breakthrough

eertffetg

ignition2

ignition

departuretime

so, bread is being marked and has already been shown at a few places, but will be premiering officially at the riverfront, newport on 22nd june 2007. for now, check out departure time, my new music project. www.myspace.com/departuretime

8 Days to Go

8 Days to go:

Today, I brought in my backed-up DVDs of old footage (especially, the first few animatics) and coded the buttons for the DVD. It's quite a packed little DVD, with an outrageous amount of special features. It's taking a while right now to transcode it (optmization prior to burning) but I'm confident I can get most of the DVDs burned today.

As well as all 7 animatics, the DVD also includes: 12 pencil tests, 3 scene deconstructions (showing step by step how they changed), deleted scenes and a short film about trolleys.

This is all part of the Production Folder which will be finished next week, and my showreel will also be burned today if possible.

~breadmaker

9 Days to Go

9 Days to Go...

See above, the last shot to be animated for Bread - Toast rack guy 2!
He took a little while, as I was going to boast how many keyframes required to animate him - but then it turned out he had waaaaay too many, so I cut them down and now he looks much better! Much more subtle.

I went through the credits, including the shiny University logo template, and added it to the end of the film with some extra editing.
Last night, I wrote and recorded the 'End Theme' to Bread - plus some addition music for the DVD. This was also added to the film.

I spent another 30 mins editing sound for the sandwich being picked up: as the editor, Derek said it was required. Thing was though, my minidisc was on charge, so it excreted this horrible buzzing noise over my SFX, so i spent a long time trying to get rid of it. I shortened it and shortened it, before nearly giving up. Then, I did the exact opposite - and illongated the track, so I could fade in/fade out while the voices are playing, so it's actually there for longer, but less noticeable!

Only in Animation! :o)

Still, all of this work, plus some more de-interlacing means that...
THE FILM IS FINISHED!!!!!
100% DONE!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

So, to celebrate, I worked on the DVD layouts and clips, editing some stuff together and will hopefully complete that AND my new showreel by tomorrow, so that on Friday I can buy Final fantasy III DS and play that all day...!

YEAH TOAST!
~breadmaker

THE FILM IS FINISHED!

Trolleys

Here's the trolley picture I promised earlier too! :o)

The Video still won't upload onto YouTube, so you'll just have to wait until the film!
~breadmaker

10 Days to Go

10 days to Go...

Today, (Tuesday) I animated all 177 frames of the Toast rack guy on paper. Then, I traced it digitally and got it into After FX. This took a little longer than expected, as I'd forgotten most of my processes and the little things that kept everything running smoothly during the animation previously. Oh well.

Still, I got the first scene done, but it looks like he is lunging towards the end, because of a slight shift in his weight. I'm not sure whether I like it or not - but against the static Toaster that sandwiches the shot, it will always look like too much movement - and especially because he has had my temp voice and no movement which I have become accustomed to.

Tomorrow - the goal is to complete the film...

~breadmaker

11 Days to Go

Ok - The Countdown has begun!

The deadline is nearing, and my goal is to have the film completed by Friday!
Last Friday night, I recorded my friend and bandmate, Steve Jones, for the part of Toast Rack Guy. We recorded it in the computer suite in our Church's conference centre, upstairs in the dark (purely because we couldn't find any lightswitches).

I have taken this today and re-mixed the soundtrack, choosing the best takes, slotting it into the timeline and re-timed the shots. I then doped both shots featuring him, and this makes a total of just over 10 seconds to animate. I prepped the paper, (guillotened and punched) and have set everything up so I can animate everything tomorrow. By Wednesday, I hope to have it all digital traced and animated in After FX.

Meanwhile, I will continue to build up my production folder. So, the wait might finally be over and a finished film could be ready within days! I am very excited - and always pleased to be actually animating again. It feels like when you make a film, very little of it is the actual animation...

Over and out.
~breadmaker

Editing

Aloha!

Well, today's been cool - let me tell you about it:

I got in today to find out the editor guy, Derek would be here. I wasn't going to see him as I thought my film was quite tight, but when I asked James for his opinion on the new trolley sequence, he referred me to Derek.

He's a really nice guy, enjoyed and laughed at the film (in the intended way, not durogatory) and gave me some tips.

> 1st scene, pull out Andrew's audio a little
> Bread Title - maybe put over a supermarket bkg. Not important, but may be nice.
> Fred - centralise and zoom in tighter [COMPLETED].
> Sandwhiches - Add SFX for picking up the bag
> Trolleys - Fine, nice space.
> Toaster - add a beat after first scene [COMPLETED].

As you can see, I've already completed a couple, two were just comments and the other two are just sound-remixing issues. Easily done.

So, the trolley scene is completed, rendered and implemented; it wasn't hard picking the right length and shot, I batch produced the frames through Photoshop, and even made a short 2-min Easter Egg for the DVD, documenting the trolleys. :o) YOUTUBE doesn't want to uplaod it today, but if I can get it to work I will post it here.

Hopefully going to get the Toast rack guy's new voice this weekend. Let's put an end to this delay!

~breadmaker.

Checklist April

Aloha!

Hope you ahd a great easter - Africa was truly amazing - God did some fantastic miracles and we saw hundreds of lives changed, with hope and faith for their futures!

But, it's back to Bread. Yesterday I filmed trolleys around Tesco's on Cardiff Road and will try to get them implemented as a beat near the end - in the style of 'The Office'. Mike Bithell showed me a couple of episodes so i was able to realise what was required.

Here's my list of things to do in the next 3 weeks:

TITLES:
New Voices
End

RE-EDIT TOASTER:
New Bkg
Edit
Time

RE-RECORD TOAST RACK GUY:
Record
Edit
Dope
Animate
Digital Trace
Implement

TROLLEYS
Transfer
Timeline
Export Frames
Render
Replace
Sound Mix

EYES?

FINISH PRODUCTION FOLDER:
Complete Schedule Weekly
Evaluation
Production Stills
Festival Entry Form
BackUp All files onto DVDs

...so it's not really that much. Most jobs are small and easily done.
Stay Tuned.

~breadmaker

Post First-Cut

Aloha!

Well, the first cut crit seemed to go ok. It was almost empty though.

The comments made were alright too - the main criticisms were the unfinished parts that I knew of, and the only thing that really stuck out was they asked for some negative space inbetween a shot near the end - just of nothing.

I didn't really get it at first, but at my week-early-suprise-birthday-party last night, Mike put on The Office to show me what they meant. I think I get it now, but just need to find the right action or object to compliment the end of the film.

I haven't changed anything else more right now, as I am trying to get everything ready for my mission trip on Monday, (this time next week I will be in Zambia, leading people to God, and being led by God) and so I maight be able to think and shoot some stuff by the end of the week, but it is unlikely.

There's time when i get back to finish everything off though...so I'm sure I'll be ok. Production folder is nearly done too. :o) There was an unfair comment at the end, where the tutors said "if this was a real production, nobody got paid" - which is quite off since a few of us have worked so hard and so long on these films...

but I'm not going to let it bring me down!

~breadmaker

First Cut Hand In Day

Aloha!

Well, today is First Cut Hand In Day (FCHID). It's always funny (and a little unsettling) to see so many people putting finishing touches on it this morning, or the suprised looks when you tell your peers "no man, it's today, not tomorrow"...

But thankfully, my first cut has been done for a little while. On Monday I swithered whether to hand it in or not, but instead thought "no, let's make this better" and applied some extra effects and post production elements like de-interlacing all the footage, addign the shaky cam and other camera elements onto the bread falling scenes, and also when through my Master audio files and re-mixed the film. Now, it shouldn't pop the speakers during the loud points, since the levels do not max out anymore. It's the kind of jobs that really make the film, but are constantly overlooked while you're making the film, saying "yeah, I'll do that next week" but it won't really happen.

So, all in all I am happy with my first cut - there are still 2 shots missing, but they have been set up so everything apart from the final animation and lip sync is there. This way, it won't be a distraction when it could've cut back to the animatic. The film is looking very polished and aesthethically looks more complete than any other film I've seen in the studio. Whether it will stand up as a good film among my peers on Monday's Crit, will be the true test. I am confident, but also humbled by the help I've had in blending and making it look nice, plus all the favours I've asked for the actual photography and voices...so I won't be arrogant or pretentious come Monday if I have to present it - but quietly confident that the film will entertain and speak for itself to a large extent.

:o) I'll post a report on Monday/Tuesday

~breakmaker

Bread Nose Day

Happy Red Nose Day! :o) Hope you too are proudly wearing your red nose! If not, customise your desktop with this background I made at lunchtime!

Featuring: The Mischeivous Toast!

"It's a Bit of Fun!"

~breadmaker

RE: Re-Working, Re-Coming Together

Aloha!

Everyday in the studio, I am asked by at least 5 people: "How's bread coming along?"
Same question. Same answer: "It's coming together"

The last few days have seen all the scenes be re-lit, re-shaded and re-animated.
Today, I am trying finish off the final supermarket scenes so that they are all ready. These have been completely re-worked, with face re-tracking, complete overhauls in re-animating and re-timing stuff...it's crazy, but it IS looking far better than before; exceeding my expectations.

I normally dislike doing any kind of re-drafting animation, but the keyframes in After Effects make this a little easier. It is also very rewarding to see the dramatic changes! I should do more passes of animation in the future!

I also got the pictures for the Mischeivous toast last night, so will process them tomorrow and get them up here by the end of the week hopefully...not long 'til the first cut, and I'm hoping to stand out as a 'near-complete' version. ;)

~breadmaker

PS: NEW VIDEOS AND IMAGES BELOW! BE SURE TO CHECK THEM OUT AND COMMENT!

"It Takes 2's Baby..."

Every now and again, you feel proud and rejuvanated by a day's work. This shot is a sneak-peek at the other 58 seconds I completed today, of animation tweaking. The keyframes are now in 2's, and the shadows and backgrounds for most of the film are now completed :o) ENJOY!

~breadmaker

New Pics

Aloha!

Here is those background tests that I promised....each one has many adjustments to it, using Photoshop's adjustment layers, blurs and shadings. I would really like some advice or comments on how to make them better, and blend nicer. Here's a few I've done so far...

It's been a hard week trying to obtain these images and then process them. There's a few "thank you's" to be entered later, since this kind of design-eye is a major thing I lack...

Enjoy!

~breadmaker

Bad day

Ray Charles would've had a hard time performing without his backing singers.
And Jeremy Clarkson would have a hard time presenting Top Gear without a car.

These two, seemingly unrelated facts collide with the next installment in the humorous but tragic tale of making Bread.

Yesterday, Helen and I took a trip to IKEA in Cardiff so I could sneakily take pictures using my camera phone of the kitchen displays, so I could modify them to be my backgrounds. However, the car decided to smoke from the bonnet upon entering the car park and we dashed out before it exploded.

Thankfully, it didn't actually explode. But we were out anyway.
We got lunch, tried to take the pictures and they weren't going so well. As I'd feared, price stickers were everywhere blocking all the good shots and there was actually a few staff on the floor this time (a rare find in Ikea) so I was unable to take any decent pictures that would be useable. I suppose as well it could've been hard to get copyright for images I'd taken against company policy.

We spent most of our day in the car park, dejected, before then towing back by rope later that night. Towing isn't fun. At all.
The car isn't a write-off, thankfully, but will cost a wee bit to get it fixed!

And so, I will now have to spend next week touring some freinds' kitchens to get the backgrounds I need...but I also feel that then they will be a better quality for the prints I will have to supply the university with.

All in all, things are going to be better....I just wish it didn't take a dreadful day to work that out.

Back to the drawing board, finalisng my dissertation and sending out showreels to pass the time...none will be wasted.

~breadmaker

Links Galore

If you have found yourself so bored that you've clicked onto this blog, then check out these bread-related links...

Dr. Toast's Blog - DJ and also the best bread blog on the intermoweb.

Toast Leaner's Club - The ONLY practical way to cool off toast...

Toast By Post - Yes, you can actually BUY slices of Toast...many styles to choose from...

Toast Club - MySpace-Cadets only. Check out my thread plugging this film. Shamlessly.

Live Long and eat toast!

~breadmaker

Halfway?

Aloha!

Things are happening so quickly at the moment - it's very exciting!
You may be pleased to hear that I now have 1'05 animated so far, which is just over halfway. Distinct lack of tests uploaded here since they are not fully finalised, but I'll try to get some more shots up soon.
I did a photoshoot for the second half yesterday, including the extra elements for the conveyer belt scenes, the Toaster and the toast rack (unbelievably hard to find! and such little choice!) after some hunting around some shops.

The rest of this week will mostly be spent doing the Sandwiches scene, which has been altered thanks to some input from Leonie. It was not clear that the sandwich had been turned over halfway through to show the flip side of it, (the male face) so this action now depicts the flip moving to the other side of the screen, following the classic 180' rule. Directorially, this works a lot better now, although will have to adjust the animation a bit....

The backgrounds will also feature some hand-drawn elements within them to help blend the bread into the world I'm creating. I hope to visit IKEA in the next week or so to take pictures of some kitchens to provide the settings, which I can then manipulate later. Watch this space.

Still recieving good feedback in the studio so far about the movements and style...the studio is such a great place to work *plug* so come join in the fun!

PS: Aimee is going to print a Bread t-shirt for me as well, so I'll have a nice picture of that up soon too! :)

Progress Report

Aloha!

This weeks activites have been nicely on schedule, despite the snow and travelling home for the weekend. I managed to get more than my 'one test done' by also completing the first of the "Mischievous Toast" sequences as well.

Today, I completed the "Barry being sliced" sequence. In animation, why does it take an entire morning just to slice a peice of bread? It's insane! Why is animation so long and complicated??? Anyway, after some initial worries about how to keep the slices consistent against the back of the loaf and falling flat dsespite my poor photography - I managed to get it looking really good.

Premiere pro is also becoming just a place where I am merely inputing the final sequences and rendering pencil tests - as After Effects is the most effective and fluent software for actually compiling all the stuff I need to. Go figure.

Still, I now have 27 seconds in total of near-complete animation - now I need to work on backgrounds and also have at least 5 sequences done by the end of this week.

Can I build it? I think so....

~breadmaker.

Fred Warp Test (details below!)

Mesh Warp Tests

Aloha!
OK - so this week has only had 3 working days for me, as I am going home for my mum's birthday tomorrow (snow permitting) and so have been trying to complete my first test for making the bread pictures move.

I found a 2D Warp effect in Photoshop - this was good, but had to be executed frame-by-frame.

I then considered using after effects, to see if it had the same effect, but could be manipulated smoother using key-frames. Thankfully, this was the case and the work screen looks a little like this:


The grid that is supermimposed over the photograph is what I control to formulate the moves, layered over the pencil test to track the movement. I then put the eyes/mouth on another layer above the final image.

This has been hit and miss so far, and the test above represents the third attempt at getting the keyframes correct. It is tricky to do, and takes about 15 minutes to render each attempt, but it does look kinda cool....any thoughts???

Video processing on YouTube now...

~breadmaker


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Photo Day

“No, that’s not a Ruth…”

It’s been a peculiar morning – since today is the day I start photographing the textures and real-life elements for the production of Bread. I searched the shelves of Sainsbury’s to find some real life bread to use, looking at shapes, colours, textures and trying to make them fit to what I have drawn.

I imagine I looked quite stupid, or student, picking up loaf after loaf and shaking my head, muttering words like “It’s just not quite the right shape...” or “Barry wouldn’t have seeds on top of him.” Calling Bread by names in public doesn’t go down well. I would avoid it if you can.

Still, after Sainsbury’s (and discovering that 90% of bread is pre-sliced, to my annoyance, as this renders it almost useless in my film) I stopped by my local, Wren’s Bakery, and the nice lady waited patiently as I leaned over the counter choosing loaves very particularly, pointing my fingers and guiding her grasp to acquire (and then wrap specifically) the bread of my choice. I did however inform her I would be photographing them, so she understood I wasn’t a nutter.

So, the film is shaping up nicely – all pencil testing completed and photography will be rendered and edited in Photoshop over the next few weeks for characters, backgrounds and then final animation production. I’m still not sure exactly how this is all going to work – but I have plenty of time to do it so I am optimistic!

~breadmaker

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First Scene!

Wednesday Update

Aloha!

As you see below - I'VE STARTED ANIMATION!
It does have sound, so check it out! It's the first lip-sync peice I did for Bread.

Progress:

- 90% of film doped.
- 35 seconds animated so far.
- Only voice required to re-record is Toast Rack Guy.
- I'm back on schedule!

Today I will continue animating the sandwiches scene, which is by far the longest (23 seconds). It's wierd when you are animating sandwiches, looking forward to your lunch which is sandwiches and then return to animating sandwiches....

...but Helen and I are going out to dinner tonight with some friends, so that's OK! Nice couples night out while we raise some money for our Mission trip to Africa in April.

More animation soon!
~breadmaker

Animation!

Back to the Drawing Board

Aloha!

Or rather...Happy New year!

There's been a lot happening in Bread land this week. I've had to hit the ground running if I'm going to get this film made as best as I can.

After the critique, it was made clear that the script still wasn't good enough, so after enjoying my Christmas break with now work, a clear head and a good mood, I have completely re-worked the script. Only about 4 characters survived into the new draft - but here's some sketches I made while writing....


Trying to re-work the Toaster gags....this has since been scrapped.

The only frame kept is the top right. Except, now the lines read "I'm ready to come out now!" from a distressed, but still cooking peice of toast in its plea to be ejected before being burned.

The top left character, with the nose-like object, being made from the bag that he is wrapped in, is our opening character. Each character has much more unique design now.

The nose man and his wife again, stuck in a traffic jam (on a conveyer belt in a supermarket) and a new flirt, the guy on the toastrack.

Here's an extract from my Script Draft Analysis document:

Draft 6 – 8th-10th January, 2007

The most drastic change yet. In the last crit, it was made quite evident that the script still wasn’t working. The ideas were there, but not being executed effectively. So, I went for a radical change in all factors of the script. It couldn’t just be a matter of changing characters’ lines, as that is all I have really done so far. Instead, I wanted to start as if from scratch – to allow my mind to see how much further the idea of Bread could go. I thought about lots of different scenarios, about why bread is being interviewed, its reactions to a particular event and such like, before going back to its roots, and making it all about observational commentaries on human life through bread. I also kept a few drawings that appear like cartoons, just one drawing and a gag, which is how most of my better films have been created. Different shapes and characters grew from this and allowed me to have a far harder time with writing, and relaxed over 3 days. Just to make sure it is good. Most of the previous characters have changed, or been omitted. This draft is also shorter again, but if it means the film works better for not being slow, then I’ll take that any day. The scenes are shorter and more focused, and longer scenes have multiple characters so they can bounce off each other and keep the momentum going. The idea about the supermarket seemed the strongest idea of the new script and so used that as my lead story.

----

So, a new animatic has just been rendered, and will be critiqued by next week hopefully. This does put me back at least one week on my schedule, but it will be worth it if the overall film is better. Cocordantly, the new animatic is only 2.05 seconds, which makes it far easier to produce in the timeframe i have.

I'll keep you posted!

~breadmaker.