Waiter Animatic
This is a soon to be updated version of the animatic for my short film Waiter:
Stuck in My Head – Saturday, March 20th, 2010, 12:54 PM EST; Brooklyn, NY
Comfort
I came across this the other day while leafing through some old backup discs I had lying around. Comfort!–my very first animated short film. I made this film as a final project for a winter film class my freshman year at RIT. I knew almost nothing about making animation–I animated every element as a separate layer on animation paper at a light table, shot all of my frames on an ACME crane, and composited everything together in photoshop. That’s right–photoshop…frame by frame into the wee hours.
The look of the film (which is something I still really like about it) is completely accidental and is the result of trying to make the white of the animation paper disappear and not really knowing what I was doing. It’s amazing how little I thought through the process; I remember sitting down at my computer, having just laboriously shot all 500 or so drawings and thinking, “Oh shit.”. I really didn’t have a clue.
I ended up staying awake for 3 days to finish and was such a huge sleep deprived asshole that sometimes my friends who were there will remind me of it. Sorry boys. Anyways, here she goes:
Waiter Boards!
Holy moly, what happened? Oh look, some storyboards.
I should preface that these are not totally organized in a presentable way, for example, certain boards will be used multiple times in the full film/animatic, but only appear once here. There’s a bunch of dialogue you’re missing out on too. Hopefully you get the gist of what’s happening. Stay tuned for an animatic…
Enjoy and let me know what you think in the comments!
Heath Brandon is Playing Rockwood!
…and I made him this poster:
Check the kid out! He plays the guitar and sings and he’s really quite a talented fellow. The information is on the poster, obviously.
Eric & Morgan Eat Mr. Lobster
My parents bought us some fresh seafood for Hannukah this year.
Much to my surprise, I opened the box to find two live lobsters, writhing about. Ironic–yes–we Jews are forbidden the unkosher shelfish–but I’ve never been one to turn down a bacon cheeseburger or shrimp cocktail, much less a schmancy lobster dinner. Due to our random schedules, Morgan and I didn’t get the chance to sit down for dinner together for a day or two, and we grew quite attached to the lobster living under a pile of wet paper towels in the pyrex bowl in our fridge. We affectionately (and rather appropriately, in my opinion) named him “Mr. Lobster” and when cooking time came, it wasn’t easy to say goodbye.
Please enjoy “Eric & Morgan Eat Mr. Lobster” or, ”How I Became Vegetarian For A Brief Time”.
Storyboard Update
This isn’t so much a real update.
It might be better if you think of it as an update explaining the absence of any other updates. Truth be told, I’m busy. This film is dying to get made, but I’m still tying up some loose ends, uncompleted projects, whatnot.
That said, new storyboard deadline: Jan 31st. I’m hoping this gives me enough time to power through this other stuff and get down to the nitty gritty, if you will. Put the nose to the grindstone. The wheels to the pavement, et al. These are gonna be some kickass boards too; let me tell you. I’m excited for you to see them. I really am.
I’ll keep you posted.
-Eric
Joe Lieberman’s Socks
I got to do my first bit of puppeteering recently in this spot for MoveOn.org. It was a ton of fun for my brain, but a lot less fun for my shoulder and arm, which were stuck up in the air for extended periods into the wee hours that night. This spot was put together in 24 hours, from fabricating the puppets to creating a finished edit and graphics, which is a testament to the enormous talent of the fine artists at Charged. I did the P-Span graphics intro as well; not my worst for some 6:30 AM work!
My arm is inside the gray haired balding guy on the right:
Dock Ellis & The LSD No-No
In 1970, Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates against the San Diego Padres, high on LSD. Ellis is a great storyteller and his now legendary “LSD no-no” is hilariously illustrated in this short from James Blagden. Watch:
Tutorial: How to Rotoscope using Photoshop
This tutorial will teach you how to create rotoscope animations using Photoshop.
