nateomedia » film

Banjo Time

Nathan Olsen — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 05:28:18 +0000

I haven’t been posting to this blog much these days. If you’re interested to in seeing what I’ve been drawing lately, you really should keep an eye on Haiku Comics — I post new stuff there three times a week.

So, since I don’t have any drawings to share, I thought I’d put up a little film my wife and I created this past weekend. I think it came out pretty well. Enjoy.

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Post tags: banjo, banjo time, comedy, film, humor, peanuts

The Film II

Nathan Olsen — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 04:57:22 +0000

I thought I’d post an update about the film: a crazy, impossible project that I just can’t seem to give up on.

I wrapped up another scene last night which brings me to, oh, say, NOT NEARLY ENOUGH FINISHED SCENES. As I wrote previously, I really didn’t understand what I was getting myself into with this project. But, now that I’ve invested so much time, I am determined to finish the film.

In the past few weeks, I’ve had some pretty big breakthroughs. In order to deal with some rigging issues, I invested more time in just learning Blender 3D and really got a handle on some of the more powerful ways of using the program. And that means I can work faster. And working faster means that I can finish scenes faster. And finishing scenes faster means that this film might just get completed before I die.

Sigh.

I am proud to report that the scenes that I have finished look pretty amazing. I’m really happy with the way the project is coming together. I’m also really happy that the last few scenes have only taken two to three days to complete. Which, of course, is still too slow.

Anyway, here are a couple of backgrounds from the film. I think they give the film a really unusual look and give the piece a lot of character.

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Post tags: animation, art, film, Illustration

The Film

Nathan Olsen — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 03:34:04 +0000

While the wife lays sick and asleep in the other room, I thought I might dust off this old notebook and pass along an update. The film I mentioned in passing last time around has been slowly taking shape. It’s to be an animated short with an expected completion date of late summer.

The number of hats that I’m expected to wear on this project is insane. I’m the writer, director, storyboard artist, concept artist, modeler, rigger, animator, compositor and editor. It’s an incredibly daunting situation. Just about the only task I’m not taking on myself is the music and sound, which my good friend Tony Ringor has graciously agreed to supply.

Back in January when I started this process, I decided to try to my hand at 3D animation. I had used Google Sketchup to create some reference environments for some illustrations last year and, for some reason, that made me think that I might be able to learn 3D animation in a couple of weeks. Looking back, I can’t believe how naive I was — what save me was my work ethic. I download Blender 3D and immersed myself in the program. Learning to model went fast, I had my protagonist done within the first two weeks. Rigging proved more difficult. By the time I got to materials, lighting, shape keys, premultiplied alpha channels, constraints, vertex groups, actions, IPO curves — I was drowning. I was hitting one problem after another and the learning curve was intense. I almost walked away from the whole thing – it’s only been in the past several weeks that I’ve finally started to see my labors bear fruit.

Here’s a sneak peek:

I was just notified yesterday that I will be receiving a generous stipend from California State University, Long Beach to complete my film. I’m extremely grateful for the support I’ve received from the school and my instructor, Aubry Mintz. Without Aubry’s guidance, this project would have withered on the vine.