Completion and new news

We're aware that it has been a long time since our last post, wow April in fact, but as with everything in life things never turn out how you plan. The Collector is a project that has not taken president over paid work unfortunately as it was a University project that needed completion. Since then a lot has happened and we now look forward to it hopefully being completed by the end of January 2011. This is a rough deadline as with this project it has been abundantly clear that obstacles always get in the way. We are looking forward to having two talented people by the names of Kath Kelleher and Jeb Hawkins who will be finishing off the audio for the short, and the final effects are waiting to be picked up. Once the edit has been finished Kath and Jeb can work their magic and it will all be finished.

In other news, The Collector is now going to have a second instalment produced in 2011. The story has already been outlined and a crew of talented animators and model makers are biting at the bit to get it moving forward after seeing the unfinished version of the first short. The new short will see Thomas Williams once again pitting his wits against a demonic adversary but in a way that you will not have thought possible. We aim to explore the character of Thomas more and give you an insight into the county of Swynshire that he lives in, and we'll keep you posted as to when deadlines have been set as well as the progress of the production.
As The Collector is a privately funded sort film we will be looking for donations to help us produce the second short. The second short, let’s call it ‘Harping Around’ for now, will not be going to festivals afterwards but will be hosted on the website for all to see once it is completed. We will update the site with the ability for you to donate to Harping Around if you so wish to and we hope to have more frequent updates as we go into the New Year so keep checking back for more information, or RSS this blog.

For now that’s it. Hope everyone has a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

The state of the film at the moment and other rantarific things!

After the last post I thought I would have a try at posting an audio... post. Basically anything I can do when i'm sat waiting for a lecture or on my lunch break that doesn't involve writing is a good thing for me at the moment especially after my dissertation. I have been a bit lax with my posts because of the work that needs to be done and will probably be for a while... Basically i'm trying it this way so that I can record what i'm thinking when I think it and then post it up when I have the chance so that I don't forget by the time it comes to writing it.

So here it is... My first audio post. I do warn you I tend to rant when I talk!

I was going to post some production photos here, but have decided that for this post i will leave it and put some up in the next one. Hope the audio file didn't bore you too much and was a little more informative about the film than my previous posts.

Count down to filming. One week to go!

It's crunch time with the pre-production at the moment with one week left to go until i start filming. Time has seemed to have flown by and and there i still so much left to do. The set is almost finished with only a few things here and there left to do, but there is still a lot of work to do with the puppets. Thomas is almost complete and i shall be casting the silicon hands later on today. Due to time restraints i had decided to opt for replacement mouths which attach to the head via a magnet and they will be finished by sunday evening with test animations done aswell which i will post up on here on monday. The clothes for Thomas that have been made by Olivia will be ready to pick up on Monday too so by Tuesday i will have everything done as far as the protagonist of the story is concerned. The demon still has quite a bit left to do and by monday we will see how much is left to do next week. elza (the cat) is something of a worry at the moment. The polyurethene foam that i had bought to make the body has been proving to be a bit of a difficult process as if the measurements are out slightly you end up getting a very dense foam or something exceedingly squidgy. I've bought a set of scales which are very accurate though so hopefully i can run off another test of the foam tomorrow to get the right consistency that i will need to be able to animate the character. I decided that the ball and socket armature for Elza was far too fiddly to do without the right equipment and as the welding facilities in the workshop at Uni have been taken away from us i cna't really fix the components properley. With this in mind i have opted for a wire armature for her puppet and this will also mean that i can produce multiple bodies so that if the wire breaks in the one i still have another i can quickly switch over to without having to mess around fixing the ball joints and casting a new body.

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.

"New" temporary blog

I have had this blog for quite some time and have decided that its content has become redundant so all entries have been deleted. However, my blog on my main website has been having issues and the posts i've tried to put up there have been completley messed up. With this in mind i am now using this blog to update the information about my current project until the time that i get time to rectify the problem on my site. Basically come back to visit this blog in the next week to see whats been happening!