scaredy squirrel halloween PSA

Over the summer, I animated this short book trailer for Mélanie Watt's latest Scaredy Squirrel book Scaredy Squirrel Prepares for Halloween: A Safety Guide for Scaredies!

Having animated on the TV version of Scaredy for a while in the past, it was a lot of fun to switch things up and animate the (cuter - shhh!) book version of the character. Even more refreshing was switching to a more traditional style. Roughs and timing charts were figured out in Flash, then the whole thing was cleaned up in Photoshop, before moving on to AE for compositing.

The last "film" I made was in 4th year and took me the year to complete, so getting this baby done in under three months (on top my my regular 9 to 5 6 to 2 job) was a heck of a step up!

MANiMATE 2012: trickery

PHEW! Had to cut lots of corners, but that's what happens in a 24 hours film! Anyway, this is what came out of this year's MANiMATE... 

Time for bed now. 

sneaky pees

Always a fox! I'm probably being a little totally over ambitious with this year's MANiMATE, but oh well... Stay tuned tomorrow for the result?

mark your calendars!

It's getting to that time of the year again...

...time to MANiMATE!! Like a man!

The amazing Ashlyn Anstee is once again organizing a 24 hour film festival through the magical thing that is the internet. Not gonna lie, filmmaking kinda scares me. So filmmaking in 24 hours can be kind of a nightmare if I think too much about it. So I don't. You just let it go, and just do whatever, and have fun, and who cares what comes out! Take the opportunity to make something. Take the opportunity to do crap you never get to do at your 9-5 job. Take the opportunity to re-think your definition of film. Take the opportunity to use different mediums. And it'll all be better than okay.

Details:

Theme unveiling: Friday, August 10th, 10:00PM
Official start time (PDT): Saturday, August 11th, 10:00AM
Official end time (PDT): Sunday, August 12th, 10:00PM
Medium: Any kind of animation, live action, combination of both, or not. Basically a free for all.

Just like many things in your life, you can do it with friends, or by yourself!


Also! Prizes this year! Amazon gift cards for many categories! See? This might not be a complete waste of your time after all.

Do you Facebook? Event page here.

And I'll totally be using #MANiMATE all over Twitters.

MANiMATE!

24 hour film fest preview

The final thing should be up tomorrow night!

field trip

Field Trip HD from Mélanie Daigle on Vimeo.

home stretch

rough roughs

sneek peek!

One down... a lot more to go!

frames & busts

fonts are fun too

my dilema with luce's neck...

The way it's been so far, fits with the others' designs but...

...this way she doesn't look so "hunchey" but having a neck makes her look way too old.

I'll get it right soon.

I like this nose though. And the eyes are totally inspired from Persepolis (she's blonde.)

higher education

When you start you want to make the greatest film in the world, but when you get into it, you just want to get it done, let it be passable and not embarrassing.
Francis Ford Coppola

A hint of the scenes I worked on for the film - props to Angela and Amber for painting the BGs for the whole thing!