'Gopher Golf' Publicity

Here's the official DVD cover, poster and still image for my film, 'Gopher Golf'.

DD3992: Looking Back on my Final Film

Yesterday, after several months of hard work, I finally completed all work on my film 'Gopher Golf', along with my latest show-reel, CV, action plan, poster and official still shot for the film.

There's no doubt that my final film is a lot different from how I first imagined it would look. Over the course of the last eight months, the narrative of the film has become a lot stronger. I am strongly against being able to predict how films will end, so I was pleased with my audience feedback because a mystery had been set up in the film - "we know the Gopher's going to get his revenge, but how?", as one comment from the feedback asks. The film is stronger as a comedy as well, and the final version generated more laughs than the original pitch for the film back in September.

I'm also pleased that the film's visual style is a lot stronger than in many of my earlier works. A lot more time and effort went into trying to make the film look better - I'm still happy today with the narrative and animation in my second year film, although time constraints and various issues meant I couldn't put as much effort into the sets and pre-production as I would've liked.

However, I've felt unsure many times whether the narrative and visual style would work together or not. The narrative has become a lot more focused on surreal comedy and slapstick, much like classic Disney or Looney Tunes cartoons from the "Golden Age of American Animation". Therefore, I've wondered many times if the film would work better if it was entirely 2D, not a mixed media - 2D, or traditional animation, is a lot more suited to surreal humour than either stop-motion or CGI, in my opinion. I only started to feel more comfortable about the film being a mixed media after the positive feedback it received. I have learnt a lot about different directors who have their own styles, so I became quite relaxed after feeling like I have achieved my own look. After seeing the final film all together, I feel very pleased with the end result.

DD3992: Music, Sounds and Voices

Unusually for an animated film, the voices for 'Gopher Golf' were one of the last parts of the production to be completed. The two main characters, Golfer and Gopher, were voiced by husband and wife Rob Kennedy-Parr and Sarah Ann Kennedy-Parr respectively, who have had plenty of experience in voice acting with roles in shows such as 'Peppa Pig' and 'Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom'.

Right from the beginning, I didn't want the final film to have dialogue in it. I imagined the Golfer and Gopher would make noises to show their emotions rather than use words - similar to how the Farmer and his animals communicate on 'Shaun the Sheep'. By doing this, I can focus a lot more on the slapstick and visual humour. Therefore, Rob and Sarah watched the film on a TV monitor in the sound booth, simply running their own commentary over the finished picture. Every once in a while, the Golfer makes noises which sound like English words such as "yes" and "no", but it felt natural for a human character to make such noises and it made him more relatable. Also, the words "yes" and "no" are now understood in almost every major world language due to the impact of the media - even in languages where the words for "yes" and "no" are different.

The sounds were all royalty free, available from a large library of sounds so I had no difficulty choosing the right sounds. However, when I test screened the film with sound, some of the sounds were too loud compared to the voices and music tracks, which were at the right level. The sounds will be increased when played back on a larger screen at the degree show, so some time had to be spent adjusting the sound levels.

The music is also royalty free, composed by Kevin MacLeod. He had composed his own take on the famous tune, "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (German for "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"), which is the track I used instead of the more famous version heard in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey". I also used his music piece called "Scheming Weasel" - I was reluctant to use it at first because it has been featured in countless YouTube videos, but then I remembered "Also Sprach Zarathustra" was even more well known so that argument was invalid! "Scheming Weasel" also captures the style of comedy I'm looking for and matches the visuals very well, so I'm pleased with the end result.

AX3003: Editing a Showreel

 Recently I put together a showreel, with the aim of demonstrating my best animation work in the space of one minute. I knew in advance which clips I wanted to see in the showreel - especially my most recent work which, in my opinion, is far superior to what I was capable of a few years ago. The showreel includes footage from my graduation film 'Gopher Golf', my first and second year films 'Catch of the Day' and 'Cheese Please', additional university and personal projects such as 'Quench' and 'The Time I Like Best', my A2 media studies piece 'Intoxicated' and the short film I directed on work experience in China, 'Travelling by Food'. I especially felt it was important to include the latter on my showreel, as it was the first time I had directed a team of animators on a project.

A clip I animated for 'Travelling by Food', showing the words "let's go!", opens the showreel. I did this to hopefully gain the viewer's interest straight away. Clips from 'Gopher Golf' immediately follow this and also close the showreel, because I feel that this film specifically shows my best work.

Choosing a suitable piece of music was slightly more difficult, because it had to match the energetic tone I wanted to give my showreel. It also had to be close to one minute in duration. I was unable to find a composer, so I managed to find a royalty free piece of music online which, in my opinion, suits the fast-paced, energetic, exciting feel I wanted to give my showreel. I particularly enjoyed editing clips in time with the music, such as the final clip, which helped decide which clips should be placed where. The clips all blend in, such as water in 'Gopher Golf' fading into water in 'Catch of the Day' and, as a result, I feel the showreel has a better narrative and almost feels like a short film in itself.

Gopher Golf: Feedback from Second Viewing

Today I showed my film to an audience for the second time, with some people who had seen the first version and some who hadn't. The film was edited together in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, my preferred editing software. It was the first time I was able to render the film in a H.264 format in 1080p HD.

The response to the film was a lot more positive than the first viewing. The comedy and timing worked a lot better and the audience laughed to most of the jokes, particularly the ending. There was a feeling that the film would work with noises coming from the Golfer and Gopher, such as annoyed grunts or chuckling noises, which I have always intended to include in the film.

The compositing also needed sorting out in some places. Notably, in this scene, when trying to use matte choker to erase the outline on the Golfer in After Effects, the golf club disappeared with it. I had to add the golf club again digitally and improve the lighting.

Before

After

There was also a scene showing the Golfer receiving the money during the end game, where it was unclear whether it was a dream or not. Therefore I added a white outline to make it more obvious it was a dream, matching the scene at the beginning where he dreams of the same thing.

The feeling from my audience was that the film will work a lot better with sound, but the narrative was highly praised and the film worked very well.

DD3992: Test Screening and Feedback

Recently I completed the first draft of my film 'Gopher Golf', without sound. I aim to have the first version with sound complete in one week's time but, for now, I was keen to test the film itself and find out if the animation and narrative both worked.

When I first showed the film to an audience, notable points from my feedback included:

• The Golfer wanting to buy a mansion needs to be set up at the beginning.
• Some timings need to be worked on.
• The golf post and the fences need re-scaling.
• The aspect ratio needed correcting.*
• The comedy was strong and the audience laughed at most of the jokes.
• The green screen and mix of 2D and stop-motion was very well received.

*Due to a computer problem I was not able to access Adobe Premiere Pro (my preferred editing software) whilst editing the first draft. I had to use an alternative which meant the aspect ratio was affected, but the feedback for the first draft was mostly positive regardless.

Gopher Golf: Compositing

Compositing is a key part to the production of my film - I'm producing the film in a unique style which combines 2D and 3D elements, so when editing the two together, I had to tweak the raw footage quite a lot in Adobe After Effects to make sure the 2D and 3D would work well together.

The Golfer was very tricky to blend in with the backgrounds, because the movement of the puppet is much faster. There were still patches of blue screen surrounding the Golfer that took more time to remove. The Gopher, in contrast, was a very limited puppet to work with. After Effects was also a useful tool for working on props which would have been more time consuming to animate in stop-motion, such as the golf ball going around the golf hole.

Gopher Golf: Gopher's Burrow

The Gopher's burrow is only seen for two short shots in the film, but still required some thought in how it would be produced.

The burrow was initially to be a flat background behind the Gopher, but instead the Gopher was sandwiched between a background and two foreground layers, covering the top and bottom of the screen. This would give the illusion of the Gopher digging his way through a tunnel. Part of this idea was inspired by the way digging is shown in films such as 'Fantastic Mr Fox' (2009). Many recycled drawings from other scenes in 'Gopher Golf' - including the fence, a golf tee and some pebbles - were reused in these scenes, albeit slightly modified with darker lighting and more texture.

Gopher Golf: Blowing up the Mansion

Today I completed the first final shot to be used in the film - ironically, the end shot! This was easy to put together once I had all the 2D and 3D elements ready - all the various layers were combined in Adobe Premiere. I had more time to experiment with the chroma key effects, following on from my first attempt, so I was able to improve it a lot this time.

The fire and smoke effects were free CGI effects I downloaded. I'm interested in filming an explosion against a green/blue screen myself, but I may not be able to due to time constraints. I'm pleased with the end result of this footage all the same though.

These drawings were a test to see what the explosion would look like in my own, hand-drawn 2D style. However, the real fire effects are more unexpected so they make the comedy a lot stronger.

Gopher Golf: Golfer Shoot - Part #4

Here are some photos from the Golfer's scenes which were filmed on 21st April 2015. Again, these were experiments and I was trying out which facial expressions suited the Golfer best. I needed to have a screwdriver on set, because the Golfer puppet had been moved around so much that some of the joints needed to be strengthened again.

Gopher Golf: Mixing the 2D and 3D

These pictures are stills taken from the trailer I made for 'Gopher Golf'. This is the first time I have tested 2D and 3D elements together using Adobe software - Premiere, Photoshop and After Effects, so seeing these two elements together for the first time was very exciting. It was also the first time I allowed myself to screen footage from the film to family, friends and colleagues, and it received a highly positive response.

However, there is still an outline around the character and odd moments where the character blends into the background. The lighting also does not match. I feel like I could have improved this a lot if I had given myself more time to edit the trailer, but hopefully, for the final film, I will have more time to resolve this issue and experiment a lot more with lighting and chroma key effects.

Gopher Golf: Additional Shoot Pics #1

Here are some additional pictures from the shoot of my film.

Gopher Golf: Golfer Shoot - Part #3

Today I filmed further scenes with the Golfer in stop-motion animation. This was my first attempt at changing the Golfer's facial expression by remodelling his mouth for different shots. His hat also creates a greater effect when he needs to lower his eyebrows.

It was great fun to play around with which different facial expressions the character could generate. It helped inspire how the rest of the body should perform on camera as well, particularly when I filmed the character mouthing an "ooh" sound - the rest of the body turns away from the camera, as if something horrific has just happened.

Gopher Golf: Making the Trailer

This week, our university received the full details of a competition being judged by Cartoon Network. The brief was to create a trailer for our short films, using whatever completed material we had, including final footage, test footage, animatics, concept drawings and storyboards.

I wanted my trailer to sell my film and make audiences excited to see what would happen next. Therefore I centred my film around questions which sum up what the film is about, these being "what if you had only one second to change your destiny?" and "will the golfer be ready for his big game?".

The trailer has a dramatic first title card, accompanied by music, to set a very dark tone before surprising the audience by revealing this film is actually a very light-hearted comedy. The footage I shot especially for this trailer, of the golfer being hit by the golf ball, also shows audiences this will be a fun film.

I liked the idea of the trailer and I found it exciting seeing 2D and 3D come together for the first time in my own work. However, I really wish I had more time to work on it. I was working on the trailer on my laptop at home when a bug (caused by a fault with Skype) had caused the computer to crash altogether, losing all of my files. Thankfully my university work is backed up on numerous other devices, so I used a computer at the university to start the trailer again.

As a result of this, I had only a few hours to edit the trailer before its deadline, so although I met my deadline successfully, I would've liked more time to work on the lighting and chroma key effects in the trailer.

Gopher Golf: Golfer Shoot - Part #2

Recently I filmed a scene in which the Golfer is required to lean down and pick up two leaflets. The puppet was capable of walking by itself, but it couldn't lean down by itself as it was too flexible. I solved this by using two magnets underneath the set - one for each foot - which were strong enough to hold the character down.

No additional support was needed when the Golfer was required to pick up the two leaflets, because the fingers move around freely and could pick up the leaflets by themselves. However, to make the puppet easier to stand up whilst leaning over, I had to remove the Plasticine from the feet and let the two magnets do the work.

Gopher Golf: Editing the Lighting

After reviewing all the footage filmed so far for Gopher Golf, there were a few problems which I had to sort out before filming could continue. Firstly, the blue screen was not flat enough and the lighting was not strong enough for the blue to become one solid colour. The blue screen still had a number of creases in it, which had to be ironed and then pulled taut to both sides of a frame.

The blue screen was moved right against the wall, as was the table I am animating on. The set lights were also moved closer to the set and the wall, improving the lighting greatly. It also gave me more space for any work I needed to do behind the camera, such as reviewing the film on the screen.

The other issue was that, after reviewing all the footage, a black smudge was in the middle of the screen. It was directly on the lens and I didn't have the correct materials to wipe the lens clean. Therefore it was agreed I could switch to using my own camera, a brand new Canon 70D which is more up-to-date and offers higher quality than the Nikon D300.

Keylight, a useful feature in Adobe After Effects, was used to delete the blue background from the raw footage, although the levels of black and white lighting had to be adjusted because the blue background was not a block colour. The outline also had to be erased. I have very rarely used After Effects before this year, so I had to look at online tutorials to help with certain features, although the software was fairly easy to use. It saved hours of time as I was about to try removing the black smudge frame by frame.

I was pleased with the results after I had doctored the footage in After Effects, although hopefully the consistency of the lighting will no longer be an issue. If I do have any more problems in filming, I'm satisfied that I have a solution.