The Mailbox update

5th Nov '13

So far my film 'The Mailbox' has been selected and screened at Chitrakatha '13 and it was a wonderful experience! I guess it's my first screening outside my comfort zone (MIT) and after it got over, it got a lot of cheering and hoots from the crowd, which I presume was mainly MITians. I saw all the flaws all over again. Something about the projector or the burned copy made it look much more florescent and saturated than I'd like. :( It was quite disappointing honestly, and after seeing all the other wonderful shorts from different countries, I felt my film had no place to be there.

That night I didn't ask anyone about anything. I shook a few friendly hands, and that was that. The next day I showed it to a really awesome faculty and friend there, Priyankar Gupta. I got some really good criticism and feedback from him and Dawameren Imchen (faculty) who was on the selection committee there. I recently I sent it to Prosenjit sir and Vaibhav sir, and they gave me some good inputs as well, so I hate it less now. ;)

After that I soon sent it to Asifa India, and it's been shortlisted for screening there as well! So I've decided to invest in a festival run. I did make a lot of mistakes with this film, and it's definitely not my best, but it's the first and it should get a viewing at least for the 1.5 years of blood and sweat that I poured into it.

I hope you guys get to see it asap! I'm really eager to hear all your criticism and feedback, but I cannot put it online during the festival run. Here're some screenshots and two posters.

Coming Soon...!!

24th Sept 2013

ALRIGHT!! The wait is FINALLY OVER!

I have been SO busy struggling with finishing up this project and wrapping up all the lose ends that I totally forgot to update the blog.
So yes! The Mailbox is finally READY FOR A FESTIVAL RUN!

I still wish there was a cooler way to compress files without losing out on so much quality, but I think I got a pretty decent output. I've had no help at all with post production, and so - I learnt a TON of things on my own, the hard way, and a bunch of softwares as well (that too with a suck snailnet). Also I find now that I could have done more justice to the story and to the animation, but giving the pressing deadlines, motivation issues and lack of guidance towards the end, I decided to correct my flaws in the coming shortfilms that I dream of making!

Now enough with the complaining! I hope you guys love this film as much as I enjoyed making it, and learning from it! I hope it's something fresh for you, and that it gives you something, even if for a short while.

It's still not available for public viewing, but it's 'COMING SOON'!! ;) ;) (Now I get how much fun this is for the fim-makers and distributers)

With this message, I commence to make this blog - PUBLIC. O__o
Cheers and lots of love! <3

Last BG

3rd Aug 2013





Finally tying up loose ends of 'The Mailbox'. The editing and compositing is almost done. I had to do a lot of emergency work and extra bgs and special effects. It's been a frustrating journey trying to learn AE on your own. Luckily I had some help from Rajeev Uncle who helped with some basics.

Here's one of the last few bgs I had to paint. Must be one of the simplest done out of lack of patience but it works. Had to make a lot of compromises so far.

 

And for some people who want to start living and believing again, you'd be honoured to find this. 

Overflowing water shot

17th June 2013

Finally finished one godforsaken shot from Scene 5. It lasts for just a second but has so many goddamn frames of moving water. Still need to be clever with loops. This one's not a loop. Luckily I found a good reference on youtube. Although I'm not entirely happy with this shot I don't think it could get any better. :( It's been ages since I updated here - because the progress is so slow its barely worth updating! Here it is. Took nothing less than 4 hours. :'( I hope it was really required.

Update and observations

22nd January 2013



Obviously it's been too long since I posted here! I wish I had kept on updating this but I have been so invested in the film, I just want to finish it on time. I've been under a lot of pressure balancing my Atnovus work and The Mailbox work. Animation is painstaking and the output is very disappointing considering I knew very little then as I know by now. The process of film making is so long and tedious that when you reach the last shots, you realize how ugly the first shots look and you just want to redo it, but you can't. You have to tell yourself that the time has passed and you have to move on to grow. You're learning, and for that you have to finish something, not keep holding onto it and perfecting it.

Cleanup is taking really really long and I've sort of figured out what went wrong earlier. I should have done another pass of cleaner lines and then done the final cleanup rather than directly coming to the final cleanup. It's totally ruined my animation! Also you have to keep flipping and keep the lightable on at all times, or you lose the flow of the animation and start to do it mechanically. But I can't afford to redo so many shots! So I'm just gonna do the incomplete ones.

Sigh. Then I gotta color and do light passes, and try to reduce the background's appearance. Finally I have to composite on after effects - something I have no idea how to do.

Anyway, that's all for now. Mosquitoes are killing me. It's 2:15 AM and I'm alone in college. It's much more peaceful and focused than during the day. Gotta get rid of machchar (mosquitoes) though.
It's been a great experience so far, and I've become a much more focused determined and hard working individual. I think I can endure anything now.


Goodnight blog! :)

Here are some fully rendered screenshots I had to sent to the placement cell.