Thursday 31 January 2008

This weeks progress

On monday we went back to the library to finish up filming. In this session we filmed all of the areas that we will be animating our gremlins into, for example, bookshelves, desks and trolley's. Overall we were filming for an hour or two and we managed to get all of the footage down. We then extracted the footage on wednesday, separated each team members bit from all the footage and we are all editing our own section of the film. This will allow us all to have a go at the editing job, and also set the scene up for personal preference by each team member.

However we are unhappy with some of the footage, and so are going to re-film some parts on tuesday 5th to correct this. We intended to have our footage edited by friday, but because of this set back we are unable to get this completed until next week.

However our gremlins are close to completion and it is important that we finish up the editing so we can get into animating.

- Harn

Thursday 24 January 2008

Scheduling!!!


This is our project plan, which was drawn up at the beginning of the project.

Unfortunately with a very busy christmas holiday all group members are slightly behind on the completion of their gremlin. This has therefore put us behind. We are now ensuring all modeling, texturing and rigging is completed by 1st February. This will allow us to start animating on the footage which is also to be edited by the 1st February. Once these two pieces are complete, animating can commence. Therefore we must ensure that we stick to or stay as close as we can at least to the times we have organised.

We are now having weekly meetings to check each others progress and to re-address our schedule and plan, to ensure that we are keeping ahead of what is required for this project.

Other dates include:
Beginning of Post Production on 11th Feb
Final touches on 3rd March
Begin render on 10th Feb (1 week ahead of schedule to do test renders)
Complete project on the 4th April


- Harn

Filming

We are well into the actual making of the project now, so yesterday we started filming our footage on which our gremlins will be modeled (having received permission form the lovely library folk as well as our filming permit last week). We had a two hour slot, but alot of time was chewed up by camera checks and also briefing the actors we were using on what exactly we had to do.

Mary and chérie controlled the filming section, checking shots, whereas i helped to brief the actors. We chose the same location to film in that we found for when we did our research, and took pictures of in the library. Lighting however presented the biggest issue, as it was (for once) a bright day, so eliminating as much bright natural light was necessary, but also the library is well lit so we had to take that into account too. Our filmed footage will therefore be much brighter than envisioned, but that is however the atmosphere within the library!!!

With the hour we had left for filming, we shot all the parts with actors, and any scenes that were within the same area, so that our camera shots were all uniform. We filmed our student, our librarian, our sleeping stranger and also views of the desk at which the computer sits, where we will be animating our gremlins. This included a section of chérie's part of the story (and includes a book trolly!). We then reviewed the footage and extracted what we needed from the tape on the morning of 24th. I have organised another filming session for monday morning. In this shoot we will hopefully get all of the shots for animating on ie bookshelves, desks, photocopiers etc. Once this is complete, we can finally start editing the footage together.

-Harn

Wednesday 16 January 2008

team meeting

Now that the christmas holidays are over, we met up again to ascertain whereabouts we all are as far as modeling is concerned. It is fair to say that there is some way to go, but we have now set out realistic dates and guidelines for our project.

As we now know that completing the 3D section fo the project will be more time consuming than originally imagined, we are now looking at organising filming, and getting all of the shots we need, and put together while we are modeling. This will leave less to do later on and will help with managing the tasks we have to complete.

Deadlines will follow, at the moment, we want to film next wednesday 23rd in the morning, with our actors, to get as much footage as possible. A filming permit has been obtained so we are set to go!!!

-Harn