Short Post, Big News

Albeit a quickie of a post, I have great news:

Caravan is officially 50% into its rough animation!

*Insert all manner of happy dances here!*

Hope everybody's Turkey Days were good ones!

Cheers,
♥Mel

Shot 034 completed background

Took my sweet time on this today, as I needed something that would really let me decompress a bit before finals get here. Really enjoyed coloring this layout as a whole. From here on out, I'll probably be bouncing all over the film in terms of which backgrounds I color. Hmm... I wonder which I'll do next.

Cheers,
-Mel

Shot 033 Background Finished

Just a quick update to show the fourth background, this time, shot 033 to go along with 030-032 I posted just the other day, completed yesterday evening. It's also of note that I have only two character placement layouts left to do, and it's back to rough animation! (This past week, I took a short while away from animation to created character layouts for all of the film that hadn't yet been addressed in rough. This will make progressing onward with the film's animation much more organized.)

Special thanks to Kat for doing the flats on this one!

EDIT: Character shot layouts for the 2\3rds of the film awaiting rough animation re now complete. I'll be picking up animation again tomorrow! :)

More again soon,
Mel

Inspiration: Larry Live

I mentioned a while back that one mister Larry Larson and his lovely guitar were kind enough to agree to helping me create the music score for Caravan. As well as being an inspiration as a professor and a great guy as a whole, Larry is an absolutely wonderful musician - I enjoy his music immensely, and he was the first person I thought of when considering how to go about creating a sort of bluegrass Celtic inspired sound to the film. I'm so looking forward to January, when I reach the point that we can record the tracks!

This evening, my roommates, other half and I visited the Gaelic League to see Larry play live. It was a wonderful time, and Larry was even kind enough to play Edmund Fitzgerald for me - a track of who's guitar/harmonica instrumental sections are set to comprise the last 30 seconds or so of the Caravan film: Inspired the film's ending montage, at that.

A brief clip of Larry playing one of the many great tunes from his CD "One Twelve String Guitar"

Mia's reaction to the whole lovely evening.

Doodles! Patrick and I had fun sharing a sketchbook page - including my various doodles of Mia, Kelsey, Stu Bogey, Hoobler, myself, and my other half, Niles. Pat drew... three questionable fellows, two of which were himself.

Niles did a quick, adorable little doodle of Hoobler. Had to share!

And one last image for the road - thanks for a great show, Larry!

Cheers,
♥Mel

Mia Pat-ronizied

My awesome buddy and roommate Patrick drew Mia with his adorable little Emilio, the star of his Senior Thesis film "My Dad The Giant". Patrick starts animating soon - very exciting! It'll be awesome to have a partner in crime on these long sleepless animation-o-thons! You can check out more on Pat's film at his My Dad The Giant production blog.

Cheers,
Mel

First Completed Backgrounds!

Well, I managed to complete color renders on three backgrounds in downtime during one four-hour work shift today: A good sign for productivity on these to come! Here's my first three fully completed backgrounds for Caravan The top of of which has flat colors was posted here, for the curious)

Shots 031, 031 &032

I've mentioned previously my affinity for musical inspiration throughout the creative process. Two days ago, I discovered yet another lovely track from the August Rush soundtrack (Never seen the film, hence the delayed discovery) that has so many textural similarities to how I want Caravan to feel visually, it, frankly makes me rather giddy. So, I had to share.

• Dueling Guitars from the August Rush Soundtrack
  

More again soon,
Mel

Smoke and Fire, First Pass

Earlier this month, Niles utilized one of my flat-color backgrounds to begin testing smoke and fire effects for some of the various campfires throughout Caravan. He is creating and animating the effects from scratch in Adobe After Effects. Below is the first pass of said effects - I apologize for the video compression, blogger ate what was once a rather sharp image. I will try to figure out how to get a better quality upload soon.

Fire and Smoke First Pass


-Mel

Background Layouts in Flat Color

A couple more background layouts in the flat stage of color.

Nightfall at the Kavenaugh Camp Site

Off the Porch, up the Talberts' Front Walkway

Inside the Talbert Home

Inside the Kavenaughs' RV

Cheers,
Mel

Mia At Peace

I'm working on character layouts at the moment - here's a particularly cute one from today. One of the last shots of the film, Mia finally finds her peace.

-Mel

Mighty Miss Mia: Rough Pencil Tests

Hi everyone!

It's been a little quiet here, I know, but for good reason: I now have all of my background layouts for Caravan (All 65!) in flat color. 1/3 of the film is also rough animated. As of the moment, I'm working on rough animation and character layouts for the remaining 2/3rds of the film, as well as shading/texturing the flat-colored backgrounds. The production is moving right along!

Below are a couple of first-pass rough animation tests of little Mia Talbert.

Shot005

Mia, catching sight of something in her peripherals along her path to school is startled, before her curiosity peaks.

Shot006

Mia skitters up the path to try and catch up with the curious anomaly. (limited rough animation)

Shot017

Albeit still backed up against her tree, Mia realizes her predicament isn't nearly as precarious as it had initially seemed.

As per always, you can keep up with my progress on the film at these links:

• The Caravan Backgrounds To-Do List
• The Caravan Shot To-Do List

More again soon,
-Mel

Gypsy Camp Environment Background

The establishing shot of the Kavenaugh's back-woods encampment is undoubtedly one of the most important - and busy! - pan shots in the film. It is the shot that most clearly defines the humble, well-lived and well-loved campsite, as well as establishing the film's 1970's time period in terms of aesthetics. Here are both the lineart and initial flat colors t the background of that shot. At this point, I've all of my background layouts drawn, over half flat colored, apart from being a quarter of the way into rough animation. Caravan is certainly coming along! More again soon.

-Mel