JQ Log for the month of November, 2009
 

November 1, 2009

Nothing spectacular. Just a quick night time lighting test on the new stage. I found some nifty compact flourescent (did I spell that right?) lamps with the smaller base that match my el-cheapo movie lights.  They say they are tungsten balanced at 3200 degrees but are actually a tad on the blue side IMHO, which works fine for night time shots! For any daylight shots, I'll need to add some full CT color correction gel but, otherwise, I think they work just great. No heat, either! :)
 

November 3, 2009

After the obligatory painting of the stage in flat black, we went to work on the machine gun nest set. Here you see Brandi hot melt gluing the sandbags into place. I found that I had to remove the feet of the soldiers to get them into a position that more closely matched the cartoon version. Fortunately, you don't really see their feet in the shot so it didn't matter. I also made a depression for their legs to go into which helped raise the machine gun to more eye level, in keeping with the cartoon drawing.
 

Don't ask, don't tell, okay?
Look, I needed a way to attach the soldiers firmly to the set and this seemed like the most practical way to achieve that goal.
I don't want to hear about it in emails. So just move on. There's nothing to see here.
 

Here Brandi is adding kitty litter to the set to simulate a rocky terrain. This will be augmented with larger, real rocks as well.
 

Yours truly making some final adjustments to the machine gun and soldiers.
The larger rocks have not yet been added.
 

Two different views of the set during a lighting test. This one was shot with a 50mm lens. I like it but feel it is a bit too compressed and depth of field is problematic as the lens only stops down to f16.

This was shot with my favored 35mm lens, which gives a nice bit of depth and stops down to f22. Still, I kind of like the softer mountains in the background of the 50mm. Hmmm.....I'll have to think about it a bit. Anyway, decided to add some gun fire to this in Photoshop, just to liven it up a bit. In the actual animation, there will be interactive lighting on the set and soldiers when the muzzle flash appears on each frame.
 

November 4th, 2009

Began working on shot number 2 from the title sequence. The above panel is a combination of different video frames where the camera tracks a young village boy running through the jungle. There are a variety of trees and plants in this shot that have to be replicated fairly closely, even though they sort of swish by the camera quickly.

Here Brandi applies hot melt and bendy-branches from a local flourist shop to create some of the various hollow trees seen in the sequence.
 

Here's a collection of some of the trees and plants Brandi has gathered in preparation for the shot. There's quite a bit of background foliage, vines, bushes, etc so she's still got a ways to go.

In the mean time, did some final lighting tests. I added some orange gel to the horizon light which not only added some warm color to the sky, but subdued the horizon. I also simplifed the shape of the hills in the background so as not to call attention to them. I found the previous horizon too distracting in a Bugs Bunny/Road Runner kind of way. As mentioned before, this shot will have a slight rotation to it, even though it only lasts 33 frames!

This is the same position but with interactive lighting from an LED penlight aimed at the gun and soldier. I dropped the reddish glow from the barrel and decided to go with something that was more white hot, which ties in with the lighting in their faces and on the sandbags.

If all goes well, we should animate this scene tomorrow afternoon! Whee! :)
 

Finally! Spent the day animating the machine gun nest. Here's a shot of the set up.
 

That's me in the back, pointing a really bright LED penlight for each frame that requires
a muzzle flash. The penlight illuminates the faces and sandbags only on those frames.
In the foreground, you can see my laptop which takes a feed from the video out
of the digital still camera for reference.

After completion of the shot, I then needed to construct a single shell casing
to be animated ejecting from the machine gun. I just grabbed a piece of PVC
and then hot melt glued a couple of washers I had hanging around. A quick
coat of gold spray paint and, voila! A 50 calibre shell !

I then took the photo of the shell casing into Photoshop where I matched
the size and color of the original casings on the model. I then worked
out the "flight path" of the ejecting casings and devised a simple
animation cycle that repeated across three frames. Since the shot
was only 33 frames long, I just pasted them into the scene, one frame
at a time. I had to erase any areas where they passed behind
the soldiers, of course.

Okay! If you want to see the final animation on this shot,
turn up your speakers and click HERE!
 

November 14th, 2009

Began prepping for scene 13, which is short but kinda involved.

These guys have funky, avacado green helmets and gloves and weird, short rifles. Their helmets have some sort of Vader-esque breathing thingy that attaches to a panel on the belly of their baby-crap-green jump suits. Not being able to find actual jump suits, Brandi took some regular green fatigues and bleached them, which happily made them turn a less offensive light yellow. We then put the shirt and pants on backwards so that any buttons were in the back. With a wide, black belt, this gave us the impression of a one piece jump suit.
 

The helmet was problematic in that it had to cover the entire head and, in typical Escher fashion, the head needed to bend to one side in a way that would be impossible if the helmet really went down to the shoulders as it does in the drawing. So I made an executive decision to shorten the length of the helmet to leave room for head tilt. To make the helmet, I covered the head with wood putty in a rough shape and let it dry. I used Super Sculpey to simply add gauntlets to the existing hands. Interestingly, when the Super Sculpey is painted over with acrylic paint while the clay is still soft, the clay retains elasticity as no air can get to it! Very handy.
 

The gun had to be fabricated almost from scratch. I used an existing rifle and then shortened the stock on the barrel end, filled it with wood putty and then sanded the end to round and taper the stock. I created a totally new barrel out of plastic tubing from an ink pen. A coat of brown paint for the stock and silver paint for the barrel and the job is done. But the tiny scale was s real pain in the butt to work in.
 

Here the helmet has been sanded smooth. I must say that this worked out much better than I had hoped. However, sculpting with wet wood putty is like trying to shape something out of melting butter. It is definately a learned art form. The black tape is to protect the clothing from drips and paint, etc.
 

As this was a very unique build, I just created one green-helmet-dude and will shoot him in two different positions. His feet do not show so I just pulled them off and stuck his legs into a couple of holes in a block of wood. His face mask is a modified breathing mask from a jet fighter pilot helmet. I also painted some more angular eyebrows to make him look meaner and more like the drawing.

And here's a quick composite/lighting test below the original drawing for comparison.
The background of the cartoon was just nebulous blue. But I will be using a rock cave wall in the finished shot.
 

November 15th, 2009

 Set up the cave interior for scene 13.
 

As the shot goes by in only about 30 frames, I felt there was no need to break out the plaster. Just tape some wrinkled foil to a piece of foam core board and give it a couple of coats of grey and tan spray paint.

Here's the set up ready to shoot. You will notice that the green-helmet dude is facing the wrong way. This is because his hands are specifically molded to hold the gun a certain way. I guess everyone in his tiny world is right handed. Anyway, as the shot calls for two dudes and I only built one, I was going to have to composite the two together, anyway. So I just shot him facing to the right and then flipped it horizontally in Photoshop. I then reversed the lighting and faced the green-helmet dude the other direction for the second shot. I also decided to bring the light level down and use mainly rims instead of the brighter light that I had in the previous sample photo. I made this decision because there is a lot of gunfire that will illuminate their faces here and there. Making it a bit darker really accents the muzzle flashes.

Okay! Ready to watch the animation for this shot?
Then turn up your speakers again and click HERE !
 

November 20th, 2009

Began prepping for scene 2, which is about 3 seconds of a man or young boy running through the jungle (hard to tell).

Decided to test the feasibility of using a real boy dressed appropriately and then shooting him running using a high speed shutter to freeze the action. I would then use the footage to create a running cycle. These individual frames would either be used directly or as a reference to animate a puppet scaled to the appropriate size.
 

I recruited the son of my secretary, Sugar. His name is Jaren and he was game enough to wear a black wig and some torn clothing and run barefoot on a fairly brisk winter day. What a trooper. We purposely exagerated the hair and clothing in a basic attempt to make him look more "puppet-like". This was necessary in case I decided to use the actual footage of him running. I wanted to make sure that it mixed in with the rest of the stop motion shots. By using a high speed shutter, his body position would be "frozen" and exhibit no motion blur which, theoretically, should make him look more animated and less fluid.
 

Here's Jaren strutting his stuff for the camera.
 

Kind of hard to tell but I had the camer turned side ways so that I could maximize the resolution of the image in the HD video frame. In other words, I was shooting him running as a vertical, which meant that the captured footage was sideways. But that was easily rotated in post for proper viewing.
 

Here's the jungle set under construction. Note the first surface mirror inserted into the set as a pond. The set is actually in three sections. The front two sections move independently with the foreground moving at twice the speed of the mid ground section, while the back section does not move at all. This will create a multiplane effect that will force the perspective of the set while the camera appears to track with the running boy or puppet (still haven't decided).
 

Two different lighting tests. One above and one below. Both on an unfinished set.
 

Obviously, the set still needs to be painted and plants added, etc. But this should give me enough information about lighting and whether to use the photos as replacement animation or whether to use a puppet. The jury's still out......
 
 

November 22th, 2009

So the jury's in and I have decided to go ahead and make a puppet. The photo cut outs would work perfectly fine but I really want to have the camera rotate around the subject and the flat nature of the photo cut outs would not allow that kind of depth and movement.. Also, upon closer inspection, the guy running isn't a young boy but, rather, a small man. So I decided to whip out a puppet. Here we go!

Puppet Making 101:

First I roughed an outline on block of wood.
 

Next the figure is cut using a band saw.
 

A bit of sanding to give it some shape.
 

Normally, I would make a metal ball and socket armature. However, since this puppet is always running in a straight line, simple wooden swivels will work just fine. Actually, swivels make animation of repetitive movements much easier and more precise as ball and socket joints tend to "wander" and have to constantly be kept in line, depending on the design of the armature. You will notice that the arms have no joints at the elbow. After looking at the reference footage, it appeared that just keeping the arms at an angle while they swing would suffice. The head is permanently attached with no joint, as well. This is because there is no need to turn the head and, also, because the puppet will be supported by a bracket from above on the far side of the head.
 

The head was covered with wood filler and let dry and then carved. I gotta tell you, this is a really, really tiny puppet, which makes carving and sculpting a real pain. Since it appears the figure is a man, I decided to make him an older man, as wrinkles and craggy features are easier to produce in miniature than the smooth skin of a younger person. I also exagerated his features into a more "native" look.  The hair is sculpted in place and a depression built in to accomodate the head band.
 

Since the puppet is always seen from his left side, I was able to attach an overhead support directly to his off-camera side. This support will have a positive register that can repeatedly be removed or put back in place for each frame. This will allow me to remove the puppet from the set, bend it into a new position off-set by comparing it to a 1:1 frame of the running boy, then put the puppet back in place accurately, as if it were pin registered. However, while the puppet is absent from the set, I will shoot an additional frame of the set "clean". This clean shot will be used to erase the overhead support when the two shots are combined on a per frame basis in Photoshop.
 
 

Unfortunately, neither Brandi nor I sew worth spit, even for full size clothing. So I needed to call in a pro. Here my wife, Annette, struggles with the tiniest pair of britches she's ever handled (and you can read into that what you will).
 

Below is another lighting test for the finished puppet.

Again, the set is not finished but this shot allows me to see what the completed puppet will look like. In all, I like this much better than the photo cut out, which mandated a side view. And using an overhead support instead of traditional tie-downs allows the option of mid-air poses not usually practical with tie downs through the toes. Though not as detailed as could be achieved on a larger puppet, this will suffice for a wide, three second shot of him in continuous motion. I color matched the acrylic paint on his skin to some tan colored clay that we have in stock. That way I can use the clay to cover the screw heads at the joints on his shoulders and ankles. My goal is a level of realism that makes it visually interesting while also reflecting the traditional "Hanna Barbara" look typical of the series.
 

November 27th, 2009

Completed the overhead support system for the puppet.
 

Again, the set is not anywhere complete but I needed to get the overhead support in place before making decisions about plant placement,  running path, etc.  The top black knob is loosened so the entire lower support column can be removed in between exposures. This is necessary for two reasons. One is to reposition the puppet and the other is to take a second "clean" shot of the set without the overhead support. Below is an example of how this works.
 

Above you can clearly see the support bracket above the puppet. The part of the bracket behind his head was colored bright red so that I could key that out and not have to manually roto (cut out) around his head for every single frame. So the red allows an automatic cut and then final cleaning is done using the erase tool in Photoshop.
 

Above is a frame where the bracket has been removed. The area directly above the puppet's head is from a totally different frame.
 

In between each exposure, the support column (with the puppet still attached) is moved to a positioning easel. This easel has a locking system that is identical to the one above the set. There are a total of 15 positions taken from the footage I shot of the boy running. These positions form the complete running cycle that will be used for the 3 second shot. Those have been printed out onto 8.5 x 11 sheets, each of which will "corner up" for repeatable registration. The puppet is then bent into a position to match the photo on the paper.
 

The support column has a separate, smaller column that can be moved up and down independently of the larger support column. There is a numbered vertical scale that tells me what height to move the smaller column to raise the puppet up and down for each frame. This is necessary since his running makes him move up and down during the shot. Though this all sounds complicated, it really isn't. I just move the set to its new position (since the background is moving), put the column in place, take a frame, then loosen the top knob, remove the column, take a "clean" shot, put the column on the easel, reposition him based on the photo, then put the column back on the set.
I then repeat this about 70 times for the entire clip! :)

I did a sample running cycle, just to test the whole concept. The background isn't moving, so the puppet appears to "moonwalk" but it shows that the system works.

Click HERE to see the run cycle test!
(no audio).

Click HERE for the next month.
 

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