Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Friday, July 01, 2011
Tips for Smashing Storyboards
Well I've had a week of boarding and making animatics for a couple of projects at TANDEM, so it MIGHT be a busy July.
I've evolved a bit of a workflow here that helps me get storyboards and animatics together quickly and without too much fuss. Here's a brief description of my storyboard method...
1:
I always start with really rough thumbnail drawings. It's better to work quickly, explore lots of ideas for different shots etc. and not get hung-up on making beautiful drawings. I usually draw the panels in biro, often working in my fave A5 size notebook: fitting eight of these drawings to a page. So the drawings are usually around 7 x 5 cm in size. I fill pages with these drawings until I've worked through the whole script and planned all of the shots and moves etc.
2:
I then scan these in and save the pages as big jpeg images.
3:
I open the jpegs in Photoshop, then sometimes clean them up a bit or add some shading or colour if need be. (see example illustration above)
4:
Next, I keep the images open in Photoshop but also launch Open Office Writer simultaneously. (Writer is a great free Word Processing application and I've already set up a template that fits 6 story panels to each page.) Using the Photoshop rectangle tool set to 'fixed ratio - 16x9' I select each panel from the large jpeg image and use keyboard short cuts to copy these and paste them straight into the Writer storyboard page.
5: In Writer, I then dupliclate/edit panels, type in all of the text below the panels etc. When this is done, I export the multi-page storyboards as a single .pdf file. Job done.
Here's a storyboard page I made for the 'Little Hands Clapping Film'
And here's (a more colourful one) I made for the 'Our Tragic Universe Film'
I hope to update this post soon with some more details (including animatics) and further examples etc. Hope this is useful to someone out there, please feel free to comment...
Monday, June 20, 2011
Technicolor Cinestyle for Canon DSLRs
I was out shooting some tests with the new Canon 600D DSLR camera this weekend. I'm pitching on a project with an idea to use both the stills and HD movies functions of this camera combined.
I shot the movie tests using the recently-announced Technicolor CineStyle colour profile.
CineStyle is available as a free download for the Canon DSLR users. You install the software to your camera using the Canon Photo Professional software as one of your preference profiles, then shoot your movies using this setting. The results are dull-looking and initially unimpressive; but the theory is that with this setting, there will be much-increased dynamic range retained in the images. The idea here is to shoot the best most versatile footage, then use the increased range to grade it later in post to achieve the desired look.
Here's one of my early test shots. This clip shows (with lots of YouTube compression of course) a clip shot with the Technicolor CineStyle profile... dull and grey looking. The clip was then brought into Adobe After Effects CS3 for some saturation and curves.
Initial tests are positive, I'll hopefully be able to post some further examples and more findings here soon. I've only had this camera since Friday, but I'm hugely impressed with what it can do already.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Top Secret Test
This is a test movie I made and uploaded to YouTube. It's private though, so you can't see it!
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
TXT ISLAND on Best of Animation 5 DVD
Well I had a nice birthday surprise yesterday. A big cardboard box couriered to my house with 20 copies of the new 'Best of Animation 5' DVD inside. The compilation is put together by the good people of the Stuttgart animation festival and includes their pick of ten films from the 2010 edition. There are many fine short films to be seen here and TXT ISLAND too! It's a genuine honour to have my bit of work included on this, many thanks again to Andrea and her team in Stuttgart.
Here's the DVD running order, a most international selection of world-class shorts...
'A Family Portrait' dir. Joseph Pierce
'Horn Dog' dir. Bill Plympton
'La dama y la muerte' dir. Javier Recio Gracia
'Logorama' dir. Francois Alaux, Hervé de Crécy, Ludovic Houplain
'Love & Theft' dir. Andreas Hykade
'Prayers for Peace' dir. Dustin Grella
'Runaway' dir.Cordell Barker
'Sam’s Hot Dogs' dir. David López Retamero
'TXT Island' dir. Chris Gavin
'YELLOW CAKE' dir. Nick Cross
Monday, May 30, 2011
World's Most Awesomest Police Video (animation)
Well, I've been known to stay up late watching whatever captivating nonsense appears on our Freeview channels. I've noticed a whole genre of police chase action videos. The US ones are especially intriguing, blending a thrill-seeking voyeurism with a moralistic 'crime never pays' narrative. I'm really quite attracted to this idea of TV trying to have its cake and eat it too. Here's my little pastiche/tribute to the genre.
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Little Flash Test Thing
Well I snatched a little moment at the end of this royal wedding bank holiday weekend to do a bit of my thing. I genuinely don't know what this is all about, but I sat down with Flash and here's what popped out...
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Our Tragic Universe
Here's the latest short film I have just made for Canongate Books. This movie will be used to promote 'Our Tragic Universe' the new novel by Scarlett Thomas.
Labels:
animation,
book trailers,
canongate,
films,
our tragic universe,
promos
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Motion Control Rotations
A couple of the many rotating objects I've been shooting for my latest CanonGate Books short film. As described in the earlier post, I'm using a geared down stepper motor which can be controlled from my PC (using a Stepper Bee motor controller card).
My initial plan was to shoot these all these rotations as stop motion, but with motor control and the Canon 550D's HD video recording, I was presented with the opportunity to shoot these as continuous live-action. I set the motor to do just over a full rotation at quite a slow speed, knowing that I'd be able to edit and time remap the footage later... This simple rig works pretty well; super-smooth results and a bunch of time saved.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Russians On The Moon
I just love this picture I 'found' on the BBC website. It was Yuri Gagarin Day yesterday, so the BBC website ran an article about what could have been if The Americans hadn't made it to the moon first. I really like how this illustration paints a whole alternate universe, plus it's got that Sci-Fi comic look I'm quite partial to. I'd like to see more of this, but the BBC don't seem to have credited the image. I'd welcome any links to where I can see more of this kind of thing...
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Adventures in DIY: Motion Control Rig
For the next stop motion short film I'm currently making for Canongate Books, I found that I needed to shoot accurate rotations of many small three dimensional objects. This seemed like a good application for the geared stepper motor and Stepper Bee controller board that I've had lying around since my long-abandoned DIY film scanning project.
I dug the bits out, rigged up a small stand to hold a bearing and (after a bit of fiddling about with O-rings) the stepper motor drives an 8mm threaded shaft that I can attach my objects to. The stepper motor already enables pretty fine control (it's rate at 1.8 degrees per step) but with the gearing still attached, it actually takes around 700 steps to perform a full rotation.
The AutoStep software that comes with the Stepper Bee card is pretty basic but allows me to set the number of steps and duration of each step.
It all works a treat, I can shoot the rotating objects in single steps (for stop motion shooting) or allow the motor to run continuously at a controlled speed (for live action shooting).
Technically this IS motion control, albeit a simplified single motor rotation-only motion control.
Here's the rig...
I dug the bits out, rigged up a small stand to hold a bearing and (after a bit of fiddling about with O-rings) the stepper motor drives an 8mm threaded shaft that I can attach my objects to. The stepper motor already enables pretty fine control (it's rate at 1.8 degrees per step) but with the gearing still attached, it actually takes around 700 steps to perform a full rotation.
The AutoStep software that comes with the Stepper Bee card is pretty basic but allows me to set the number of steps and duration of each step.
It all works a treat, I can shoot the rotating objects in single steps (for stop motion shooting) or allow the motor to run continuously at a controlled speed (for live action shooting).
Technically this IS motion control, albeit a simplified single motor rotation-only motion control.
Here's the rig...
DIY Motion Control Rig: Stepper motor drives gears then an o-ring drives 8mm threaded shaft. Note the Stepper Bee card with DC power cable and USB cable to host PC. |
Friday, March 11, 2011
Some Little Hands Clapping Models
Here's a little 'behind the scenes' look at some of the paper / card models I made for the 'Little Hands Clapping' film. The visual idea was to make all of the elements appear to be made from the text of the book itself.
Labels:
artwork,
book trailers,
canongate,
DIY,
little hands clapping
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Little Hands Clapping
For the last 3 weeks, I've mostly been making this. It's a one minute short film which will be used by publisher Canongate Books to help promote the paperback release of 'Little Hands Clapping' the latest novel from author Dan Rhodes.
I'll possibly blog a little more information about how this was made shortly...
Labels:
animation,
book trailers,
canongate,
films,
little hands clapping,
promos
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Home Studio
Here's a little glimpse into my home studio set-up for some small scale stop-motion animation work. I'm using the Canon 550d here with Stop Motion Pro; finally a good live view-capable system is in my grasp :) This shoot is lots of quite simple things, small models made from paper etc.
I bought a couple of laboratory-style retort stands yesterday. These have a certain nerd-appeal but are also damn handy as desktop stands, small and versatile and ideal for this mini stop-mo work.
Maybe I'll post a bit more about this work once it's done.
I bought a couple of laboratory-style retort stands yesterday. These have a certain nerd-appeal but are also damn handy as desktop stands, small and versatile and ideal for this mini stop-mo work.
Maybe I'll post a bit more about this work once it's done.
Friday, January 07, 2011
Stuttgart 10
Back in May 2010, I was invited to Germany by the organisers of the Stuttgart Animation Festival. TXT ISLAND showed there in the International Competition programme. I was in Stuttgart for three days; here's a little montage of touristy clips. I've only just got around to putting this together over the Christmas break.
I'd just discovered that Sam's little Panasonic Lumix FX150 camera could shoot HD video (1280x720 @24fps) at this point , so I was shooting everything in 'movie mode'.
Stuttgart 10 : shortfilm by chrisgavin from Chris Gavin on Vimeo.
I'd just discovered that Sam's little Panasonic Lumix FX150 camera could shoot HD video (1280x720 @24fps) at this point , so I was shooting everything in 'movie mode'.
Stuttgart 10 : shortfilm by chrisgavin from Chris Gavin on Vimeo.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
La Nuova Sardegna (Again)
There also isn't much else happening on the island on the 19th of September 2010, So La Nuova Sardegna again run with the Chris Gavin story :) Thanks to Nicolò Ceccarelli
for sending the clipping.
for sending the clipping.
La Nuova Sardegna (Again)
The 18th September 2010 is a slow news day in Sardinia, so La Nuova Sardegna runs with Chris Gavin's visit to the AniMatti summer school. Thanks to Nicolò Ceccarelli for sending the clipping.
Monday, September 13, 2010
And in La Nuova Sardegna ...
for sending the clipping.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Lanzarote Holiday Photos
El Golfo on the West coast, now a string of fish restaurants where the lava once met the sea. |
There are a lotta cacti on this island. This specimen is to be found in the garden of the Fundación César Manrique; it's as big as a tree. The gallery was once Manrique's house, it's a modern building with rooms below hewn from 'bubbles' in the solidified lava: it's very impressive. |
I liked this wrecked cargo ship so much, I came twice to take photos. The first time, a pesky hound was not keen to have me mooching about on its patch. |
Sunset over Costa Teguise, our home from home for the week. |