long slog

To make an animation is extremely, extremely long work. Today i came across a thing on YouTube where the guy said to render 10 seconds of animation it took his 2 computers 12 hours. Mind you, this is AFTER all the hard work of setting up the props, lighting, moving them around etc. etc. What i have seen about rendering times, even on fast computers, it looks like it will take one computer almost 3 months of 24/7 processing just to get the final product! So yes, when the time arrives, i definitely will be looking at render farms. Of course i hope to buy 4 or 5 computers, and have a mini-network myself to cut down final render times.

Yesterday i ran across a site of a man who made a full-length CG film by himself. He has a nice diary/blog too, which is fascinating reading for someone like me who wishes to do something very similar. A link to there is Laurie Calvert’s one-man movie-making system Actually, he did have many others help with music and recording voices etc., but all the animation is done by himself. He goes at the amazing speed of 4 seconds of finished movie per day, working just 2 hours! I’m not joking, this is amazing, as professional animators only make about 4 seconds a week. OK, so his quality isn’t Pixar quality either, but his comments really strike home.

He talks about how THE STORY is the big thing, and he is not interested in technical stuff. He uses off-the-shelf characters, purchasing some from Daz3D etc., which is exactly what i’m planning to do. Why should i have to spend literally 2 years learning some software package before i can start producing my STORY? So i’m not leading-edge. I don’t care. I want something middle-of-the-road that looks decent enough to look at, without going over the top and working for days to find out how to use the sub-surface specular scattering particle generator! (ok, made that up, but you get the point)

He says: “So I am one man, one PC working for about 3 years. Stylised CGI. My first film ‘The War of the Starfighters’ will be similar in statistics to ‘Monsters of the Id’. It cost about 3000gbp, and was 1,350 shots long, 2,500 hours work, on average over 2 hours work a day saw 4 seconds of finished movie per day”. By comparison he notes: “‘Shrek’ used 500 computers, used 300 animators, took 4 years to make 1000 shots”.

He wrote the above in 2004 when planning the movie, and then when the movie was finished in 2006 he wrote this: “3rd June 2006 – Final version of film is finished pending any last minute changes. 864 days, 920 hours work so far. New music has been added and sounds mixed. 493 Gig used. The movie is looking and sounding really good. Had a Premiere to myself of the final version today. Might be a few months away from being available as it needs to get BBFC certification for release in the UK plus the DVDs need to be replicated. Next step is to talk to a Distributor. Fingers crossed. This film has cost just 700gbp to make.”

This is what i’ve felt, but is the first time i’ve seen it told anywhere: calvertfilm.fsnet.co.uk “The American CGI is what most of us are used to seeing but it doesn’t have to be this style. Remember character and stories, emotion and morals/ideas should be most important, so you can still make a great movie in a stylised way. Storytelling is the business we are in.” Yes sir! Lord, please help me. If people can spend so much time and energy on making something for this world, surely you will give me skill and wisdom to do it to lead others to your new world 🙂

1 thought on “long slog”

  1. Last year while in Malaysia i saw my first-ever one-man-made feature-length CG movie. It is called “We are the Strange”. It is really strange. The maker calls himself “M dot Strange”, and his blog describes how he made it. http://wearethestrange.blogspot.com/
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    “My average output during production has been 4 minutes of completed animation a month”.
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    His strange film was at the Sundance film festival, and on YouTube has gotten nearly 800,000 views!!!!
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    The very interesting thing to me tho, is that his style is not Hollywood style, so his animation doesn’t need to be like Hollywood animation. How can i do that?…..

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