Not sure about backgrounds

b15fliptop · Post by **b15fliptop** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:39 am

Awesome! Loved every bit of it!

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 7:49 am

Thanks dudes.

AniPierre> Ah, the mouse (well, I had in mind a dog but mouse will work he he) is from the previous video I did here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSBIEMonruE

Where he's trying to get a lawnmower started. This time he's using a similar action to saw a log of wood. A bit obscure but hey.

I see I've made the part where the girl picks up the guy after chasing him is out of synch, so I'll repair that.

Also might try a faster version of the song @ 121 bpm as opposed to the 117 it is now.

Anyways, peace out, thanks for the replies and thanks for watching,

Mike

Raumplan · Post by **Raumplan** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 8:02 am

FUN...TASTIC!

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 10:50 am

Tanks guy.

Another update:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU4MxsPwueE

I gotta say slowtiger's the champion on this one. He's given me so much good advice, I cannot thanks him enough.

Still more to do and tweak,

Peace out,

Mike

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 11:56 am

*blush* aaawwh, you say the nicecest things ...

It's nice to see how much you always make from such minor suggestions. Now the whole thing made me laugh several times, it's colourful, it's nearly perfect.

Only small things:
- I think you overdid it with the background blur in some of the factory shots in the beginning.

- Always be careful with doing multiplane-like pans and zooms. All elements must move at the same relative speed to each other, otherwise you don't get the impression of a zoom or pan, but of elements moving by themselves instead. Often it's not necessary to move very much, like the guy with the cereal bowl: that's perfect.

For this type of scene I use group layers a lot. I put one element, like the foreground with its animation, into a group, and this group into another group. This way I can move x and y axis totally independantly, and I get straight motion paths instead of the sometimes hard to control curves the camera tool gives me. Of course all start/stop keys must be on the very same frames and be set to the same interpolation.

- When one guy pumps up that fish, for one beat the background is the same colour as the fish, thus making it a bit invisible for a moment.

- Same goes for the keyboard on the right in the heaven scene: the level meter should be a different colour (green/red?) that the keyboard.

- The first outdoor scene after Frankenstein where he's testing the girl still looks very dull. Maybe some colourful flowers behind them?

I think that's all. I really like the movements of the characters, the dancing is done with such simple efficiancy, every hit has it's own follow-through, good overall dynamics. The videogame-stars around the passed-out guy are perfect! And you used the negative lines again in the Frankenstein sequence, which makes it stand out nicely.

-----

This (and the PMs we exchanged) sounds very much like standard production notes. If I really work with my own team one day, I'd wish to have animators as talented as Mike, who dig the whole idea of a movie by themselves, and only may need a hint here or there to make it perfect. Even more: he's able to read and understand notes! That's quite a rare ability nowadays.

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 12:00 pm

He he he thanks.

I'll tone some of the background blur down a bit. Peace, and thanks!

Mike

toonertime · Post by **toonertime** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 12:06 pm

love your style and creativity mr mikdog!

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 12:17 pm

Oops. Cross posting. I really should learn to think first, post second one day ...

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 4:39 pm

Another great hit from Mikdog. For my taste is almost perfect.
Excellent!!
(and needed to watch it twice to see the hidden details in the backgrounds!)
-G

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 4:59 pm

Thanks guys

Slow > when you mentioned the blur in the beginning background sections, are you referring also to the foreground things I blurred quite a bit? Think maybe I should tone that down a bit.

Thanks 'n cheers,

Mike

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 6:11 pm

The foreground blur is OK, but the background should be sharp. This follows the convention of live action filming, where the cameraman usually tries to keep the focus on the actors as well as on the background, but foreground elements are blurred.

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 7:03 pm

Mikdog, your work is amazing and always is better than the last one. I'm your very big fan.

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 7:20 pm

slowtiger wrote:The foreground blur is OK, but the background should be sharp. This follows the convention of live action filming, where the cameraman usually tries to keep the focus on the actors as well as on the background, but foreground elements are blurred.

Nice, thanks, useful info

Selgin > thanks guy, that is nice! ha ha.

AmigaMan · Post by **AmigaMan** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 7:43 pm

Just watched this. Can't really add anything. Brilliant!

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 2:36 am

Thanks am,

Here's the last chorus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3w60-IvZ4g

A frame or two gets dropped every now and then. I sped the video up in a comp in Final Cut Express so its a technical thing.

Anyways, going to probably figure out some combination of colour overlays that work. At the moment they're kind of muddy. I'd imagine to go with yellow, red, green blue, and use them opposing each other? I'd go yellow, blue, red, green (even though red and green sometimes look the same to be; I'm red/green colourblind ha ha but I understand the basic colour wheel concept and very basic complimentary colours theory...very basic understanding) just need to find some hues that work nicely.

Peace out!

Mike