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phychoticsilence β Shifting Years- Complete!
Published: 2012-06-05 21:05:21 +0000 UTC; Views: 1106; Favourites: 19; Downloads: 3
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This film is finally done! After months of frustration and hardwork, everything worked out and "Shifting Years" is finally finished!Here it is!
[link]
And for more artwork, check out the blog!
[link]
Thank you to those who contributed to the film!
DDD
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Comments: 8
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Hey Phychotic, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to make this comment, it's just I knew I'd have to make it a huge one to feel like a good friend so I really had to work up the energy to do it. ^.^; Also my inbox has just been so full lately, I'm freakin' wading through stuff trying to empty it out. So here's how we're going to do this, I'm going to start the movie and as I see things to comment on I'll stop and comment, I'll give you praise but at the same time I wont be afraid to give you criticisms. Before I start I just want to say that I'm very proud of you girl, I know you worked you butt off on this video and no matter what criticisms I may give you it doesn't change the obvious fact that you made a very professional looking and amazing video. 
So let's start this....
First off, the title-screen reminds me of something you'd see right out of a Pixar short. I love the wonderful mix of vehicle and human elements both in the title and wording. The words fit inside of road-lines so that they almost take a look of music-sheet lines or that paper that elementary schools use to help you learn how to write cursive. Then of course there's the wording which literally means years shifting but of course is talking about shifting like a car shifting gears to.. it's just so cleaver. I like how the music starts right as the video fades into view. While surprising, I'm happy that you decided to keep the 'placeholder' music, I think it really fit the feeling of the movie. I know you said you were going to replace it with different music, what changed your mind? What was the other music going to be?
My first critique here I'm not sure if it's really a justified one at all since I'm not familiar with the animation software you used. While the characters don't seem to have this problem in the rest of the animation, in that first fade in scene Jason and Red seem to stick out from the background a bit, their line-work looks really bold and thick in contrast to the more thin hand-painted looking style of the rest of the background. It just kinda makes them looks less 'in' the background and more pasted on top of it. Again though that might be a technical problem as I'm pretty sure it is.
I absolutely love this first scene with the two of them, it's just too adorable for words, I didn't even notice that Jason pecks Red on the grille at the very end there till I watched this final version in color. ^^ <3 The movements are a tad bit robotic at times and maybe a little.. I wanna say fast? I'm not sure if you had a time amount your video had to be under but during some of the more precious moments it might have been nicer to see their movements a little slower and tenderer. But the feeling still gets through and I just love all the bright colors in this scene. Was there any kind of science behind the color schemes in the scenes? Like I notice how there are a lot of browns, and Jason has brown hair, and they're playing on a green carpet that is kinda sorta similar in shade to Jason's shirt, just curious.
That transition from day to night out the window is so pretty, and I love all the little details of leaves in the tress outside.
Looking at them laying in bed, I'm curious, did you intend to implement shadows into your animation? I noticed in the previous scene you had some shadows but they were very very transparent and almost un-noticeable. I can understand that they'd be hard to put in if they're an after effect. Since the backgrounds have shadows in them though you can't help but wonder what the characters would look like with shadows both cast from themselves and on their own bodies, maybe in the director's cut version huh? 
Jason's mom, alright, this part kinda took me by surprise the first time I watched the final version and it still kinda bugs me a little bit. This is probably my biggest criticism of the movie, I understand what you did, but I don't know if it was done quite as clearly and obviously as it could have been done. So the idea is that Jason's mom pops in at night to say good night and then later she's the one that tells him to do something about the car. I understand, it's a simple idea really, but as strange as it sounds I think it actually worked a little better when it was just in text. O.o First off, well, there's the voice. No offense to your classmate, she did a wonderful job.. but well, it's just you can TELL you're hearing the voice of a 20 something in that recording, it's just not the voice you'd expect to hear from an adult mother you understand? I also think maybe it could have used some sound filters to make it 'sink's more into the environment more? Like a tiny bit of echo or reverb or something to make it sound more like she's speaking into a small room and not into a microphone. But I think the thing that really just makes this so knit-picky is that she's the ONLY audio you hear in the whole video other then the music, so it's kinda startling you know? I mean if you hear her voice you naturally think 'well I should hear a door close, or I should hear crickets, or I could hear.. well just anything else. It just kinda puts you in this indecisive place where the audience is left wondering 'is there sound in this or not?' I really REALLY hate to criticize this so much but this really is the biggest thing in the video that got to me.
During this scene in particular, I think it might have been good if you'd added a steam of light across the floor above Jason's floor there, where his mother is in the door-way and you could see her outline. That way you'd know someone was there talking to him, and then you could see her outline leave and the door close and the light go away when she stops talking. The fact that Jason doesn't look towards her or even acknowledge her existence might give the audience the surprise impression at first that she's some kind of narrator.
I absolutely adore the look on Reds face as we open on the next scene, those huge adorable eyes of his looking up above him! ^^ I think you've made the most adorable cartoon car ever, I really do. I also like the extra detail on Jason in that particular shot, in his hands on Red's roof and his pant legs. I also see some shadows, yay for shadows! 
The backgrounds during this second night time scene are just gorgeous! Well done to your art-team. The folds in the bedsheets complete with shadows, the shadows being cast by the clock and the lamp, the steams of soothing blue moonlight coming in through the window, it's all beautiful! Again, this does leave me wishing the characters were shaded as well, but I know that would have been very hard, you DID at least change their color schemes though so I find that admirable.
Such a heartbreaking scene, it makes me just want to take Red behind the front tires and lift him up and plop him onto MY bed. ^^ Really great bodily gestures on Jason here, you can really read him well. Though while watching this with a critical eye I'm wondering. Is this the first time Jason's told Red he can't sleep in the bed anymore? It kinda looks like it by how they're acting, I wonder what prompted it though. 
The next morning, It makes me wanna laugh looking at Red, he looks so confuzzled. haha. XD I have no idea how Jason can focus on his game with those two giant eyes just focused on him the whole time. He's Jason, master of ignoring distractions! Red's animation there is an example of what I meant from the beginning where the animation looked a little..er.. fast, like it was sped up a little bit. Can you see what I mean? I mean it still works, it's just a little un-natural looking. Though he IS a living car so maybe that makes sense. XD While this is a sad scene it is kind of a funny scenario at the same time when you really look at it, this huge car sitting in a boys room watching him play gameboy. haha
I love how the room has modernized over the years! The clock has turned into a digital one, and yes I DID notice you made the minute change between shots
Now out in the garage, nice to see a garage for once that's not full of garbage, heh. 9.9 Hate to think what would have happened to Red if it was. Here's were it gets so sad, you can tell that Jason has gotten older and moved onto things that Red can't possibly take part in, badass rebellious teen stuff jk. So Red's been reduced to sitting around Jason's room getting bigger and bigger being bored watching Jason do mundane things. Then when it's time to Red away, even though it's so OBVIOUSLY a trick, Red is SO starved to attention and wanting to play with Jason that he goes along with it anyway. It's just painful seeing Red jumping for joy there thinking he's finally gonna get to play a little and Jason knows exactly what we as the audience knows, he knows everything I've just said.. you can really see the guilt and pain in his eyes! It reminds me of a guy tricking his dog into thinking his going somewhere to play but then he really takes him to some shelter and leave him there, how red slowly stops jumping has he steadily comes to the realization of all this is just heartbreaking. 
I love that little animation of Red with the can of oil, as sad as it is it's incredibly cute as well. It calls into question the eternal question 'what do cars do to occupy themselves.' XD I love seeing Red grow through each transition, do you think his personality ages as he grows like Jason? Or do you think he's always a little kid car at heart? After the can pops and Red squints his eyes, you can just see so much pain in him.. it's so well.. painful.
It's cool how in Reds final stage of growth all his interior seems to develop, it's almost like a metamorphosis, in face the garage itself could almost be thought as a symbolic cocoon. Red goes inside as a large toy and comes back out a real car. Have I mentioned before that Red is cute? XD Aww those tires all curled outwards, his sad little mirrors flopped down, I wanna hug him so badly. Looks like he's got quite the deluxe leather interior!
Nice details on the trophy wall, looks like Jason is quite the over achiever, just like the type of people I hate. XD Is there any story behind the last name you chose?
Man I'm SO glad this story has a happy ending, SO glad. You can just feel the pain Red must have gone through in that garage, those eye-bags tell their own stories. OMG I just noticed, Jason is taking his clock and lamp wth him to collage! BLT reference? : 33 Nice job on animating Reds bouncy shocks and door.
Well done, well done on that final big smile on Red at the end, seeing that smile form on his face makes all the pain seem worth it, its even better when watching it stop and go. I love that his front tires turn inwards towards each other in a squeeish fashion. I wonder if it was strange for either of them, like for Jason to sit inside Red for the first time or for Red to have Jason sit inside him for the first time.
Lovely ending, them pulling away for collage, what made you decide to have Jason be a one parent child? I know you had a mother and father in the original version of the video. I'd critiqued a few videos ago saying that the parent's arm waving looked kinda of rubber and boneless, I can't tell if you changed the animation or not, am I crazy in thinking that?
Ah but now we're left with the feeling so many shorts leave you with, wanting a sequel. I'm so concerned!
Wonderful work, wonderful wonderful wonderful. I see a bright future for you Chrystal.
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Wow! This is a huge comment! But thanks so much for enjoying the film! Okay, here we go!
Titles and title animations aren't my strength so I did struggle with this for a bit. My friends helped me come up with the title "Shifting Years" after they understood the kind of story I wanted to tell. They were like "hmm, it's like shifting your gears towards change, and literally shifting gears in a car." I had some help from my professor with the title screen. I've seen some really cool title animations and clever title screens so I wanted to try something that didn't look too plain. My professor always says to link everything you do with your film to the theme of your story. Since the theme is growing up, he thought the elementary writing guide lines was a good place to start. And writing the title from print to cursive was also like the title was growing up. Once I saw the lines, I immediately thought they looked like road lane lines to connect everything together.
The music I stuck with for the film, I purchased the license for it. I have a friend from high school that is excellent on the piano and I wanted to ask her if she wanted to compose new music for the film. I messaged her via facebook and didn't read her response message until after the film was completed. Turns out she replied right after I sent the message but I guess I never saw any notification about it! 
The characters having a bolder line in some scenes is a bit of a technical problem. The software we used for the film, you have to input a number value that gives you a smaller line. For the clean-up process, I had some help from other students and the first scene was cleaned up by someone else. I'm not sure if he put the right number value in the software before he started cleaning up the characters. They were much bolder that what you see so I had to play with the program a bit to find someway to shrink the lines without having to re-clean everything.
Because I had help with the animation too, other animators animated some scenes differently. I didn't animate the scenes that look "robotic." What makes them look like this, is in the animation, instead of redrawing the entire character for every frame, you can copy-paste some parts like the arms or head and move them over slightly. It's sort of like tweening/puppeting. Shows like Total Drama Island and Johnny Test are sort of like this. The little peck Jason does wasn't in the animatic. That was the animator that added that in. I thought it was something cute that a little kid would do, so I left it in.
There was some planning behind the color scheme of the film. I looked through movie color scripts to get a better idea of how I wanted the colors. Since Red is red, I wanted to contrast him against green colors so he stands out. That's why the rug is green and Jason's room goes from warm colors when he is young symbolizing that Red is very important to him, to cooler colors indicating that Red isn't the main thing Jason thinks about anymore and Red stands out in his room almost like he doesn't belong in there anymore.
Adding shadows to the characters is another step in the animation process. Since I found my story pretty late and was behind in the animation for deadlines, I had to opt adding shadows. I did however add shadows to the bottom of where they were placed in the background to make them feel more like they were in the background rather than just on it. But I would have loved to add some shadows in the animation overall but I would have wanted to find really strong animators/clean-up/or colorists to do that part. And usually the really talented people are busy with their own films or working on the more prestigious ones. :/ Seeing Lilly so small like that WOULD be adorable! You can take her anywhere!
Ok. The mother's audio was a HUUUGGEEE problem I had with the film! The class spent a really long time debating whether her voice should even be there at all BECAUSE it's the only voice you hear. And you never actually see the mother saying these things which makes her feel ominous and almost creepy because it's so startling. But you kind of need the mother because she is the voice of growing older which is the "villain" of the story. I was running short on time with the dialogue so I couldn't really add sound effects. There is some reverb to the audio but not much. I totally understand how you feel with the voice and I feel the EXACT same way. I just had to do with what I had with my time restraint. But this experience with dialogue and voice will definitely make me spend MUCH more time getting the sound just right for my next projects!
I was planning to add the stream of light from the mother closing the door, even her shadow too. But again, time restraints.
I really like these two scenes too! I used the one with Red's big eyes for promotion flyers.
My boyfriend did a wonderful job with the backgrounds during this whole night sequence! These were the first few backgrounds painted. He made an awesome tutorial about painting the backgrounds too! The posters, I told him to just add whatever he wanted, as long as they were appropriate and different from the previous scenes. I think the poster on the window wall is a tugboat with feet. Later on this poster changes to a chicken with human hands. XDXD
This is supposed to be Jason's first time reprimanding Red about climbing on the bed. But I can see how Jason being semi-annoyed would make more sense because it would show that Red is persistent towards being loyal and naΓ―ve about what is going on (but in a good way!) But I also don't want Jason to come off as the growing-up-mean-kid-that-doesn't-care-anymore. I already had some people really hate Jason as a character because of how he puts Red away for years in the garage. And the fact that things move around in the garage over time while Red is still inside means that Jason and/or his mother completely ignore Red while they themselves are in the garage. This came to mind after the film was already done! So there's so many ways you can think Jason and his mother being neglectful and abusive towards Red! D:
Red is supposed to be somewhat jealous of the gameboy at this point. He knows Jason spends more time with the game than he does playing with Red but Red also doesn't really understand what a gameboy is or does! To him, it's just a remote that people stare at for hours. Jealous and curious.
Aw you caught the minute change! XD I figured with the amount of time that passed between these shots, at least one minute would have passed in their world. Ok, I remember this scene when it was a very early concept. This was one of the first ones I thought about when I came up with the story. I was like, "hmm, what if the car grew in the kid's bedroom. That's be cool to see. But then... how would they get it out of there..." So Red's size is small enough to fit through the door. But now this means that Jason has to live in a 1 story house, or his bedroom is located on the first floor. BUT in the film, you see the tops of the trees though his window! So Jason's room is actually upstairs in a two story house. But I managed to avoid the whole "Oh look, stairs. Hmm, how will Red get down these?" lol
Red acting like a dog here was EXACTLY what I was going for. I wanted Red to keep believing they were going to play right up until the garage shadow starts covering his face. Because there is no going back from that point. I agree that when Red watches the door go down, the animation feels quick and different. Again, it was the same animator that worked on those shots that feel that way. I animated the ones with Red hopping up and down and then turning to watch Jason walk to the door. I used this video for reference. Turn the audio off before watching it! lol [link]
I imagine the answer to that question would be like cars acting like cats. Sleeping most of the day, or just staring at random things. Then there is the burst of energy here and there. Or cars with a perfect mixture of cat/dog-like personalities. With some probably leaning to one side more than the other.
Having Red's interior grow was something that clicked when I thought about the garage scenes. BUT you have NO IDEA how many png sequences there are in some of the shots with his full interior! Especially the one when Jason closes his trunk and the following shot. That was insane to keep organized and understand the stacking order of what went were! And there were duplicates that were cut-off at certain frames! But I'm really happy it worked out!
Not really much of a story with the last name. Just kinda thought of it. I was thinking Wells or Lewis. I went with Wells because I thought Lewis already sounds like a first name. But "Jason" kinda has a story. Idk if you've ever scene any of the "Moments with Heavy" youtube videos, but omg I am a huge fan of them! I quote some many lines from them! Anyway, from 5:20-28 [link] One of my favorite parts and where "Jason" came from. XD
He does take his lamp and clock to college! Huh! Guess there is a subconscious influence that I wasn't even aware of from my absolute favorite movie. Nice.
There probably could have been more a different scene of Jason sitting in Red for the first time. It's almost like "Oh, hey there Red. See your interior is complete now. Imma sit in it. Whateva." Or maybe Jason ALREADY sat in it while Red was sleeping. Damn, Red was in a heavy coma...
I did fix the wave a bit. Other students didn't feel like the father was necessary after hearing the mother's voice. They thought just having her show up at the end was perfect. Kinda weird though because there are the "manly tools" that move around in the garage. Guess the mom is the handyman too. Omg, there can be a whole twist story of what happened to Jason's father. An early concept was to start the film with Jason's father coming home and giving Red to Jason as a present. So you'd see them meet for the first time. It had what I thought would be a cool little opening. Probably one of those "before the title shows up" things. I should draw it out sometime.
I wanted to have some pictures come up during the ending credits of post-film. Little snapshots of Jason and Red "getting old" together. Jason would have his girlfriend but Red doesn't go all Christine on her. He would be quite fond of her. Red would eventually become the family car after Jason becomes a father. And the last snapshot I wanted was Red parked in a handicapped reserved parking while Jason is slowly climbing his way out of Red as an elderly man. They stay together until the end.
And thanks again for all the good wishes! I really need to get more artwork pumping around here and for myself! And thanks for all the support, suggestions, and criticisms! I would REALLY LOVE to work on a Cars movie or promotional work from Pixar! (If they plan to keep up the sequels and extra Car related art) That'd be a dream come true!
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Just because I think we'll kill each other replying to comments this huge I'll just read what you wrote me back and we'll end it there, is that alright? ^_^ I just wanted to make sure you got a worthy feedback for all your hard work. 
I can't wait to see what else you 'pump' out, and I'd love to keep up doing our crossover stuff ^^ as soon as I finish this huge comic I'm gonna do that baby Red picture with Jason and Violet. Now that your animation is done hopefully you wont be worried about keeping Jason and Red so secret.
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I just about died on how cute this was.
Lovely work!
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