Thomas Williams (John William Bryan)
Saturday, February 28, 2009
An introduction to the voice actors
Thomas Williams (John William Bryan)
Delays, compromises, and deadlines
(above: Me varnishing the floorboards.)
I had left it late in choosing the right colour for the walls of the set. After a few hours i eventually came upon a colour that i thought would give a nice warm feel to the shop without being over the top and take the lighting change when the Demon enters the scene.
(above: Devin editing the audio in Adobe Audition)
Not only is Devin the voice for the antagonist (a demon named Xigaligalig) but his audio skills have been put to use in cleaning up the sound for the film. On friday just gone we spent six hours solid recording and editing sound, and this Sunday will see a similar slog, but hopefully not quite as stressful as the last session.
(above: Ed sculpting alchemists jars)
One of the people i am lucky to have onboard at short notice is a talented ceramasist called Edward Austin. I have known him for a long time now and after a conversation one day he offered to help with a vast amount of crockery based props for the film to take a lot of preasure off me. The props he has made were originally sculpted in sculpting clay, then two part moulds were made using silicon so that multiple items could be cast. At ptresent he is spending his spare time cleaning and painting up these items which should all be ready by Wednesday 4th.
(above: The set in the studio)
The set is now up in the studio and i have been doing some lighting tests that i will hopefully continue doing later on today. I had originally wanted to light the set entirely with the bulbs inside the set to get a more real feel to the film, but the problems that causes has meant that i am now going to be using abient lighting aswell.
(above: Thomas hair and glasses that he wears on a sculpy cast of the original sculpt)
Thomas (the protagonist of the film) has been a bit of a learning curve when it comes to the puppet. The time it takes to make all the seperate components is one thing that i have miscalculated though i am now on top of it. the only things left to do are to finish off a couple of the mouth shapes and paint the head and replacement mouths. This is all something that will be relativley quick to do and will hopefully be completed by the end of this evening.
(below: Thomas with his silicon hands and neck, hair, eyebrows, glasses, and one of the replacement mouths. He's looking a bit chilly here as he's waiting for his shirt to arrive!)
I'm still awaiting the costume for the demon whic should be arriving tomorrow The only thing left for the demon is to finish sculpting the masks, which is a simple process, and cast his hands. I've already tested the armature which works fine. The only concern that i have with the puppet is that due to the floating nature of the puppet it may have a bit too much bounce in it which could become annoying during filming. If i have enough time i may well make a less springy support armature.
(above: The alleyway outside the shop)
Up until Wednesday the 4th, and maybe even the Friday, it's going to be pretty full on with filming and finishing off the little bits and pieces that need to be done. As always i remain optomistic.
Crew and cast update
Below you can see an edited list of the current crew that have been working on the project or are still working on the project as it moves forward to completion. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Saturday, February 21, 2009
Count down to filming. One week to go!
Do i think i will be on target with all the props, and puppets ready to start filming on Monday 2nd March!? Well i hope so! There is the slight possibility that i won't be which will mean that i will end up with less time to film than i wanted, but this is one of those things that happens. Plans you make, no matter how much you allow for problems, never go 100% as you would like. I think one of my problems with the film has been that it is a very ambitious project and even though i have had help from other people at times there has still been more work than we can deal with. I remain optomistic as always though!
The current crew that have been working on this project are the following:
Lorna Bailey: Set fabrication, and props
Joel Calvert: Original character concepts, and prop fabrication
Emily Ivens: Prop (furniture) farication
Olivia: Costume fabrication
Cherry Bryan: costume fabrication
James Cox: second phase character concept designs
Aimee Hibberd: CG effects and compositing (to be confirmed)
Matthew Harris, Megan Hoggins, Natalie Gibbs: mask decoration (props)
Niel: Signwrite/graphics
John William Bryan: Voice of Thomas Williams
Devin John Peter Lawton: Voice of the Demon (xigaligalig)
Daniel: Music composition (to be confirmed)
Edward Austin: Prop Fabrication
John-Lynton Bryan: Puppet Fabrication, Prop Fabrication, Costume Fabrication, Set Fabrication, Final Phase Character Concepts, Animatic, Storyboards, Set Designs, Script, Lead Animator, Director
(to be confirmed): Assistant Animator
(to be confirmed): Assistant Animator
The roles listed above are accurate at the time i write this post but as always anything can change at the last minute.
Prior to studying at the University of Wales, Newport i worked as a Graphic Designer and one thing i have found frustrating during my time on the course is that whenever you work with others you can never gaurantee that everyone will do what they were supposed to do right through to the end. I guess it is the nature of university life but i can't wait to get out into a more proffesional environment. The whole experience so far has been surreal but fun. I think that UWN is a good place to do animation especially the way it is structured. Part of me is going to miss the place too, but anyway. I digress from the topic of this blog.
Right, there are lots of images i would like to post in this blog, but as i am writing this i am not at my own computer and as such can-not get the images. I will create anothe rpost on Monday which will have production images for you to look at.