CApruzzese

Small update as I am working on a new Dramatic Reading animation at the same time. I made the floors with individual boards with no thickness except where they will be taken up to reveal what has happened to the old man. I have an entryway set to make and the three characters still to go. this will take awhile to complete.

I have started another Poe short animation, The Tell Tale Heart. I am working out the main set now and then I'll start the characters, which might just be modifications of ones I have already made. The main set needed a bedroom door that when opened will allow a sliver of light to pose the open eye of the old man on the bed, so placement and lighting were tricky but I think it's been worked out. I Have to be able to take up floor boards so the main guy can hide the body parts of the old man there after he kills him. The blinds open and closer day and night shots. As always the hardest part for me is the characters, the main guy, old man and a policeman in this one!

Amazing and beautiful looking!

Thanks! I did a version of this 10 years ago when I was trying to do humans better and wasn't happy with it, even though it won a small prize in a festival. Originally there was too much set... a fake community TV station logo and a title card explains that this was supposed to be a show from the 50s staring a failed psychic ... WAY too much explaining for funny short animation. Your comment makes me think I made the right choice to speed it up in this version!

Motion blus is in every shot, I use the reel smart motion blur plugin in AE to do it (and cut down on render times). Maybe I should have punched that up some more, especially when he is turning around... I guess I didn't think of it at the time. I should go over the AE files and see where it could be made more extreme. I kind of went about these last 3 shorts in a more and more seat of my pants way. In To Be or not to Be I studied some dramatic actors and silent films to get ideas for poses. I also stole from the film Grease and a couple super hero poses. This one I had a very strong idea where I wanted him to be. I imagined him more as teen on a bed surrounded by posters and went from there. I have filmed live shows before so I relied on those experiences for the camera set ups and started each new shot by posing the character In more or less the same position as he was in the last frame of the shot before. That way it flows like a multi camera theatre shoot. I do act it out first, but don't film it (I should, but it's embarrassing!) and spend a lot of time acting out the dialog myself hoping I remembered to close the blinds. I do think out the high and low energy points and mark them on my script so I have an idea what the timing should be. My take on the character is he is totally convinced he is a GREAT actor and people are there to see him ACT, so his motivation is the get more attention than the material and still convince himself he is one of the theatre greats. The voice acting itself is a source for how things are set up. Some things jump out as needing singling out in a close up... in this one when he says - a cheater!- for example. I go over it with the actor for a few hours before he records it on his own and then ask for changes and alternatives, edit the sound into Final Cut X and then export each segment I want as a clip as a separate file into C4D. I always want to edit the sound completely before animating so I don't waste time animating something that won't work. I also work out a plan for the shot progression but keep that loose as I find I get better ideas as I go along. Other projects I do more complex scripts and some storyboarding and pre-viz for complicated shots. For my short Dagon, I edits the entire thing as radio play first as it was all narration and then stripped out any narration that was just repeating what you were seeing on screen. Charles Webster Billingsworth the 3rd is pretty stream of consciousness at times! Sorry for the long winded response... I don't usually get ask about process and I think it's more interesting than talking technical stuff!

Thanks Bob, I was afraid no one would remember the source material. I have to say, animating this character makes me feel like a crazy person, trying to get into his headspace and figure out what he'll do next!

A compliment indeed! Merci! I am changing it slightly, adding some movement to the sheets and pillows at the end but it took about 13 days to animate. That being said, it's the third in the series so the character is made and stable and the set decorations are very simple. I have no paid work coming in so I was able to put a good 6-8 hours a day into it. The next one may or may not be the last, at least for awhile but it's based on MUCH more obscure material and will involve singing frogs coming out of toxic waste barrels during the performance. I need to set up a Skype call with the guy doing the voice to get that started!

The third in this oddly continuing series of shorts I am doing. I have an even weirder choice of readings coming up! This time he was much more frenetic, as the subject matter seemed to want and I have him moving about more than in the previous two.

I use Sketchbook pro, the standalone version which will never be updated so you are forced to get a subscription, which I will not do - so it won't work forever and this might be a good replacement.

Nice work! That last explosion might be more funny if you made the flip domain the same size as the room so the smoke would fill it up eventually. Right now t looks like it is going through the ceiling if I am seeing it right. That character is really well done! The movements read very real!

I downloaded this a while back and never really found it usable, but had high hopes it would improve so i downloaded the new version. Hopes realized! It's a pretty amazing update and they improved the interface and brushes quite a bit! I haven't gone through ti all yet, but i think my next drawing will be on this and see how it goes.

So fun and well done! I love the zipper!

I am sort of amazed at how low are expectations are for V20. For "ten" version you might expect some really amazing stuff over and above the stuff we have been promised for many years or just improvements to current features. I think MAXON has broken is user base down and now we expect a lot less from each release ... MAXON isn't alone in that but it's sad to me. I am holding out that it will be so amazing I will spring for whatever it costs to go from 16 to 20! The new core is HUGE but also promised for many many years.

Thanks! He hits the skull at the end and moves it over a bit as well. I have a few projects I think would profit from an update, maybe I'll redo more.

I decided to give an older project another go as I thought it might benefit from advances in C4D and improvement in my skillset. I am including one of the original Nostro-dumbass shorts for reference below but I'll be deleting it soon . The predictions are from Criswell, a fraud.. I mean clairvoyant from the 50s you might have seen in the film "Plan Nine From Outer Space". They were so weird I thought I would have a friend do a voice and record a series of them and then practice character animation. The original puppet was really primitive and I fought the rig tooth and nail the entire time making it. As you can see, it didn't even have legs!

From script to final version it was about 300 hours of work. I started it in September. There was a break waiting for the narration to be recorded, then a short break for me to finish my 2 "Dramatic Readings" shorts. Then it was work every day until it was done. RodeoFX does have an office here, haven't found anything I can get my foot in the door with there. I worked on the 2 seasons of a show for a studio called Apartment 11 that does children's shows that went really well and we got nominated for an international Emmy... but not more work after that! It's a lot of getting your foot in the door and I have small feet apparently.

Thank you! I get good feedback from this gothic horror shorts. Now this one is done I want to step back a little (It's the 6th in the series so far!) Ans reevaluate what i want from doing them. I DO want to keep doing them though!

I would love to have a budget and at least one other person working with me on something someday! LOL I have had zero contracts for a while now, it's really slow here so Have plenty of time to work on stuff at least. Have 4 more animations planned for this year, but not gothic horror. Looking forward to doing more cartoon and funny stuff.

So I finished another Lovecraft animation for my series. I tried some new tings in this ones, like more effects wrk and using the autorités for the main character. It also takes place mostly outside which is new for me with these projects. I tried to push the soundscape a lite further as well.

render look amazing! I would change the animation from easing in and out to linear and you'll get a better look to the ship moving in y opinion of course!

Manually, I can't imagine a real person moving like that! LOL I do use video reference for some things, notably there is a part I used the Greased Lightning dance number from Grease and even some ballet stuff.

what a great project! I loved the tie fighter's design, it was really different from other spaceship designs over the years.

Merci! I am glad some one thought it was funny! I love Derek Jacobi but never saw the Fraser episode with him. I decided to see if the first one I did with him "To be or not to be" could get into a festival or two. I have three more in planning stages but I really need to get to work on my next Lovecraft film first.

another reason you are so cool!

Good luck making the cartoon! It's a lot of work and you'll learn a lot by doing it. I ry to remind myself to concentrate in the areas that matter most. Details are great but if they are invisible in the end shot, don't do them and save your energy and efforts of the things you find harder to accomplish. I wish my modelling was a tenth as good as yours is!