BG #4_19

23rd Oct 2012


Squeezed out one more BG outta myself. Unfortunate news: I am getting pretty lazy, fat, lonely and a wee bit depressed at home. Not the reaction I expected, but I am gonna get my stuff together and hold my chin up.

Gran gave me an unexpected gift on my birthday day before, and I went through an emotional roller coaster. It was from grandad as well, and I don't know if he would have been proud of me, had he seen what I am today. Anyway. Here's all I got.

The Mailbox - test 3

17th Oct 2012

So I was told to submit the final film with sound and everything to my H.O.D. It's obviously impossible, but this was the best I could do with the given deadline. Of-course I'm going to change a lot of things. Lets see how it works out in the end! For now, munch on this >



I'm kind of getting how the film is supposed to look by the end of it. Still have to add change and boil a lot of shots!

See you soon!

Rampage of BGs

Too much pressure from our sick sadistic institute has made me churn out some mediocre but quick BGs for the mailbox. What takes 6 months is told to be done in 6 days! Talk about exaggeration. Here they go.

Also looking for a decent soundtrack. My great foundy friends Dhruv and Krithika are helping me out there. That's all for now!

Shot 5_3

26th September 2012


I have shifted to the comp lab thanks to the departure from Pune of my close friend and bench-mate Vicky Punjabi. Things are better here than there in the noisy stinky class. I did a whole lipsynch shot today and I'm SO happy with how it turned out. I learned more than I did with the stupid lipsynch assignment we had done back in Sem 5. Such a waste. This is how you learn!

Also my friends said the sound is unclear, so I'm gonna have to re-record Ishan's voice. I hope that can be synched to this animation or I'll have to re-animate also! :(

Enjoy!

Shot 4_13

23rd September 2012

One of my shortest, but favorite shot of 'The Mailbox' - finally got a preview of how things look fully colored! Hope the whole film turns out this way!

Background parade!

18th September 2012

I got over ambitious and told Vix I'd finish 8 bgs anyhow. I finished 4. Here goes the BG parade! Vix now calls me 'BG Queen'. :| And so does Gayatri ma'am.

I used the colors of an old bg here, so I thought - this won't take time? It's just like the other one. but no, it took really long for some reason. There was distortion in this. 

 This one took the least time and it's one of the smallest but one of my most favourite shots in the film! I love the lighting. I'mma hold it for a while on this frame. :P!!

This one was a pain in the ass, but I kind of learned how to paint foliage. Also I download Goro Fujita's brushes and I've been using them in a lot of my bgs. Just wish I'd figured these things out earlier! Anywho, better late than never! You can download them HERE.

 This one took particularly forever. I had a shot like this planned earlier, but I mainly stole it from a movie I was luckily watching at the same time!! Harry Potter and the half blood prince! Here's the shot I took from the film:

BG #28, BG#29

14th Sept 2012

Cont/-

Finally I decided today morning that I will try to do more than I can. That's 5 backgrounds, 1 cleanup shot and 1 colored shot. I hope I can live up to my own expectations! Here are today's bgs.

BG # 26

14th Sept 2012

Apparently our jury is in 2 days. So I've been working exceptionally hard on 'the Mailbox. I'm glad I got very tense about it coz I'd been fooling around for a long time and avoiding work coz of lack of motivation. Finally I decided today morning that I will try to do more than I can. That's 5 backgrounds, 1 cleanup shot and 1 colored shot. I hope I can live up to my own expectations! Here are today's bgs.

Scene 1 - Linetests

29th August 2012

Finally I exported some of the final tests before cleanup and color. These are from Sc #1.

BG #09

26th August 2012

Another morning shot. This was was seriously difficult. I really suck with these things. I had no idea how to light this up - but here goes whatever. I hope it looks fine in the film. 

BG #05

25th August 2012

This one was really simple coz I took the colors right after the previous BG! :) The focus makes it look SO much better! Enjoy!

Duration: 6-7 hours

BG #03

24th August 2012

Of course progress is going vehr very slow. I am getting very let down by my own standard of animation. I have no idea how to keep frames moving. Right now even at this stage things look more like an animatic than animation! :( Anywho, to encourage myself I've decided to do a bg everyday first, so that I feel confident that I have accomplished something. I took all day to do this - it's a morning scene. Also I realized things look much better without the border. But I'll think about that later. For now, enjoy.

BG #15

19th August 2012

This one took 2 whole days! I had no idea how it would look done. But I'm pretty happy with it. Just wish I could add more depth and wish the drawing had been better. I'm uploading after so long! Coz I've been animating side by side. Will upload the tests as soon as I'm happy with them. Enjoy, and open in full screen!

BG # 25

25th July 2012

When Francis gets dropped by the bus, he notices mucky shoe prints leading to his mailbox. Here's a quick bg done of a tight shot. The space in the middle is for Francis. I made two versions which will flip when there's lightning.

BG #19

26th July 2012

Finished another bg last night. This one was exceptionally hard, because I've never painted something where there is hardly any light. This is the interior of the bedroom and I was trying to paint it in a way that it looks like a late evening shot.

I'm still not fully happy with it, but here goes.

s4_6 - Francis reaches home

Francis reaches home from the Library to find that someone's visited his home.

Sc 4_2 - Postman sneaks in

First colored test shot from the mailbox

BG #16

23rd July 2012


The postman rides out of the city to try and find out more about Francis.

BG #12

19th July 2012

When Francis opens his mailbox he sees that it is now the home of algae and a spider. Disappointed, he turns to the other mailboxes in the neighbourhood.

BG #02

18th July 2012

Painted the first bg of the film. I was getting extremely apathetic at the time and I promised lux I'd finish two. I managed only one, but it turned out pretty okay. :) I hope they make the film look good.

 

Secondary Characters

Mrs. Geeta and Mr. Mascarenhas the neighbours!

Color Script Explorations

The first few color scripts I tried - in order of the scenes. Learnt a lot about overthinking! Well as students we always want to make our first short film very fancy, with a really unique style. Now all this is great when 1) You're NOT a one woman job, 2) You're on a tight deadline and 3) You're not getting paid.

Leaving all of that aside, I took a lot of help from artists I admire who really know how to use color. Pascal Campion, Hans Bacher, Abhishek Singh's advice, and Ram, my friend who will be a graduate today! :) Also great films like Triplets of Belleville have had a huge influence on me, and I want someone that kind of look for my film. There are tons more who I have studied from over the years, but one thing' for sure, you really can't learn color unless you observe and imitate. After all that's said and done it comes down to the practice of color. It was really frustrating in the beginning. I wanted to concentrate on light, tones, mood, but we should always remember that we are trying to communicate something.