Caged wins an award at FLIP 2011

So FLIP festival 2011 was held this weekend where i attended the event on Friday and Saturday. Considering the festival was in danger of not being held this year, the FLIP team pulled off an awesome festival that in my opinion was better than previous years that I've been to.

It was an honour meeting industry figures Bill Plympton, Barry Purves, Cosgrove Hall (they made Danger mouse!!!) and Aardman. Bill Plympton's masterclass was amazing and very informative. He also showed a pencil test from his upcoming film " Cheatin' " which I cannot wait to see. I recognised him more for his Hot Dog film so will definitely catch up on his past films such as "Idiots and Angels".

From left to right: Me, Bill Plympton and Josh


BrothersMcleod also premiered their latest film, Isle of Spagg, which was awesome. I love the style and the humour was great. I enjoyed the scenarios the little boy was put in and couldn't stop laughing.

Caged was shown on Saturday during Open shorts 5 and I am proud to announce that it won the award for best film from open shorts 5 (Each open shorts session had its own winner based on public vote).

The ringmaster sting that I made with Sector5 Studios was also shown on Friday to open the first event of the day, Open shorts 1. Unfortunately I missed it by 10-20 seconds as I was in the queue to go in to the cinema room. The winners of the sting competition will be announced online later on, so fingers crosswed we win.

Caged to be screened at FLIP festival

A short update to announce that Caged will be shown at the FLIP festival on Saturday 29th October.

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The 3D project I introduced in my previous blog entry is complete and ready to view online. Over on the sector5studios blog, we announced that it was our entry in the FLIP 2011 stings competition. If you haven't seen it yet check it out below:



I will go into depth on the process behind this project in future blog updates.

Impressions of Bridgnorth Animation Festival

Taking place at the Majestic Cinema today, the Bridgnorth Animation Festival was held as a part of the Bridgnorth Music and Arts Festival.

Caged was screened during the local animations segment which were also the animations up for nomination for the public vote award. Every animation shown was amazing so it wasn't clear who would win the most votes. it was also great to see some familiar faces too. This was the first time that Caged was shown on the big screen so it was just as special for me. In the end, I did not win the award which I lost out by 1 vote. Still, I'm very proud of coming in second place and it serves as a big motivation for me to do even better next time. (The animator who took 1st place was from Wolverhampton University which was awesome, a big win for our university).

I thought it was great that they gave animators the chance to speak to the audience before their film was shown. I have experienced this before last year at Shorts on Walls (where Sentry was screened) so I was expecting to talk to everyone with no hesitation, strenghtened by my enjoyment of doing presentations. To my surprise, I was still nervous! Perhaps the bigger audience was a factor in this but it felt like this was my first ever screening so it was both a brilliant experience and a little scary too. To be honest, I dont want that feeling to ever go away either when it comes to screening films at festivals.

This was also my first time in Bridgnorth which was quite a surprise with just how different the setting was even though it was next door to the city I live in. it felt a world a part but a great inspiration for ideas too.
Overall, I enjoyed the festival and look forward to going back next year. Hopefully I'll have something new to submit there.

Caged Selected for The Cut 2011 Festival

Pleased to announce that Caged has been selected for its first festival screening at The Cut 2011.
The festival begins on July 9th and continues running on the 10th, 16th and 17th.

The festival program can be found here:
http://thecut2011.blogspot.com/

Caged will get shown four times (in other words once per festival day):
Saturday July 9th 12:30 Screening
Sunday July 10th 12:30 Screening

Saturday July 16th 2:30 screening

Sunday July 17th 12:30 screening suitable for kids (must be accompanied by an adult)

I will post more details on the festival itself in a future post (such as the location of the festival).

Extended Showreel now online

I've uploaded my extended showreel that was on display during my degree show. I felt that my main 1 minute showreel didn't give much attention to my older work so I created this 3 minute extended showreel to show off my non-3D animations.


http://vimeo.com/ravm/longshowreel

I will also be updating my deviantart gallery too with Caged related work such as stills from the film and concept art so keep an eye out for updates from there. Now that I have a twitter account, I can use that as the central hub for all my sites.

Student Degree Show 2011

So it's finally time for the student degree show, something I've been looking forward to since last year's degree show. It's been fun preparing for the show especially since I've been one of the main organisers of the event for my class.

It's been an interesting experience pitching for a budget, organising posters and life size cut outs as well as helping with the designs for the promotion of the animation show.

The degree show begins on Friday 3rd June with a private viewing from 5:30pm to 8:30pm. This is an invite only day so to attend and to have the chance to see Caged, you must print this e-invite off:

http://www.wlv.ac.uk/files/images/newsletters/sad/4/degree-show-invite.pdf
(allows 4 people to attend)

or you can

RSVP to:
E: art-design@wlv.ac.uk
T: 01902 322058
The degree show will then be open to everyone on Monday 6th June to Friday 10th June (no invite needed).

Caged completed

It feels really weird but Caged is finally complete totalling at 4 minutes 50 seconds (including credits).

Really excited about showing it this Tuesday for the last presentation in my course (*sniff* If only the course was another year or two longer).

With the completion of the film ,my focus will now be aimed at it's promotion for the student show. With a poster concept ready to be printed, I can start designing the space I will get for the student show (hopefully with a life size cut out too)

Here's another screenshot of the film:



Enzo isn't happy despite his surroundings...



Caged Trailer now online!

With my film almost complete, I have uploaded the first trailer for Caged:



I will be re-editing and spending more time on the trailer once my film is finished, for now I quickly put this together to promote my presentation on May 10th. Can't wait!

Building the World of Caged

Now in the process of building the environments and lighting ready for the final rendering.
Here's some test renders of what the film will look like in the end. Some of the metal textures like the minecart's a missing however:



intro scene



Enzo meets bird for the first time

I think I have finally decided to stick with the title Caged for Project Enzo (will feel quite strange not using project Enzo to refer to the film anymore). However you may be wondering why "Caged"?

-Enzo is a slave
-Cage has a connection to birds
-bird himself is trapped in the mines
-The Overlord is also caged within the mechanical forms and insecurity
-Sticks to the one word title I like to give my animations

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Having finished all development on my characters I began animating last week. I uploaded a work in progress showing the playblasts of the animation I had created on the first day(environments are blocked out):


Caged _ work in progress 1 from Ravi Maheru on Vimeo.

I have made slight tweaks to the animation such as the bird's tail being pushed completely back to streamline the bird whilst it flies. This was simply corrected by adjusting the set driven keys.

Since uploading this video I have animated the first 30 seconds (up until the point where the Overlords startle Enzo, who proceeds to hide Bird in his hands). If there ever was an adrenaline rush in animation, this is the time in production where I have that as I'm having alot of fun animating.

From what I have so far, I really believe that this will be my best film yet, although it means tons of 24 hour days. goodbye sleep...

Also, you may have noticed new music in the work in progress above, thats thanks to Joe Cruickshank, the composer of the film who I have worked with in the past (created the music for Sentry). This will ensure that the music and animation are perfectly in sync. It's a great feeling when the project is updated with new music specifically created for it. I cannot wait to have the finished piece so you can enjoy the animation and the soundtrack.

Biolord of Dance!

With skinning complete for each character I now move on to blend shapes.



"How you doing?"

 Seeing as the Biolord doesnt get much spotlight time in the film he was given a brief moment to be on camera and he chose to "dance":

BioLord of Dance! from Ravi Maheru on Vimeo.

........ahem...back to work...

Project Enzo Final Animatic

2 animatics for Project Enzo, one in 2D and one in 3D.



Project Enzo - Final Animatic from Ravi Maheru on Vimeo.

"Predator"

I've uploaded my "predator" animation that I've mentioned in past blogs which featured a scientist becoming his experiment's prey.


It's like a Predator... from Ravi Maheru on Vimeo.

This is based on the October competition from the 11 second club. Enjoyed making it and pleased with the outcome.