Superfly - shortfilm

[enape]

No comments?
That's frustrating, 10 month of work and nobody says anything.

[Roadrunner4D]

I don't get a connection to the movies.

[enape]

mhhh, maybe try rightclick > save as.
I had some problems with the server, but now everything should be fine.

[Winner]

Hey nice effort. For a first short film i thought this was the kind of quality you should normally expect - yeah it was ok, but it was not brilliant. But that is to be expected - we all have to start somewhere.

I liked the intro to the story - the way the fly buzzes down through the window and the camera comes to rest slightly behind his head showing us his view... it was a nice way to bring the audience into the scene. But having said that - the film has too many extreme or floaty camera movements - especially when he is transforming inside the plant. Normally its best to try and stick to what real world cameras can actually do - because its part of the language of cinema that the audience is used to and expects ( you can break the rules only when you REALLY know what you're doing )
I thought the `qwerkyness` of the music matched the colours and the style of the film - and the bit where he notices the thing on the table had a nice sound effect.
Your animation needs a lot of work - but skill in that area will come with time - you will learn alot just by animating the fly some more - not in a short film but just separate animations, just for practice. The modelling seemed ok to me, but thats not really my area.

Overall though - the story was not clear, and this is what i was thinking the most after ths short had ended. Yeah i understood what happened - but i did think that it was worth 10 months of effort to tell that story... i felt like he needed to do something after he became superfly, thats what i wanted to see. I was also confused about what happened to that thing he saw on the table ( was it a bit of cake ? ) --- how was it part of the story in the end ? i felt like the short just ended, with the whole story not told.

This is a great effort -- but you need to keep at it. When you do another short - make sure you get a really strong story, no matter how simple. Work on the animation, and get your characters expressing more to portray the story. Nice work.

[enape]

Thank you very much for the comment Winner!!!
I don't like the animation part ether after watching it again and again :). It is too straight and not so organic. But I have learned a lot by doing this film! I started without knowing how to rig and animate, so I did 3 walkcycles and 3 flights for the fly and a few animations for the plant first. While doing the animation I thought that the animations would be quite good, but now I know what I did wrong.
Thanks for the tips for the camera!
I am already planing my next shortfilm. I want to do it in Maya and with humans, not so real look. There will be many emotions which I have to do for the characters. It will be a big challenge, but i like to learn this way.
But before that I have to do another animation in Cinema4d, a musicclip..

To the story:
This thing what you see when you look through the eyes is a sandwich. The fly is happy and thats why the sandwich flies in the air. (I needed something, why the fly could have flown to the table ;).)
But the plant is hungry too, so it catches the fly. The only problem is: This fly is Superfly! And so he has the power to escape from the plant and puts on the Superflycostume. Well, than it should have flown to the sandwich... he ate it after posing ;).

enape

[Winner]

hey enape...

I understand what you are saying about the learning process.. i did the same thing when i was back at university - i made a 3 minute short film, and when i started i had no idea about 3d. When I look back on it now - the animation sucks ! and the rendering and modelling is all very bad - but i learnt more in that 6 months about 3d and animation than i could even dream of learning now. Doing a short is a great way to introduce yourself to all elements of filmmaking - and you should be very pleased that you managed to complete your film - not many people have the determination to do that. You're still very young - keep doing this and you`ll be a master before you know it.

[enape]

Today you are an animator?
great, this is an dream for me. But I'm not sure, what I would like to do in this industrie. Modeler, animator, texture atist, VFX artist or something else. Best thing would be doing everything, I like all. But this is not usuall, i guess.
I have heard that ILM now lets there people work on more things :D...

Hopefully I will get a job somewhere in the industrie, when I have finished school :)

I really like to programm too...

[MKane]

Good for your first effort. It's tough completing your first project. Hell, you should see my 1st one....;)

You already got some tips on story and such. Remember that editing makes a big difference also. A 10 minute story could easily be chopped into a 4 minute story or less....without losing any of the elements. Don't lose your audience's attention for a 10 second shot of a rotating sandwich when a 1 second shot gets the point across....

Good luck and keep animating.

[sgbox]

thats good.

[wheiberg]

Congrats on finishing your first project. I can't tell you how many projects I have started and never finished. That in itself is a huge accomplishment. You are definately approaching this the right way, your using this as a great learning tool, asking for crits and really listening to everyone.

From an animation standpoint, if that is the direciton you are wanting to pursue, I would suggest starting out small and getting in tons of repitions. Do walk cycles till you want to puke. Look at any Pixar or early Disney film and watch it frame by frame. Grab the Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams. Check out the 10 second club (http://10secondclub.net/) and really study the animation. Critique other's work, figure out what the did right and what they did wrong. Start watching people. I mean REALLY watching people. Watch their motions, study the motion arcs. Everything organic moves in curves...

Your off to a great start, and with practice, you are only going to get better, enape. Best of luch to you and keep up the work!

[enape]

thank you for your comments!
You are right with the sandwich, MKane. Ed Fenner said it to me too, but at this time I had a computer crash and lost all the tiff-images. So I had no chance to make it shorter, because the cut is with a fade out :(.
For the next short film I have already made a script. Maybe I will do a little storyboard.
I will do the animation for the next short film till I am really happy with it. But of course I will do many walkcycles and other things with the characters first.

I am learning to draw too and you really notice new things in the real world, which you haven't seen before. It is amazing when I look now at someone's face. When I started to model I often thought how I could model things I see, now I can model quite good and I often don't have to think about how I want to something, i just start. Like I have learned once to write. It is really just practise. And as you said wheiberg, I will now start to look at motions of people. I think you can learn animating, drawing, texturing and modeling much better by looking at things more exactly.
Thanks for the link and help!

enape

[porkchopexpress]

I really like the overall feel of your short. It's light and upbeat, and I feel successfully carried throughout the short. I am also a student and I remember what it was like to finish my first short. If I may, 2 crits. 1) the lighting felt like it was the same inside as it was outside. I know all the action took place by the window and the room was lit from the outside, but there would be a visable difference between the light in and outside the room. 2) You have alot of really nice animation going on but at times some of the movements seem slow. On your next project try adjusting the ins and outs of your keyframes to help with this. I would like to see some more of Superfly.

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.