QUICKTIME FOR TOON BOOM STUDIO MOVIE

In an earlier post, I let Drawgers know that one of my top animators is Gianluigi Toccafondo, another is Chris Hinton, both organic drawers and painters within the medium. Otto Siebold as well as the organic linocuts of Randy Enos. Then, about a year ago, I became enamoured with the idea of mixing it up-I fell in love with music that overlayed electronic music, nature sounds, sound effects, drones, symphonic music and all kinds of pop music. Along the way, classical music became my music of choice. I turned to bluegrass music, playing acoustic guitar and mandolin. I stopped playing music for a few years and, upon discovering the joys of Renaissance music, I built a clavichord that I never learned to play and got a lute I did learn to play. Some additional thoughts after reading some feedback:

QUICKTIME FOR TOON BOOM STUDIO MOVIE

Keep in mind that the QuickTime movie is compressed, so color, detail and sound quality all suffer. As this project progresses, we'll probably offer more glimpses if you're interested. This scene may be tweaked once we've completed the others, but it comes pretty close to our vision. Since animation is a long, tedious process, we wanted to share a little of what we've completed so far. But it's Brian who's logging the hours on weekends and evenings to bring this cat's tale to life.

Early on, I wrote Claudio's dialog and created the main characters, but as we progress, I create new characters as needed, work up storyboards and create the music. Brian shoulders the lion's share of the work, creating all the 3D models from my sketches, rigging them and working out the entire animation. Scene 5 is the only scene Brian and I have in a more or less finished form. I was an amateur filmmaker & Claudio an amateur actor so, with raging ignorance as our ally, we filmed all 11 scenes in a single afternoon using my Sony digital camcorder. His father, Dick Marzollo, a highly respected opera coach, spoke very little English, so Claudio grew up speaking both English and Italian. I engaged an old friend living in Cold Spring, NY, Claudio Marzollo, to read the part of the narrator. I wanted live-action film for the narrator and 2D animation to convey his recollections. My idea was to have an old Italian guy remembering his dear cat, Luigi. We also hoped to merge the 3D look with elements of my style and the look of the more flat Clay-on-Glass style used in films like 'Rex the Runt'.

We wanted our 3D animation to look a little different from the more polished Pixar-type films. Brian loved 'Mondo Luigi' and, sometime later, we began our collaboration. I suggested a project I had begun, but put aside to work on my current project, 'DRoM'. Brian had been using Maya (3D animation software) at work and wanted to apply (and expand) his skills on his own personal project. Excited and inspired, we decided on the way back home to work together on a short animated movie. We headed up to the festival early the next morning. He rented a fancy car with a GPS Vehicle Navigation System (boy, was that a treat!) and drove up from the Washington area. In 2004, I asked Brian if he'd be interested in driving up to Canada to attend the Ottawa International Animation Festival. Brian, a tech wizard and a talented, generous human being, continued to help me out over the next couple of years when I foundered with other software, like Macromedia Flash. One of them, Brian Hoard, was particularly helpful and he generously took the time to execute the final edit on my overlong and somewhat stilted first attempt, 'Hatman Serenade'. Elwood & Brian's LuigiWhen I was in the early stages of learning the 2D animation software, 'Toon Boom Studio', several users on the Toon Boom User Forum came to my rescue.

Quicktime for toon boom studio