Delayed again

I was holding off on making a new blog post in the hope that my next one would be the release announcement. However, we're delayed again so I think an update is necessary.

I know some readers understand that this ain't no drag-and-drop audio hack project, but 10 minutes of original orchestral score + full custom environmental soundscapes. Those people will wait patiently for another 2 months if necessary and still enjoy the movie when it's released. To those people, thanks! Here's a new screenshot:



If on the other hand, you are one of those who are increasingly irritated at the ongoing delays and demand an explanation, here it is:

The reason for this particular delay is the simple fact that part C is more than half of the movie. It's greater than A and B put together. Because part C > (A+B), I don't think any of us truly appreciate the sheer volume of work needed to fill Part C with audio. This is the reason my timeframe estimates consistently fall short.

Having said all this, the new estimate is as follows: Part C music will be finished by October 15 and the sound effects will be completed in the week that follows. Each time Nathan delivers audio to me, I make notes for changes, which are promptly seen to by him. This process usually takes an additional few days.

Therefore, we're looking at Oct 15 + a week + a few days = Oct 25 (ish). Here's how it will be released and who sees it first:

• Day 1 - send out Waterlollies to my preview list by email (industry people, journalists, bloggers, friends, family)
• Day 2 - Selected groups on the Brackenwood forum (Mods, Admin, MotM)
• Day 3 - Brackenwood forum, General members
• Day 4 - BiteyCastle.com front page announcement and WoodenBlog article
  
• Day 5 - released on Newgrounds.com

click image for full size

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TRAILER COMP SECURES SPONSOR
More info on this in a later update but for now, the makers of the fantastic Digital Pro software, ToonBoom Animation have kindly agreed to sponsor the upcoming Brackenwood trailer competition to celebrate the launch of the Brackenwood Store. This means that the grand prize-winner* will score a full commercial license of ToonBoom Studio v4.0. worth US $399.oo

Check out the personal learning edition and don't forget to download the excellent tutorials.

*I say "grand prize" because there will be Brackenwood Store prizes for two runners up.

Files to be made available
To make it easier for you to create your Brackenwood trailer, I'll be uploading chunks of my movies in .mov format and posting links for you to download and use those files.

Once the competition is under way, your entry should be uploaded to YouTube and the winner will be decided by community vote on the Brackenwood forum.

Some of you may be able to work without my .mov files and get a slight headstart (note - a headstart doesn't gain you any real advantage, other than the time you have to work on your entry). Check out the first entry here.

done!

Guess what! No need for a Waterlollies graph this week because I've finished all of the animation. The final scene was difficult, time-consuming and complicated.. but heaps of fun (you'll see why sooner or later).

When the music is finished I'll announce the release here and on the forum. There's also a little matter of the actionscripted effects that are still being worked on, but I anticipate it to be finished before the music. I hope to release on or before September 20, but as it's now in the hands of other people, I can't say for sure.

The movie is generously sponsored by Newgrounds so I'll also be submitting it there a day or two after it's live on biteycastle.com.

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Next project!
Bernard Derriman and I are working together on a freelance job (for television) using ToonBoom Digital Pro - the latest and most awesomest version of ToonBoom Solo. Bernard has been using Solo for a few months now and will be helping me learn the ropes, trying to get me up to speed quickly enough to be useful on this project. Who knows..? Maybe the next Brackenwood will be my first non-Flash movie :O

More Brackenwood
I have a few ideas for my next Brackenwood project, which will break away from the "random scenario" pattern of stories and focus more on the bigger Brackenwood picture. Bitey had to come from somewhere right? Why is Brackenwood so sparsely populated? Where did everyone go so suddenly and without warning? Why has Bitey grown up wild and completely alone?

These questions will be answered if I'm forced to continue making internet episodes. I say "forced" because ideally the Brackenwood feature film is next on the agenda. Therefore (and it's a sad, yet exciting thought) it's possible that there won't be another web episode of Brackenwood.

If that worries you, I hope you take comfort knowing that a Brackenwood feature film is what I've been leading up to all these years and will be better, more complete and more satisfying than all the internet episodes put together.

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Launch It! Challenge
Today was probably the first Sunday in months that actually felt like a Sunday to me. As a nice break from animation, I made a video showing how to make a small slingshot with piano-wire. It's my entry into the Launch It! Challenge on instructables.com so drop by and take a look at my instructable. Don't hurt yourself!

Here's the video.. the audio is by French band 'The Hush Puppies'. I bought their CD after hearing them play live at Annecy, France in 2006.



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Speaking of slingshots
I've posted a human slingshot in the past, but when you watch my YouTube how-to video, this other video comes up in the 'Related' column. The term "crazy bastards" comes to mind.







Seeya!

Waterlollies Eclipsed

As most Australians saw, there was a total lunar eclipse recently and I took a few hours away from Waterlollies in order to set up my telescope. We made a night of it and we were joined by some friendly neighbours who brought vodka.

With binoculars, telescopes and cameras we saw plenty of the moon that night and I managed to get some amazing shots simply by aligning my camera lens to the telescope's eyepiece. By fantastic coincidence, my digital camera's lens fits quite neatly into the telescope's eyepiece. Here are my favs from about 75 shots.

Note: as seen through a refractor telescope, the moon appears upside-down in these shots.

High-power lens: The earth's shadow creeps in from top left.


Low-power lens: Taken about 10 min after the above shot.


Towards the end of the eclipse as the light starts to reappear. Increased the exposure (+1.3) here in order to see detail in the darkness.


My favourite. Same shot as above but decreased exposure (-1.0). I have this one as my desktop wallpaper.


I took this photo from the window of my home-made spaceship, shortly after lift-off.

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Waterlollies progress

oO0oh.. contractions are very close together now. The biggest and most difficult scenes are finished. Part C has 85 scenes and there are 13 to go. Here's the graph:





As you can see, storyboard is complete and we're days from finishing..

HOWEVER..!

.. don't organise your Waterlollies party just yet. Nathan McCree is working on Part B music right now. Here's what his to-do list looks like:

• Part B music
• Part B sound effects
• Part C music
• Part C sound effects

I still think we'll be good for a September release, but I'm thinking it'll be around September 2oth. Don't quote me, I'll keep you updated.

Flash Forward People's Choice
Thanks everyone who voted for 30 shorts. People's choice voting closed on August 30 so now we sit tight and wait for September 19-21. The Flash Forward Film Festival ("FFFF!") night is held at the end of the conference and the winners of the individual categories are announced.

To stay up to date on the conference itself, keep an eye on the Flash Forward site over the coming weeks.

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By next update, I'll be finished Waterlollies and music/audio should be in its final stages. Talk to ye then!

-Phillips

Crash [of] Course

A few nights ago, I lost about 3 hrs work when Flash crashed. I'm using Flash CS3 and I'd never had a problem with it until then. It's the most stable and powerful version of Flash yet so I still highly recommend it. I have a feeling it was a problem with my computer's memory though, as I've begun to get some "not enough memory" messages in certain other programs.

The most frustrating part of any crash is that I'm a compulsive Ctrl+Shift+S guy, and my drive is full of incremental saves from every project I've worked on since 'Bingbong of Brackenwood' (some of you may already know that I no longer have a Flash file for Bingbong.. I lost it in the Great Crash of 2002).

You never crash when you save frequently.. you only crash when you forget to save. Just like you never drop the tin cup, only the most expensive and sentimental china cup.

So anyway, so demoralised after losing 3 hrs work, I went and played WoW for the rest of the night.

Waterlollies Progress

Thanks to those extra scenes in Part B, I'm now well behind the original schedule. But all freelance work is gone, so Waterlollies is now full time (midday to 3am).



Part B is finally complete and now for the real hard work, Part C. This final chunk of the movie is the nightmare workload, with some multiple character scenes, more water effects including some underwater scenes and possibly the first glimpse at Brackenwood weather.

Here are some screenshots from Part B:









For Part B I've probably given more sneak-peeks than I'd like to, so you may only see one or two shots from the upcoming Part C.

Thanks for the continued support and the comments posted on recent Waterlollies articles. Reading those pages keeps me going :)

Back!

Thanks for the emails, comments, donations, etc.. even though I've been silent for so long, the consistent level of support for me and Brackenwood has really taken me by surprise. It's given me a much needed boost on a daily basis and honestly is the ONLY reason I haven't gone back to some 9-5 studio job.

Finances not-so-grim now.
Not since The Yuyu have I managed to squeeze out such a substantial stool of work in a short amount of time. I've just completed 3 consecutive freelance jobs that all went smoothly, despite being long hours and hard work.

I'll post links to those works when they're live (all web projects) but until then, I'm now working hard on Waterlollies. To give you an indication of the movie's progress, here's how it goes:

I've organised Waterlollies into 3 sep Flash files. A, B and C.

1. Part A is 2 min in duration. It's now finished, music included.
2. Part B consists of 43 Scenes. I'm currently aiming to do 4 per day
3. Part C is still in rough storyboard phase.
   

Nathan McCree, musical composer for the Tomb Raider games has created an incredible piece of work for Part A and is waiting for me to finish parts B and C. He has agreed to do sound design on the entire project as well. This is going to be massive :)

I'll be posting a little more regularly throughout work on Waterlollies and will include images and perhaps some more downloads along the way.

Talkitye soonish!
-Adam