Hi, folks.
Please review one animation I've posted on YouTube. It is entirely involved with machinery in motion.
This 3D animation is sixteen minutes long but due to Utube's fifteen-minute limitation on video run times it's broken into two sections (The Headache Machine 1 and the Headache Machine 2). For some reason, the split caused the timing of the sound effects to be off by a fraction of a second.
This is the link to the first half of the video "Headache Machine 1"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBonLNKYOkE
This is the link to the second half of the video "Headache Machine 2"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TcaWo_g_Ag
Thanks for taking a look, and I'd welcome any comments.
-- Jeff Russell
Can I offer some criticism??
Its aptly titled, and my sarcasm is intentional.
The piece gave me a headache.
Now don't think me cruel, here's some advice.
The worst cardinal sin a film-maker can commit is to bore their audience and waste their time.
You have done that here.
That is 16 minutes almost no-one is ever going to get back again.
You have 16 minutes of mechanical animation, in which nothing very interesting happens, looking at a a machine that is not terribly interesting, in a room that is.......well, you guessed it.
Its boring.
This goes on................for 16 minutes!
Why??
Why couldn't this have been done in TWO minutes? Or 60 seconds?
You could have spared the audience 14 minutes of really basic mechanical action.
Why is this 16 minutes long?
Ask yourself this.......what is entertaining about this film?
What is interesting about 16 minutes of slow, plodding, repetitive, dull action with absolutely NO pay-off at the end??
I sat through it expecting something to happen, some joke, some expression, something interesting........and it didn't take place. Just slow camera moves, and actions that are all timed pretty much the same, with no real reason to it.
Now, I understand the effort it takes to make something in CGI........but 16 minutes of basically nothing?
Animation isn't just moving something.......its motion that entertains people.
Even if the object in frame is static, an interestingly timed camera move can make that object compelling, and therefore begin to be entertaining.
Chimpanzees can move stuff--there's no real skill to it.
If you want viewers to look at your film for the length of time it runs.........make it worth their while.
2 minutes of that mechanical motion, and then showing the whole machine collapse would probably come across as more interesting ( hence entertaining) to the audience.
It would also showcase your own sensibilities as a film-maker/animator better.
THAT would make the piece more suitable for things like a portfolio, and it would serve you better in job hunting.
Trust me on this...........NO-ONE hiring is going to sit through 16 minutes of that--they'll fast-forward to the end, see that nothing happens but a fade-out......and they'll wonder what the heck was the intent.
Who would get hired with that kind of question hanging over them?
And really, why is this 16 minutes long???
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
Ha, ha. I said that I'd appreciate any comments and I really do.
I've posted these video links on a dozen animation forums and I've gotten many questions about the piece, therefor I'd like to post a response to all the questions asked even though none of these have been asked on this particular one (AWN), such as:
What software did you use to make it.
How long did it take to make.
Where did you get the music for it.
What was the purpose of making it.
Why is the running time so long.
---------------------------------------
The 3D Modeling and animation software I used to create this animation is Lightwave 3D. The musical soundtrack was compiled from pieces of the track "Nobody's Fool" (a.k.a. "El Tonto De Nadie") from the 1970 rock album "Poco." The music, sound effects and video were edited and compiled in Adobe Premiere.
It took a year to make and then six months to render the 23,000 frames. I started at one end of the machine and developed it as I went along adding more and more stuff. The machine is totally integrated, meaning that if you applied power to any single gear (having teeth all around) it would cause the entire machine to run. That was a prerequisite I decided upon, and it would allow me to move the camera all around the machine without worrying about seeing any parts that would not be in sync with the rest of it. As each part of the machine was developed I would make more mechanical links to "draw power" from one of the existing gears. The moving parts were usually placed into empty space and the support structures were designed around them. Many adjustments had to be made in the structures as the project developed because they would often be in conflict with each other or with moving parts.
The animation itself was inspired by the headache pain commercials I saw on televion as a child in the 1950s and 60s -- which often used animated graphics to give you a sense of what the pain is like from inside a person's head. They would show things like a hammer repeatedly striking an anvil, meshing gears, pulsating lights, lightning bolts, etc. If you're not a baby boomer you won't remember these Bayer, Exedrin and Anacin TV commercials. So my virtual camera flies though this machine which has as many different kinds of repeating motions or actions I could think of that could metaphorically depict headache pain.
The purpose of making the video was mainly for the fun of it, but I also thought it would make a good demo reel to show prospective employers of industrial animators that I can model objects and coordinate the motions of many moving machine parts -- which is needed for product developement, virtual product demonstrations, automated production plant equipment design, etc.
Lastly, I have to comment on the slow pace of it. To some people it's agonizing but there are two reasons for it. I, as well as many others, don't like a fast-moving camera in CG. Some artists try to cram so much action into so little time that you can end up with a camera that moves so fast it makes you dizzy. I get frustrated by CG scenes that are over before you get a chance to really savor the motion. The other reason for the slow pace is because I didn't want to have any camera cuts in the animation though I did allow five of them. I wanted to keep as much continuity of camera motion as possible so that the viewer would gain a sense of where his is in the machine -- where he is, where he's been and where he's going. One pair of cuts is close to one area of the machine -- the other three cuts are close to a different area than the first two cuts. So any time the camera had to move to a completely different part of the machine I allowed no cuts so that the viewer could see where he's going, and that made time drag even longer.
Most importantly, do not let "The Headache Machine" upset you -- it's only a video!
For your interest I've attached four screen shots from the video. If these pictures make you too squeemish to view the video then move on. If, on the other hand, you'd like to see the objects in these pictures moving to the beat of rock music, then click the YouTube links.
Its not just that the camera moves are plodding, its that the timing of the actions are all the same!
Do you not understand that this is NOT entertaining, at the current cut length? It drags on for 16 minutes.......not really showing much of anything in the process. You could edit parts of this........whole chunks, in fact...and still convey the same message about the film.
Nothing about the shots you have selected and used says ANYTHING more about this machine than a simple 60 second single orbit of it would.
But who the heck is going to want to sit through 16 minutes of that????
This will kill you in job hunting.
I'm an old pro, and please trust me when I say that you've got some skewed reasoning going on. Economy in entertainment is a vital skill to learn too.
But, hey, if you feel otherwise, don't take my word for it. Do find out for yourself.
Good luck.
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
I'm not going to argue with a moron.
I beg your pardon??
Where the hell was there call for an insult here?
You asked for comments, asshole, you didn't specify you wanted only patronizing comments.
I gave you my honest professional opinion, based on my background in both the animation industry (25 years) and in teaching animation ( 10 years), and its too bad you feel that you are above all that and cannot see that the advice is meant to HELP you.
BY all means, you go try to get a recruiter to sit through that film of yours and see the results you get out of it.
Nothing teaches like experience.
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)