yet. I plan on recording one of my own original songs to play throughout the film. Basically just some slow accoustic guitar. And , of course Israel's version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow)

Editing - 0% This should only take a couple hours when I get to this point. The first run through for my roughdraft version was very quick.

Its looking like the film will be around 4 and a half minutes long when all is said and done.

So there ya go. I get some new stuff up soon. Hopefully a teaser/trailer.

Peace out,
Eric

New pic of the beach scene

Im getting super excited. It looks like I will be completely finished with animation this coming weekend. Renders should be done within 2 week. Leaving a good bit of time for me to finish everything else up (compositing, sound, etc.) by Sep. 20th.

Sleep

Still tweaking the look. Here's a shot of boy Iz sleeping.

Show and tell

So, here I am, just 2 months into production and Im already over the 3 minute mark. Thats 3 minutes of completely finished film, excluding editing of course. Its looking more and more likely that I will hit the finish date of Sep. 20th, which would be rad. Here are some new pics. and a short animation from the film. Keep in mind, the final look will be a bit different, and this particular shot is a little too dark. Anyway, enjoy!

Edit: Ack, just checked out the clip after I uploaded it and now its even darker. Sorry about that. I'll get a new one up soon.