Final Revised

After a meeting with one of my graduate advisors, I have modified my story. I have taken out the aspects about the future. I have also taken out the "signal" aspects. I simply have an astronaut discovering a duck-family on the moon and eventually taking them back to earth with him. Its been a fascinating process creating this piece and getting to know this program. Getting to create a shuttle launch and a trip to the moon in one of my narrative pieces definitely wasn't in my plans before this semester began, but now with this after effects knowledge and the right tutorial video, just about anything is possible in there.
I tried to better focus just on the astronaut and making the ducks appearance more of a fun animal-in-the-wild type situation. The astronaut then just follows him back to his nest rather than there being some signal source or something.

Adelaide Paul lecture

I was very fascinated by Ms Pauls lecture. It was interesting to see her humble early graduate work and the slow reveal and escalation in quality of her most recent work. Not only an increase in quality, but a great advancment in focus of what she wants to make her art about. She was greatly effected by a trip to a place where euthanized animals are incinerated. Also an animal lover, this has become her life's work and cause. She adopts elderly unwanted animals and connects with them while she can. This also caused her to delve a little further into the medical side of things, so much so that she began drafting mechanical illustrations of the body parts of some of the animals, never having been an illustrator before that. She purchased prefabricated mannequins and then warps them to her liking to make them look like the specific breed of animal she wants. She then covers and stitches them with various leathers, sometimes sewing a glass eye or two into the pieces. Often pieces are shown decapitated to emphasize the beauty of their imperfections. I greatly enjoyed her lecture and as a graduate student was fascinated by the continual progression of her work.

Ellen Weissbrod's A Woman Like That.

Ms Weissbrod showed the college her documentary film about Artemisia Gentileschi. 10 years in the making this documentary contains compelling subject matter about a female painter in the renaissance/baroque era. Her story is one of an early powerful female icon. Unfortunately this piece suffers from having been made over a span of time that includes the lower end of video qualities. It is interesting to see the progression of the video quality improving, but it suffers from a nostalgic camera operator doing unnecessary moves and transitions because of the non-hinderance of the lightweight DV Cams. We're often spun into a new scene which may degrade from the elegant quality of the subject matter. The artist herself was as nice as can be and surely spent a long time working on this. Unfortunately, craft-wise, we can tell that she is an artist that happened to make a film and not a filmmaker making a film about art. Again though ill reiterate that the subject matter was fascinating, but being someone in the film field, i was constantly distracted by the dated methods used.

Music Made and Reel Updated

http://www.behance.net/erichber


Stanley Justice on Facebook


Stanley Justice on YouTube





Got an updated reel ready and this weekend we recorded music for my animation.

We have piano and duck sounds. Next will be the rest of the foley and the astronauts dialogue. As well as dialogue from the launch announcer and from mission control. Still need to get the footage of the future but that wont be too hard. A few trips to the electronics section and a coffee shop or two. I'm still deciding on whether to use "public" footage of the future since I can sort of apply free use to it....



ASTRO DUCK-YouTube from Eric Huber on Vimeo.

First Full Rough Cut

Rough Duck from Eric Huber on Vimeo.

Minus a few bits here and there. This weekend I will be getting "future footage" and laying out the first beds of audio. After that it will be working on pacing and deciding on additional shots to include.
The ducks may need to have some bit of a joint in their neck. In the ending "pity face" shot they seem a little vacant. But that may be a bit of a point to it that theyre animals... I'll also most likely be working on a poster and a withoutabox page for it this weekend.

Really Reel

Eric Huber Directing and Cinematography Reel from Eric Huber on Vimeo.

Got it down to under 4 minutes. There are some new projects I've worked on that I still need to get footage from other people. I think the scenes playing out help detail the directing side of things, but I can see how people may just want a music video put to their footage.

Volutneers not Volunteers

Volunteer not Volutneer from Eric Huber on Vimeo.


You can see most of the story line. The second half with the duck needs to have a lot more added and I believe the first half before the duck could be cut down a bit more.

Some of the replaced elements in older scenes seem to disappear. I must have not had them on the timeline for long enough. An easy fix...

I'm liking the opening, of course Ill have to do something different with the intertitles background just simple moving up...

The shot at the end of the clip is a test sequence to see if cutting to actual reality footage will cut together with this project. So a few filters were applied to it to help ease that transition and create a look out of it.

I think a lot more can be expanded out of the duck taking him to his nest.

I also need to create a background for the cockpit inside his lunar module. It occurred to me that the chap will have to sit down for the beginning and end of his mission.

Audio is still in test phases. I used audio for the take off from compiled youtube clip. I asked the fellow if I could have permission to use it but then all of the voices in it are talking about the mission from the clip and I think that'll interfere with the narrative of my piece.

So for right now I believe I'd really just like to hear the feedback for the direction it's looking to take.

Internship Research

Graduate Internships and Such


 http://www.internships.com/posting/VideographerProducer-I2950043
"Complete responsibility for developing, producing and delivering original web video content with client brands and wine lifestyle celebrities."
Located in Chicago


 http://www.metmuseum.org/en/research/internships-and-fellowships/internships/internships-for-college-and-graduate-students/paid-internships-for-college-and-graduate-students-at-the-main-building#3
"This program offers thirteen individuals from various academic backgrounds the opportunity to help with projects related to the Museum's collections or special exhibitions."
New York City


 https://sjobs.brassring.com/TGWEbHost/jobdetails.aspx?partnerid=25354&siteid=5108&areq=8663BR
"NBC Universal's internship opportunities give students real world experience and exposure to one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment. Internships are the perfect way to gain experience while learning what a career at NBC Universal might hold in store for you. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. "
New York City


 https://sjobs.brassring.com/TGWEbHost/jobdetails.aspx?partnerid=25354&siteid=5108&areq=8668BR
same thing in California


 http://www.turner.com/careers/students-and-recent-grads#/careers/job-details/135429BR
"Cartoon Network Enterprises is looking for a motivated intern to learn about the creative product development process. Ideal candidate will conduct online research for visual reference used in trending or building presentations. Organizing and sorting product samples. Pull models for video game development and will have exposure to some graphic design. Additional duties include but are not limited to converting media, organizing, filing and other various general administrative and clerical tasks. Special projects may be assigned. Candidate will also have the opportunity to participate in several internship workshops." Burbank, CA http://www.turner.com/careers/students-and-recent-grads#/careers/job-details/134930BR "The documentary unit works on acquired and original long form content telling powerful compelling stories aimed primarily at the CNN demographic. The intern will learn how CNN currently produces this content and support the department."
New York City


http://www.turner.com/careers/students-and-recent-grads#/careers/job-details/135427BR
"The Cartoon Network Comedy Animation Development department is looking for a motivated intern to learn about the development process. Ideal candidate will assist in providing coverage for scripts, books and treatments, as well as researching talent and projects, reviewing storyboards, animatics and work prints of current shows in production. Additional duties include but are not limited to converting media, organizing, filing and other various general administrative and clerical tasks. Special projects may be assigned. Candidate will also have the opportunity to sit in on voice records, pitch meetings as well as to pitch their own project at the end of their internship."
Burbank CA

Resumes, Reels, and Rhetoric

Added a shot to my launch sequence and added some stuff to sharpen the look of my egg.

Thar be my resumé

This is a compilation reel from a production outfit and contains footage from multiple cinematographers. This reel even has its own director credited. All of the images are very pretty, they must have top of the line camera. However, most of their footage is exterior shots set on timelapse arms or actuators or shots from helicopters. These are people you hire to make video. They aren't creating their own narratives. They are cinematographers.




This is a reel for Camille Marotte, "director.motion designer" This is a cool reel which included footage, effects, and footage with effects. However It was still very image based. I don't think she can call it a "director's reel" if we don't see or experience any of the performances she has directed. But the reel looks very nice.




This is a very nice reel from an effects company. So pretty innovative stuff shown in here. Still hunting for a "director reel" though




This is a really cool animation reel. Really makes me want to rethink and find out where my "money" shots will be. There needs to be a fantastic aspect about them (amount, speed, color, music, etc...)




Here is a great directors reel. And all it took was to hear his actors talking. How he got them to share their words is how the direct sought to gain an emotional response. It works. I like it.

Comps for the 4/4

 A few shot ideas have come up as I've been working on these, and a few of them are of course going to be reused as more cutting occurs. I have a new Earth to place in existing shots. There are some color choices to experiment with. I think with the nature of the project I've embarked on there are quite a few more shots that will have to be created as I go. The practical elements I've used for piece have worked out so far and things seems to be aesthetically working together. That Lunar rocket may need to be redone with smaller strokes after I see it juxtaposed next to the existing lunar lander. I think I'm going to create a shot of the blast off in the sky as well, its a pretty cool effect that I think I could get some more use out of. People love fire and propulsion. I was almost reconsidering the paint splatter stuff for the dark side of the moon but as I was placing it I started to like it again. Im wondering if my footage of "the earth that could be" should be animation type stuff or if I should get some actual footage of our real world since we are in the future compared to when this takes place...

Fodder for the Elements

 

Third Water Ball from the Sun

 Scanned a new space background. Now it can be its own layer

 

Inside of the Lunar Lander

 

Whats a big blue planet without land to own?

 

Took a still of the galaxy, now I'll trim at and spin it in the egg.

 

This gold texture was just something I shot, but I think I can use it for the texture of the glass egg, and I can use the gold texture for something else.

 

Here is the Moon Rocket/Module that'll be in the Space Shuttle

 

Here's my hen with some finer line work.

 

Made some puff clouds as well. 

 

Aaand I have my torch effect ready for blastoff.

Launches, Eggs, and Hens

First is my launch site. I'm liking the textures but may play more with color/color replacement to make it look not so Crayola-y

Here is my hen. She probably won't move except for a tilt of the head or maybe she shifts her weight to better settle into the nest. Im considering putting the ducks in full color.

Here is an initial go at my space egg. I want to add more lighting and shading to create more of a 3-dimensional illusion on the inside of it. And I need to figure out how to mask my particle party.

Plot Reducking

Plot Work

PLOT STRUCTURE SHEET

"Astronaut and Duck"

This story is about an Astronaut.

The Astronaut wants to investigate and discover the source of a signal from the moon.

Improper funding and technological hinderances prevent the Astronauts task from beings easily executed.

The Astronaut not only needs to find the source of the signal but he needs a win for himself. This discovery will also reestablish the necessity for future funding of the NASA program.

Inferior equipment prevents him from swiftly completing his task, then it causes him to tumble into his lunar lander and it starts to roll away from him. Then a duck appears which briefly halts his progress. When the duck helps him to return to his drill he sees that its results were inconclusive. The duck then appears to want to communicate with him, this is a trying task. Then he has to leave the moon and the duck, this proves emotionally difficult.

Our Astronauts faulty equipment and an inherent inelegance are the Astronauts first interruptions from his mission.

Our first turning point is during a big tumble when the Astronaut happens upon a duck on the moon.

The two then have to get the lunar lander and themselves back from the dark side of the moon.

Once back from the dark side the Astronaut then has to figure out what the duck is trying to tell him pertaining to his drill/mission.

Having found the goal of the mission, the Astronaut is hesitant to leave the duck out on the moon.

Astronaut and Duck

Elevator Line

An astronaut tumbles into a flock more than he bargained for during a research mission on the moon.

Theme

The astronaut and duck companionship resembles Man seeing himself in an animal; one being alone in the unknown. Through their partnership the duck reminds the astronaut of simple solutions, coping with unwanted results, and the mysteries of nature; and the astronaut provides the duck much welcomed companionship and spoils of comfort.

Tone and Execution

The aesthetic of this piece is not unlike the popular television cartoon, South Park. However, there is more of a "drawn" aspect as well as assembled, textures are emphasized more, and there is use of scanned practical objects for certain elements. The tone of this piece is that of an adventurous comedy; ideally you'll laugh and maybe learning something about patience or the ability to endure.

Objective

The goal of this project is to make a successful short film that not only expresses an artistic intent, but also entertains.

Target Audience

My target audience could be the 18-25 range and maybe the older crowd could appreciate the handmade aesthetics of the piece. I wouldn't be surprised if kids liked it though since it's basically G rated and has friendly looking characters; and that'd be great if they did like it.

Storyboards

Midterm Checkpoint

Instruments used as foley introduced.
The duck is only going to quack.
Proper beginning and ending to be added.

Final Project Proposal

I would like to continue developing my Astronaut story and complete it as a proper animated short film.

I will be adding more of a beginning to the story to better establish why this guy is on the moon and what he may be doing up there. And maybe I'll add low oxygen levels to add a sense of urgency to his getting back to the ship.

I'm not sure where the story will go quite yet. But the duck will be helping the astronaut to help himself for the rest of his journey. Showing him perhaps logical way to solve his problems that may have been so subtle that they were overlooked.

I'd like to have a nice elegant sound design to the piece and better establish a mood or atmosphere. I do still want it to have a comedy aspect to it, but I also want it to be an exciting ride where we're rooting for the guy.


As a side project I also have been wanting to plan a body of really nice cinemagraphs and perhaps figure out how to exhibit them.

A Clearer Dark Side

Made my paint splatters on transparency paper. (Which didnt matter because I couldnt figure out how to scan them translucently. May it did effect how the water dried.

And made the whip-crack of the grapple rope fling him faster across the screen. I had already exported when I saw that I still didn't put digi-interface stuff on his wrist in that shot where he looks at his wrist.
I like the cleaner paint splatters, but I may try and export "dark side" stuff at 12 fps and put it into the 24 fps story just to give it a little bit of that choppiness back,

Sound will be something i tackle over the spring break.

Astronaut & Duck Reunited

The Appearance of Duck on the Dark Side from Eric Huber on Vimeo.


I used the D. A. D. method. The 12fps. definitely gives the motion a different feel.

There was a whole lot of learning curve elements while putting this shot together, I imagine future endeavors will be able to have a cleaner/smoother end product.

Inverting the colors did have the effect that I wanted, it'll be a little tricky figuring out how to color the duck because I can't print out color on the printers at school... Hm...

Analog Proposal

I believe I want to go with the digital-analog-digital process. I'm going to incorporate it into my astronaut project. It'll change it up stylewise a little bit, but we'll just call it progression.

So the astronaut will be dragged to the dark side of the moon. That is where things might get a little trippy. I have been doing some paintings that have a space-nebula feel to them:

I would like to use this process for the environment of the dark side of the moon. So I'll have him do some stuff on the dark side and he'll figure out how to get back on the light side. Ill animate it like he is on the light side, then I'll print it out and paint it, and then when I scan it back in I'll invert it tomake it appear like nighttime. Here are some color comparisons for when theyre inverted:

So as long as i use a full range of colors ill get a full range back, unless i want to limit my palette which is usually a good idea...

This inter-dimensional dark side of the moon may be where he meets another character. I didn't think I was going to add him at first but now that I want to complete this project as a proper animated short film I'm going to add him and expand the story a little bit.

Behold.

Duck

The first comic was a product of MCA's 24-hour comic-athon. And the 2nd one was for Rozelle's Project Sketchbook which I worked with my friend Josh McLane and made a book of single panel pieces staring Astronaut and Duck.

However, it wasn't until working on this project that I figured out where Duck came from. Now I know that he's an inter-dimensional space duck. Duck can talk, even in the vacuum of space. He admires Astronauts' determination so he helps him out when he can.

2-D Picture made into Spatial Video

I chose the tutorial that shows you how to take a 2-d photo and make it into a video clip with spatial qualities. It happened to be one of the longer tutorials and it showed you quite a variety of filters and effects to use. I even had to use a "null" layer. I think these fall in line with my interest in the cinemagraphs. With this one I may not have found the correct way to make the leaves look like they're swaying. The photo kind of has to be the right kind for this process to work best. Unless flawless looking video isn't what you're going for. If you just want it to look like a 3-d animated image, i think this is a great process for that.

Videocopilot - Animating a still



Stars video from Eric Huber on Vimeo.

Here's the original image:

Puppet Tooling

Cat Puppet Tool Test Video from Eric Huber on Vimeo.


Used my original cat cut out from earlier this semester. The more successful moment is when he sits, even though you see the warp. The tail wagging may need another pin in order to invert the curve to better show the wagging.

Another Cinemagraph

This one has more minimal movement and the flaws are much less detectable.

First Cinemagraph

Few little transparency kinks, but pretty cool effect.

Grapple

Astronaughty from Eric Huber on Vimeo.

No Breaks in Space

Added a couple of shots to my Astronaut sequence. Used the mask tools to create a grappling hook as another attempt for the character to catch up to his lunar lander. I put both pieces of audio together to see what they sound like together (my voice and the ambient static). I fixed the masking issues with the close up of the helmet. The nesting worked great for it. I still need to do folly for the electronic gizmos and I need to make battered-actuators to be hanging around after he crashes into the lunar lander...

Astronaut Naught from Eric Huber on Vimeo.



I used the masking tool to create a shot of the astronauts helmet reflecting the lunar lander drifting through space as he leapt after it. Layering is something one must pre-plan in a complex masking effort... It was tricky figuring out the spinning space wheels masked behind his helmet visor. Ideally I'd like to keep incorporating the projects into this spaceman narrative that is developing.
I changed the sound from last time. I took out the human grunts and stuff and tried it with just ambient noise. I like it better....

Lunar Landing

Astro Naught

Lunar Landed

For the weekend assignment I decided to add on to the astronaut project I already started as opposed to starting something new. I added a new shot which includes a lunar lander. I fixed the stabilize look and steadied the background scaling during the zoom in. I added audio as well but I think it could use something more...

Astronaut Naught

Created my own background. It actually made the whole look of the piece stronger, now things match stylistically. Added some foot sway when he gets the thrusters. And added some complications with the thrusters there at the end. Fella just can't get a break.

Oh and I patched my pin-holes

Astro Finesse

It looked like my guy was starting to fly out of control up there on the moon, so I decided to allow his stabilizer function to activate. This causes his controller/actuators to pop up on his arms and give him little thrusts to move about the space. (the outer space) There's also been some dust added that pops up when he touches the surface of the moon.

Seems like gauging rotation is tricky for me. And I miss the "Blade" tool from Final Cut Pro. Also... "Oo Ee Oo" has been stuck in my head all weekend.

My First Render

My Astronaut

Cat Elementals

River is a playful cat-wisp. She enjoys gracefully lingering about and occasionally playing amongst her surroundings. From time to time she is interrupted by the fire-cat, Peter. Peter is a mischievous flare-ball bent on what destruction he can manage between naps.

Being fire, Peter tends to cause a little more chaos, but when River's tolerance runs out she is always able to smother him down to a smolder.