Demo Reel

Hi everyone!!! This is my demo reel for the next week or so. I am currently working on a new one which will entail more design spots inside. I hope everyone enjoys. Because my focus is compositing, and I worked very hard on my thesis, I wanted people to see the before and after in the shots. Especially the color correction. While some of the shots were color keyed, the majority of this project was rotoscoped from start to finish. A painful but enjoyable experience. I learned so much about compositing from trial and error, I am positive that I am now an expertise when it comings to rotoing a shot or chroma keying.

Serial Minds

This another animation I did for a friend who has an idea for a crime show called serial minds. Its suppose to be about murders that connect to crimes that were commited previously. 5 detectives have the job of thinking like a serial killer to solve the mystery. The catch to the show is that the 5 detectives are all serial killers themselves. They live in a secluded area where they police the killings, however someone new has broke on to their turf. Outrageous idea! (I KNOW). This is a crazy show that just might work. Good luck to Landis on her idea.

hi everyone

This is a short animation i did about the genocide in sudan. hope you guys like it.

my thesis

This is my thesis project which advertising a clothing line that I will hopefully get to launch in the near future.

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Searching for DeInterlace

I am looking for a plugin to make my footage deinterlaced. If anyone knows about any plugins... please don't hesitate to let me know. I would deeply appreciate it.

Modeling Trouble

As a designer I know the core basics of Maya and 3d animation. As a student, this is an area that I am least familiar with. After spending a week trying to figure out how to do this piece I have found that if at first you don't succeed... find someone else to do it. I have purchase a model from the internet... The rigging part of the piece will probably come easy because the character only needs to be posed, rather than animated. Many of the students at Cada have been very helpful with this portion of my thesis. I have been studying the look of my project, and in my head playing what it will look like when this woman comes out of the wall. The the face needs to be semi accurate to the actual look of my model. Mainly the nose, and the lips need to be a match. However... I think I have found a way to keep my down loaded model with no changes and make her look like my actress. The steps to making Ally look like she's coming out of a wall are simple. I have factored in several ways to escape reality to make it look more real. I decided to texture my model with a design while she is in a wall. Therefore, when she comes out... she will still look like paint, and will transition into a manikin look. I then shot the background plate... so that I can import that into Maya as a texture for the Plane. I will simply push my model through the plane so that it looks like she is bulging out of the wall. I then go to a reaction shot of my actor. From their, I tend to the next shot of her feet which will already be out of the wall... I am thinking about using another 3d shot of her at the very end of the piece. The trick to everything in this project is manipulate the situation. So this weekend has been a sucess... although I feel behind... I am confident that by Friday I will have conquered this portion of my thesis.
Please give me any suggestions or comments.... or questions?

You Have to go through it

The Issue of Time
Shooting live action has its ups and downs. Not just in the pre production phase... but in the time to come after as well. This experience is one that has made more confident in not just my skills as director or designer, but as a professional. Learning to let your work speak for who you are and how you feel, and allowing your actions to always relay the message that you are a professional has been a process worth talking about. Some may ask why is this important... and the answer is simple. It is one of the most important lessons to learn about being in the entertainment industry. The belief that others will help you or do what they say they will is nonsense. People drop out, miss deadlines, and collectively decide that they will not do something because they feel it is not their job, or has no impact on there future. The idea of loyalty, is something that is only understood through the color of green. Not knowing any of this, I set out to make a piece that would be centered around dealing with these core issues. While I spent the majority of the time narrowing down shots, finding costumes, and doing the important things of production, I did not stop to think about the human side of working on a piece like this.

There are stresses that may make you feel overwhelmed. This entire process is about one thing, how well you perform when everything seems to be falling apart. When your actor quits the day before your shoot because they have another gig on the same day, do you go into panic mode... or do you pick up the pieces and keep going. When your sound fx artist is unable to provide you with further assistance because of their on personal troubles... do you change the entire piece or do you look for the alternative. When the person who you are counting on the most lets you down... do you let yourself crumble. Its these questions that determine whether or not the job gets done. Sure they may sound emotional, and as someone once referred to me "too sensitive." However at the end of the day, the human side is what makes you continue to work harder or waste time watching TV because you just don't want to think about thesis.

So how does this relate to the production side of my thesis.... It is simply the factors that have caused me to hit or miss my own deadlines. Fortunately, I have been working overtime to catch up and I am confident that by next Monday. I will be back on schedule. For any students who read this blog to learn more about the thesis process... I encourage you to be wise in setting you production schedule according to life... not animation. Make sure you pencil in all the dates and times that you will need to complain about the things wrong with you, your project, other peoples projects, other people, and anything else that will delay you from working on your piece. Only in doing this will you have an accurate idea as to how much time you will actually be spending on your piece.

ex. (This took me 15 minutes to write...but 4 hours to understand how it was necessary to say).

rotoscoping complete

I have finally completed the dreadful and painful rotoscoping portion of my thesis. Thanks to some advice from Aaron. I tried rotoscoping the images really tight and then feathered the mask this helped deal with the issue of getting the white wall out of her hair. The next step is to start modeling...hopefully I will be able to fall back into schedule within the next couple of weeks.

Rough Edit complete

I finally have completed a rough edit of my footage and will be posting it up online very soon. Right now I am finalizing the decisions on which shots I will keep and which ones I am certain that I will not be including. After showing the footage to my brother, who is in charge of my sound design, he recommended that the footage stay at a normal pace while the hiphop track is playing and then turn into slo mo when the rock track comes on. I tested this idea out and it works magnificently. Some of the problems that I am tackling now are dealing with interlace issues. Trying to get interlacing out of my footage has been a bit of a struggle. However I am confident that I will be able to come across a plugin that accurately deals with this issue.

Another big plus this week was finding out ways to achieve the color correction effects that I want. On Tuesday I showed some of my references to Selena Simmons who has a background in graphic design. She recommended using photoshop, and showed me some awesome effects that will definitely come in handy when I get ready to design the background as well as work on color correction.

My goal this week was to begin on Rotoscoping. My date to begin was Monday, but due to some minor setbacks I had to begin this process today. So far I am doing pretty well. I have been able to rotoscope at the rate of 15 frames per an hour. I have about 20 seconds of footage to rotoscope. Which means I will take me approximately 40 hours to rotoscope this whole thing. So if I dedicate at least 8 hours for 5 days then I should be done by Tuesday. Which allow to me head right into my sound effects and allow more time for the 3d modeling portion of this project. If anyone has any tips or advice I would definitely like to know.

Good News

I was able to digitize my footage last night, thanks to Rob. Apparently, when capturing HD footage the batch capture option is not an appropiate selection. The capture now option however works efficiently. I did a few rough edits last night, and hope to have an official edit by the end of tommorow night.

Color correction references

Over the break, i took sometime to look at the work of designer Patrick Boyer. Here is an idea of the feel and look that I am going to design for my thesis project. For more of his work check out his website. www.urbancowboy.net

Difficulties with HD footage

On friday, I had several difficulties trying to capture my HD footage. This has set me back just a little. Fortunately, after speaking with several cinematographers it is a problem in Final Cut that can be fixed by changing the settings around. I am attending CADA today so I can figure out how to fix it. As soon as the problem is solved I will have a rough edit up within 24 hours. If anyone has any advice about how to capture HD footage in Final Cut, I would love to hear the feedback.

Shoot was a success

Yesterday I shot my thesis in Rego Park(queens). The shoot was a big success. There were many obstacles that came along in shooting. So here is a quick list of the pros and cons of my shoot yesterday. In shooting this project I have learned that there are many difficulties that can arise throught out shooting. Not knowing your shots is probably the most time consuming problem you can occur. I was glad that I was prepared and knew what I wanted. I had each shot listed as well as a clear idea on the different angles I needed as well as wanted to have. The major problems that occurred on the set yesterday were uncontrollable. The day before the shoot, one of my actors called and told me that they would be unable to make it. I immediately had to find a replacement. The next issue was that it was very cold outside, and which became very hard for my actress to handle. The next problem was the weather changed from bright and sunny to somewhat cloudy. Towards the very end of the shoot, we were faced with getting the final shots in the midst of snow flurries. With the uncontrollable issues arising, I was glad that I had spent time, preparing for the shoot. I had tremendous amount of help and friends who gave there support.


Special thanks to Alison, Antonella, Chris, Elaine, Tracey, and Walter for being the best cast, crew, and supporters throughout the shoot.

I look forward to having a rough edit up next week.

New style pics

Links to work

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~tpj209/script.rtf
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~tpj209/animatic.mov
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~tpj209/styledesigns.jpg

Its been a long time

It has a been a long time since my last post, but I have not been neglecting the project. I have been doing test color corrections, style frames, writing scripts, and working on shotlist. Reasking those important questions of what am I trying to say, how am I going to say it, and is this saying it. I 've continued to build onto my research and develop answers to the how questions that were lingering on. So here is some of the stuff I've been working on for the past month in a half.