Bubblegum and Lip synching and Color Correction, oh my!

Only one more week of animation left. I can't believe how quick this project has flown by. I have never done a project with this much to do in such a short amount of time. Yesterday alone I animated 30 seconds. I didn't have to, but I was on a bit of a role.

Some more stills....


Once I cluttered up her apartment with all the assorted goodies I made and acquired from ebay, I was highly pleased with the outcome.

You can't tell in this picture... but when the camera rack focuses onto Isadora stirring something in a pitcher, you can see all the cool kitchen stuff I got on ebay. there is even a miniature working cheese grater!


String man is about to pull out the gum,


a little example of some of the post production before and after work...

I do quite a bit in After effects with my footage, I usually add all of my practical light sources like lamps and suns etc... using the "generate, light rays" in after effects. It is a fabulous little effect that is so customizable, and even refracts light on items within the image as they move. Really sophisticated effect. You can see it here in use by the lamp and the sunlight from the window. I also use desaturate and curves in color correction a lot.


Here I add light rays to the objects in the background to give a glow, and I adjusted the Curves to give the image the "tealish, red, and yellow" hues I picked out for the film.

I used a new technique today when animating to get light on the puppet faces without putting a light below them... for a nice soft bounce of light on their faces, I put a paper towel down on the set floor, it bounced light nicely.

I am always open to questions on after effects if anyone needs any help.

And here is a tad little bit more animation... some lip-synching! I have actually never done much lip synching before, so it's been a really fun experience. The pig did a line in Siberian Farmland, but I am doing a few lines this time around in both stop motion and traditional form. This isn't entirely done yet, since I am adding the mouths in after effects, I have to move the mouths around while his head moves. It's not perfect yet, needs a bit of tweaking. I am really happy with how the gum flops around though! I apologize again for the cruddy, washed out internet quality.