Final film is up! It took around 350 hours to create. I don’t know what to think of it. I’m certainly proud of all the hard work I did for it. I had a tremendous group of friends, family and an incredible wife which helped me through what was a very tough slog. Forget the animation side of things for a second, that was one of the most enlightening parts of the whole experience.
As for the film….I think I need a little time to decompress to view it very objectively. I had a huge amount of direction and help from my two Animation Mentors: Sean Sexton and Elliot Bour. Really amazing animators/directors and kind people, so whatever success this film brings me, it’ll be in large part because of their passion and tremendous direction.
I certainly learned a ton making it, even if all that learning didn’t make it in, I’m a much stronger animator than when I started. I’d say the most difficult aspect of making it was trying to keep the tension high, and the audience involved…all without dialogue. Wow…dialogue is your friend, you can get away with murder if the dialogue is awesome, and very very little if you don’t have any at all! I think I think I was relatively successful, though battled between letting a character ‘breathe’ for a second vs keeping the cuts tight.
Learned a lot of about posing as well. I think I set myself up for a pretty tough time with all the props, and environment interactions. There are some weak poses throughout, but I kept things feeling ‘heavy’ for the most part. Something to work on at any rate.
Please let me know if you liked it, or didn’t like it. bkinley@gmail.com
