Animated short; SCOUT

[attack-hands]

This is my film for our final project at art school.It was made using a mixture of toon boom and after effects and maya. I resisted using to many effects on after effects as it is supposed to resemble an old fashioned british adventure comic and its simplified render style. Tell us what you think anyway.

here is the direct link its quite small for internet streaming:

http://www.imaging.dundee.ac.uk/animation/Alex.html


here are some screenshots if you cant get the link to work



http://tinypic.com/5oi0zl

http://tinypic.com/5oi13t

http://tinypic.com/5oi1au

http://tinypic.com/5oi1hk


any opinions and feed back good or bad is very welcome. I wasnt sure what forum to post it on so if its wrong please tell me quick

[Sunny]

it took a little while to load for me but im watchin it now. The animation style is kinda cool. i havent seen any animation like this personalyl so i cant say much about that but i will tell you what i think looks odd. When the dog throws on its hat the ears go nuts for just a tad too long. When the dog is inside the plane and looking at the map its pretty much wipping it head around hehe. other than that its quite a nice little film. i like it a little more hardcore and funny but this does the job.

[ryanwh]

there seems to be a network problem, prolly cus its a big file. If you zip it there are a lot of places that can host it a lot more reliably.

[JoelNoel]

Hi sandy



Just thought id chime in on this.

If ur really keen on people seeing ur film, then it might be an idea to get a cheap webspace and upload a bigger and better version of scout. The one off the DOJ website is a tad small.


cheers

[attack-hands]

yea ill be getting a larger webspace during the summer to accomidate more of my work, for now the doj one has to do.

The big problem with the DOJ site seems to be that it doesnt work for some people. The school is using safari as its browser for the site which seems to work ok. But most people dont run safari so its a bit stupid. However I use mozzilla firefox which seems to work ok with my film but not others, When you open the link in a seperate window you should see the quicktime logo, in that case the download is working and the film should play in a few minutes.

[nicolas]

I use safari, and it aint workin for me either.... :404sign:

[attack-hands]

this is getting a bit crazy shows what happens when you trust the university you give a big wad of fees to to host your work. seems to work on some but not others the safari in the school runs on macs so that might be making a difference.

[Art_Addict]

Hi

The best part of the film is the storyboarding i think. Ur animation looks ok for most parts. Some action problems but they can easily be fixed.
But i'm more of a sucker for fluid animation. You use a whole lot of stills that get annoying when the movie is too long.
Just my 2 cents

[Pixeldragoon]

I agree. Also, I think the expresiion could have been better, maybe if you give them bigger mouths. Not to offend, but the dog's mouth was so small I couldn't tell if the words fit or not.

[lokes]

I enjoyed the film and the visual style, though I personally would have done without any of the voices. I felt the music was close in following with the story and style and with the right expressions the voices could have been left out. I dunno, I just felt the voices broke up the story and took away from the potential of each of your characters' personalities.

Cool stuff though

[Smitherines]

TO BE CONTINUED??????? what the fuck is that? haha, I loved the film so far, there are a few things that looked a bit awkward, but those were already mentioned. Other than that, I think you did a great job here. I just wanted to see the rest of the film. I liked how you blended 2d and 3d, I like the black and white backgrounds with the colored characters and the music fit nicely with the peice. The voice recording could havee been a bit better though. I hope to see the rest of the movie shortly, great work.

[attack-hands]

Yea the 'to be continued' is intentional as its suppposed to be a serial. Little did i know the distress that it would cause when my mother- a primary school teacher showed it to a classroom of 6 year olds, so the seventh and final part is in planning. ( i didnt do episodes 2-5 either so ill have to catch up).

Hopefully the next one will take alot less time to do , Scout was my first ever proper film that wasnt just a line test so it took about 8 months but hopefully the next one can be done alot faster and better.

heres the promo poster that we got printed out full size for the degree show

http://tinypic.com/5pkidf

[flip the master]

this conection is sloooooooooowwwww......im still waiting for it.

[flip the master]

Ok ill be honest I dig your animations,3d ect.Im not trying to offend you but I just don't like your character's and the story line seems a little boring. I mean the idea of some dudes trying to stop a train robbery has been done before but hey it's worth a short story still.

[Matt Smith]

I really liked the music in the animation, but I wished it would have changed towards the end like when the dog breaks through the window.

[attack-hands]

music is by a guy named chris thile its an existing song so i had to work with what i had , i can see what you mean, i i was kind of concerned that the music losesa bit of tempo as he comes through the window, but i really wanted to make sure that the DOOOOOMMMMM....... music hit the to be continued.

As far as the storyline is concerned i made it kind of hackneyed on purpose its supposed to be a take on an old fashioed boys own style adventure comic so i kind of took a lead on thier style of story telling which always featured steam trains and biplanes, bandits and heros etc etc. I wanted to use a lot of cleques (is that how you spell it?) of the genre. Hope that clears it up

[ryanwh]

Ive seen the short, nothing really to say other than it has a very British feel. I love how you've got the dog with a man's personality and a man who's basically the dog's dog. Its cute, just a little too short by itself to be called complete. Once part two is finished I wouldnt keep them seperated anymore, Id make it into one slightly longer film short. I love how you blended CGI and traditional while maintaining a tradtional vibe throughout, even pro animated cartoons have trouble with that to this day. Last thing, near the end the dog seems to mouth "uh oh" but you dont hear it spoken.
Also the parody you were going for wasnt lost on me. But it might be funnier if, as someone already said, you took out the voiceacting(except for key moments, so it stands out) and replaced them with silent film-era captions. Meaning you see a mouth movie, then it cuts to a fancey black screen and fancy old timey caps of what was just spoken.