I AM NIGHTMARE Production Diary #14

I'm about to start animation on the sixth sequence of the film's nine sequences. At this date only sequences 1-3 are totally complete though. After recording the lines for sequence three- one of the main voice actors(She voices five characters) got injured and had to have surgery- so since she's going to be out of commission for awhile I just worked around the shots that her voice was needed in.

Bog and Teenee just hangin outSo I would say sequence's 4 and 5 are %60-%70 complete- so now I'm moving onto the shots I can do for sequence 6. So I'm just going to keep moving forward with the film and then when she is well enough to record I'll go back and animate the shots that are missing.

Advisor Simmons and Mayor Tom check the timeSo I'll keep moving forward all the way through the end of the film if I have too- as long as there is other work to do I need to keep moving forward. I'd guess that she should be ok to start recording again in the next few weeks. As soon as I get those lines I can appease my OCD MUST FINISH self.

Three THUGS taught someone inside a jail cellI haven't done any final rendered shots yet but I was experimenting with some render looks a few days ago- here's a result of one of my tests- this isn't the final look I'm going with for a night scene- its just a test

Mare carrying a bundle of sandwiches in the nightI'm trying to get away from my obsessive art director self wherein every lighting setup/color/bit of atmosphere has to be "perfect" If I do the same thing I did with Heart String Marionette I won't finish the film this year as I'd tweak over the look of every shot for far too long. I'm done trying to impress myself with cool looking imagery- I know I can do it now so I just want to focus on the basics of filmmaking on this one instead of obsessing over the look of each shot.

I KNOW I'm still going to tweak off each shot and make it look tite- I just need to convince myself that even if every shot isn't amazing that its not going to ruin the film and that I don't need to spend a lot of time on a shot to make it look good enough to not ruin the experience of the film.

I want to make films for people not technical geeks- not for animators or compositors who will notice every little mistake and ask you to fix it ^_^ I want to make this film for kids and people who can still suspend their disbelief without insane technical requirements and just enjoy my little fantasy worlds.

I recently got to babysit a four year old boy and I learned a lot about art and storytelling! This is his drawing of a person.

To him with his powerful imagination this was a person- there is a head, a mouth, eyes, arms and legs. My characters and animation are a lot more sophisticated than this obviously but I want to make films for people who have an imagination- its no fun trying to make things that will appeal to those that don't.

If you're doing everything else right in your animation/film you can entertain, excite and enthrall with stick figures or little basic 3d dolls like I'm using in I AM NIGHTMARE.

If you're a good storyteller you should be able to entertain with nothing but your spoken word- ANY animated stuff on top of that should make it DOPE.

Since we're on the topic of kids and imagination here's some art I made when I was a little kid- it's pretty funny ^_^

In the 5th grade I made a "Ninja Frogs" book and this was the hero character

Looking back I don't know why a frog needed a wetsuit and swimming shorts  but yeah ^_^


Brought to you by professional weirdo M dot Strange.