CHEAP METAL CHASE
PRODUCTION BLOG
CHEAP METAL CHASE Film Trailer
(current cut)
Week 1 (1/26/2024):
Semester start! I'm a bit nervous to start this project since I'm not as confident in my animation skills compared to my character design work - or even storyboarding for that matter (haha), but I'm excited to learn what I can and improve myself along the way!
Production Schedule
Week 2 (2/2/2024):
Doing some last minute adjustments to the animatic - including redesigning the antagonist. I wasn't happy with his initial design from the beginning, but I wanted to have the storyboard mostly done and planned before I made design changes. The new design feels a lot better - having his head design stray from a human and using a staple remover as inspiration for the new look! I've also changed how he attacks when using projectiles, and it feels less awkward to board!
Originally, the antagonist had an arm cannon to shoot missiles; now he shoots the missiles from his mouth.
Dialogue has been added, but i need to add temporary voices in the animatic to better time everything out.
Week 3 (2/9/2024):
I was going to rework the subway scene a little to have more cuts, but nothing feels right. I ended up sticking with the original scene I had - it's annoying that I ended up wasting so much work and time for something I ultimately threw out, but that's how it is sometimes. Just gotta brush it off and keep going.
Working on Gemma's design. She only shows up in a photo, so I'm not worried about finishing her fully.
Playing with the camera in Storyboard Pro while adding a running scene.
Also added some easter eggs in one scene in the Pawn Shop for the times I've participated in the 24HR Animation Competition hehe >:)
A little clown for Team 'Clown Corner' (2022), and a rat for Team 'low poly rats' (2023).
Week 4 (2/16/2024):
Recorded temporary lines with my roommate, with only my phone and a closet. We had a lot of fun messing around and doing voices lol.
Asked some friends for advice on approaching how to get voice actors.
I'm prioritizing short and/or simple scenes to animate first.
I feel a little stuck on how I should board a scene near the end, but I'm going to leave it alone for now - I don't want to get stun locked in the boarding phase.
I boarded certain scenes in a way that could already be considered blocked-in for animation, so I'm on track for the deadlines I set for myself - at least for now!
Week 5 (2/23/2024):
For the subway scene, I'm thinking about inserting cameos of people who help me in making the project. I think it would be a cute solution to having "blob people' crowded in the scene :}
I'm working on finalizing the Informant's design before I make a casting call for VA's. He only has like 2 lines so designing him has been on the backburner for the longest time haha.
Week 6 (3/1/2024):
Finishing the Informant's character design - just need to finish his color palette! I'm thinking about naming him Leak (like "leaking information" hehe). Once I get him sorted, I can finally make a public casting call for voice actors!
I'm also brainstorming for potential titles for the film:
Dog Bite
Scrap Metal
Droid Chase
Cheap Metal Chase (I think I'm leaning toward this one right now)
Week 7 (3/8/2024):
This week has been EVENTFUL to say the least!
My classmates Dre and Grace joined me in making the film - I'm so grateful for the help, and it's definitely a bit of weight off my shoulders knowing I won't have to do everything by myself anymore <3 Because of my newly found team, a lot of this week has been dedicated to getting everything organized for the three of us and putting together "design guides" for the characters!
I posted a casting call for voice actors, and the turn out has been UNREAL!! At the time of writing this, I've gotten 30 VA submissions (some auditioning for multiple characters) in less than a week! I'm closing auditions on the 10th, but there are already so many amazing voices that would work amazingly for the characters - THESE VA's ARE MAKING IT SO HARD TO CHOOSE JUST ONE PER CHARACTER!! ;0;
I've also got in touch with a composer to help with the project! I do volunteer character design work for an indie project (Defenders of Alodia), we know each other by being part of that crew! I sent them a playlist to give a general vibe of what I was thinking for the music, and they got really excited at the concept I pitched which made me super happy!
My team and I also decided on the title for the film!
Karma & Perry in...
CHEAP METAL CHASE
Week 8 (3/15/2024):
Finished Karma's design guide, finalized Leak's color palette, and now finishing Perry's turnaround (just need to put in the full front and back views!) and Hound's clean design for the final character lineup!
It was really hard to choose, but the VAs have been cast! It's a little intimidating since I've never led a project like this - except during the 24HR Animation Competition, but that involved a smaller team (no VAs or composers, just the 5 of us animators) and being in a leadership position for just a day haha - but it's also an exciting challenge that gets me further out of my comfort zone that I'm ready to tackle!
Mental health has been on a bit of a decline this year and it's been making it difficult to keep myself on task and motivated. I notice that I often get frustrated at myself for not being able to get work done due to assignments from other classes getting in the way, or feeling too exhausted to do anything at all. I'm trying to work on myself, but it's difficult to find that balance. Despite the external and internal stresses, I'm taking comfort in the fact that my teammates made it clear that they'd want to continue working on the project if we don't finish ~everything~ by May :')
Week 9 (3/22/2024):
Toon Boom Harmony has been messing up the camera work from my animatic which has been annoying and likely going to eat up our work time as we fix it manually, but Grace has been an MVP in doing that while Dre and I work on other scenes!
We're discussing shots we could possibly cut or combine with others for simplicity / streamlining sake! It's really fun to throw ideas at each other and figure out solutions that would work better than what I had already boarded :D !
My friend and classmate, Jesse, offered to help out with a couple scenes (and potentially backgrounds) since his film is relatively simple and is already done with his rough animation!
Leak and Hound's VAs sent over multiple takes for their line reads, and they sound so good!! Hound's VA also played with SFX testing for the character's voice and it sounds so cool! It's pretty close to what I had in mind originally - slightly metallic with a bit of an.... airy?? (for lack of a better word haha) kind of sound that alligators make in real life - which was one of the inspirations for Hound's design!
I've noticed my sleep schedule has been getting progressively worse lately. I didn't sleep at all Wednesday night and ended up crashing at about 10AM on Thursday - this isn't a new issue for me but still a frustrating one as I try to gain / maintain balance between my work and health.
Week 10 (3/29/2024):
We've been suuuuuper busy with other classes this week, so unfortunately we weren't able to get much work done. But we're hoping to pick up the pace during spring break! Karma and Perry's VAs are planning on sending their line reads this week too, so we'll be able to get into more dialogue / acting heavy animation, which I'm really excited about!
Week 11 (4/5/2024) - SPRING BREAK!:
I finished filling the placeholder panels, and Karma's VA sent in their lines, and it sounds SO GOOD - there were a few times in the recording that made it hard to decide which take to use! We're still waiting for Perry's lines (we're using the temporary audio of my roommate in the meantime) but after importing the current voices, the animatic ended up being 3 minutes ;v;
Week 12 (4/12/2024):
Perry's lines are in and they all sound so adorable!
We also talked more about scenes that could be cut and / or combined, and Dre also roughed out an additional shot idea of the outside of the subway car while it's moving and utilizing Karma and Hound's silhouettes fighting - it looks so cool!
Week 13 (4/19/2024):
I edited together a good amount of SFX while pulling together our WIP for class review - obviously I need to add more, and there are probably a couple I'll replace with better sounds later, but I feel good about knocking out a good chunk of the sound design!
We also had a meeting with our composer to talk about moments that could have emphasis through the music. They also mentioned the use of 'burnt-in' timecodes and the usefulness they have when syncing music to the visuals - which I never considered before, so I'll definitely have that added for WIP checks!
Week 14 (4/26/2024):
I showed our WIP cut of the film to one of my other professors, and he really liked what we had so far and had a lot of helpful feedback! Since we're planning on continuing to work on the project after the semester ends, he suggested we hone in on one scene to bring to finish for the class grade then branch out from there after finals - recommending the subway scene since we have a lot of interesting and fun shots / concept ideas!
He added that this could also serve as a sort of promo or production test!
We're aiming to have clean animation for the subway scene by finals, but if we get further, even better!
Week 15 (5/3/2024):
Since we decided to focus our attention toward the subway scene, I counted the amount of scenes each of us were going to work on to get a better idea of everyone's work load - adding up to:
Kelly: 6 scenes
Dre: 6 scenes
Grace: 4 scenes
At the time, Jesse didn't have dibs on any of the shots from this sequence so he offered to snag a few from Dre and I so the work is more evenly distributed!
I also got some audio of growling / snarling / barking from Hound's VA, so I'll make sure to include that in the rough cut for this week's WIP check! :D
Week 16 (5/10/2024):
We decided to shorten our class workload further to make a trailer for the short film! I've been having a lot of fun playing in Premiere, but it's really easy for me to lose track of time. For the shots being used for the trailer, we only have 3 scenes that need inbetweening - the rest just need cleanup!
We've all been busy with work from our other classes, so we don't know how clean we're gonna get, but we're prioritizing the first 3 scenes (since that'll be the first impression the audience will get) and whatever happens after that will be even better!
One of the shots I'm cleaning up is SC15, and I'm gonna tryyyyy to add colors to the characters - since it'll be the first visual of the trailer, I want to make it as pretty as I can get.
Week 17 (5/17/2024) FINALS WEEK:
The class screening with the 3 guest judges was today! I was super nervous since we weren't able to make everything completely clean, but McCarthy said that "we were in trouble" (in a good way) because we're gonna have people pestering us asking for the release date - which is a good problem to have haha!
We're gonna take a little break to recover from finals, but we're excited to continue working on the full film over the summer and fall!