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There is another "making of" story for DINNER FOR FEW at www.allcgtutorials.com
http://www.allcgtutorials.com/2014/making-of-animated-short-film-dinner-for-few/
The film is picking up steam and I will be posting more events related to the film, festival screenings and articles as they come in.
Some really really important publications and blogs are showing interest.
There is going to be as screening at the Dreamworks studios in Glendale and in Redwood city on June 10th. I hope to have a DCP ( digital cinema package ) ready by then for optimum screening quality. It is not a public screening and it is mainly artist who are going to come and see it as well as some people involved with the music.
If anyone wants to support the film the best way is to go and like the Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/DinnerForFew?ref=hl&focus_composer=true
The more likes the better for the film in the festival rounds. People who want to support maybe would like to invite their friends also to like it. This is how likes are generated. Festivals like to see many likes because it suggests an audience for the film and tickets sold.
Thanks for your help!
The problem with that theory (and I know it's not your doing) is that many people don't just indiscriminately click Like if they haven't seen the film. How can you generate legitimate buzz about something you're not allowed to show prior to a festival? It's like putting the cart before the horse. If I were running a festival or jurying the entries, social media would only be a valid consideration if the the film had been publicly viewed and had a legitimate following. Otherwise it would be a useless popularity contest devoid of artistic merit, that would only reward those savvy at social networking.
Then again, I know plenty of FB mouth breathers that click Like as a force of habit with no idea what it is they "like."
Now, I'm not saying that you or your partners aren't talented or haven't produced a fine work of art, and I understand it's how the game is played, I just don't understand how it could potentially be possible for a unique, high quality film to be passed over for a spot in a festival just because the filmmakers put their effort into the film and less on social media.
I wish your film great success, but not having seen the film I find it impossible to enable the tail to wag the festival dog. I just can't justify a system that is supposed to reward exposure of a film based on artistic merit instead resort to rewarding the youtube/FB viral video mentality sight unseen.
As far as the first part of your argument I do have to say that I believe though quality of the product is the most important thing, having an audience is also important. A strong number of “likes” shows interest for the film which translates to possible attendance of viewers at the festival. Actually I would raise the argument there that “likes” generated out of interest might be more welcome to a festival than “likes” generated by actual viewings of a film, since someone who has seen a film might no want to spend a ticket price to see it again. So it is my opinion that “likes” of curious people who like the artwork, like the director, like the animatics, the articles, the people involved or the story, have a better chance to bring people to the festival theaters to “finally” see the film.
For me the “Like” is not directly associated to the sentence “ I Like the film” but rather to “I Like what you are doing”.
For your other point arguing that the place of a high quality film in a festival, is not going to be taken by a lesser quality film just because of strong social media campaign, I only have to say that I wish we live in a such word. Maybe occasionally some people have achieved their goals just of pure talent or luck but I'm sure if you have been in any kind of working environment or business you would know that it is important to advertise your work and bring it out as much as possible so people will view it. What good does it make a great film if nobody knows it is created.
I'm sorry if my request to go and visit my Facebook page and “Like” my film finds you in doubts of how well deserved your “Like” will be. At this point due to festival requirements and most important the rules of the academy I can't have the film available at the internet for viewing.
As I said, I understand the reasons and I know that you don't make the rules. I just find the whole "Like" concept a cheap gimmick. It doesn't take any effort, forethought, research etc. to click the little Like icon. Many times it's a message from somebody that passes along a link like a chain letter asking for the viewer to click Like. It is more akin to a popularity contest where whoever has the most "friends" wins.
Exactly. This is how support is created for things that yet do not exist. I 'like' what you're doing, NASSOS... truly. ;)
For those new to news of this project, find out all about it at it's web space: Dinner For Few.com
...more can be found out by checking out the interviews that NASSOS has posted among these posts. It sounds really cool, and certainly an awful lot of work has gone into this production.
Totally secluded from a Hollywood template of story lines in what can be shown in a film, it sounds to me like Dinner For Few will present the audience with disturbing realities of certain human traits. I am not a very politically minded individual, myself, so my translation of what the interviewers have said would be lost in my over-simplistic mindset. So do check out the interviews. They really help to illuminate what this is all about, as does the web space linked to above.
I really loved Human Nature. I am also a huge Faba fan and NASSOS fan, so that grabs my interest right from the start. But then I see the styling of the characters, and I am really excited to see this. The smidgeon of plot revealed has me all wound up as well... I look forward to the show!
EDIT:
The News tab of the web page also has links to the reviews and interviews, art examples, crew credits, story teasers, etc., Check it out! ;)
JetBird (Danis Anis) did the web space :)
Except most people just blindly click Like with no idea of who NASSOS is. I would love to see real data linking Likes to festival ticket sales. What's the percentage? I know who NASSOS is, I've read the articles and watched the previews and I know who else is on the production team. I even agree with the concept of the film. Ironic that it has to use the same pro-consumption hyperbole to even get shown and make its point. I doubt that even 1/4 who click Like have even looked at half of what I have, and just click Like because someone they know sent them a link.
I'll get down off my soap box now.... ;-)
Except most people just blindly click Like with no idea of who NASSOS is. I would love to see real data linking Likes to festival ticket sales. What's the percentage? I know who NASSOS is, I've read the articles and watched the previews and I know who else is on the production team. I even agree with the concept of the film. Ironic that it has to use the same pro-consumption hyperbole to even get shown and make its point. I doubt that even 1/4 who click Like have even looked at half of what I have, and just click Like because someone they know sent them a link.
I'll get down off my soap box now.... ;-)
I don't use FaceBook, but my Wife and Children do, and their friends. I truly don't know of a single person that blindly clicks 'Like'. Nobody. I'm sure it happens though. But I can still see it as a measure of exposure. Nobody can hit the 'like' tag of something that they haven't seen.
Dartanbeck,
Thank you so much for the support. You gave a very accurate description of my film in a few sentences. As you also mentioned this was a collaboration with a number of people who are regular to these forums and great Carrara supporters. I was talking to Faba yesterday about sending her a few posters since I'm printing a bunch of them. I don't think the film could have been completed the way it is without her help. Danas on the other hand as you mentioned has volunteered to create and update the web page which is essential to the efforts to push the film to the public specially in this stage that we can;t show the film yet due to the festival and academy requirements.
They can if they send a link that says, you should like this, it's great! I'm glad that your family has critical thinking skills. Most of mine do as well, but there are a few.... ;-) I do however, know many FB sheep that do just as I described unfortunately.
The fact that evilproducer refuses to "like" something that has not seen is not strange actually most of the people do want to see more or get a better image of something before they commit to it. That alone shows that the like process is not as random and non important as he/she claims. From my FB friends only a portion went to like the film and some said they will and never did. So even if I agree that people can buy likes I ensure you that they are few and usually a few days later they unlike their like. Besides the popularity contest though there is another issue you might have forgotten, unless you are not a FB user. The like is the only method for people who have an interest do get updates about the page activities.
I'm a he. I just bitch like an old nag. ;-)
I'm afraid we will have to agree to disagree on this point.
As I said, I can understand where you are coming from on this and it is not your requirements. I can tell you this though, if I were to Like it, it wouldn't generate any revenue or ticket sales for a festival from me (as much as I would like to financially support your work), as I could only see it if it were in my area. So unless you're putting it in, The Middle Of Nowhere Wisconsin Film Festival©®™, I can't see it until it has run the festival circuit and is more widely available for viewing.
You never know it might come to your area too, but you will eventually find it online after I finish at least with the academy qualification.
I do want to point out that you are debating a system that exited for a long long time before even Facebook, or any other media. People always wanted to gain popularity for their views regardless if that was political, artistic or other. They did that by trying to convince others that their views needs support. Many times people who follow such views have very little experience of the reality behind the views. For example people might like BMW's but never drove one but they like it because they trust BMW is a credible car manufacturer, or even like an actor without even knowing him or her as a person but like how he/she delivers his interviews. I do not see where the problem is with that. There is nothing unethical to that choice because it is ephemeral. As with real life if you end up dissapointed in FB you can always unlike the page.
As far as your note that sounds like my approach contradicts my own films subject, If you have seen the film you will know that this is exactly what it is about. It is about the impossibility to escape the nature of it as much as you try. Any improvement efforts will eventually degrade to the original state. So the system can not be escaped because it keeps generating copies of itself.
Well instead of debating the principles of the "like" switch, I saw the pictures, read the story, saw the story board work, read the interviews and reviews. When I now see the FB page, I like what I see.
Since I know that showing the film before the festivals would disqualify it for submission and/or winning anything, I'd prefer to wait to see it after it goes through its needed course - just like I did for Human Nature, which I still consider to be well worth the wait.
But even though I haven't yet seen the film... I do like what its about and the look of it and the folks involved in making it.
The look of the characters, cats, Tiger, machine, hotel... the colors and the feel of the thing... yeah... I like this!
In particular, though... This Interview, from Zippy Frames really stirs my interest! It sounds so cool, from someone who HAS seen it. The description of the excellence in art and color, the darkness of the story... Brilliant!
The making-of challenges and how you've decided to overcome it all... really inspiring. I really love this sort of information... ask evilproducer... I talk about it all the time. But you describe it in true details that are useable. I really enjoy that!
Aside from the really cool how-to, the behind the scenes where-from, and the fact that I like everybody involved, the art looks fantastic. The colors are chillingly moody. I just an't wait to see this!
I hope to have a trailer out soon but for the time being there is a new video in youtube showing some of the tiger work courtesy to the amazing animation talent of Faba.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BVqOTLiVW8
Nice animation sequence. Was the tiger animated using Messiah Studio?
That's fantastic! I think it's amazing how you've gone from that 3d animation to that hand-draw style. Seeing it evolve like that is even more mind blowing! It's neat how the dynamic hair/fur becomes less of a separate thing, and just part of the whole... beautiful... absolutely!
Eva modeled the cat, which I believe was turned to a tiger in messiah with a morph. All the tiger animation was completed in messiah and then transferred to carrara for rendering via the mdd plug in. The hair was added in carrara on the mdd geometry and simulated with the native hair simulator. Nevertheless it was rendered independently to the cat due to the fact that it is not a geometry and the toon shader could not pick up a line. I had to workaround this and generate an outline in after effect with combinations of different filters. At the end the effect as you can see is almost seamless.
The tiger had some problem during the transfer that we never managed to solve and needed some clean up of the vertexes in carrara.
One other thing you might find interesting is that I avoided to use the toon shader outline as it comes out from the plug in. The plug in does an excellent job but the line looks computer generated and has not flare. In order to compensate for that I created a photoshop action and run through that every toon oultline rendering as a batch process. The action selects automatically the toon line and converts it to a path using a 2.5 pixel accuracy. Then renders the path as a black line against transparency and deletes the original layer. The outcome is a tick and thin line with more "character" than the original line.
Aha! So that's the trick! :)
I've read that you have created your own process for PS, but not what that process was... thanks for sharing!
Wow... love the info on the cat/tiger, Messiah/Carrara workings. Very cool stuff. Man, she sure is talented, right? She models and animates very well. I remember her posting that guy she made in Hexagon, and rigged/animated in Carrara. Then she made all manner of animations, walk-run-walk, up and down stairs... she's always been an inspiration to me. You too. And so is Danas! His art portfolio is fantastic! I can't wait to hear the musical stylings of Konstantinos! What a power group!
I better do a search... see if he has any music I can hear ;)
Here is his web page:
http://www.kostaschristides.com/
Found him. Wow. You don't mess around, do you?
Konstas Christides (Konstantinos Christides) is quite the Film Composer! Cool... more albums to collect! This is the kind of stuff I listen to. Is it because I want to make my own episodes? Maybe.
I've been a Rock & Roll Drummer/Singer/Musician for over 30 years now. I love to write and play... my drums are truly an extension of me. But over the past several years, I've switched most of my listening collection to Film Scores and some of the better game compositions I've found. This stuff is excellent!
LOL Cross post! Tag... you're it! :)
Kostas has scored most of my independent work as well as some of the work I did while running my own studio in Greece, He is extremely talented. We had the opportunity to do something really elaborate here so we even hired an orchestra in Bratislava to play the music live. I have tons of videos from the recording session and plan to videotape him doing some short of interview apout his approach to this projects and put together a 3 to 5 minutes video about the music.
It's really cool that you have such an excellent team - and you all get along and work well together. At least it sure seems as such.
When I got the bug to animate, and to put those animations to sound, music, dialog, and ultimately some sort of film to hopefully be enjoyed by others, I didn't yet have Carrara and barely knew what it was capable of - even though the advertising pages for it seemed to me to explain it a LOT better than what it has now.
I began this whole thing with no knowledge at all other than the fact that I've always enjoyed creating art and music and sounds my whole life. I have a love for seeing art in motion with sounds and music and dialog. But I have no training with any aspect of it aside from performing live music since 1980 when I was quite young.
Microsoft Paint was my first dose of enjoyment on a computer, which led me to other apps for working with pixels.
Long story a bit less long: Digital Painting led me to creating custom content for computer games, which led me to 3d art, which led me to modeling, which led me to posing models and rendering to advertise the content, which led me to Poser, which led me to DAZ 3D and their human figures, Michael and Victoria 3 at that time.
DAZ 3D buying Carrara shortly after I saw it in action before my very eyes was a bit of a calling for me. From that point forward, I have been endeavoring to make episodes of adventure movies. Not a trilogy, but an ongoing story, movie after movie.
But in real life, I have always been the hard labor guy. The guy with the pick axe when a water main needs to be found under two layers of city street. The guy that can lift the boulder out of the hole and roll it up a plank onto the back of a truck. Split the wood and stack it neatly a quarter mile away. I like all of this stuff too, but it is wearing on me. Many Long Hours!
Now all I want to do is render animations. I like everything that goes along the way like drawing concepts, modeling, model tweaking and making morphs to assist with animation, UV Mapping and Unwrapping, painting textures, designing the lighting and setting up the cameras and rendering... but rigging kind of gives me a headache. Not so much the rigging but weight painting. This is where I feel that Carrara is magical - having such a convenient ease to load and use all of this wonderfully affordable content!
Something that I have never even thought about are Film Festivals, what they are, how to get in, etc., I have no clue about any of that. There are several members whom do festivals and/or contests to some degree... I'd like to learn how to get to those steps. I'll have to eventually look into all of that.
Oh my... am I still talking?
Anyways NASSOS, I am very proud of you and your team for taking this to such a high level. This truly looks like a work to be proud of, and I hope it gets a lot of positive attention. Doing all of these things (but just the creation aspects of it) myself over the years has really shown me how much exhaustive work it takes to get things to a standard that one can be truly happy with. Being the one who did all of the animation work before, I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to let go of some of that responsibility, even though you're giving it to such a talented set of hands as Eve, it still must be a hard thing to do. I guess it grows easier once you realize the true outcome - and see how gifted the team becomes as it grows.
Bravo!
I'm really glad that you've chosen Carrara to do Human Nature, so I got a chance to follow its progress, and hence to become aware of this and perhaps the next... truly enlightening experience for me, reading the interviews and catching these personal comments in regards to its making... I am truly thankful!
I must say that I have been working with other animators for a long time. I have been a supervising 2d animator for a number of years and for a few studios in Hollywood and also run my own animation studio for nine years doing two 3d Christmas specials and a number of commercials. Eva has been probably one of the most talented animators I have seen. This includes many professional animators too. I was very very confident to give her the work and as I have said before I could not have finished the film in such level without her skills. Animation is a collective work. If you want to do it in a reasonable time frame it has to be a collective work. There is nothing wrong with that.
As you were speaking about your Daz experiences and about carrara I remembered another project I worked on and looked for it in youtube in case someone has uploaded it. I was able to find it. I animated the baseball players in the tv set using Poser models imported in carrara. Everything else is Maya and it was done at my Greek studio.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Zei07colQo
That's really awesome!
My Beautiful, Wonderful Wife has finally got a breath... and took a good look at the FaceBook page. She loves it! So she's 'like'd it and is passing it on to her masses along with her positive thoughts on the project :)
My Son is in between jobs, working near full-time through his last two weeks at the previous, while also working near full time hours at the new one. While he's agreed to check it out, we have to give him a little more time. My daughter is in a similar situation, juggling college classes and homework with every other day kidney dialysis... but once she takes a look, I know she'll get really hyped! This is right up her alley! Both of those kids have a lot of friends. Even small percentages from that crowd would make a big difference, I think. But since they all like similar stuff, I have a feeling your 'like' numbers will begin to soar! ;)
Finally I do have a trailer to show. Actually I do have two things
So here you are:
TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3dD_6j21a8
THE MAKING OF THE MUSIC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx2OugNgutc
Again if anyone cares to support visit the FB page and click like and invite your friends to like it too!
https://www.facebook.com/DinnerForFew
The film is now in the stage of entering the festivals.
If there are any acceptances I will let this forum know.