Father To Son
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Concept Art
In the original ideation process I was decided what style I should for for with my film. The main two was using wooden props and miniatures and using felt, specifically needle felting.
Using the most simplest of drawing programs (MS Paint) I sketched out some quick ideas of what the scenery would look like for the short film.
Simple designs for the father and son characters
Using the VR program Google created “Tilt Brush” I was able to get a better visualization of the scene I was trying to recreate in the real world. Tilt Brush is essentially a 3D painting tool, and it worked wonders for “building” the scene that I had in my head, but didn’t know how to put onto paper.
Script
Storyboards
Storyboards
Father To Son
Updated boards to reflect the end film
Original Father To Son idea
Way to over ambitious
Production Blogs
Production Blogs
1/28/24
1: My senior film project is a stop motion/3d short about a father and son camping trip. However at night the son's imagination goes wild when he starts to hears noises outside their tent. In this production blog I will be sharing my weekly process of what I've gotten done during each week and what I plan on working on.
2: As of right now my story is pretty well developed. I still have to lock in the final part of the short. What I'm currently leaning towards is having the father help his son overcoming his fears and not having our imaginations going wild. I think I'll do this by having the father bring his son outside and showing that it's just a bunny or something that's causing the noise. I have a good idea of how my visual style is going to be. I'm leaning towards using fabrics and cloths for the stop motion, and then using more abstract 3D visuals for the child's imagination scenes. With me taking on this big project at a more rushed rate along with doing the compendium reel for FUSE I am feeling pretty overwhelmed with the amount of stuff I am going to be doing. However I plan on having a good schedule for planning between both of these major projects along with other classes, work, friends, and mental health. With my rushed pre-production schedule I plan on getting some concept art done.
2/6/24
This week I've been doing some concept art. Was doing a little bit in ms paint, but I am not the most 2D drawing inclined, so I used a vr program called Tiltbrush. Using that has helped me a lot to get a more visual idea of what I plan on creating for my stop motion sets. Scott also told me about the storyboarder program, so I've started doing some storyboards. Only have the first seen in right now, but hope to get that done by next week?
2/20/24
It's been a bit since I've created a blog or even got some things done for my project. I've been trying to re time my schedule to work with the compendium reel and project. I've hopefully figured out what to do each week so I can get everything I need done. Anyways this week I've gotten the first draft of my script done. Will run it by Ben and/or Scott to get some revisions, or cut it down. Now that I have a much clearer idea of how the short is going to play out. I should hopefully be able to get started back on my storyboards. As well as figuring out how to use TiltBrush for my 3D imagination aspects.
3/5/24
These past view weeks I haven't gotten an insane amount that I wanted done. Have been super busy with the compendium reel. Anyways this week I've gotten my logline and asset list done. I might update my logline later, but I'm ok with it right now.
Logline: Father and son camping trip learning a valuable lesson about imagination and fear
I've also gotten some Style ideas done, and I've gotten them down to two types. The first one, which I really like, is felt needling, and the other is using pre made models, toys, and wooden characters. The toy idea would definitely be a lot easier as I don't have to spend as much time creating things, but I feel like using felt would really be cool to do.
3/19/24
Over spring break, and I'm sure like most people. I got some stuff done, but not as much as I wanted to. So far I've gotten about 2/3rds of my storyboards done, so I should be done with that soon. I've also pretty much decided to make everything out of felt, so that will be cool. I've purchased some felting supplies thanks to a close family friend, Nancy. I get the actual need today, so I would like to start messing around with things very soon.
4/23/24
It has been a while since I have made a blog. I was busy with the compendium reel that was show this weekend at Fuse. Now with that being done my focus is to get as much as I can get done for my capstone. Right now I am focusing on getting the storyboards locked down. I've added a lot more close up and medium shots to make it seam like we are "with" the characters instead of "watching" them. I've also added a scene in the beginning to show fear in the kid early on, so the fear in the tent makes a lot more sense. I am currently deciding between two different storyboards. One with a smaller montage sequence to make things quicker, or having them just coming back from a canoe trip and camp being set up already.
6/19/24
It's been about 2 months since the last time I did a blog, or even work on my project. However this last week and a half I started up again and am getting stuff done. I've planned out how my scenes will look and I've gotten scale down pretty well (might need a few adjustments). I say scenes because I am going to need an entire setup for the beginning canoe portion, positive of this however is that it will give me time to come up with a title. I have yet to receive anything back about using Father and Son, so I might have to try something new. Along with all of this I have built my table to work on. Got some peg board, 2x4's and C-clamps. Got that all measure and cut at Luke's place using his table saw (thank you Luke). If I couldn't have cut it there I don't know what I would have done. One big thing I have noticed while being in my office is that it is hot as shit!! I keep on forgetting to bring my box fan because if it's this hot without the lights It's going to be a sauna when I have those lights on.
7/9/24
Over this past couple of weeks I've been figuring out the armatures. I lost the sheet that Amy Greenspan wrote on with the detailed explanation of how to make the armature, so wasn't happy about that. However through some trial and error I think I have the idea done. The skeleton for the father is 80% done, and currently waiting on epoxy to dry. Going to start the son asap.
9/3/24
It has been a long while since I last did a production blog. Over this time I have gotten a lot of stuff done, as well as not as much as I should have. I have the skeleton system of the armatures 80% done. I just need to get the correct hardware for the feet so I can tie them down. I have also gotten an ok amount of needle felting assets done. This includes multiple logs, flashlights, pillows, and some bushes. At this point I have hit the realization that I really need to lock in to get everything done before I graduate in December. Thankfully my other classes aren't taking up an insane amount of my time, and I don't have many hours for my job. I do think, as long as I really focus, I can get my film done, if not really close to finished.
9/9/24
This week I've done some more needle felting. I've been creating more logs that I plan on using for the fire. I also created a wooden stump for the people to sit on around the fire. However I've realized that I created it way to small, so I'm gonna have to create 2 entirely new logs/stumps. I've also gotten the threaded rods that I needed to tie them down. Issue is they are too long, so I need to buy something to cut them into a more usable size. I've been collecting paper towel rolls to act as the main portion of the tree, that I will wrap with felt later on. I finally epoxied the nuts into the feet of the armatures.
9/17/24
Over this past week I've had to kill some darlings. I met with Scott and Bill in my office to discuss how much time I really have to get everything done. Long story short, I am extremely far behind to get everything I wanted done. Right now the current plan is to get the main heart and soul of the story "the father and son". I will be focusing on getting the armatures done and the scene set up so I can film the guitar scene at the very least. I am optimistic I can easily get that done along with all the other stop motion, but I will have to see. I'm going to have to lock in an insane amount to get everything I want done. I hope that I can pull this off. On the progress side of things, I've gone shopping to get a lot of felt sheets for the trees, ground, and canoe. I have wrapped the tree trunks with felt as of now. I also got foam balls for the heads.
9/24/24
This week wasn't the best of weeks to get stuff done. Due to having a lot of other things in classes to get done, as well as having a bad mental state this week. However I still did get some things done. I recreated the logs for the armatures to sit on, that are more to scale. I also did a more "creative" project of creating my "secret Santa" of Faith's main character in needle felt. I do feel that this little creative excursion was exactly what I needed to get back on the horse and get my own project done. Next milestone I feel really enthusiastic for.
10/9/24
These past two weeks I had one good week getting things done, but over fall break I didn't get as much done as I wanted (shocker). However I now have a much better idea of what the camp scene will look like, so I am happy with that. I am also well into making my armatures. I am almost done with the dad, and hope to get them fully done by next milestone.... and maybe having the full scene set up so I can finally animate.
10/22/24
This has been a good last couple of weeks! I have created a production plan to hopefully start filming by the end of the week, but I think I might start this weekend, or early next week. The dad is completely done, I started and finished the son really quickly, and I have the heads done. Instead of multiple heads I will have only one for each person and can adjust it for face expressions. Not pictured here, but I got the grass all laid out. I've also reached out to Universal music again to get licensing rights, so hopefully they respond soon or I will have to change plans.
11/5/24
I forgot to do a production blog last week, but ever the less I have gotten a lot of things done! I've created my guitar, set up my scene, and set up lighting an framing. While theoretically I could film right now I need to reevaluate my shots as well as timing for the music that I still don't know how to get. I've got a month to get everything done, I hope I can still do it.
11/12/24
Finally! After almost a year of pre production I have started on animation! I'm happy I am finally here, but I now have to get all the shots done in the next 2 weeks to leave me room for editing and post production. The campfire light was really pissing me off, but I finally figured out a way to keep the light on by taping the bulb to a battery.
11/19/24
I've been getting a good amount of animation actually done which is good. I have roughly 14 seconds completed! However I am either going slower than I want or I am doing to much before the actual guitar. I still need to do the entire guitar scene, create a pov of the son, close up of the guitar, and if I can a close up of the fire. The guitar and fire close up would be really easy to do, but I need the son's angle. I've got a lot to do with not enough time.
11/26/24
I'm finally starting the actual guitar playing, and it only took 22 seconds to get there. I am not over worried about getting it done now. I'm going to film the intro and then pretty much just repeat strumming over and over again to "play" the rest of the song. Then I'll make things blend smoothly with closeup shots of guitar, fire, dad, and son. Hopefully I can cut back and forth long enough to end the song at a good time. Still lots to do, but seems "possible".
12/10/24
IT'S DONE ish... Over this past week I have put in roughly 33 hours to finish my project. As of now I have everything filmed, I have everything edited into a video with music and sfx. I think I've messed up at some point because editing is impossible to do. It takes 30 seconds to view 5 frames in premier pro, and even then it's stuttering. So I'm hoping Scott can help me with fixing that, and to add a filter/color grading. I've also gotten my poster "done". It is in a very basic state and I'm hoping to be able to continue working on it and perfect the poster. Currently I am happy with what I have done, but knowing how close I am kind of stinks to not get it done before I'm done with school, but se la vie.
Father To Son
(Timing updates)
A big critique (both personal and from others) I had from my original release of the short film was that the timing of the guitar strumming didn’t match the song playing. This was my attempt at correcting that issue, and I think it helped a lot.