Colour?

Ok, to explain this shot in more detail.
This shot is afterte bright blue underwater shots. The nymph pops his head out out of the water, realising the "friend" he was looking for was never therein the first place, and that the "friend" he was looking for was really his reflection. Me and Iredia has discussed the colour changes within the film. It was my idea to have a sunset theme since it reflects his sad, loneliness. However, I wasnt sure if there was part of the sky in this short or not, which is why u see the slightly darker patch around him to illustrate a water surface. After having an in depth skype meeting with Iredia. We screen-shared and worked our a lighter background to correspond with the washed out look we're continued to use throughout the film =D

This shot is now finish, Im very proud with it since it seems so professionally made. As if I actually got a set of water colours out to frame paint this!! It has that very traditional look we're all missing. So Im extra proud with this shot. Since its a close up shot, more detail was put into the lighting and the nymphs actual features. I deliberately gave him light shimmering eyes and a slight moving shadow to represent the flow of water and the reflection of ripples slightly reflecting on his face. =D

Programs learnt this year

I've some how gone through quite a number of programs in a year o.O

So heres a list:
Here are the TWO Japanese programs I've grown to LOVE, personally I now prefer using SAI instead of Photoshop... IllustStudio is like SAI and photoshop put together with tools you would need to illustrate in general. It has amazing rulers and perspective guidelines that are all adjustable!

• PaintTool SAI - http://www.systemax.jp/en/sai/
• IllustStudio - http://www.illuststudio.net/
• TVPAINT - http://www.tvpaint.com/v2/content/article/home/
• ToonBoom - http://beta.toonboom.com/

(Ive had the chance to play with ToonBoom in first year, but never really used it.)

• FinalCutPro 7 - http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/finalcutpro/
• AfterEffects - http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects.html

(I've only had experience in making particle systems and title sequences in AE)

All the programs listed will be mentioned in my technical folder, for the less famous ones I'll show an interface session so that you can see its abilities and to prove I can use the program. So I might create a crap bouncing ball in 2 mins or something just for you to see how it all goes =)

Since Im doing 2D films its really hard for me to evenfill this folder in. Apparently learning new softwares count, and thas exactly what I've been doing throughout the year!

Things I will attmpt to fill this folder in:

• Leaf animation in AE
• Glowing luminous moon + a night sky
• Making of the CREDITS. (Ive even written Iredias name in chinese =D)
• Panning
• Filtering
• Using the LUMA key
• Compositing
• Colour changing.
• Use of all the programs above

8th June Update

I'm sorry my posts these days hasn't been as visual as they usually are.
I've been recovering from my trip abroad and frame painting at the same time.

Shot 2 has been completed. I'm currently half way through shot 4. Me and Iredia had a very detailed meeting on the 4 other shots waiting in line. It gets complicated since theres a change of time, so the colours of the scenes will gradually fade from the greenish greys > blues>orange>reddish tones>purple to then finish off with darker contrasting purples.

The Mayfly is supposed to reflect the traditional arts of Chinese calligraphy, however, By keeping to the grayish green principles our film overall will have a dull impact. Which is why we want to bring in lovely animated time changed. Since this is all colour, It is my job to get this right. I did a few tests in Hong Kong, I took a few days away from going out, locked myself in the hotel to get work done. It was hard, and so tempting to drop the idea of working on holiday, but I really couldn't leave Iredia like that. I constantly emailed Iredia and Michelle from team smitten to constantly get updates on our teams progress, and what I needed to get done for them. Smitten has been done, so I've had nothing to submit to Leader Matt.

I've had skype meetings to discuss changes to the Mayfly shots. There was one time we had a meeting while Iredia was at Ravensbourne. But it was so laggy we had to switch the screensharing and webcam off. This then delayed a days worth of time since theres an 7/8 hour difference in the two countries.
Even though we all took my personal trip in a professional manner, and continued to work as if I was still in London, it seems there are people within our COURSE that's got so stressed with their own projects they've stuck their noses into our business, spreading rumours like I've ditched Iredia and Smitten. Its upsetting, and really hurts my team members especially. I only found out after coming back. Its disgraceful and immature. I wished they would just butt out of other peoples business. I took the trip as a BUSINESS trip, taking 3 of those days to do official things which required lots of waiting time in government buildings..not fun. Then I had to lock myself in my hotel room to get work done. So I believe I achieved working in a professional manner. I didn't want to go in the first place, but for my own future I had to. And definitely don't deserve to be bashed at like that, especially behind my back its just not called for. Its frustrated Iredia since he knew what was really going on. The extra stress was seriously not needed, I feel really bad for stressing him so much. I'm really sorry dude T_T

And for that, on Monday, even though I was jetlagged, I planned to have a meeting with my EnE group, printed posters and had further discussions on our product and expansion. Plus what we needed for our summative and presentation. We then went out to the london graphic center to get a few materials to finalise our product (OUR KEYRINGS NOW HAVE FACES!!^^) We all went to eat, went to play child of Eden together, which really brought back the fun, and was a great way to de-stress ourselves. Personally I felt it was a great way to catch up with everyone^^ It seems people have been going nuts, but we believe having a fresh head and actually moving, doing a bit of exercising instead of locking ourselves in makes the pace of of work faster and more accurate.

Enough rambling,

I've sorted my 3 folders out for submission, I had a few bits to transfer from my laptop, work to finish.

Todays Task:
Finishing Shot 4
To start and finish the EVOLUTION shot (not sure what shot that is)
Leaf animation test.
Clean up 2000 words for EnE Report + sort out everyones slides (copy n paste their slides onto the presentation.

5 things to do, that's more then enough for the day =) Its not even 10 yet and I've written so much^^

Shall blog my process throughout the day (its a nice break from frame painting =P)