More secondary characters. Slow moving, but it’s moving.
Finished another secondary character design and showing the progress of the cast line up thus far.
Secondary character in the story. This character is brand new to the story line and I think plays a really crucial role even though it’s a small part.
The Journey So far
It’s been some time since I started this project. I first created it as a short film back in 2015, I managed to get the animatic done and then we tried to raise funds for the project, but we just couldn’t get any traction. It was a very ambitious project, and I suppose we (or I) just didn’t have the track record because we were unsuccessful with the fund raiser.
Trailer to the short film
Animation Test
The Short Film Animatic
The evolving project
With the story reel complete, I would make production plans to try to work on the film scene by scene, shot for shot, but because I also own and operate a business (which was not doing very well at the time), production slowed down to a halt.
It took about 2 years before I could start working on the project again, but with so much time passing, I felt that the short film had something much bigger that it wanted to say and so I went back to the script and re-wrote it to a feature length film.
I finished the script in June of 2020. The name of the film changed from Ambition to Sacrifice Exchange, to just S><C (SXC). It’s a chess term meaning you sacrifice players on the board in order to achieve your goal.
Here’s a scene from the script.
Since the production of the test footage, I’ve been developing the visual style of the project and how I want it to go. It’s been slow going, but it’s never truly stopped, which I’m glad for. It’s just taking longer than I want it to, but sometimes you just have to go with the flow of life.
What I’d like to do is to put my goal out there into the world. Maybe it’s something for me to look back on later. In any case, here’s what I would like to accomplish in the next 5 years.
My Goal
Because of the feature length of the project, the amount of resources (time, money, energy) it’s going to take to put into this project, I’ve broken up my goals into the following…
2021
Finish character design for the main and secondary cast. Complete first pass of storyboards for the film by December 31, 2021. Hire voice cast and begin recording.
2022
Complete the animatic (story reel) and workbooks. Produce a new trailer for the film and begin prepping the project for production.
2023 - 2024
Production of the film.
2025
Post production. Submit to festivals.
2026
Release production on Vimeo.
What I’m not doing is looking for funding this time around. I understand the need to want to do that, it helps moves things faster, but what I’m looking to do is to maintain as much creative control over the project and usually that means self financing. Looking for funding would mean that someone is going to want to make changes which I would not agree with and I’ve been in this industry long enough to know that it never works out the way you want.
Plus, I’m too much of an artist to give up control. I want what I want because I know what I‘m looking for and I expect to get it.
Should the project find that it’s got interested buyers for a license, then that’s great. But for me, I just want to tell my story the way it’s meant to be told without compromise.
I’m hoping that I can stick to this plan.
If anything, it’s my Richard Williams moment. It’s what will keep me sane while working on other productions.
Cover poster for the project.
Supporting character designs. She’s one of the characters who really helps to keep the protagonist stay in line, his voice of reason in an unreasonable person.
Finally got around to knocking out this design. Feeling much more refreshed as well. Looking forward to knocking out the rest of them.
The last couple of weeks I felt a bit burnt out from everything that’s going on at work, but I managed to knock out another design. Shouldn’t have taken me as long as it did, but when you’re exhausted, it slows things down. Trying to get more rest this week.
The last piece of wardrobe for the main antagonist. Now that she’s done, time to move on to other characters.
Today, worked on the 4th (out of 5) wardrobe designs for one -of many - antagonist(s). I’m very happy with how the designs are coming.
Was looking back at older designs of the project back from 2015… The ideas were very raw. I can appreciate the work done, but I suppose it takes time for ideas to mature.
Seeing gas the base for her design is done, it didn’t take me long to get through this (3 of 4) design.
Last couple of days were pretty busy but managed to knock out two out of four designs for the story’s main antagonist.
Drawing nude bodies is rather challenging as there’s really no room to hide when it comes to bad designs. You can hide a lot of errors with the costume, but everyone pretty much has an idea of what the human body is suppose to look like.
There’s also something about the look on her face, her eyes, that disturbs me. So I am successful in the designs accomplishment.
Today, I worked on some additional wardrobe designs for Owen. He’s a tech guy and I thought it fitting if he had a bit of that tech person look. In the opening of the story, he’s dressing to impress. Then there are moments in between were we see him getting comfortable before turning super successful that he completely changes his persona.
Also worked on his head turns and shapes to show more of his features.
Really happy with how this turned out. In the store, Owen is a little older and a little more world weary so I wanted to reflect that in the subtleties of his design by adding some stubble to his face and bags under his eyes. Keeping it pretty simple and it’s good to see things coming together.
Worked on the main character, Owen, today. Throughout the film, there are a couple of iterations: young, which you see here, then an older version and then the last one which shows the wear and tear of life. I always thought i was interesting how in animated productions 9 out of 10 projects will keep the character design consistent throughout, never showing physical change.
It’s hard to keep track of and maybe there’s some psychological connection that gets broke, but either way, I’m doing the physical change here in this film.