Beginning Work on Full-Length 3D Animated Movie

Artwork Works in Progress
41

I try to fail as much as possible, so i can learn how to succeed better. =)

When i first began blender, i tried to make a feature with some guys at blenderwars, i was excited, i had the idea, i hadnt much experience, and i was young (15 or so). We started, and slowly, I found it was too much work then i was willing to stop school and work on for one 20th of my life. The movie failed, And I LOVED IT, the things i learnt, knowing the feeling of people being excited about your idea, and then finding out its an even better feeling when you work your ass off not knowing what will happen, and people givee you appreciation when you share it.

Everytime (at least with me) i failed, I learnt so much more, maybe more then if i had suceeded in making a short film without a challenge. I found that after some projects that i ended up saying "ok, ill start making another film (they got shorter and shorter in length, these failures, but ill call them study =) ) I made 2 characters, finally learning new things, worked out how a certain type of animation would work in a shot.

All the new things i learnt, then i said “well, i kinda know my limits now, this is a good feeling” so i made a short film without anything drastically good, but in my experience and limits to make in 3 or so weeks, and 3 minutes long (was called Cyan Sun). It was done quickly, and not with much eye for detail, but the film as a whole was there then, and my techniques learnt while really pushing myself gave me the chance to do this and learn a bunch of new skills, planning, workflow, stickfigure storyboards are just as handy as really detailed ones when your only one animating.

Now working on a short film with 5 others, things are made a lot quicker, but a lot longer to decide, its a balance =). People said that art projects of any kind fail if the people are doing it through internet, i think it applies just as much in person, but it all depends on experience, and limits. These days its amazing how many net projects go well, and how many people go to make huge films, im sure a couple actually end up getting made, that would be amazing, but also its just as good to push with it and see where you ran out of steam, good learning experience.

So uh, well where did that rant come from? maybe i got nostalgic, maybe i felt it the time to have a say, and this film idea sounds really great, which is why i think hearing things i have never heard and never wanted to hear on elysiun (‘n00b making a movie, see it all the time’, which i think is the most ridiculous thing ever, we’re all “n00bs”, im going to be learning about art till the end of my days =) heheh, and with the right team, and the right time for responsobility, and most important, if you really beleive in the idea, that is how films get made, when it gets down to the real hard work (which does happen) knowing that the idea is somehting you knew you would put such time and work into, just like a beautiful woman =).

Good luck on the project! if you have the time and love it, there should be nothing to stop you, just be honest with your team, and love the idea you want to show to everyone in the world :wink:

well, that was along post :wink:

Peace out!
.Lee

ps: nice logo too, maybe you could even play around with text types (blender does this now, could find something that suits your style =)

42

I am the one who made the texture to be not as nice as it was.
In 90 degree turn animation of the projector the original texture that looked nice started sort of flickering/vibrating because it had such detail so i put the texture scale to 100X the original scale of the procedular texture. And there was no flickers in the animation anymore after that. I liked so much the original texture that
i wanted to stick to it even though i made it, well to say it straight i made it worst.
Then There was a problem with crossplatform, e-mail file size limit, and codec. And this narrows down to finding the right codec.
Tried changing the .avi text to .mov but it did not do the trick i guess.
It has worked before though.

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Take my reply as you want, I’m just saying the obvious. I’m not trying to stop you from doing it, remember, you just gotta follow what you think is the best to do.

Some year ago (what 3years now? hmm) I decided to start on a movie project with a couple of people. The project was called The Exodus. It was fantastic, at some point we had a team of 23 people (including writing team, modeller, animator, webmasters etc…) -working- on it. But back then I was young and not alot experience as a team leader. Everyone told me it wouldn’t work, just like alot people told you in this thread. I just kept working up my dream to create a movie. We all realised a movie was too big for us, and decided to cut it down to a short movie…we failed again. People quitted, people just were too busy with school…and it was becoming to hard too coordinate everyone over the internet. I tried starting it again…and again…and again…always failed. Why? The project was too big considering the experience I had, and I had too little free time to get better. The project really helped me at getting better at blender, and it made the same for the other -true- members. Just look at what Dittohead or Alltaken can do now, the project all taught us alot of things. But we failed.

It would be sooo cool that such project work…but most of the time it’s the new users that start them…and their lack of experience, make people scared of joining…or when they join, it’s mostly because those are new user too. And so, inevitably, the project die after a couple weeks or months.

I won’t stop you, and no one probably can. But you’ll need lots of luck, lots of free time and lots of determination to acoomplish 1/10 of what you plan to do. (and to this, you’ll answer: “I’m confident, I have time and I’m determined!” like I did 3years ago…)

Good luck, I hope you learn alot of stuff…but don’t be surprise if your project die and lead to no “real/physical” result.

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Sorry I didn’t reply earlier - I meant original music composition.

Caleb

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I am 27 and I am a very serious director, anyone who has helped on The Crosswalk can tell you that. I do think age has alot to do with success of a movie. Like it was stated earlier, school, work, family… Things can get in the way. That was the who idea behind making The Crosswalk an OPEN movie. If you can help for 1 hour or 1 year…it does not matter! We take advantage of the people who have short sputrs of motivation. If they lose that motivation, and want to move on, no big deal. We thank them and we look for more talent.

If you try to come in here and ask for FREE help and then say you will try to sell your movie, I can guarantee you will get 0 help. People dont have the same excitement as you do, they never will. This is what makes me work harder. The fact that a total stranger took intrest in MY idea, that is really something. Its what drives me. I would never say The Crosswalk has no chance to finish, As long as I have breath and my computer is working with a good internet connection, I will work on. That is the motivation people are going to be looking for in YOU…

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That’s what I figured. I would be glad to pay people but I just don’t have the money currently. The only way I would be able to pay would be to pay them as the profits come in. And by doing that, I’d pay all the workers before I got anything. I would just use money to pay the expenses like DVDs, cases, ect. I know that that probably sounds crazy, and I agree, but it’d be the only way. And then, we would have to have faith that it would sell so that ppl can get paid. Well, if all else fails, I guess I can just go to an open project.

47

Contributors won’t need faith that it will sell, that is an investment risk and many will willingly give to a non-profit project which is what it will become if it doesn’t sell. But if you go down that road you’ll need contractual agreements.

I wouldn’t assume no one will donate to a commercial project but it wouldn’t be my first choice. Many would judge it on it’s merits and like I said earlier, if it looks like something worth being involved with, if only for a credit, that might be okay too. If you hope to compete with ILM or Pixar, then I’d probably want a bit more than a credit (call me in five years when I have some more experience).

I think you can gather from responses so far that few people actually expect you will get it finished, let alone to a sellable standard. So, just carry on and be sure that contributors are aware it is commercial, not open - or make it open :slight_smile:

One reason this is absolutely essential is because donations to an open project are often publicly available, sharable, editable and reusable and that’s what contributors expect. Models for a commercial project should be copyrighted and tightly guarded.

Now, get that script and those story boards finished. :wink: