Props and backgrounds

For the last week, I've been working on animating, rendering and compositing in my props and backgrounds. I was hoping to be done by yesterday, but yesterday's work schedule was tossed in turmoil, so I expect to be done by tonight or more likely tomorrow.

Still I have my first complete pre-stylize shot. It'll get a drop shadow for the character to finish it off.

More background sketches

How my background are made

The backgrounds start with a hand-drawn illustrator that is scanned into the computer.




They are then assembled in Photoshop...

Then the shading is added, using a light, medium and dark grey...

A color layer is then created...
And the color layer is turned into an overlay, which combines it and the shading underneath.

Backgrounds

I wanted the backgrounds to have that '50's style Warner Bros look. Here they are.



What, no train you say? No raging locomotion? Well, that's going to be stock footage -- even it it means me, my Lionel engine and a HD cam.

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).

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.

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.