<Projects
HIKE (2021)
Writer/Director/Actor/Animator/Editor: Josh Lange
Time on project: August-September 2021
HIKE (2021)
Writer/Director/Actor/Animator/Editor: Josh Lange
Time on project: August-September 2021
Week Five: August 29th-September 3rd
Classes/Tasks: Mocap Polish, Bugfixing, FX, All-around hustling to finish the version 1 of the film for the festival on Friday
Classes/Tasks: Mocap Polish, Bugfixing, FX, All-around hustling to finish the version 1 of the film for the festival on Friday
The rest of the week was spent in the weeds of animating. Although I started my career as a video game animator for almost eight years, I had not directly worked with game engines in 11 years. The motion capture clips I recorded were a good head start, but they were definitely janky when seen up close, so it took a lot of work to edit them and get them to a more polished state. I had a couple very late nights, although I held to my commitment to no all-nighters.
New bugs would surface that I had to handle as well, such as redoing a lot of my previs since the shots were saved in the wrong location of the project. Although it got frustrating to see so many things breaking, I tried to keep a gallery of screenshots so I could remember to have fun with it all and not let doubt or fear take root.
New bugs would surface that I had to handle as well, such as redoing a lot of my previs since the shots were saved in the wrong location of the project. Although it got frustrating to see so many things breaking, I tried to keep a gallery of screenshots so I could remember to have fun with it all and not let doubt or fear take root.
Bug Gallery
Another thing that cracked me up was making a rag-doll animation for the zombie falling off the cliff moment:
Ragdoll Cliff Fall Anim
On Tuesday, I scheduled one final Zoom review with Brian. It was great to have another chance to talk 1:1 with him after first working together four years earlier on Bright. I had always respected him and I was really impressed of how he shaped his career since then. I knew that the best shot my film had at reaching its potential meant getting any notes I could from him. He had strong preferences on the camerawork, including two new close-ups that would require adding more facial animation polish. He also let me know that even though the film festival was Friday, I could continue polishing my short for another week and he could update my film on the Vimeo page with the version 2, which was music to my ears.
As an unexpected surprise, Ultan asked if I could help with reading some lives as an announcer for the ending of his film. Knowing I had some extended time to continue working, it made it easier to say yes. The line was a lot of fun, so I gave it four takes and he ran with it in his final film.
Unfortunately, I realized on Thursday night that I couldn't hide any more from the rendering problems I kept encountering: character animation in my renders wasn't looking how it did in engine as I animated, hair was still looking weird in some shots, the 'static environment' warnings were still there, and a new animation issue was now causing crashes when I rendered. This was not how my last night was supposed to go. The week had flown by, and with all the time spent fighting the bugs I was encountering, it felt like I had barely changed a thing. It was time to call that lifeline.
So I rang David up. He helped me fix the major issues, and I was able to get the next batch of animation polish in before calling it a night. I knew my short still had too many rough edges to be a shoo-in to get enough votes to qualify for the festival but once again Team Williams showed me how to see the fun bright side that still awaited us. In our Zoom, Nick said "if you volunteer to show your film right after the last official festival entry, it's basically like you're part of the festival." And sure enough that's what I did.
As an unexpected surprise, Ultan asked if I could help with reading some lives as an announcer for the ending of his film. Knowing I had some extended time to continue working, it made it easier to say yes. The line was a lot of fun, so I gave it four takes and he ran with it in his final film.
Unfortunately, I realized on Thursday night that I couldn't hide any more from the rendering problems I kept encountering: character animation in my renders wasn't looking how it did in engine as I animated, hair was still looking weird in some shots, the 'static environment' warnings were still there, and a new animation issue was now causing crashes when I rendered. This was not how my last night was supposed to go. The week had flown by, and with all the time spent fighting the bugs I was encountering, it felt like I had barely changed a thing. It was time to call that lifeline.
So I rang David up. He helped me fix the major issues, and I was able to get the next batch of animation polish in before calling it a night. I knew my short still had too many rough edges to be a shoo-in to get enough votes to qualify for the festival but once again Team Williams showed me how to see the fun bright side that still awaited us. In our Zoom, Nick said "if you volunteer to show your film right after the last official festival entry, it's basically like you're part of the festival." And sure enough that's what I did.
Film festival version (version 1)
Reaction from the Fellowship
Listening to the Fellowship audience on the Zoom call was a bit nerve-wracking, but I'd done so many smaller test screenings and reviews with my mentor group and others that I knew it would likely hit in all the right places. When I saw the reactions get entered into Slack and the Zoom chat, I was deeply touched by how much the Fellowship was thrilled by the result:
They loved the humor, they loved the twists, and most of all, they loved that I was able to make it a family project. I passed on their compliments to my wife and children, and it was amazing to see them light up. It was such a great crescendo that I couldn't have wished for more.
