Week 3 (week beginning 25/07)

Week 3 began like any other; with a Sunday, even though Sunday really feels like the last day of the previous week. But on the second day of the week, Monday, which feels like, and in reality is treated like the first day, I went to school.

Week 3 was about continuing and consolidating the intro to the piece. As a result I continued tinkering with the timing of the sequence. This was made much easier now that I had the skills to play the sound and images at the same time, oh what an age we live in!

I worked up a composition using the storyboard image for the 'new stage of human evolution' section. In this I have the Darwinin model of the 'ape' through to Homo Sapien sliding into screen as the camera pulls back. Was happy with the final result.

I also worked on the finished background for the opening panel 'the gay gene has been found'. As usual I am not at all happy with the quality of my artwork, but it will have to do for now, I think I'll get better as I go.

Getting to this stage has however highlighted a few areas that I knew I was not 100% clear on. That is the backgrounds on a few of the panels, are basically blank. I'm not sure how or if to fill these. Given my milestone for week 5 is to have all these completed I will have to decide soon. It is not a big headache, just a design issue on how to make blank backgrounds remain interesting, and endure I'm not repeating, or making them different for the sake of it.

I'm also still not 100% on how to move into the panels and from one to the next. I don't want to move around a comic page as if we are reading a comic book, but I would like to start the piece as zooming into a comic book. But from there I think I want to just move from shot to shot ignoring the comic book presence. However I also do kind of like the idea of moving within space to the panels in a fashion similar to the opening sequence of Spider-Man 3.

Finally I need the music trimmed and edited to fit the timing of intro. It fortunately is fairly close but needs a few tweaks here and there. But week 5 milestone is looking achievable and appropriate. Famous last words.

Week 2 (for week beginning 18/07)

So was late on week 2, but what else is new with me? I'm still going to list it separately however to aid in comprehension and digestion. Please wait half an hour after reading before swimming.

Week 2 began with getting the dialogue recording to be used in the construction of the edit for the intro. I had already recorded a 'rough' version of Hermaphroditie during the semester break. So what was recorded was the narrator and Velvet Fist. They are both still a little rough, but they are more than sufficient for their purposes at the moment.

The narration was then added with the music to an AFX file along with the storyboards to become a kind of anamatic. This will become the finished piece with all the rough elements replaced by finished pieces. This way the timing will already be done, just each element can be added as it becomes available.

I had trouble initially with this as I could not get the sound and images to pay simultaneously. Getting timing correct without them playing at the same time is nigh impossible. Jack was able to however point me in the right direction... or at the right button and this problem was alleviated. Phew.

Semester 2: Week 1

Belated post for last week: -

1st week back! No where near enough work done over the holidays but what else is new? I was comfortable with where I was going, but was putting off drawing as it is such a struggle to get on the page what is in my head procrastination has become a constant companion.

I did however manage to re-order my file structure, which was over 2 hours of work. Whilst this in itself was a for of procrastination, it did help set out a work flow of what was needed, and where all the elements were (or would be) in relation to eachother.

I also got a rough record of Hermaphroditie's dialogue, and a 2nd version of the music. more recording would have been done but equipment is not lent out to current students during the semester break, which is incredibly counter productive.

I am however, for the first time in the course feeling comfortable with, and even excited about using the software for creating my piece in this case After Effects. I have watched a couple of simple tutorials online, and will make this part of my homework to watch at least one every night so as to become more comfortable with the program and perhaps get more ideas for how to put my piece together.