I struggled this last week.
I still got three shots done, which is good although I always wish it was more. But I went into some problems along the way and felt exhausted and tired.
I wanted to tackle the transition shot back to the bus as well as the the shot where the main character descends from the tree branch. I treated it as one continuous shot while animating and only split it up when compositing. It was tricky to work out the different layers I had to animate:
1) There was the character that I wanted to be a full-body-boil in the beginning so that I could pan it down in compositing. That meant the boil had to be shot on big enough paper, I used A2 sheets, and then line up with the animation of the upper body on A4 paper. The way I composite the character works that I shoot the line work first, then shoot it again after I colour it in with ink (it has to perfectly line up with the line work) and then I create the matte layer for the character fill in AE using different effects (minimax; threshold; extract; paint bucket;levels). I ran into problems because the A2 paper was thinner than the paper I usually use and therefore crinkled much more, which meant the linework and ink layer didn't line up. I should have used a glass to even the paper out better. Mike and I spent some time trying to resolve it, but ultimately decided that it would be easier to just not use the line work for that first bit and instead I created the matte-frames in TvPaint. The solution was super simple but it took me a while to get there.
2) animtion of a layer of eyes in pencil (boil), tracing a print out of the branch with the leaves.
3) animation of the eyes and the transition to the people-in-the-bus-boil with ink
4) animation of the transition I call 'leaf swoosh' in black ink that I used as a matte layer to transition from the forest background to the ink-people layer (I decided not to include a background here because the people fill out the entire frame anyways and it would mirror the first transition which I still have to animate).
5) I had to quickly animate the fill for the eye-leaves and on another layer I added a simple 'shine' loop to the eyes (both done in TvPaint).
The compositing for this took me a fair while, but ultimately I am happy with the way it turned out. I'm especially happy with the transition, it felt like magic when the layers I worked on separatley when animating lined up in the way I had imagined.
I also got somehow discouraged when looking at how much I still have to do. I know it'll be fine, but it is a lot of work in a short time frame and I felt quite exhausted already. All I needed was a good rest and some hours in the sun and I feel much more enthusiastic again now, albeit still mildly worried about the workload (would be a surprise if not at this stage ;D).
I made a renewed scene list a few weeks back. I marked the important ones and some that I ultimately want to have included but are not necessary for the submission - in case I really have no more time.
Besides my desk in the studio and the one in the lab I now also occupy a light table desk in the hallway and love it!!
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