Odds Bodkins' Magical Five & Dime

Logo Facelift

2011-04-07T21:31:00.003-04:00

Hey all -

We're about a week or two away from finally wrapping our investor's portfolio.

Not much to report on. Thought I'd throw this up here - played around with the logo, gave it some texture.

That's it for now,
MPH

Digital Painting #3 - Asleep in the Glow

2011-03-10T16:27:00.006-05:00

Here is the next digital painting, probably my least favorite of the three so far complete.

This piece was problematic for a few reasons. I'm not thrilled about the composition, the color palette, or the rendering. I tried a bunch of different techniques to try to make it look better, but alas, none of them really cut it.

I wanted to play around with character designs in these pieces, but so far I've been too reluctant. This is the epitome of that reluctance.

Next time I'll show some pages from the long talked about investor's portfolio!

peace,
MPH

Digital Painting #2 - Odds Bodkins' Magical Five & Dime

2011-03-05T20:45:00.005-05:00

Here is the next in the sequence of digital paintings I'm doing for the ol' investor's portfolio.

I started looking at some of the 101 Dalmations pre-viz artwork about half way through working on this and immediately felt inadequate and stiff in the style I was working. I feel if I was doing this in actual acrylic instead of digital paint it'd turn out more like some of Peregoy's work - more graphic, free, and engaging.

This works for what it is; a colorful sketch to punch up some of the text in the portfolio.

peace,
MPH

Digital Painting #1 - Snow & Trees

2011-02-20T22:46:00.003-05:00

Hey folks -

Busy month. Did this. Now I'm doing other things.

One of those things is finishing up some digital paintings for B.C.

Reason being; Our Investor's Portfolio will benefit from having some more explicit artwork than just character designs. It is also helpful for me to experiment with different color designs/character approaches. I'm using this era of production to explore the visual landscape of my imagination per this film. These paintings are some of the landmarks along this road. They are mostly sketches. Please don't consider them 'final products'. I don't stand behind them with that much certainty.

They are explorations. Here is the process:

peace,
MPH

A Merry (late) Burp's Christmas!

2011-01-06T14:25:00.005-05:00

December-January is a busy time of year. It's easy to get off track in the holiday hustle. It hit us a little bit around Burp's Christmas land. Each week I try to send out an eMail to the members of our small team - the last one I sent out is dated 12.11.10 - almost a month ago! That's 1/12th of a year. That's sloppy leadership.

Anyhow, before I got knee deep into advent, I finished up these character designs:

Gunther
Tommy
Stephanie

...though a little late.

I think Gunther is my favorite, his final design will probably be somewhat close to this. I'll have to work out Tommy's character more, he seems so generically bully-ish right now.

We're still trying to pull ourselves out of our first phase of production. At this point, I'm a little concerned that it's taking so long, but so it goes. We need to get our ducks in a row, and we need to do it fast, less we lose momentum before we've really even begun to fight.

This Valentines Day I'll be releasing The Romantic on the internet for free download/streaming. Hopefully that'll get some eyes over to Burp's Christmas. We'll see. Regardless, 2011 is a big year for us. Wish us luck!

peace,
MPH

Character Profile: Walter Burp

2010-12-09T11:22:00.007-05:00

Looking back at this blog, for me, is kind of like watching one of those time lapse videos of a flower growing up. What happens in weeks can look like it only took seconds. The first post here was made on July 22nd 2009, a year and a half ago, but you can flip through the entries and take in the artwork as if it was created simultaneously over the course of a couple days. Since that first post in 2009 I've been spending a good portion of my spare time visually conceptualizing this film. At times I get a little sad at how slow this is moving, as if I'm growing older and losing some of my power. Or watching days ripe with potential slipping by. Working full time, saving for a house, planning a marriage, maintaining my relationships, and being a redemptive, missional person uses a good deal of my resources - very little is left for creative pursuits. It is disconcerting - if you don't exercise your talents, they start to get uncoordinated and flabby. I'm starting to feel that way. I long for the day that the logistics of my life allow for this to get more of my energy.

This is at the forefront of my thoughts as I realize that it has taken a year and a half for me to finally have some polished artwork on one of the most important characters in Burp's Christmas, Walter Burp.

Walter's design poses a couple of challenges. The first is most apparent: the wheelchair. It is always easier for me to draw organic things (people, trees, mountains, lakes, animals, etc.) than it is to draw man made structures. There is math in structures, and with that comes calculation and planning. Working in perspective slows me down. It's something, with more time, I'd practice over and over. For now I have to make do with my limited abilities.

In After Effects animation (go to this post on World Building to understand more about A.E. animation), perspective is always tricky because you can't move the camera with the same tilts and angles that you can with any other form of animation. You kind of pick one eye level for the characters and stick with it. Then you use other cinema tricks (and the fact that it is a cartoon and people will suspend their realism for you) to make the audience feel comfortable. We will have a couple tricky perspectives, but those will be the exception, not the rule. This works well with people but is slightly trickier with man made rectangular things, such as wheelchairs, because there will always be scenes when the angles of the wheelchair won't align with the angular logic of the room. I think we can still fudge it, but part of doing so will require an appropriate and widely applicable 'generic' perspective on the wheelchair to begin with.

The second challenge is that Walter is selectively mute and therefor must convey his emotions through his facial expressions and body language alone. I imagine our animation of him will be very subtle, so I went with a pretty clean, clear design for him. His eyes are big and unfettered with eyelids. It looks as if he is always staring, always pondering, always perceiving the world. This is true to his character in the script.

There aren't many maroon wheelchairs out there, but I wanted this thing to be kind of quirky - as if they got it from a thrift store, or a friend of the families. It's old and clunky and reflects the families economic disposition. They can't afford a better one. I wanted it to be too big for him. If you look at some of the above images, you'll notice that his shoulders are hunched. I never want him to be comfortable in this thing, it's a constant burden. Unwieldily and cumbersome, he's not strong enough yet to make it work for him. This drives his frustration and volitive temperament. It's very difficult for Walter to feel peaceful, or in control, so it becomes all the more glorious when we hit those grace notes with him.

So there he is, Walter Burp. Sooner or later I'll do a drawing of him in profile, but it seemed unnecessary for now. We need to get our Investor's Portfolio out, and there is much work to be done.

peace,
MPH

Designing our Logo

2010-11-25T23:05:00.002-05:00

Well, folks, our first stage of this production is rapidly coming to an end. Soon we will be making our investor's portfolios and we'll shift into our next phase.

Currently, Mike Almquist (of lookingiswrong.com) and I have been drawing up some logo designs. This is not necessarily an easy task.

A film's logo can carry a lot of weight. There are instances when the logo might be the first image someone sees in association with a film. In this case, the logo is making the first impression. The audience is already identifying (or not identifying) with the film based solely on the sequence of letters they see before them. Ideally, then, the logo should be a visual representation of the soul of the film. It should both compliment and represent the film's aesthetic as well as it's spiritual identity. It can speak to the artist's tastes, inspirations, and awareness. This, of course, is ideal. Sometimes the logo is just a sequence of letters.

This does not mean that the logo need be fancy or over complicated. I have seen many successful animators simply trace Garamond a few times into an animation loop that is then juxtaposed over their opening shot. Though a relatively easy solution, this is not necessarily thoughtless. When this works, this style has a humble, homemade charm to it. It's quaint and warm, and can compliment a film whose artwork is pencil or watercolor based.

Even something bumped out in Comic Sans or Papyrus might, just might, live into a logo's full power (though, admittedly, it is unlikely), depending on the film. There are no rules, really. Art is organic and will be so long as it is produced by organisms. There are many great suggestions on how to feed, water, and grow your art, but each piece takes genesis in an entirely unique set of start conditions and as such is shaped mostly through the spontaneity and complexity of existence. Even craft is chaotic when contextualized. When we zoom out.

The above image is the first go I had at making a Burp's Christmas logo. I drew it rather hastily during the early days of what would become a long love affair with hand drawn, whimsical type face. It graces the front of our BC business cards, rendered in green ink instead of black, where, to be honest, it doesn't look half bad. But it will not do for our final feature.

I want the logo for Burp's Christmas to partially pay homage to Christmas script of yore. It is by now tradition for most Christmas films and stories to be adorned with a Dickensian style classicism. Curley cues and flourishes. The idea of the traditional English Christmas is such a powerful archetype that dominates a healthy portion of the general populations imagination of Christmas.

Let's take a look at some examples:

Of course there are many exceptions to this rule. A whacky, slapstick holiday comedy is more likely to use a shiny, modern bubble font to get their point across.

But regardless, there is something in the collective Christmas consciousness that anchors our modern celebration with tradition of the past. Humans are creatures of ritual, we crave them, though our manifestations of these cravings can and certainly do differ remarkably. We want to take communion with ghosts - those of the past, and those of our past selves. The season is littered with nostalgia and ruminations on 'days gone by'. The scents, the sights, most of them derive their power not necessarily for their immediate beauty, but by their inferences to the scents, sights, and perceptions of other times. This is bittersweet - the visceral sensation of emotionally experiencing linear time.

These ideas are part of the soul of Burp's Christmas, and it is only appropriate that the logo is scribed with such concepts pooled in the inkwell.

The first go at the BC logo attempted to do this, but ultimately failed because of my rookie capabilities in graphic design. It's true, in this avenue I am an amateur, at best. I know what I want, but I have yet to entirely develop the neural pathways that will allow my imagination to hit the pavement and find manifestation in reality.

So I passed the buck, kind of, to my dear friend Mike Almquist (who designed The Romantic's website, amongst many other beautiful tshirts, album covers, and posters for various musicians and bands). For direction I pointed him to some old UPA and 60s text design, which may have been bad advice on my part. I didn't want something modern, that's for sure. I did not want the flashy bubble letters I mentioned above. Or something that would be more at home on a dollar store Christmas coloring book.

Below are two examples he concocted:

Both are heading in the right direction, but are not quite there yet, and I'm afraid taking direction from me can sometimes be paradoxical. I envision a logo that is unique and new yet has in it's DNA the genetic heritage of "fonts of yesteryear". It must be whimsical, charming, and warm (the hot chocolate, fire in the fireplace, lights on the Christmas tree feeling); yet it must also carry some weight, power, and majesty (the mystery of the nativity, the choir of angels, the light in darkness). I'm not sure this is even entirely possible.

I took another shot at designing the logo myself, this time with a bit more experience under my belt. Here is the result:

What you see above isn't really a 'final draft'. It might be fancied up with some texture or glow effect. The colors aren't official (no, we won't be putting a blue rectangle with white interior font on all our materials). We'll probably add in a couple more snowflakes. But the lettering is done.

Not 100% there, but might be useful for the time being. Of course, we have til the end of production to really finalize our logo, but for now we need something to put on all our printed material for fundraising, etc.

As it is Thanksgiving, I shall leave you now so I can help my mom get the house in order for guests.

Hey, it's almost Christmas.

peace,
MPH

A Producer's Title, and What it Means

2010-11-15T20:51:00.000-05:00

As I discussed in my last post, there are many mysteries surrounding who the producer actually is, and what it is that they do. You've probably noticed while watching television or a movie that there are many different titles that include the word "producer." So what does each different producer do? What do these titles mean, exactly?

The most commonly used producing titles include executive producer, producer, co-producer, line producer, and associate producer. You may also have seen titles such as supervising producer, consulting producer, or creative producer, as well as many others. Hypothetically, titles are awarded based on experience and the amount of work the individual actually does. However, these days, the title often reflects what the individual's agent or manager was able to negotiate. This is especially common in the case of the executive producer credit. For the purposes of this post, however, we will look at the traditional description of what these titles most commonly mean.

Beyond a producer's title lie variations in the job that the individual performs. As explained in the book Producing Animation, the producer's job description can be broken down into three different categories: "deal-maker," "facilitator," and "creative." The first type, the "deal-maker," gathers together the talent, the finances, and the material. They usually have little to no creative input. The "facilitator" is very hands-on during production, and with his or her staff, oversees the completion of the project. The "creative" producer is involved in the creative decision making, as the title suggests. These three categories can aid in understanding what the different producer titles mean.

While the executive producer title can mean many different things based on the type of production, they are almost always "deal-makers." They may be responsible for bringing together key players, securing or providing financing, monitoring progress of production, or liaising between a studio and a production. Many times, studio executives are awarded executive producer credits for identifying new material or talent. In some cases, especially television, the executive producer oversees the entire project from both the creative and the operational angles. Many executive producers are involved creatively, as well.

The producer title is most similar to the "facilitator." They are usually on their feet, making things happen. They are responsible for creating a budget, developing a schedule, and hiring a crew. The producer ensures that the vision of the director, the studio, and other key players comes to life, on time and within its budget. They are also usually involved creatively, especially in feature films.

The line producer also falls within the "facilitator" category. This person is brought on to a project once a production schedule is set and ready to go, to assist the producer in making sure the production runs smoothly and stays on schedule. They have no creative input on the production, but they are present and involved in the logistics of almost every aspect of the production. In the case of Burp's Christmas, there will most likely not be a line producer, as we are planning to have a small production crew that will be mostly self-sufficient.

Finally, the role of the associate producer can mean many different things. In many cases, the associate producer works solely in an administrative capacity, in a role similar to that of the line producer. In that way, they fall into the "facilitator" category as well. In some cases, the associate producer provides creative support. In our case, the associate producer (Kat) provides some of both, as well as her own unique knowledge of animation production.

So there you have it! The title of "producer" can mean many different things, but the end goal is always the same; to make the best film possible, on time, and on budget. Next time you see a film, keep your eyes open for the producing titles. Maybe you'll see one you recognize!

Animation, in short. (or how I made "...of Reynard & Emmeline" and why it matters to Burp's Christmas

2010-10-28T14:37:00.027-04:00

Hello everyone,

As I mentioned in my last post, I've spent the past month and a half or so working on a secret mystery project.

Well, here it is:

...of Reynard & Emmeline from Michael P. Heneghan on Vimeo.

Yes, the secret mystery project that has been keeping from my Burp's Christmas work is, indeed, an animated short film. One that is very special to me. On October 23rd I used it to propose to my now fiancée, Sarah Holt.

I want to write about it here because I think offering insight into it's creation will offer you insight into how Burp's Christmas will be created. The two films will look very different, this is true, but in many ways "...of Reynard & Emmeline" allowed me to experiment with a couple techniques that will make their way into BC. It gives you an idea as to where I'm headed, based on where I've been (The Romantic).

First, the idea: Originally I was going to do a silly narrative with pretty absurd humor (almost like this but with a very different ending), but I wasn't able to piece together an engaging enough narrative that actually spoke to how I felt about the whole thing.

After chewing over the matter for quite some time and sketching out a few rough ideas, I at last settled on doing an ernest, dialogue-free film set to music... something folky & whimsical yet tempered with some gravity. Something that had charm and spoke to what I value most in our partnership. I wanted the story to be told through the visuals with lyrics that complemented the action instead of parroting it. I appealed to my dear friend John The Old Tree Mallinen, an extraordinarily talented bard in his own right, to craft the music for the film. Much to my endless joy and gratefulness, he obliged and began work on the tune.

During this time I distilled the raw idea into some solid narrative structure. I envisioned each of the separate scenes and wrote some mock up lyrics that John would use as the launching point for his own.

Second, the realization: At this point I gathered up the raw sketches and notes and turned them into storyboards. I drew my boards completely digitally using my WACOM monitor. I goofed at the aspect ratio though, so these are a bit squarer than I would have liked. As usual, my boards are pretty sketchy. Since they are mainly just for me, I can get away with it.

As you can see, there were a few changes made to the film between the boarding process and the final animation. Most notably I changed a sequence of Emmeline and Reynard building a house (and subsequently a life together) to them planting, nurturing, then growing a life together. I was inspired to do this after I heard the final music for the first time, where John included the line "brother Sun, father God, sister Moon, I'm alone in this world without You." It was a beautiful line and didn't seem to fit in with the industrial, man made tone of the building sequence (which I was never that fond of anyhow). I view our relationship as more organic than schematic, anyhow. And changing the building to a plant allowed me to slip in some lovely alchemical symbolism.

After I finished the boards I began to design the characters. Normally I create a handful of sketches and doodles of a character then create a tight, well rendered pencil sketch before I ink the image. For this film I was on such a short deadline that I skipped the well rendered pencil step and wound up inking most of the puppets off of a very rough doodle. I think this was very effective because when I make a tight pencil drawing, I always fall in love with it and want to try my best to replicate it in ink. Therefor I work the ink very maticulously and mechanically, trying to replicate the pencil lines as best I can, attempting to preserve the integrity of the original concept yet altogether warping it by my own concern for it. I kill the spontaniaty. Great inkers are able to dance with the pen, giving energy and vitality to their lines. I'm not there yet. I gained some good ground this time, however, by saving my final spontaneity for inking. Since the underlying sketch was very loose, I was still imagening the character for the first time while I completed the final, permenant appearence.

I inked the characters digitally using my WACOM monitor. This time the outline for the character was only a thin guide - the same lineweight as the interior rendering. I much prefer this to my previous style (click here to observe Charles Burp and compare him to Reynard) - varying line weights within the same character (generally with a pretty thick outline). Thinner line weights make everything look like a moving picture book and less like a traditional cell cartoon, which is the tone I was going for here.

I originally inked the characters in black, but thought that was too contrasty and harsh. To fix this, I duplicated the underlining layer of color (I color the blacks and the colors on seperate layers) and moved it above the ink layer. Then I turned the opacity of the top color layer down pretty far, giving the underlying blacks a slightly augmented and muted tone, while my colors remained the same value.

I worked on the backgrounds and the characters simultaneously. The backgrounds, however, were rendered very differently. Instead of inking them, I did a semi-polished pencil drawing that I colored and added effects to in photoshop. The result is a tightly illustrated character on a loose, organic background. I used this same motif in The Romantic (only the backgrounds weren't as well rendered, nor were the characters). I think it works here, but I'd like to switch things up for Burp's Christmas. In BC I want to experiment with very detailed, fully inked backgrounds. In animation it's important to separate your characters from their backgrounds (or risk the movement, and subsequently the drama, getting lost in a canvas of similar information). In ...of R & E, the different rendering styles helped make the characters pop. In Burp's Christmas, I want to use colors and value to make the characters pop.

Third, the production. Now that I have my characters and backgrounds finished, I can begin animating. All animated was done in Adobe After Effects. I'm still using vs. 6.5. I've meant to upgrade, and have, actually, but the latest version runs slow on my computer, has new features, and I've never been able to motivate myself enough to get used to it.

For Burp's Christmas, I'll motivate myself.

Animating the film probably took about half of the time it took to make the characters and backgrounds. That's part of the reason I love this kind of animation. It's smooth sailing once you get over the hump of making the bits and pieces that will be brought into After Effects. Because your images are already colored, you get instant payoff when you're finished animating.

One thing I wish I could have done more in this film is had the characters move in perspective towards and away from the camera. Because of time restraints, I had to resort to side scrolling animation ( a trapping of After Effects) for most of the film. Since this is a short film, however, it's not entirely noticeable or annoying. At the feature level, though, having your characters move only from side to side can be grating. Burp's Christmas will not suffer from this, I promise!

I had a lot of fun animating the ocean sequence. The waves are made up of one singular wave image, animated in a circular rotation, looped, then duplicated over and over with small variations to the loop (so that they all crash at different times).

Finally, the finishing touches. After I was done animating, I exported my animation as separate 1280x720 uncompressed .mov files and strung them together in Final Cut Pro. Editing was pretty easy - with animation, there's very little "extra footage". I synced everything up with the song, added a couple cross-dissolves, through in some light sound effects, and then viola, I had a finished film.

So there's not really much more too it than that, just a lot of work and some imagination.

I look forward to the day when I can make something like this during my 9-5, instead of fitting it in when I can in my spare time. I can't help look at all my work these days and think "if only I could really work on this, then I'd have something". This is the reason I refuse to make Burp's Christmas without a budget - to be true to my own abilities I need to nurture them with time. Without the money, there is no time, and without time, I can't make the film that is waiting inside my heart.

So we'll see!

Now that this short film is done, I'm ready to focus my energy back into finishing the first phase of our production - Getting Our Face On.

Will write soon and let you know how that is going!

much peace,
MPH

PS - She said yes!

Cross-Country Production: Location, Location, Location?

2010-10-02T19:43:00.002-04:00

Hi everybody!

I'm Kat, the associate producer of Burp's Christmas. I met Mike, Veronica and a couple other talented key members of our team in college at UArts. I was an animation major along with Mike. Professionally I've held a variety of roles on all different types of productions, but this is my first time producing a film.

A few years ago I began managing projects at a multimedia firm and that experience has led to a lot of exploration creating different types of production pipelines. I'm also a bit nerdy and love when a new technology development has a practical application in my day-to-day life. So, over the course of the production, I'll share some of the tools we use behind, and not so behind the scenes to make things happen. Some digital, some not.

Location is a logistical challenge for us. Mike is in Philly, Veronica is in LA, and I'm in Jersey City (across the river from NYC) so here are three ways we stay in contact.

Conference calls
The first method of real-time group conversation is via conference calls. There are a handful of free conference call services out there that anyone can use to organize calls with any number of participants.
Video chats
While conference calls are great, video chats let us see each other!

We're experimenting with both www.tokbox.com and Skype (no clear winner yet) because both of them allow us to have more than 2 participants in a video chat. Both allow us to text chat as well, which is handy when sharing links during a discussion. We haven't had the need for screen sharing yet, but Skype has that feature as well. Best of all, it's free. All you need is a webcam.
Google Docs!
Google Docs are awesome! After years of organizing and tracking lots of assets and data, I've come to love spreadsheets. I know it's hard for a lot of people to get excited about word processing and spreadsheets, but Google Docs makes it easy. There's no need to send files back and forth anymore, we can share and edit the exact same file at the same time. We are currently pulling together our investor packets, compiling a list of potential donors and keeping track of our schedule and meeting notes using gDocs.

While we can't do anything about the 3 hour time difference, we can stay on the same page and stay organized using these sweet, free, real-time solutions.

Getting ready for the big harvest season...

2010-09-23T21:49:00.004-04:00

Hey folks. Wow, not an update in almost 2 months. I apologize.

(not really my thumb)

Things have gotten extraordinarily busy in my life. A couple days after the last blog post I accidently jammed a carving tool through my thumb while working on a sculpture and wound up knocking out one of my tendons. At the start of September I had hand surgery to repair the damage, and since then I've been going to therapy in Center City to help aid the healing process. While I shall value my properly healed thumb for years to come, it is a nuisance for my already busy schedule.

If you read this blog, you probably know that I directed another animated feature film, The Romantic. A lot of stuff is brewing with that film. We have a screening on October 15th at 8:00pm at The Franklin Institute as part of the First Glance Film Festival, Philadelphia. The week after that we're releasing the film online for free for audiences to download/share/stream/watch. Then in the start of November, we're screening in another film festival. While all this is awesome, preparation is cutting into my Burp's Christmas time.

I'm also working on a secret mystery project, details will be announced late next month.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, we're still in our "Getting our Face On" stage - preparing to go public with our fundraising strategy. Our original goal was to have this stage completed by the start of September, but because of the aforementioned distractions we unfortunately need to postpone the conclusion of this phase until a future date.

Unfortunately, until my life slows down a bit (around mid October), I'm not going to have the time to keep you guys abreast of my progress with Burp's Christmas. The producers will be updating the blog periodically, letting you guys know what there is to know.

So, until I return, enjoy the approaching harvest season. By the end of next month I will have a cornucopia of artistic delights to share with you. Until then, peep some black and whites of Gunther and Stephanie.

peace,
MPH

Developing my Line

2010-08-05T18:50:00.018-04:00

Over the past couple months I've been struggling to move the flavor of my character designs farther away from a clean, 2-D "cell" style and more towards illustrative renderings that take advantage of the genre of animation we're working in.

Essentially, spending less time studying stuff that looks like this:

and more time studying stuff that look like this:

About a year ago I wrote a blog called World Building in which I talked about After Effects animation and the unique challenges it poses for character design. Here's an excerpt from that post in which I talk about 2D vs cut out paper (After Effects)

"In cut-out animation, as opposed to traditional hand drawn, you do not redraw the same character over and over. Instead, you build "puppets" that are moved over time. For this reason, character designs for traditional animation tend to be pretty simple and low on detail while designs for cut-out paper can be filled with rich texture and loads of detail. This is one of the pros of the style. My characters can wear corduroy pants and houndstooth blazers as much as they like and I don't have to drive myself insane rendering those details over and over. "

Even though I've been "artistic" as long as I can remember, I've never really been a prolific drawer. In fact, it wasn't really until The Romantic that I started drawing characters... most all of my earlier work was in stop motion animation. I was designing in sculpture, which draws from a pretty different skill set than making flat illustrations.

(Characters from a stop-motion film of mine, Snyder & Newton)

With The Romantic I was simply concerned with making drawings that I thought looked good and were to my taste. I wasn't meditating on what would look stupendous when executed in the type of animation I was working with - computer generated cut-out. So I drew what I liked, which, at the time were very graphic, sometimes whimsical designs that hearkened back to the 50s and 60s. See Amid Amidi's book Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in 50s Animation to get a good idea of what I'm talking about.

(A character chart for The Romantic)

And I wound up with some pretty cool, kind of dark, kind of retro, kind of "Heneghan" designs. Some of them worked well in After Effects, some not so much. But very few of them actually took full advantage of what After Effects can really offer you - texture.

I'm confident in my ability to imagine attractive characters, but I'm NOT confident in my ability to "finish" them... inking, coloring, etc. I'm a novice inker at best. It doesn't come natural to me. Right now I need to hone my craft so that when I begin making the final character designs I can have them succeed because of my inking abilities instead of in spite of them.

Here's a look at three character's I've been working on:

Fogerty

Trevor

and Emmeline.

They're starting to get a bit more textured than some of the earlier designs you've seen on this blog. But they aren't there yet.

1.) These three were digitally inked in photoshop using a WACOM. I want to do the final versions of the puppets the old fashioned way, with real ink.
2.) I don't think I want the ink to look black. I might do the lines with different colored inks, or I might treat the final inks in photoshop. Take a look at this example of Maurice Sendak's Dear Mili. You'll notice that some of the lines are black, others, such as the lines around the orange leaves, or on the dog, are in color. If you look above at the drawing of Fogerty, imagine his blue shirt texture being a darker shade of blue, and his beard texture being shades of brown.
3.) I want to have visceral coloring. Right now they are very "flat" and cell-ish. That will be my next step.
4.) I want to move beyond outline, using shading to define shapes and a color/rendering contrast between the characters and the backgrounds to make them pop.

So that's where I'm at. More soon!

peace,
MPH

Stage 1 - Getting Our Face On

2010-07-23T15:16:00.009-04:00

Hey folks!

Michael back this week...

As V mentioned in her previous blog, we're somewhere between the developmental and pre-production phases of Burp's Christmas. I like to call this first phase we're in "Stage 1 - Getting Our Face On".

We're not really ready to go public with our ideas yet to try and raise money. Indeed, it seems as if we've metaphorically just gotten out of bed. Our breath stinks, our hair is a mess. We haven't put our contacts in yet. We need to shower, have some breakfast. Comb our hair, light a cigarette.

Then we can start our day. Or, we can start knocking on investor's doors.

Before that, though, we need to be prepared. We need to look respectable, have something to show for ourselves. We need to:

-Re-build our website. burpschristmas.com is looking pretty rough right now.
-Create a good amount of conceptual artwork. So far I've been working on designs for our main characters. By the end of this phase, I'll have made digital puppet sets in at least 2 different viewpoints for 5 different characters (Odds, Charles, Norma and Elijah are all in the can already), made single illustrations for 9 members of the supporting cast, done a small handful of paintings illustrating key visual moments in the film, and organized the remainder of my sketches to be presented professionally.
-Use above artwork to make postcards to hand out to interested folks we meet and potential investors.
-Create some test animation of the digital puppets I've already made.
-Write synopsis and log lines.
-Write brief character bios.
-Get our bank account and paypal account set up.
-Put together an introductory investors budget.

Finally, we will assemble most of the above items together with a copy of the script and an introductory letter from me into an investors portfolio - a hard copy analogue compendium of our project's vision to send to people interested in financially backing our effort. We'll probably put a lot of this stuff online as well, for those that prefer to peruse such things digitally.

Then we can raise that BIG MONEY.

Or die trying. Literally, this film will not get made if we can't raise $200,000. That's a lot of scratch. You don't happen to have a rich uncle looking to work in the ol film business, do you? Eh? Ehhhh?

We began this phase a couple of months ago, and we plan to end it September 10th with the launch of our investor's portfolio and website. Most of the blogs between now and then will detail our efforts in completing this stage.

During this time I'll also be researching, exploring, and experimenting in the aesthetic of the film. Getting as much done as possible before we actually open the studio and start work.

So yeah, bare with us while our site is down and we seem a bit shabby around the edges. We just woke up, we'll be with you in a minute.

peace,
MPH

From the Producers: What is it You Do, Exactly?

2010-07-19T20:29:00.004-04:00

Hello!

My name is Veronica, and I’m the producer of this wonderful film we’re working on. Over the next few months, Kat (our associate producer) and I will be stopping by the Five and Dime to share some of our experiences and stories with you. I hope that you enjoy what we have to share with you, and that we can shed a little light on what goes on behind the scenes of a movie production.

I come from a background of producing live-action films, so working on Burp’s Christmas will be a different ballgame for me. I’m learning and adjusting to the differences between producing these very distinctive types of films, but I’m also finding that many of the basic principles remain the same. We’ll talk more about that in another blog post, however. For today, we’ll start at the very beginning: what does a producer do, exactly?

Whether we’re talking live-action or animated, I find that many people don’t know what a producer does. That’s not a surprise, really, as a producer’s job is one that (when done correctly) should go unnoticed. It’s when things have gone awry that people begin to notice that the producer isn’t doing his or her job. To put it basically, the producer’s job is to run the show: they’re the one who coordinates the who, what, when and where of the entire filmmaking process.

One thing that I’ve always found very romantic about producing is the idea that the producer is the only person who is with the film from the very beginning to the very end. The producer is the one who initiates the process, brings on the talent, executes the production, and sees the film all the way through to distribution. To easily illustrate some of the main things that a producer does, I’ll lay out the basic model of a film production. This simple layout applies to just about any type of film, no matter the length, size, or budget.

A film begins in a stage called development. It is in this stage that a producer has procured an idea or script and starts to bring it to fruition. If there is only an idea, not a completed screenplay, then the producer works with a writer to create one. Here, he or she may also begin to attach key talent, such as a director or lead actor. Often, in high-concept Hollywood films with big stars attached, a film is shopped around while still in the “treatment” phase (a relatively short summary of the story). Whatever the situation, the development phase ends with a nearly complete script, a director, and ideally, financing in place.

The next step is pre-production. This is when the producer assembles their “dream team” with the help of the director, and irons out all the details before diving in to production. The producer is responsible for hiring their actors, crew, cinematographer, production designer, editor, and so on during this phase. He or she will also scout shooting locations and finalize the script, budget, and schedule. This is also the time when concept art and storyboarding is done; though it is sometimes done earlier, especially in the case of animated or VFX-heavy films. In our case, as is the case with almost all animated films, this stage also includes character development, character turnarounds, and modelsheets.

Production, or principle photography, is the stage in which the film is actually made. For us, that’s when Mike and the other animators will be working hard to create the animation you’ll see in the final film. For a live-action movie, the crew films the story either on location or in a soundstage. Here, it’s the producer’s job to keep the production moving. He or she troubleshoots problems, keeps track of the schedule and budget, and watches dailies with the director.

The last stage of the process is post-production. In “post,” many different people may be working on the very same film at different places simultaneously. It is in this stage that picture editing, visual effects production, music scoring, and sound editing takes place. The producer has to supervise each of these areas at once, working with the post-production supervisor to ensure a smooth dialogue between the different departments. During this phase, the producer also creates the film’s credits, arranges test screenings and previews, and works with the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) to obtain a rating for the film. After post, things could go a number of ways. Studio films move on to marketing and eventually wide release. Smaller films search for distribution and begin applying to film festivals.

Currently, we at Burp’s Christmas are at a phase somewhere between development and pre-production. While we don’t yet have our financing in place, we are still working on the script, and beginning our version of casting by working on what the characters will look and move like. We are working very hard to create a look and feel for the film so we can show potential investors what we want the film to be. Once we’ve completed this phase, then we’ll move on to some serious fundraising (which I’m sure I’ll blog about!).

Hopefully this (rather long) explanation helps to clear up the confusion about what I really do, and what Kat and I will be doing for this film. I’m excited to be a part of this project, and I can’t wait to start getting to the good stuff! Be sure to stay tuned for more news from the Burp’s Christmas producing team!

-Veronica

Character Profile: Norma Burp

2010-07-08T23:10:00.004-04:00

Hey folks - these week we're taking a look at the matriarch of the Burp family - Norma.

Norma is as old as Charles, but I imagine her being more physically active and energetic. Much more fit and flexible.

I think I've made her just a bit too young looking, however. She needs some more age lines on her face.

The above pose is kinda dopy, her right arm doesn't feel natural.

I spent more time playing around with texture here than I have in the other characters. I like how it turned out, but I haven't yet created a logic behind the texture. Her shirt looks like a burlap sack. I do kind of like it though.

I will have to refine my inking technique quite a bit between now and when I make the final puppets. I haven't worked in pen and ink that much, most of my old characters are very clean, cell-esque designs. I want this film to be a lot more tactile, to take advantage of how much information we can put into a cut-out character. While I was working on Norma, I experimented with building outlines and definition with value instead of just drawing a thick black outline (think Maurice Sendak), though this final version does have my usual black outline. I'm very tempted to re-ink all of these characters once I've completed the family unit, just to see how they all look without outlines. I'm guessing it'll class em up a whole lot.

Next time one of our producers will chime in with a look at that side of our process!

take care,
MPH

Character Profile: Elijah Burp

2010-06-10T18:38:00.010-04:00

Hey folks!

This week we're gonna take a look at Elijah Burp, the youngest member of the Burp family.

In the script we are introduced to Eijah as "a pudgy six year old boy whose little marshmallow body shifts and wiggles in his seat. He is adorable and impossible to picture skinny."

Our long synopsis says something similar. "a pudgy marshmallow of a boy whose spirit is as bright and pure as the thick white snow that blankets the playgrounds, parks, and neighborhoods in which they live"

Though Elijah has held on to most of his baby fat, I imagine him as a pretty kinetic kid. Ready to dash from here to there on a whim. Often fidgeting. I also picture him as kind of out of control of his own body - always tripping, stumbling over himself. Limbs not quite long or strong enough for his roly poly torso.

Elijah's joy, optimism and hope is a much needed balm for the Burp family (and the audience) as they try to heal some old wounds at Christmas time. So when Elijah hurts, the family hurts, and so do we. It's important that his design allows for empathy, and that his emotional range engages us.

I'm not sure this current version is there yet. Not really sold on the side view and the 3q needs some cleaning up. But I think the front is almost there.

What do you guys think?

til next time,
MPH

The Music of Burp's Christmas

2010-06-01T23:27:00.010-04:00

Hello All!

It's a bit late, but it's here. I've selected a few cuts from my Dad's extensive collection of "space age pop" to show you all. When I first read Mike's script, this is the type of music that popped into my head, and I thought I'd share it with you. Of course, who knows where the actual score will end up, but I'll definitely be stealing many moods and ideas from this type of stuff.

I edited most of the tracks down to keep the length of the audio file short, but if anyone is interested in hearing complete versions of any of the songs, let me know, and I'll get them to you.

To download the file, just click on the title of this post "The Music of Burp's Christmas" (or click here) and a prompt should come up. This is the only free audio file hosting site I could find that let me link right to the page, so if it doesn't work, please let me know.

I hope you enjoy it!

The Long Synopsis

2010-05-13T15:15:00.004-04:00

Hey folks!

So for the past couple of weeks I've been working on the 1st draft of a synopsis of Burp's Christmas. It's been pretty tricky - the script of Burp's Christmas doesn't break down too easily. There's a lot going on... four main characters, each with their own stories. It's hard to discern what to focus on. Here's where we're at so far:

The days are growing darker, the nights colder. Wintertime has come to their town. Charles Burp and his family, like most families here, are preparing for Christmas. It’s only twenty-five days away when we meet them; good ol’ Charles Burp, as bull headed as he is warm hearted, and his infinitely patient wife, Norma. They live in a smallish house on a smallish piece of land where they raise their two grandchildren; six year old Elijah, a pudgy marshmallow of a boy whose spirit is as bright and pure as the thick white snow that blankets the playgrounds, parks, and neighborhoods in which they live; and Walter, the eldest… poor Walter Burp, an eleven year old victim of a tragic car accident that broke him, body and soul. Confined to a wheel chair, un-fixable, he has gone inward, refusing to talk to anyone… silent as the darkening night. Charles and Norma do the best with what they’ve been given, but to be honest, it’s getting harder.

As Christmas approaches, the family’s slippery financial situation is at the forefront of Charles and Norma’s minds. Twenty minutes from their house is Fogerty’s Footwear, a small shoe store that’s struggling to survive in the wake of a big box megamart that’s recently opened on the edge of town. It’s here that Charles struggles daily to hold down his job as a store clerk. As sales decline, Charles is pressured by his boss to sell poorer and poorer quality shoes at “discount” prices to increase their profit margins while maintaining the illusion of a bargain. Carrying the weight of his and his family’s financial debts and anxieties, Charles swallows his integrity, betrays his ideals, and sells the shoddily crafted merchandise to his friends and neighbors. He obeys his boss, he bites his tongue, and the days go by.

Back at home Norma does her best to provide a happy environment for her two grandchildren, and, to her credit, she succeeds remarkably. Trees are decorated, carols are sung. ginger bread houses are decorated, and in these times the love that this family has for each other, no matter how trammeled by the weight of the world, is evident and obvious in the here and now of these rituals. There’s bake sales, pageants, hot cocoa and Christmas specials on TV. The town streets bustle with merry anticipation. Christmas lights sparkle and children play in the snow.

But the weight of the world remains. Beyond the debt and unpaid bills lays a greater sorrow that threatens to overwhelm the souls of each family member. It’s been eight months since Charles and Norma lost their son and daughter in law to the same car accident that shattered the body of young Walter. This will be the first Christmas without them, an intolerably sad fact that no one in the family can process… least of all Walter, who spends his time outside of school isolated in his room, performing amateur magic shows in front of his stuffed toys.

Tensions escalate when Walter, yearning deeply for a friend, asks his grandparents for a dog for Christmas. Interpreting this as another unbearable burden – financial and otherwise – the weary Charles denies his grandsons request, enraging Walter and straining their already distant relationship. Norma scrambles to pacify the situation while Charles escapes deeper into his work, competing tooth and nail to win a Christmas bonus that will be awarded to the employee who sells the largest amount of bargain shoes by Christmas Eve. As his hours increase, Charles’ temper becomes shorter and his exhaustion becomes palpable. Norma’s anxieties swell; afraid for her family. All around town shops are closing, unable to compete with the shiny new megastore. Jobs decline. The television chatters with loud commercials, news of foreign wars, and televangelists promising hope in exchange for money. The weekly sermons at The Burp’s church, littered with references to joy and miracles and good cheer, seem almost inappropriate, un-relatable.

But behind all this restlessness, anxiety, and despair, bright-eyed young Elijah merrily plots to reconcile his broken family. To this young boy love and miracles and magic are real, believable things that are even more powerful at this time of year. In him is great joy and hope, and so he prays and he wishes and remains eternally optimistic for what Christmas will bring – a miracle that will fix his family. As their apprehension escalates, so does Elijah’s optimism, until one evening during dinner, in the midst of their worriment, Elijah proclaims joyfully that he has changed his Christmas list. That this year, for Christmas, he only wants one thing: for Jesus Christ to make his brother walk again. Norma and Charles are almost brought to tears by his sobering sincerity, shocked and speechless at this wondrous, joyful boy. But how can they explain to their grandchild, after all he has suffered, that the impossible is in fact impossible, and that wishes don’t come true? That contrary to what he’s been told to believe in church and on TV and in his house – that miracles don’t exist, and that prayers go unanswered. That on Christmas Day Walter Burp will not be healed.

The days are growing darker, the nights colder. Wintertime has come to their town. And into this darkness a light will be born. This is the story of Burp’s Christmas. The story of a family, who once were broken, and who, on Christmas, will be healed.

Definitely in the 1st draft stages. Some of the working is awkward. Some of the language can be punched up. But the hardest challenge so far is tone. The above synopsis does a good job at capturing the tension of the film, but it does little to reflect the humor and merriment that is abundant in the script. Unfortunately, a lot of that humor isn't plot relevant, and I'm not sure how to insert that levity without just saying "and Burp's Christmas is funny, too!"

Anyhow, that will at least give you guys some insight into what this whole thing is about, anyhow. After you read this go back and check out some earlier drawings and put some faces to those names!

peace,
MPH

Character Profile: Charles Burp

2010-04-24T12:02:00.008-04:00

So, here he is, the "main" character of Burp's Christmas, Mr. Charles Burp.

Right now the Burp's Christmas team is "putting our face on" - getting into a weekly blogging schedule, getting our website revamped, getting some legal stuff in order, setting up bank accounts, make pre-visual stuff, etc. All so that we have something to present to potential investors when we begin going door to door to raise the $200,000 we'll need to pull this thing off.

Part of this process includes doing some rough character designs, or digital "puppets" (articulated images that can be animated in After Effects like paper dolls) to 1) Help me break down the designs of these characters and experiment with the visual style of the film and 2) Allow financial partners to see what the character look like.

Charles is a warm hearted-yet-stubborn grandpa, who, by a cruel shake of the universe, has been called back into parenthood to raise his grandchildren. Sometimes he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Charles has a pretty big emotional range. His design needed to be pretty versatile. At times he is strong willed and powerful... other times, he's weak, humiliated, subject to his boss' control and an ingrained desire to make money to support his family... even if it means gulping down his pride. He can be very adorable at times... well spirited, funny. Unfortunately for poor Charles, most of his good spirits are crushed under the weight he carries. He's often cold and short tempered towards his family. Burp's Christmas is the story of Charles' decent into despair. It's also the story of his eventual restoration and healing.

So that's all I got for now. Oh, and if you were wondering where the last named "Burp" came from... here's a part of the mystery, dated 2002:

... I've come a long way in character design since.

peace,
MPH

Character Profile: Odds Bodkins

2010-04-15T14:42:00.011-04:00

Sorry for not posting last week, I've been super busy making some rough character puppets for two of my favorite stars of Burp's Christmas: Charles Burp and Odds Bodkins.

Today we're gonna look at good ol' Odds Bodkins. Name sound familiar? Of course it does! This blog is named after his magic store - a prominent location in the film. It might also sound familiar if you're the kind of person who attends renaissance fairs or plays a fair amount of D&D.

"Odd's bodkins is a mild profane oath, which literally means 'God's dear body!' It's now archaic, but was used as an exclamation like God damn! or a host of others."

Read more about Odds Bodkins as a phrase here.

Odds is a charming, friendly fellow with a wise heart, a positive disposition, and a penchant for the esoteric. Odds Bodkins Occult Bookstore and Magical Five & Dime is a treasure trove of traditional magic novelties and tricks, occult pariphinaliea, religious bric-a-brac, and used sci-fi/conspiracy theory paperbacks. If you're from Philadelphia - think of it as a cross between Hocus Pocus Magic Shop(RIP) and GERM Bookstore.

In the movie, the magic shop serves as a refuge for it's two young main characters, Walter (a budding magician) and his brother Elijah.

Odds doesn't get much screen time, but he's still one of my favorite characters.

The character's appearance (and personality to a certain extent) is based off of the British comic artist Alan Moore. I was listening to a lot of his spoken word performances while I was writing the script and envisioning Odds - now I can't imagine anyone else playing his character but the great magus himself. Not sure how we'll go about approaching him (though I'm willing to fly to Northampton and haunt the pubs/coffee shops there if I need to), but I'm hoping he'll oblige us and lend his voice to the project. Weirder things have happened.

In case you were confused when I said "rough character puppets", wait until this weekend when I'll go a bit more into the process of making Mr. Bodkins.

Peace!

Who I Look To #3

2010-03-25T21:27:00.008-04:00

Hey folks. So this week I was hoping to do a character profile on Odds Bodkins... the charming magic shop proprietor in Burp's Christmas. I've been working on his character design for the past two weeks, trying to put together a "rough draft" digital puppet for us to use as art examples when we try to raise money. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to color him in yet so that post will have to wait til next time.

For now, I'm gonna continue talking about some of my inspiration for B.C. Last time I wrote about comic book artist Will Eisner. Today, I'm going to talk about David Weidman.

Weidman is a relatively unknown graphic artist who cut his teeth in the animation scene of the 50s and 60s doing design and layout.

Aside from animation, Weidman is a prolific screen printer and sculptor.

His work has a bold, graphic style balanced with much warmth and charm - something I feel is missing in much of todays modern, vector-y, gross digital design.

Observe the rough, textured line weight and palpable coloring. There's such life in these works. I hope to imbue the layouts of Burp's Christmas with that kinda life.

Check out more of his prints at his website. I promise next time i'll show you some of what I've been doing!

peace,
Heneghan

Who I Look To #2

2010-03-11T17:38:00.007-05:00

Hey folks! Hope everyone had a happy holiday. It's already March now, it's been about 3 months since I last blogged.

Not much to report on. We sort of lost a bit of our momentum over the break - other projects have been eating at our time. But the team has a new work schedule now, and the blog will be updated at on a bi-weekly basis (at least every other Thursday).

As we're still in the conceptualization stage of the production, I'd like to share with you some of the influences I'm drawing upon for the film. I'm doing a lot of experimenting right now with character design, and I'm turning to a variety of artists to get ideas for style and technique.

Last time I posted an influence blog, it was about Alice and Martin Provensen

This time I'm going to look at a comic book illustrator, Will Eisner.

You can always hit up wikipedia for more information on the guy. Here's a brief rundown: Will Eisner is one of the most acclaimed and influential comic book artists of all time. He started his career back in the 30s when the industry was in it's infancy. While other artists within the medium were still taking baby steps, Eisner made leaps in sequential comic storytelling. He's often called the Orson Welles of comic books because of the innovation, craft, and competency he brought to a juvenile art.

His most well known creation is The Spirit, a super-hero-ish book which you might have heard of recently because of the Sin City-esque film adaptation that came out recently. I heard the film was shit. I assure you, the comic is not.

I'm specifically looking at Eisner's work because I'm contemplating rendering the characters in Burp's Christmas with a similar, inky/sketchy finish. I love the character of Eisner's lines, especially when he draws buildings. He has a loose hatch that is lively but not sloppy. There is an energy to his illustrations that makes his still images come alive.

He is an economic illustrator. That's not to say he won't render objects with lush detail if the drawing calls for it - but he balances it out by suggesting background or unimportant objects with simple, sparse lines. His compositions are balanced expertly with his use of black and white space.

2D Computer animation is often vector based and sterile. There is a trend to render things extremely clean and crisp. I think this is a detrimental aesthetic for the medium. Computers are sterile things, and I think rendering Burp's Christmas in such a style will make the film seem too shiny and robotic. We're already at a warmth disadvantage because we're using After Effects, which I think is harder for humans to relate to than hand drawn animation. I think rendering the characters with such a flawed, human inking style such as Eisner's will give us a much more relatable film. It's warm and inviting. It's alive.

Designing more Characters

2009-12-09T16:31:00.002-05:00

Hey folks - no update since Halloween!! Shame on me.

Things have been progressing pretty slow, as is expected when everyone working on this project is doing so in their spare time.

I've been spending a lot of attention on The Romantic, with little extra time for producing Burp's Christmas artwork.

Nonetheless, we have been keeping up on the film! I'm proud to announce that Veronica has officially created our company All The Friendly Beasts LLC. She's going to write a blog post detailing that process. Meanwhile, I've been able to do a few more sketches, and some other original art which I will show later.

The following images are mostly secondary characters. While they don't have as much screen time as the main cast, it's extremely important to pay just as much attention to their design and creation. The most successful films/cartoons/comics of this ilk owe a lot of their appeal to their secondary characters. Think about The Simpsons, which, especially in the earlier episodes, spent a great deal of time developing their secondary cast into characters that you want to spend time with, sometimes even moreso than Bart, Homer, Lisa, Marge or Maggie.

Secondary characters are the most crucial part of "world building". The characters need to feel like they have their own stories going on in the background of our main story. We need to know that they exist separate of our main story-line, and don't just exist to deliver a couple of lines that further the arches of our main characters. This is what separates a character from a device. I want to make a film about characters, not about devices.

Norma considers her gingerbread house.

I've slowly been weaning off of the bulbous, 'muppet' noses that appear on my earlier designs. While I love these noses tremendously, they do push the design to a cartoonier level. I'll still keep them on some characters (I don't know how to take it off of Odds), but probably keep the noses on the main family more traditional. Above, you can see a Norma with a bulbous nose and a normal person nose. The "normal person" nose is still big and has a lot of character, but it isn't as far out as the nose that looks like a separate piece.

Little Trevor gets pumped reading Carl Sagan.

Trevor is geeky. While I like some of the above designs, they are a bit too typically 'geeky'. I hate the Paul Pfeifer/Milhouse device of having the nerd wear thick glasses. When I grew up, nerds, if they had glasses, wore normal glasses. If they had any fashion tic, it was generally less obvious - their clothes were frumpier, they carried themselves awkwardly, they wore kids clothing (power rangers/tmnt gear) past the age when it was acceptable to wear that stuff.

I'm more in favor of the Pete & Pete model, where a lot of the supporting casts are pretty unique in their geekery.

Stephanie is a mess.

Still working on this poor girl. Not sure if I want to make her super pretty or super frumpy.

Mr. Fogerty sells shoes and plays the jazz saxophone.

Fogerty is a tough character to make three dimensional. He's Charles' boss and sort of the antagonist of the film. I'm not really sure what direction to take him yet. Should he be a hard ass? (like a Mr. Spacely) Should he be awkward? (Like the boss in Office Space) Should he be the "friend" boss that thinks he's cool and has a great relationship with his employees when he's actually a factor in their personal despair? Even though this character's dialogue has been written, so much of his personality will come from how he dresses, how he looks, and how his lines are delivered.

Emeline Clemins is highly competitive and pretty awkward.

Here's another antagonist that can go many different ways. She was originally intended to be very pretentious, very egotistical, very "proper", and would speak in a froofy way. This has been done so many times before (as has the boss character from above). I'm pushing her now either in the direction of a single mom stuck in perpetual adolescence, or as someone who is extremely awkward and mumbly as well as a little cruel and undermining.

Pastor White is by the book, for good or ill.

I want the Burp's pastor to be a very very nice and very charming guy who means well but whose pastoring is very clean, traditional, and less messy/human/real. I want their to be an obvious rift between the good news he preaches during advent and what's actually going on, ground level, in the Burp's life. I want him to be a dude that you feel can get real, but doesn't know how to get real with the bible.

G.R. has a big heart and a big bank account but unfortunately has not learned to marry the two.

Lastly, this is a quick doodle of a guy Charles' used to work with. He's only in one scene. I feel like calling him G.R. already gives his character a dollop of extra dimension.

Anyhow, that what I'm working with now. More soon!

Take care,
Michael

New Team member!

2009-10-09T09:50:00.006-04:00

Hey folks - just wanted to introduce you guys to a new member of our team.

Kat Hulka will be joining us as Associate Producer. Since Veronica is in LA, Kat will the be Philly liaison to the West Coast. She'll be able to stop by the studio to help with the day to day - like making sure we're actually making a film. I've known Kat for a half dozen years now (we graduated from Uarts together) and I'm pumped to have her aboard. Find out more about what she's up to at kathulka.com

Her formal description sounds like this: With a background in both production and animation, Kat has created work for television, films and the web. Her 2006 short film, Grace, has screened at festivals across the US and internationally. She is currently a Project Manager in interactive media and resides in Hoboken, NJ.

Cheers,
Michael

Who I Look To #1

2009-09-02T11:54:00.012-04:00

Illustration from A Visit to William Blake's Inn, illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen. 1981.

Alright, so last post I briefly introduced you to some of my methods for "world building" - constructing the visual principles and aesthetics that will govern the world of Burp's Christmas. I focused primarily on character design. I gave you guys a brief glimpse at my process and the things I consider when conjuring up my characters. Now I want to start sharing some of my inspirations with you. In the next three posts or so I want to write about the artists I turn to when I'm designing characters.

Beautifully whimsical. Love how easily these could be made into puppets in After Effects.

The first two artists I'm going to mention aren't animators, although they did cut their teeth in the animation industry. They are Alice and Martin Provensen, children's book illustrators.

Great mixture of curved and angular lines. Characters are beautifully balanced. The children look spry and ready to be animated.

The Provensens began illustrating books together in the 1940s and have since created a wide collection of award winning works. Their graphic style is very indicative of that 50s era - a time when animation design was pushed and pulled in many exciting directions (the reverberations of which can be felt very strongly in my own designs). Though they were published way before our collective births, folks of my generation might still remember seeing the Provensen's art in Little Golden Books. Martin has since passed (1987), though Alice continues working to this day. For more biographical information, check out Wikipedia or this blog entry here to find out more about the couple.

Interesting textures on all of these. Be sure to click to view them larger!

As I mentioned in my last post, I think having simple dots for eyes looks really classy. Not sure if these guys could act out the emotions that Burp's Christmas requires, however.

Pay attention to their lack of outlines. I might use this technique in the Burp's Christmas designs.

Though the Provensens weren't animators, I feel their designs would work very well in animation - specifically in After Effects cut-out animation, the medium I'm pursuing. Most of their designs look similar to construction paper cut-outs, though I believe they are painted with acrylic. They are very graphic - their bodies look like they would "joint" well, and the illustrations are ripe with texture, one of the aforementioned benefits with animating with cut-outs vs. traditional hand drawn.

Lastly - here's an interesting tidbit. Before Tony the Tiger laced his frosted flakes with steroids and became the generically designed sports enthusiast we know him as today, he hung out with Groucho Marx and rocked a beautiful character design by Martin Provensen, leaving me to close by saying this about the couple: They're greeeaaat!

har har.

-Heneghan

World Building

2009-08-25T16:49:00.001-04:00

Elijah Burp with rough color.

So, things are slowly progressing with the film. Slowly, but surely. Until we raise our budget I can only afford to work on the film in my spare time.

So I've spent my spare time in the past couple weeks scribbling in my notebook trying to work out the aesthetic for the film. This is a somewhat daunting, but overall exciting process. I'm designing characters, figuring out color palettes, and sketching ideas for backgrounds.

A couple of sketches of the roly-poly Elijah Burp.

Designing characters for this kind of project is tricky. Everything needs to be considered. For instance, take the eyes - what should they look like? Should the eyes be big, oval, with detailed pupils, or should they be completely round, lidded, with tiny pupils? Maybe the eyes should just be black dots? Simple black dots (think Charlie Brown, Calvin and Hobbes) surely look sleek and classy, but can they give the audience enough emotional range? Can the audience get attached to these characters for an hour and a half if their eyes are just dots? But do round eyes with pupils look too "cartoony" to be taken seriously? If I make them look too realistic, will they just be creepy? Ugly?

Odds Bodkins has round, lidded eyes and little pupils. He's pretty cartoony.

All those questions, and that's just the eyes. What about body types? Is this a world where the bodies are proportioned normally, or should they be exaggerated, and if so, by how much? In this world, how big are the character's hands in relation to their head? How big are their heads in relation to their body?

Norma Burp - is her head too big in that profile sketch?

Burp's Christmas is whimsical yet somber, joyous yet melancholy. There are moments of elation and fun and moments of very deep emotional sorrow. In orchestrating the aesthetic, I'm trying to build a world that can be cartoony and dynamic and engaging, but can also carry the weight of real life human feelings and interactions. If my designs, my "world", is too cartoony, the serious parts of the film will seem ironic. And if it's too realistic, it'll be visually boring - a live action film hiding out in the world of animation. And the film will fail.

On top of the above considerations, I also have to design a world that fits the practical pros and cons of the style of animation I'm using. Burp's Christmas, like The Romantic, will be animated in Adobe After Effects in a style mimicking "cut-out paper animation", a somewhat antiquated form of animation where the animator moves cut-out paper puppets underneath a camera, frame at a time, to achieve the illusion of movement. South Park, in it's original few episodes (before they switched to computers like I have), is a rudimentary example of this technique.

Here are three other examples:

Hedgehog in The Fog by Yuriy Norshteyn

Twice Upon a Time by John Korty

The Adventures of Prince Achmed by Lotte Reineger

In cut-out animation, as opposed to traditional hand drawn, you do not redraw the same character over and over. Instead, you build "puppets" that are moved over time. For this reason, character designs for traditional animation tend to be pretty simple and low on detail while designs for cut-out paper can be filled with rich texture and loads of detail. This is one of the pros of the style. My characters can wear corduroy pants and houndstooth blazers as much as they like and I don't have to drive myself insane rendering those details over and over.

A bunch of Charles Burp Pictures. Note how curvy he is in the first picture - those curves are hard to joint naturally in After Effects. End result will probably be the body in 2 & 3 with the head from 1.

Cut-out animation is not without it's own limitations. The above you tube examples, while different in style, share some similarities, including a kind of quirky movement that is snappier than traditional animation. With hand drawn, a character can be drawn to bend and move however the animator desires it to. With cut-outs, the character movement is restricted by it's initial design. Moving forward and backward in perspective can be tricky, as can simply bending a characters arm, if the initial design doesn't seem to allow for natural movement.

So that's what I'm working with right now. Next time I post I'll talk more specifically about other artists I'm drawing from for inspiration!

take care,
Michael P. Heneghan

Introductions All Around!

2009-07-30T12:42:00.002-04:00

So. There's an overwhelming amount of information I need to give you guys.

First off, my name is Michael P. Heneghan. I am an independent animator/writer/artist living in Fishtown, Philadelphia. As mentioned in my last post, I just finished directing my first animated feature film, The Romantic, with a small group of friends and absolutely no budget whatsoever. The Romantic is slated to hit the festivals a bit later this year. Hopefully during that time I'll be able to meet and great some folks who'll want to help me make my next film, Burp's Christmas, the film who's blog you are reading right now.

That's not to say I haven't already met a bunch of great folks that want to help me make my next film. Let me talk about some of them. First up is Veronica Williams, a friend of mine from my college days at The University of The Arts. Since leaving Philadelphia, Veronica has become a full fledged movie producer. She is producing Burp's Christmas. I am very lucky for this.

Next up we have Dan Gauthier, another Uarts graduate. Dan works at a post production house called Get-Kinetic!. He will be doing special effects work on Burp's Christmas. He also did SFX work on The Romantic. He's a talented artist and a great friend.

That's all the team members I'm going to introduce so far. There are a few more, but I don't want to throw them up here until I'm 100% sure they are on board. See, here's the thing. This film is going to cost $200,000 to make. I have $0.00 right now. Veronica and I have a lot of work to do.

That's why I need to meet some new great folks who want to give me lots of money because: 1.) They believe I'm a maker of good films. 2.) They want good films to get made. 3.) I can get them a good return on their money (ie, I'm a safe investment. Really, I am! Or at least this film is. I'm not too concerned with making money but this film will make a lot of it).

So, the film. What about the film, anyway?

Well, Burp's Christmas is a Christmas movie. Obviously. But it's really about Christmas - the whole spectrum of the holiday. This is how our website, burpschristmas.com, will describe it once it's up and running:

Burp’s Christmas is about sledding, snowmen, snowball fights, gingerbread houses, hot chocolate, evergreen trees, twinkling lights, shiny ornaments, carols, pageants, mistletoe, and boughs of holly. It’s about Mary, Joseph, mangers, donkeys, Magi, angels, holy stars, holy nights, and Jesus Christ. It’s about presents, packages, goods, commercials, scam artists, sales and salesmen, long hours, low pay, big stores, little stores, and the people who work in them. It’s about peace, stillness, light born in darkness, and about a small family in need of healing at Christmas time.

The small family in question consists of two adults and two children. The adults are Charles Burp and Norma Burp. The children (or grandchildren, I should say), are Walter Burp and Elijah Burp. Charles has recently come out of retirement. He works at a shoe store and this embarrasses him. Norma stays at home raising the kids and is not sure how she feels about that but she does her best. Walter and Elijah are great kids but they're pretty lonely and they're pretty scared and they have a lot of reason to be. In fact, the entire family is scared. Christmas is coming and not only is everything not perfect, everything is getting worse by the hour. Because sometimes life hands you lemons and no matter how hard you try you just can't make lemonade out of them.

Burp's Christmas is about when life hands you the kind of lemons you can't make lemonade from.

This is how much of the film is done right now, aka where we are at and where we are headed:

-We have a screenplay. It's in it's second draft. It's awaiting a third draft.
-We have a vague web presence. This blog, and a website that should be up shortly.
-We have a few sketches of the characters. Right now I'm trying to lock down the aesthetic for the film. I will post a great big article about this next week.

And that's it. Right now we need more pre-vis artwork (character designs, a couple of scene paintings, and so forth) so that people can look at them and say "A-hah! This looks like something I can invest in!". The more of this visual stuff we have the more likely people are to say "A-hah!".

The more likely you are to say "A-hah!".

Anyway. That's the introduction. Will show you more soon!

much love,
Michael P. Heneghan

Welcome to the Five & Dime

2009-07-22T10:05:00.001-04:00

Hey folks -

Welcome to Odds Bodkin's Magical Five & Dime, my new blog that will document the creation of my next feature film, Burp's Christmas. Things are a bit messy right now, we're very much in the embryonic stage of the film's development. We're working on our "online presence", including a new website burpschristmas.com, as well as this blog, which needs a design overhaul.

The film itself is moving along nicely. We have a second draft of the screenplay. I'm currently working on art design, trying to nail down an aesthetic for the film. We still have many miles to go before production starts, but I'm excited nonetheless.

My first film, The Romantic, is about to begin it's festival tour. Peep it's website for more information!

That's all for now, I'll post back shortly with some artwork. If you are coming here via Comic-Con, sorry we don't have more content! Send any questions to michael@burpschristmas.com

Peace,
Heneghan