Date: 2002/01/26

Update:I had some really good feedback from the A:M list on timing and dead spots, so I went back a fixed a few things. I really think I'm done now, but things that changed include:

• Helmet now drops in after ski, fills some dead time (this worked really well)
• Green light for a half sec during skier take off
• Replaced ski shuffling sound, it sounded too much like sawing wood

I also added an animatic link below. It's kind of interesting, if only in retrospect.

Date: 2002/01/24

Did you ever have one of those moments, staring out in space or whatever, and suddenly you have one of those *DING* moments where you say to yourself: That would be funny! Well, the idea for this little animation came about while driving down the freeway between radio stations.

The problem was, the idea came to me on December 26th and, being an Olympic theme, there was a limited time where this might be funny. Getting done in the summer didn't seem the right thing to do. So, my goal was to see if I could deliver a complete animation in one month of spare time (spare being roughly defined as "anything I could steal away from the family without my lovely wife making me sleep on the couch").

So, I sat down, sketched some ideas, storyboarded the basic flow, put the storyboard and sketches away, then went to work. This is the result. It's one minute long and, like anything, could be better, but I accomplished my main goal: An animation with story and sound delivered from scratch in one month. Not bad!

Before I go any further, I need to apologize to anyone that actually speaks Australian as I'm sure my attempt at an accent sounds ridiculous. Why I'm doing my own voice work and why Australian are two questions that are probably best left unanswered.

Major lessons learned:

• One month for an animation is a silly short amount of time
• Next time, smartskin would be a good thing. Must learn to use SmartSkin.
• Acting/Timing is very hard. I need to do more exercises as my timing is spotty to poor.
• I think the pacing, in retrospect, is pretty rushed
• Only late in the game did I realize that the joke might not translate without an understanding of Skeet Shooting and yelling "Pull" to release the target. Not sure even at that if it translates.
• DV cameras do sound recording pretty well

Major "If I'd only had more time": The actual starting motion of the skier is too floaty and slow. Not enough to look SloMo and not enough to look crisp. Oh, well. Better luck next time...

Animations:

Animatics:

Below, I have a link to the Animatic from my sketches. I didn't use an animatic during production, but it seems like I might next time. The sharp eyed will not that I sketched on Engineering Paper, so in that I reveal two secrets:

1. I can't draw worth beans
2. In my other life, I'm an engineer (software).

It's interesting to look back and see what changed in the course of production:

• Scenes were pulled when I realized they'd take too long to model
• The duck started off with a shotgun. I switched to a bazooka to explain the explosion and because it's sillier
• The ducks now wear hats. One has a fez. Why? Because at midnight, a duck in a fez struck me as really funny.
• Buck and Jim became Buck and Chuck (Duck). Buck is now a member of the NRA (according to his hat).

Stats

Stills

Here are a couple snaps from the production.

This is the ill-fated star of the animation. He's named Louie.	This is Chuck and Buck Duck, two buddies just out for a little fun.

As always, all feedback, positive and negative is appreciated and welcome here. Thanks, Darrin Mossor

Animation created with Hash's Animation:Master