Saturday, February 21, 2009

What to do with the green screen footage

This is the first edit to try and figure out what footage will be used in my thesis. The backgrounds are crudely composited in Adobe Premiere Pro, so I don't want any flack, it was just to get a rough idea of what goes where.

The props and animated characters aren't there, you have to make believe, like Mr Rogers and his ugly puppets. But here is some temp sound mixed in if you prefer to close your eyes and experience "theater of the mind" (brought to you by Chesterfield -- Chesterfield always satisfies).

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Chester Green Screen

Chester is a mix media film. An homage to the physical slapstick of the vintage cartoons of the '40's and '50's. It's the story of someone who just doesn't belong, no matter how he tries. Chester is played by Brian Bitner, who had to do his act in pantomime in front of the green screen at USC's Zemeckis Center, with the help of very few physical props.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

The Rough Idea

Chester actually started off as a much more complicated script, it even featured a kick-ass pirate. Something too big for a thesis project. And it took a long while for me to give it up and trim it down to a much shorter "little fun film." What I was left with was a loser in a bunny suit named Chester, who was a miserable failure at his one dream -- to be a cartoon animal

Attached are two rough animatic of the shorter, simpler film as I brainstormed out how it would work.