Watchcat Wednesday Screening

Columbia Alumni Filmmakers Night
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
6:30 p.m. – Arrival and seating
7 p.m. – Screening and Q+A

El Cid
4212 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90029

Featured Short Films:
G Eazy "Downtown Love", Dillon Schneider ’12
Dumbfounded, Diane Baldwin ’05
Watchcat Episode 1 & 2, Jim Richardson ’86
Portrait of My Mother, Sophia Nahli Allison ’14
Seven Miles, Daniel Pico ’02
Dino Now, Matt Brookens ’99  
The Outcast, Bucher Almzain MFA ’15
Setting Son, Rachel Rosen ’15 
Paré, Myra Casciato ’15
Perfect Day, Jessica Huggins ’12

We gathered at the El Cid, a mexican restaurant on Sunset near Los Feliz. Everyone was a stranger, even though we all went to the same college in Chicago, years ago. 

The turnout was pretty good and I want to say this politely, but there were a lot depressing stories presented that evening. All the films were well done in production value, but so many downer endings or setting up characters to fail or die were shown. 

Watchcat fit in well enough, because we had a lot of gun play in our story. It was a great opportunity to watch our film with an audience and hear the reaction from the crowd. This was very helpful for us to hear, since you don't get that kind of instant feedback when posting your film online.

After the screening, the filmmakers were ask to stand on the stage with a little Q/A from the audience.

Afterwards, many were working the room, networking with business cards and iphones. Here we handed out our cards and met some of the other filmmakers. Even though I was the only animator in this land of live action filmmakers, I felt somewhat at home with them.

We gotta work on our candid posing for photos. Ha ha...
https://www.facebook.com/81523290672/photos/a.10154910643950673.1073741848.81523290672/10154910644385673/?type=3&theater 

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Watchcat Episodes screening in Hollywood!

Watchcat episodes 1 and 2 will be shown as part of the Columbia College Alumni Filmmakers Screening held this Wednesday, March 22nd. We have been asked to help promote the event and so, if you are in the Los Angeles area, like to watch movies and love Mexican food,  please click on this link for more info.

If you sign up, please mention in the email that Watchcat sent you. Greg and I will be there, so please say hello and enjoy a lot of other filmmakers who went to our school in Chicago.

We will post about the event next Watchcat Wednesday.

Rigging Watchcat

March. In like a lion, out like a lamb. Here’s a lion, built in Adobe Illustrator, animated in Adobe After Effects by Joe Gast. 

We got .33 cents in ad clicks last month from viewers clicking on the ads to help us donate the money to a local animal shelter. Unfortunately, I did the math and at this rate,  we will have a $100.00 check from Google in about 20 years from now.

The only way to up this number would be, if every viewer of this blog clicked on the ads, everytime they viewed this blog. Then maybe, it would only take 10 years to get a check.

This week, we found out that Watchcat episodes 1 and 2 will be shown on the big silver screen at the El Cid on Sunset Blvd. The episodes will be screened at the Columbia College Alumni Filmmakers Night on March 22nd, 6:30 - 9pm. You can purchase tickets here.
 

After making several episodes now by myself, I have decided that the only way to continue this process is to create a character rig. The above animation is a simple rig where different parts are attached to one another allowing simple movement. The best thing about creating a character rig is that the character will always look the way. This is called " Being on Model" and is the biggest problem with 2D animation. 

A hand drawn animation character must be drawn the same way throughout as if only one person created it. Animators were given model sheets showing how the character looks in different attitudes, poses or angles; side view, front, 3/4 and even from the back. The Animator relied on this information to be able to draw the character as close to the design as possible.

In computer animation, your character is a digital sculpture which can be moved and posed in the computer, without worry of ever "being off model". This process now allows more Animators to be give different scenes to be worked on as a group, rather than worrying if your character is on or off model.

Here is a good example of puppet animation in Flash by Richard Murray of RichToons.

If Watchcat is ever to be made into a TV series, the characters would need to be rigged so that anyone could animate them. And so, I am putting on my rigging hat this week and working on adding a skeleton to my drawn designs. This is a bit of a challenge, because the main character is a 4 legged cat. I will post some test in the next few weeks.  

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