[FireWalker]

Alas! It is complete.



This is a claymation "thingy" that I've been working on for quite some time now.

Not sure how well it fits in a "digital art gallery" quite yet... but hey, I'm an old-school member/lurker... and it was edited digitally... so that counts, right?

And I guess there is some artwork in there somewhere if you look hard enough... and a pen, and ink. Now that I think of it, it has the best of all worlds.

Anywho's, this is mainly for your enjoyment, but I would definitely appreciate any feedback that can be mustered up.

WARNING: Not intended for the young ones.

Go watch it anyway...
(for best results allow download to finish before viewing)

Eric

[nickmarksdotcom]

First off! It is a big download people but download this! it is worth it.

SIMPLY AWESOME!!! I loved it. I don't know you but I am soooo proud of you. What a great little short film. I congrajulate you on all your hard work. How long did it take you to do? and what program did you do your sound effects/syning in?

The cutting was fantastic and some of the angles you captured were very imagninative. The black and white feel really gave the piece a nice creditablity. Looks very professional. What are you planning to do with it? Enter it into festivals? You need to put in on Atomfilms.com for one.

On top of all that the story was really funny. THe guy drawing himself a bigger penis and then the penis stabbing the guy through the head is classic.

Keep up the great work.

Nick

[waylon]

Wow, that's great. For a moment, I thought you had mis-spelled "Resurrection", but I soon found myself corrected.

I especially liked the "creation" sequence. It had a really great artistic feel to it, and you did a great job giving it a frantic feel towards the end. I thought the animation in the claymation scenes, however, was a little bit harder to follow. The motion of the characters was kind of choppy, which was probably part of the problem, though I know how hard it is to get it right from my own feeble attempts.

The other thing that could have been improved a bit was the lighting, and the contrast within each shot. With stop-motion animation you don't have any motion blurring between frames (obviously), so it's very important that any moving figures are extremely well defined, since it takes longer for the viewer's eye to pick out the form from one frame to the next.

If you look at any given frame with the ogre in it, for instance, the range of values that make up his form are very limited. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being pure black, 10 being pure white, his skin usually has a value of 5 and below, and his jacket and armor are rarely more than 1 or 2. The main character is a little bit better due to his lighter coloring - you can get a full range of shadows from white to black. In any case, when there's such a small difference in values across a form, it becomes pretty difficult to read - and that's multiplied tenfold when you have stop-motion animation.

I guess the main way to improve this would be to manually set the camera's exposure and aperature settings for each scene, then do whatever post-processing you can to enhance the range of values.

I hope I don't sound too condescending or anything. I know a lot of this is the basics, but after playing through the movie two or three times, it's what stood out at me as what could be improved the most. (The first time through I was too busy lauging my ass off. ) I can't wait to see your next movie!

[ May 16, 2001: Message edited by: waylon ]

[Sumaleth]

Heh, thats very well done.

Row.

[Bjorn]

*concentrates*

That's just MAGNIFICENT!

*then stops fighting the laughter*

Bwahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa!!!!!
Don't try using your erection like this at home guys! *ouch!*

And IMHO, that's definitely art.

Da Bjorn

[wayfinder]

congrejaculations

[Jezebel]

Hahaha... that was so hilarious! You did an excellent job on it! I can see that synj would get a kick out of this one. Definitely worth the download time, hehehe.

Beth

[FFNeX]

That is one of the best claymations I have ever seen, it's fantastic, I give it an A++ TAKE THAT CHICKEN RUN!

Two questions:

1) How long did it take you to make it?

2) What's the name of that song? I know I have heard it before in a movie but I can't remember now and it's cool as hell.

[::Dino::]

Hilarious Great work.

[synj]

awesome hehehe

you're right jezebel, i liked it alot. what wonderful use of a wanky.

criticism is at hand, though. I really didn't like the hall of the mountain king song for the intro. bleh!

I didn't care for the whole intro at all, infact, BUT I DID after he altered himself by changing the thing on the paper. so kudos on that one. hehe

The choppiness didn't bother me at all and I absolutely love the stab in the side of the head with the dagger and the wakka through the skull at the end hahahaha what a superb heart he must have to pump all that blood.

overall, that was very very delightful! please keep up the happiness.

[daz199]

hahhah
that's awesome!!

[Dan]

OMFG, I laughed for like an hour after that. Sweet

[Bg]

The music of The Gladiator fitted perfectly to the action, brilliant animation!!!

[Socar MYLES]

The BEER was a really nice touch. I just about died laughing when I watched this...I was already snickering when that pen started dancing manically across the paper, and when he drew that giant willy...well.... You know what? I'm still laughing. I hope you post MANY more of these.

[Zorglub]

Bwahahahahahahahahaha
That is the funniest thing I have ever seen. It seems like you realy put a lot of effort into this. I'm a film major and I gotta say I love this. What kind of camera did you use, super8, 16 mm?
Keep this up, you'll make a name for yourself.
Good luck

[N8X]

that was soo funny and nicely shot!
your my new best friend

[FireWalker]

Thanks all for the feedback!

nickmarksdotcom - thank you i was considering some festival action if it was pretty well accepted and possibly ifilm or atomfilms, too.

waylon - thanks! this is the stuff i'm looking for.
I actually tried adding motion blur later in after fx.. and while it was completely possible and looked good on the test, it was just too time consuming so i stuck with chop-suey.
Due to my total underestimation of how long it would take to animate.. i shot the first half last summer.. and since i wasn't able to finish it in the short time i had the camera, i recouped from the hell that was the first shoot, and finished it during a weekend about 6 months later. there is a definite inconsistency from one shoot to the other though. 2nd half is grainier, and overexposed, while the first half was what i was hoping for. but that's something that had definitely bothered me and thanks for pointing it out.

suma - thanks, row.

bjorn - glad u think its art.

wayfinder - hahahah

jez -

FFNeX - thanks!
1) way too long. 2 weekends worth of filming (with maybe an hour or two of sleep each) taking into effect that fact i burnt a hole through a wall due to the overload of my crappy old wiring. transfer, edit, sound.. many hours.
2) "in the hall of the mountain king" - i believe

Dino - Thanks

synj - ah, the one i was hoping would critique.. muchos gracias.

daz - (see dino)
dan - (see daz)

bg - i feel a lawsuit coming on. thanks!

socar myles - ah, the forgotten beer. originally it was to play a milestone in the story. the cap was to be a shield.. damn u lack of time!

zor - thanks.. i'm a film major too. it was a bolex 16 mm. you swedes aren't just good artist, you make a fine clunker of a camera too.

wow, well that was a lot of typing just then. thanks in line, always appreciate the feedback.

really helps too, especially when you get so use to (and attached to) what you're working on that you're simply blind to blatant oversights.

[Spooky]

That was one hella cool short, er I mean 'long' film! Another person pushing the envelope of entertainment and digital cinema! My hat goes off to you! Friggin' hilarious and the execution of the animation only adds to the point. I especially like the fact that you combined the traditional media of ink and had the characters tranform into clay. Very well though out, excellent camera angles, a good study of the film techniques! Bravo!

[StormVermin]

*Ahem*

Oh.. my.. God..

[FireWalker]

honestly didn't see this coming..

Papercut took "Best Animation" last night at the Academy of Art film festival.

[FireWalker]

thanks spooky.. btw that's one impressive web page you've got going on there. multi talent man

[Jezebel]

Wow, congratulations! It definitely deserved it. Everyone I have shown this to has loved it... even... *horror film music*... my dad!

Good work

[FFNeX]

Congratulations man, I honestly couldn't think of anything that would take any animation award from this, it deserves all the awards it gets. I hope this is the first one in a whole bunch of them you'll be getting for this and your future animations.

[DiXter]

Awsome!!!
what more to say...
I also want to do clay animations..


Congratulations!

[Krazy]

simply amazing...i loved it. say where did you learn your stuff i tryed my hand an claymation and blah is all i got to say but youve got a great lil movie here i love it.

[Luci]

This absolutly rocks.. I was still pissing myself laughing ewhile I was on the phone to my boyfriend, I showed him it, and he was pissing himself laughing too. Great job, I like it.. Do moooooooorrrrrrreeeeeee!!!!!!

*laughs hysterically and goes to watch it again*

-Luci

[gLitterbug]

My congratulations for winning, but as somebody said above, you REALLY deserved it.
It is one of the funniest things I have seen in a very long time, really great!

[anticz]

That was f#$%*%g great. Makes me want to throw my computer away and go back to working with clay maquetts.

[Negative]

OMG, that's amazing FireWalker. I can just imagine how much patience it requires. I could't do something like that...how did you make that pen fly in the air? and nice final shot btw hehe

[Prolix]

whaaaaaaaaa I can't watch it for some reason!
dammit i wanna!!!