Plodding along and new deadline's set.

So I’ve had a decently productive weekend. I managed to do some big edits to the script, including one of the scenes (a dialogue one) that I wasn’t very happy with. I’ve been watching a lot of odd and unconventional movies lately I want to try and take inspiration from those and make the script as a whole more ambiguous and open to interpretation, or just maybe not hammer the plot points so hard, let there be more of a subtle experience to it all. So the current draft I was working on is now done and I just want to look at the script from some other perspectives and see how I can really make what I want, something that I could still be proud of in 20+ years. This next draft will be the one where I’ll be going over with a fine tooth comb and  asking myself what I want and don’t want, what is my goal and intention for the story and getting there. I’ve set a deadline for May 8th for that draft. Once that draft is complete I’m going to move forward with both showing the script around to a select few and creating the animatic as I wrote earlier.

This weekend I’ve also been keeping up with more 3D tutorials and putting into practice some of the things I’ve learned, mainly modelling and concepts to do with modelling, getting comfortable with starting with a primitive shape such as a cube and turning it in to a set piece, or anything imaginable. There’s this tool called Zbrush which is a modelling application that I’ve seen a lot of lately, it allows for really easily creating characters, props and so on that can be imported into your 3D program of choice. I saw this cool mini tutorial which shows how you can set up different facial expressions inside of Zbrush and then link them to sliders inside of Cinema 4D. Now as a workflow of creating expressions and phonemes. It really looks achievable with a little bit of upfront effort and basic learning of Zbrush. I think I’m getting to the stage where I put the lessons into practice and create from scratch a simple 3D character that can do basic things such as walk and talk and render out a short 30 second test clip. I think I need that exploration and practice as a jumping off point. Things can be made gradually and in an ‘as they’re needed’ situation, when a scene calls for a prop or an ancillary characters (not that there’s too many of each) they can be made when needed and a lot of animation can be produced beforehand with what is already at hand. It’s cool to learn about cheating too, for instance, I’m not gonna waste time modelling  an entire object if I only ever see the said object from one angle, this can really cut down a lot of wasted time and detail on something that is never seen by someone other than myself.