Intro movie...

[Vincent Croce]

sorry, this was posted in error...

[Vincent Croce]

Thought I'd change up my usual intro media in my current wedding project by making my first attempt at character animation...any critique or comment from the DVI crew is always welcomed.
http://www.firsttakestudios.com/demo...omoviedemo.wmv

[Peter Jefferson]

interesting..
if the client is willing to pay for the additional work of composites like this then go for it..
I also believe that this particular template would work well for the "fun" and not so serious kind of presentations, as any credibility of the client is thrown out the window. Thats not to say its bad.. it isnt bad.. but you have to be careful how u use it

I like it, and u can always change heads around... so longevity will always be there, jsut be aware of how it may impact on the potential clietns views and thoughts about the the actual piece itself..

[Vincent Croce]

This is for a relative, my wife's niece and her husband, who both have a sense of humor, so I wasn't worried about them being embarassed by it or anything. They both thought it was cool.
You're right though, there are serious minded couples out there who wouldn't go for something like this, but I thought it might make a good option to offer to those who aren't so formal minded. Most of the couples I've done work for so far would've enjoyed it.
I've definitely saved the core layers as a template for possible reuse of the bodies, but I wouldn't reuse the tv or any of the motion paths--not a fan of cookie-cutter work. I need to get much faster with the compositing, however, if I want to make it an affordable option. If I could get it down to 5 hours or less...might be worth it. A good part of the time I spent on this was a learning process, so well worth it in that respect.
I also hear that AE CS3 has a component specifically for doing puppet work, so I'll have to look into that when it gets released.
Thanks for the feedback, Peter.

[Monday Isa]

Hey Vincent,
Interesting opener. Creative as well. Hope all is going well. Take Care

Monday

[Rick Steele]

Originally Posted by Vincent Croce

Thought I'd change up my usual intro media in my current wedding project by making my first attempt at character animation...any critique or comment from the DVI crew is always welcomed.
http://www.firsttakestudios.com/demo...omoviedemo.wmv

I really liked that. :)

But don't end it with a fade... just zoom into the TV and start the show.

[Matthew Craggs]

Looks awesome. That's the kind of thing I would eat up if I were getting married.

[Dave Blackhurst]

That was really cool! I'd second the zoom into the TV idea!

Dave

[Dana Salsbury]

I'm still laughing. That was fun.

In my last wedding I included a series of out-takes. Humor is powerful, and lacking in today's society. People need a chuckle now and then.

[Vincent Croce]

You know, I'd first thought of the zoom into the screen and start the movie idea, and that would work if I just used it at the beginning and part of the first vid, and not use it as the replacement intro media...and then I got going on trying to recreate the old 'tv off white dot in the middle of the screen'...you guys do remember the old tvs, right? But I think you guys are right and it would be cooler to lead right into the first vid. I appreciate the feedback and I particularly second Dana's comment that we could all use a bit more humor in our lives. But Peter's thought that not everyone would go for that type of thing still holds true--that's why it's so important to try and get to know each couple's demeanor a bit--although in some cases I could see the groom liking it and the bride not, and vice versa, of course.

[Peter Jefferson]

god i must be old if i still HAVE one of those ol BW tv with the white dot on shut down.. lol

a while back a client gave me a cariacature of themselves (hes holding her (like holding her over teh threshold) so i took her off him and started the animation.. back then it was jstu basic panning, but i moved it enough and put a city scape in the background.. so hes staning in teh city, arms open moving around.. like a cartoon waiting to catch something..
then we see a sky scape.. and down comes the bride, falling...
cuts back to groom lining himself up.. then back to her..
then back to him and she lands in his arms.

pretty cheesy but it was taken rather well.. especially in hong kong where we played the aussie wedding at the hong kong reception. nice of teh client to fly me out there :)

Always good to ask a couple if theyve got a cariacature or something along those lines

[Vincent Croce]

Pete, you mean a caricature like they draw in carnivals and amusement parks?
It would be cool to actually hire one of those artists to do one of the couple beforehand, composite it and pop it into a Love Story or even an SDE (not that I've ever even done an SDE before)...mmm...depends on if the couple has a sense of humor, of course.

[Peter Jefferson]

yeah dude, those exact same ones..

if u can create something stupid out of a pretty ordinary picture, and messing with composites you can go a lil bonkers..

this couple were a couple of chinese pharmacists who youd think they wouldnt have a sense of humour, but they loved it

Bit dicky IMO, but hey, it gets them in :) Then again, i have the tendency to be a stuck up prat.. LOL

[Matt McLain]

Hey Vince, stellar video. I was really impressed. I was just wondering if you composed all of that w/ AE or if you used anything else. I'd love for you to discuss a little more about your workflow for animating the characters, and if you created their bodies in AE or Photoshop or something like that. Nice job, man.

[Vincent Croce]

Matt,
Here's the gist of what I did. Pshop for the graphics. Cut the gown and head parts out from my stills, the bride's arms & hands, plus the groom's tux (front & side), arms, hands and legs were drawn (just basic shapes, not much detail, I know,but it worked ok), his shoes I actually grabbed from some web ads for formal shoes (shhh)...I made sure I had a few different angled head shots of each. Used the burn/dodge and blur tools on all edges. Depending on your Pshop skills, this part can take some time. The tv png and the rose petals bg were from my DJ collection. Kept them all as psd's.
Once I was satisfied with the graphics, I brought them all into AE along with the audio. Rampreviewed the audio and markered the beats. Brought the bride and groom's parts onto the timeline, one at a time, worked on connecting the parts, fixing the anchor points, etc. Did the same with the logos and tv. I parented the body parts in order: the rthand to the rt lowerarm, the rtlowerarm to the rtupperarm, the rtupperarm to the torso, etc.
All parts eventually were parented to the torso, or upper gown in the case of the bride. When I wanted to have the torso rotate (bend) on the upper legs, however, since it was the parent of the whole body I couldn't rotate the torso w/out having the whole body rotate--here's where I actually had a small night light go off in my head--I duplicated the torso, made the original torso transparent, and parented the torso copy to the transparent, original one. I reparented everything on upper body, incl. head, to the torso copy, which is the one I rotated to get the bend. This way all the parts still followed the original torso, but I got bendability (is that a word?).
Anyway, it took me quite a while to get the first few movements down, always dropping keyframes with the important attributes before I moved along the timeline and made any changes--saved the project after each step--didn't get ahead of myself, just worked linearly--eventually the pace got a bit quicker and the project got more and more complicated. And the clock ticked away.
Lastly I brought my rendered, lossless avi (with alpha channel) into Vegas (ahhh, good to be back in something I'm more familiar with), tweaked it up with a few more sound effects, added the rose bg and rendered to dv avi (and wmv, of course).
All in all I'd say I put over 18 hours into it...which I know is not good, business wise. But I know I could do the next one much faster--probably 12 hours...hehehe.
Hope I didn't bore you, Matt, but you asked.