This week was our soft opening. Last Monday, the ETC opened its project doors to visitors and faculty to review our final products and provide ways we can refine between now and our final presentation. For the purposes of this event, we created a rough render of Melody of Life and storyboards of Agloe.

Seeing the Animation

What was terrifying for us all was, because the Manny animation had to be completed in its entirety before we could render the full film, Softs was our first time seeing the film in its entirety. We had some dropped frames and minor glitches, but in the end we were pleased to find that the weeks of effort we put into planning the piece resulted in a deliverable that was just as we expected.

One thing we had wanted was for multiple people to view the video at the same time. With only one Oculus in our room, we asked the sound designer (who has since the start of the semester become an expert in Gear VR, Facebook 360, and Youtube 360) how hard it would be to set up additional viewing, and he said that each is a completely different process. So we only showed in Oculus, and in the interim he made a rough version for youtube so we could share this with all of you.

Given the unanticipated length of the render, we had to make compromises in order to sample the finished piece: parts of the animation are in 2k, and at one point we separated the character layer from the table (which removed the shadows). We learned that we would have to leave twice the anticipated time for the final render, and allow a couple of days for unexpected re-render issues. Textures were dropped because the software needed an upgrade, scenes glitched because we missed something in the animation. All these things came together into a hard dates for which animation had to end and rendering had to begin.

In addition to issues related to the quality of the render, we also got an interesting comment from an ETC guest. He brought up a possibility that the story could be seen as one of cultural appropriation because Manny is “white.”

We did not have time to do anything other than change Manny’s textures, so we experimented with going a little more brown (some of us called it cafe-au-lait, others “Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson). This looked great….

…until the final dance.

Manny was one with the floor. Fixing this would involve changing the table tone or changing the lighting, neither of which we had time to experiment with.

So we considered creating a Manny that was a little less human-color altogether. We yellowed him significantly. This also looked wonderful until we arrived at Ghana, wherein Manny became a giant hot spot.

Being in week 14, we really did not have time to reassess our entire environment to fix this problem, so we had to put it aside for greater priorities.

One other thing that was brought up was that the cultural dolls in the final dance are completely ignored, and we needed some kind of guide to get the viewer’s eyes to turn away quick enough to see the dolls and then turn back. Our sound designer admitted to being task-less during the re-render, so he over the past two days took up learning VFX in Premiere and After Effects in order to insert some magic in post-production. Between he and our character artist, they put together a very magical flying flaire.

As you can see, at first, the flaire landed on each doll and then went out. This got us to look at the first doll, Brazil, but didn’t guide the viewer back so they could see the others, so we decided to have the light bounce back.

We’re much happier with these results.

Overall, we’re at the point where it’s only small fixes for Melody of Life, and there is something very liberating about that.

And now for what we CAN completely rewrite…

Agloe was not as well received during Softs. The list of concerns included:

• The story is too abstract.
• Who is the main character? If the artist, Hans, is the supporting character, he takes up too much screen time.
• Why is it live action in parts? Isn’t this the animation project?
• The ending isn’t earned and doesn’t parallel the beginning.
• Cassie makes no decisions, everything just happens to her. There’s no decision-making there.

So….

We started from scratch with the story. Of course, we had a week to settle on the new script, and it couldn’t deviate too much from the original, as there is no time to replace the art. After much brainstorming, scribbling, debating, and crying, we finally came up with something in the same setting with the same concept art, but completely different in content.

The story now centers on Hans and Cassie, two artists with vastly different styles sharing the same art studio. Hans is focused on precision and proportion, while Cassie is all about abstract gesture. Between them sits a curtain so that they can work in solitude. One day, though Cassie sees Hans’ work and wants to talk to him about it. After multiple tries, she gives up on attempting to talk to him, only to see him in frustration at his work, throw out the painting she loved. Cassie rescues that painting and adds her own spice to it. When Hans sees the painting, he falls in love with her work the way that she did with his, and in the end the two of them come together and collaborate, the curtain completely gone.

This new version lets us keep the paintings we have with some simple color modifications, AND it lets us keep are models.

While our concept artist is working on mood boards for the environment, our character modeler has taken on building modelers of the characters in question. As of Friday, Hans’ model was finished, so she agreed to take on making Cassie as well.

Given how long the rewrites took, we spoke with our instructors and re-assessed our goals. While we will not be able to provide a formal script or storyboard, we can create a summary of the story with obvious beats, as well as beat boards comprised of key frames.

Sunday marks the start of week 15, our final week of production. No matter what happens, the next 7 days are the last we will work on either Melody of Life or Agloe.

See you next week!