Chicken Short

The end is nigh

2008-06-16T05:34:00.000-07:00

The film now is nearly fully cut togeather with all the sound added. Samir has been working on rendering it all out and cuting it togeather. Alltogeather creating this short film has been a huge learning curve for me. I now know how much hard work is involved and how important the rest of your team is. I supose i could have worked harder at certian times of this project. but now i know just how much is involved. Id like to say thankyou to the rest of my group and now i still have lots to learn so i will continue with that.

More animating

2008-06-16T05:16:00.000-07:00

Here are two other animations that i have done which i forgot to upload to this blog.

The rendered look

2008-06-13T05:27:00.000-07:00

Samir luke and rey have been doing an amazing job on getting to look of the film right while i have been doing my bits. It really looks now like a final film. Coming together. Well done the lads!

Credits

2008-06-13T05:18:00.000-07:00

Luke and samir have been working on some pictures for the credits. He sent me this one he done and asked me if it was ok and if i could do anything with it. The only thing i could think of was to change the shape of it slightly to look more like a chick and to make the colour pink!

Broom shot

2008-06-13T04:52:00.001-07:00

Here is another animation that i have done. Its simply the chick thursting a broom down his throught so that he can lay an egg. Enjoy

Cuts!!

2008-06-13T04:45:00.000-07:00

The other members of the group have decided that in order to introduce the main character quicker so that people can empahtise with him, they want to cut the farmer out of the film altogeather. I can see what they are saying and it does make sence. But that means that all the hard work i put into animating that crappy farmer rigg was all in vain and will go to waist :(
Oh well the film will be better for it anyway

More animating

2008-06-13T04:09:00.000-07:00

I am still carrying on with some animation shots. The one that i have just done is the vetrain chicken laying eggs. We wanted her to look a bit crazy like laying eggs for her is a war zone. so i have animated her laying them rapid fire to add to this extreem character.

Heres how it looks from the back side:

Promo Research

2008-06-13T04:01:00.000-07:00

I have been looking breifly at what the costs of promotional merchandizing would be for this short film when it comes to the degree show. I would like to get the film put on propper printed DVDs and possably make some T-shirts to ware at the degree show. Here is some of the things i have found.

This screen grab shows how mush printing 100 DVDs would be with a picture that we could make from the movie. It turns out its 195pounds for 100.

And this is about the cozt of printing T-shirts

Chicken walk

2008-06-13T03:29:00.000-07:00

Now that the farmer intro sceens are done its finaly time to start animating the main character. My first attempt at this is shocking. Again becasue the chick uses the same style rigg its not great to animate with and every time i key the left arm they are deleted when moved. Here is my first ugly attempt...

I have decided to start the whole animation all over again to get it looking better. I have now figured out how to use the rigg a bit better, espeicaly with the roleing of the hips. When i tried to do it on the farmer rigg it always moved the whole upper body instead of just the hips. But now i have worked out the controler and it works much better. Here is my second attempt. All it needs now is secondary animation which will be done by luke.

Meeting with dan

2008-06-13T03:16:00.000-07:00

We have just had a meeting with dan as he wanted to check our progress so far. He seemed to think that we were very far behind like most other groups and wondered what kind of tutorage we had been getting in the previous two terms. The meeting was extreemly benifishal because he really made us see how much work we sitll had to do. He told us to plan out exactly what we still had to animate so that we could see how much was left and manage our time better for compositing.

So after this meeting i went away and typed up every shot that was in the film and how long we should idealy spend animating them. Here is the word doc that i made.

KABLAMO!!!

2008-06-13T02:43:00.000-07:00

Door kicking sceen

I have been animating some more shots. After samirs animation of the farmers hand comes the big dramatic door kicking shot. I have been given this to animate as well. Im still not too happy with this rigg but ill have to work with it the best that i can.

The animation isnt quite finished because i still need to sort out the role of the sholders. But for some reason i cant animate the haed without the whole body going everywhere. This is another example of how the rigg isnt the best for this character.

This is the animation form the shot that we will be using in the final render

Animating!

2008-06-13T02:24:00.000-07:00

I have finaly started to do some proper animating. Luke made an attempt at animating this shot recently but it didnt look great. So i have taken the file and started from scratch in an attempt to make it look better. This animation was very tricky becasue of the unworkable rigg that the character has. I now know the importance of having a decent rigg and character model to animate with.

Here is the animation with the camera in the position it will be in for the final render

This is the same animation but form a different angle

Re weighting the farmer

2008-06-13T01:20:00.000-07:00

Just as the rigg of the farmer is questionable, so too is the weighting. Simar origionaly painted the weights for the farmer. But then we had to rescale the model. He thinks that when we done that the paint weights went all out of sque too. Whatever happened i have been recently re doing the weights for the farmer so that i can animate him.

Farmer animation

2008-06-13T01:05:00.000-07:00

Its nearly time for animation!!

I have just started to look at the rigg that the farmer has and begun some test animations. The rigg itself i am finding very difficalt to work with as it uses both IK and FK to animate on the arms. Its hard to always switch them and key them correctly

Meeting with MIke and Story changes!!

2008-06-13T00:52:00.000-07:00

Whilst everyone has been working on the production of this film, in the back of all of our minds we have always been thinking about the shots. There have recently been some signifacant changes to some of the shots which we hope will make the story work better.

We have just had a meeting with mike hursh who has done alot of explaining about the flow of the story and how things should be introduced. He was telling us that there is no point in haveing a cirtian sequence in the film if it wasnt nessercy to tell the story.
With this new knoldge in hand samir made the suggestion to cut out the robbery sceen altogether. At first i wasnt too sure because it was a funny sequence. But now thinking of it, it was the right thing to do considering time restraints.

After i decided that it would be best to wright down every shot that we would have to work on so we could scale better the amont of time we had.

This is the plan out:

Scene 1:
Shot 1- Camera follows the truck across the screen following left.
Shot 2- The truck comes into screen left and stops. Farmer walks over to the barn.
Shot 2b - The farmer comes to the door and tries to open it.

Scene 2:
Shot 3- Cut to inside barn beside the main chickens coop. Farmer kicks open door and chicken pops his head out and looks around rapidly.
Shot 4 – Cut to chickens P.O.V. shot looking around (snappy)

Scene 3:
Shot 5 – Cuts back to main chicken as he steps back with a scared expression on his face
Shot 6 – He goes over to the hole and begins stretching
Shot 7 – He then begins straining to lay an egg

Scene 5:
Shot 8 - Camera then cuts to inside the down tube/pipe, of the chicken coop. The chicken looks down into it to see if he had produced anything.
Shot 9 – The camera then cuts back to him looking worried. (Possibly the farmer walks passed hic coop)

Scene 6:
Shot 10 – Camera cuts back to the chicken as he gets ready.
Many shots - He then begins lots of different methods to get produce an egg e.g. laxative, broom, hover etc

Scene 7:
Shot 11 – Cuts to chicken as he does one final almighty strain. He then turns into a cockerel.

Blend shapes

2008-06-13T00:40:00.000-07:00

Now that the character its rigged and weighted luke has been working on creating the blend shapes for the main chicken. He has done a very good jobe since it is extreemly difficalt to creat an expreshion with a beak. However he has asked me to look over it and touch up any bits that need it.

I hav only changed a few blendshapes so that they flow better and so that we can get maximum expreshion out of it.

I have also tried my hand at a bit of rigging although it mostly totaly confuses me. I was going to do a basic rigg for the generic chick that ian made but it turned out that i was using the same tutoral as luke so he said he would do it again so it was done faster.

Here is some of my attempt

This is the foot role that i made

Farmer

2008-06-13T00:35:00.000-07:00

I have also told luke that although the model and textures are very good. he shoud try and do something about the texture of the knees. Because it didnt sit right when i bent the characters leg. After i told him this he went away and came back with a slightly tweaked but much better texture.

Consulting

2008-06-13T00:25:00.000-07:00

Luke has now finished and textured heis model of the farmer. After looking at it there wasnt something quite right with the way it was modeled. So he gave it to me and i tewaked the legs so they looked better.

Befor After

Weight Painting

2008-06-12T13:32:00.000-07:00

Now the main chick has been modeled and rigged properly it is time to paint the weights on it. I heve started this but it is takeing longer than expected. On this model it seems to be very sencitive to heavy weights. every weight applyed must be faint. here is some screen grabs of the weight painting that i have been doing on the main character.

Say Cheeese!

2008-06-12T13:24:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of some of the assets i have made and ians shead all togeather.

Generic chick

2008-06-12T10:38:00.000-07:00

This is how my generic chicken model has progressed thurs far. I have nearly finished modeling the head. Unfourtantly there has been another chick already modeld by ian which the group liked and have decided to use. So my atempt was in vain

The Tractor

2008-06-12T10:20:00.000-07:00

For a while i have been working on modeling. I have now finished the model of the tractor and it is ready to go in the extior sceen with the rest of the things. Im not enterily sure if the camra work is going to allow it to be seen but its there if it is.

As you can see i have keept the model very basic since it will be in the background. But it still affectifly connotes a old time tractor. Hopfully with some of reys masterfull textures it will look alot better.

Character modeling!

2008-06-12T10:12:00.000-07:00

Whilst everyone else is modeling the main features for the fillm i have taken it upon myself to make a start on modeling the generic chicken. The only problem is that i havent done any real modeling since the start of the second year. So its going to take me a while to get back into the swing of things.

Iv started off with the eye using nerbs and converting them into pollys, simply becasue this is the way i was told to do it a long time ago. Here is the pic of the start of my modeling.

Light asstes

2008-06-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

A few of the other members have already created some lights for the barn. But when i think of a barn the kind of lights that pop into my mind are the heavt duty durable ones. So i have made this modle to show the others and see if they like it. It still needs some work but this is the basic idea.

Here is a quick lighting setup for the light to give you an idea of how it will work.

More assetts

2008-06-12T07:43:00.000-07:00

Here are some more things that i have been modeling for the sceens to be added in as extras.

A very quick render to see roughly how it will look

Assetts!

2008-06-12T07:32:00.000-07:00

I have started working on modeling some assetts for the sceens. From doing this basic modeling i have relised how little i enjoy modleing. But they have to be made just as the main things need to be made like the characters and the enviroments.

Here is some screen grabs of a broom that i have modeld.

Out house

2008-06-12T06:21:00.000-07:00

Normaly on a farm there is several buildings. Ian has modeled a shead for the tractor that i am makeing. I also intend to make farm tools for it like a tool shead.

MODELING

2008-06-12T04:49:00.000-07:00

Although i am not a modeler by trade, i have to do some modeling for the sceens to fill it out. I will be working on some of the things that will be in the backgrounds of the shots as they are just as important to make the sceen look realistic and rich.

I have just started work on modeling a tractor. It will bi in the opening sceen somewhere near the main barn.

More shot tewaking

2008-06-12T04:20:00.000-07:00

After looking at the opening shots again, i have decided that it would be better to not have the camra panning accross the chickens as they are laying eggs. Instead I would like to see a POV shot from our main chicen on the other side. This was in the origional anamatic that i posted. My only fears are that a moving POV shot is very hard to pull off.

We have also changed another part of the film. The sceen when the chicken is trying to steal the egg. After thinking about it for a while samir has come back to consult me with a new idea. Instead of the chick ziplineing all the way accross to the other side to steal an egg. We have decided to have him absailing down his side and climbing back up. That way we can have the farmer in the shot doing his rounds which adds more tention. And as he is climbing back up the wood snaps and thats how he looses the egg.

This is how it might look.

Opening sceen rework

2007-11-30T03:51:00.000-08:00

After showing our animatic to both Mikes we were able to get alot of valauable information that has helped us understand how some of our shots dont work as well as they could do.
We were told about the motion lines that you shouldnt cross when cutting and changing shot and also that if something enters screen from one side and you cun it shouldnt enter from the other side becasue it throws off viewers. Whit this and other information in hand, myself and luke reworked some of the sceens of the animatic.

This is new opening sceens that we have created.

Animatic

2007-11-30T03:30:00.000-08:00

This is our first attempt at out animatic. Some of the shots are not timed properly which is something that i have to fix. Me luke and sometimes samier have done seprate parts of this animatic and then i put it all togeather in after affects. We plan to show it to Mike to get his opionion on it. Some of the shots we have had great dificalty with to get them to flow and move in time. But when we show it to mike i think we can change some parts

2007-11-29T18:45:00.001-08:00

After we looked at that shot we decided that it would be better to change it to this one because theres alot more action and the camra move is better

Animatic

2007-11-27T14:18:00.000-08:00

Since i have been working on the story its given others time to do other things. Rey has done a modle block out of the enviroment of the farm and luke has managed to create a basic model of our main character which he has given a very basic rigg to do that it can be moved.

Because of that we have decided to start on the animatic. Were doing it in 3D because like before we find it eayser to find camra angels within the 3d environment. Also if we need to change anything it wont be time consuming.

This is the first shot that we thought of doing to establish the farm and the enviroment.

After takeing some time to think about this we decided that it didnt flow well and that we wouldnt add it into our animatic.

Storyboards

2007-11-27T12:05:00.000-08:00

Again we have split the group up so that we can get more done. I am still working on refining the story with samire while rey and luke do more work on consept art. Samier has managed to do a block out of the inside of the barn which i have used to work out shots. We found that shots we liked in 2D didnt seem to work in 3D. So we used the block out to work out all our camra shots. I had a bit of a problem with this becasue i thought the storyboard would have looked better in 2D drawings. But this was more affective

Here is the storyboards that we have made

2007-11-27T11:45:00.000-08:00

After that meeting we have rethought the story and we all put our heads togeather to change it. Here are the changes that we have made.

0-6 sec. Establishing shot outside of Farmhouse.
6-24sec. We are then introduced to our chicken character. He looks aroundthe farmhouse
seeing other chickens laying eggs. We have shots of the various farmhouse machinery
taking eggs away emphasizing the fact other chickens are laying eggs.
24-34sec. Our chicken’s 1st attempt at laying an egg. He will;-Stretches muscles (limbers up)-
Strains (to lay egg) No success!-Becomes a little anxious now.
34-39sec. He looks up at a veteran chicken who points to a sign that reads. Chicken - eggs =
roast dinner
39-48sec. Our chicken becomes more worried and nervous.-show him thinking about what he’s
gonna do.Maybe rubbing his chin, eyes darting left & right.
48- 120sec. He then thinks of an elaborate plan. He sees a vulnerable egg, with a halo of light
over it.-Goes behind the haystack and jumps back out wearingSplintercell -type
gear.-Steals egg but looses it on the way back-Jumps around in frustration
(10 secs).
120- 132sec.Goes into quick cuts of him trying different things in an attemptto lay an egg.1.
Pushing a broom down his throat2. Taking laxative.3. Use a machine to suck the
egg out.
132- 150sec. Final Stage -Becomes more and more desperate.-Begins straining really hard.-
Goes into a series of close up cuts on the chicken, musclesbulging, eyes watering,
vies on his neck etc….-Finally his wattle and cox’s comb pops up and he realises
thenhes’s actually cockerel.-Other chickens give him a surprised look, and then
start eyeinghim up seductively.-Our character now a cockerel turns his head to the
camera andraises his eyebrows and smiles.Fades to credits, showing pictures of the
chicken with the other hens enjoying himself (being pampered)

Meeting with Mike

2007-11-27T09:18:00.000-08:00

Our group had a meeting with mike to explain to him our story so far and see what he thought. We showed him my sketches of the opening sceens and explained to him the rest of the story. After a bit of a discusshion with him he explained to us that it is extreemly important for the viwers to be introduced to the character stright away. Also that the suspence should be built from the beginging as that would enable the audience to emote with the main character stright away.

So after that talk with mike we had a group meeting. We took input from everyone and we decided that it would be best to cut the first sceen out as it wasnt really nessecery for telling the story and adding susspence. We then brain stormed to decide how the film should start.

Story Boarding

2007-11-26T08:38:00.000-08:00

Because there is quite a few people in our group, we have decided to split the group so that we can get more tasks done at the same time. I have started working on the story. Planing it out and seeing what bits are needed and what bits are not.

I have done some quick thumb nails so that i can get a grasp of how the shots will pan out and see how i can compose the shots.

This is the frist sceen inside the barn. The after discussing it with the other members of the group i have decided to change a few of the shots. When we do the main storyboard i will change them and add them in. I have tried to use the type of images that would be used in a storyboard so that i can explain to the group exactly how i see the story progresing on screen.

I have also storyboraded Another part of the film. The opening shots with the truck. Hear they are.

These quick drawings have enabled me to plan out the beginging sceen and think about which way things will come into and go out of the shot

Character Designs

2007-11-26T08:23:00.000-08:00

Everyone in the group has some ideas for the characters. Luke already had some designs for the main character from his pitch that he has showen us. I think that we all understand the type of look that luke pitched in the beginging and we all like it. We just have to design a charater with that all in mind.

Here are some very quick sketchs of the main character, the chicken. As i said befor there are already some base line ideas for the chicken. These drawings are just looking at how they would work and my own ideas and quick sketches on the main character.

This is drawing done by luke of the main character. We have all discused and feel that this design is one of the strongest. I think we will use it now for the main character although it can still change if someone hase another idea that suits it better

Research Farms

2007-11-25T15:39:00.000-08:00

Some pics of barns that i have collected which will help with desiging our barn and farm.

Here are some pictures of things found in and arround a farm that can be used for referance when it comes to drawing and designing our characters and the way the whole movie will look.

Research

2007-11-25T13:47:00.000-08:00

I have been looking at pictures of things found in and arround a farm so that i can get ideas for desiging the way things will look.

Here are some shots from chicken run. I like the way they have given the chickens very human manoursims and have turned the wings into arms. I think well have to do something like this with our main character.

Here is a shot from an animation called elephants dream. I like the way this is lit. Also i like the grainy look.

The Story

2007-11-25T13:39:00.003-08:00

Hear is the story that we have made after the frist group meeting.

Scene 1
The camera is positioned on the floor looking down a road as the credits fade in and out
A farmers truck suddenly speeds past the camera and the speed of the wheels makes the camera shake and dust is kicked up
The camera then cuts to a side/perspective view of the truck and pans in the same direction with the truck although the truck is moving slightly faster. The camera then focuses on the gap in the wooden slats
We then see the chicken suddenly pop his head out with the back of his head facing us. He turns head around and the force of the wind whips his face back and pulls his skin
The truck breaks hard
The chicken is tossed about and he pops his head back inside the truck.
The camera cuts to a shot inside the truck and we see soft streaming lights flooding in between the slats on the truck
The chicken gets to his feet and the back door of the truck is flung open. A huge shadow of the farmer is cast on him and all the other hens. The farmers sillouett of his hand reaches out and covers our chicken and we fade to black.
Scene 2
The camera focuses on some machinery as a light is turned on to revel it. This happens 3 times and on the 4th the camera is focused on the chicken as the light is turned on to reveal him in a barn. Or alternatively the camera has the whole of the inside of the barn in shot and the lights are turned on to reveal its contence and out chicken.
He looks around and sees that he is surrounded by other chickens and that they are all laying eggs. He sees some of the machinery working and processing the eggs.
One of the older chickens points to an old sign on the wall of the barn that explains that if a chicken produces no eggs they are disposed off.
He sees how the other chickens are producing them and he gives it a go by straining very hard. He tries a few positions to try and get the best result but nothing seems to be working
He then thinks of the KFC cornel and what might become of him if he is unable to produce an egg.
He then strains harder and has a little accident that has gone un noticed by the others so he tries to hide it
He notices that the farmer is making his rounds and checking on the production of all his eggs. So he begins to try again but this time even harder because of the approaching danger.
He strains so hard that his wattle and coxes popes out. He is extremely confused for a bit.

The farmer notices him and he reaches out and grabs him, picks him up and takes him out the door.
The door is slammed on the way out and the sign falls to the floor and the camera fades to black.
The End

2007-11-25T13:39:00.002-08:00