Sunday, June 07, 2009

I'm So Tired





Here it is:
My first flash video:
"I'm so Tired" by the Beatles.
I wanted to do a Beatles song and picked this one because:
  1. As far as I can tell, this one hasn't been animated before.
  2. I like how the mood vacillates between lethargy and freaked out meltdowns.
  3. It's only two minutes long.
I learned a lot about both Flash and animation as I put this together (mostly what not to next time!)

Special thanks to Sally Cruikshank for helping me out!

12 comments:

Linda Davick said...

Namo, we have been waiting for this moment for so long. This is incredible! Your morphing is GREAT--toaster, drink in the beginning, the teapot & flowers, carrot? heart-walls.

That clock in the beginning is wild, too!

I love the phone scene when he's wondering whether to call--I love how the phone moves, and I love when he shakes off the sweat when he's thinking about calling her.

Oh yeah, and that dragonfly that flies in & out of the "tired" paintings in the gallery!

And all the creatures his mind turns into at the end... Oh, Namo, you are my hero.

Did you storyboard the whole thing out first? The end is such a pleasant surprise...that pixelating...did the ending occur to you in the beginning, or as you worked on it? Love how the tv with his girlfriend looks in the end.

It sounds really good, too--how did you get the music to sound so nice on a .swf?

When you say you learned mostly what not to do (ha!) next time, what would you do differently?

I am just sitting here grinning from ear to ear.

Namowal (Jennifer Bourne) said...

You're too kind, Linda.

I started with a crude storyboard in flash and slowly filled things in. The toaster gag was there, but other stuff "evolved" over time.

I really wasn't sure how to end this- the weird mumbling at the end is anticlimactic and doesn't make any sense* and I wasn't sure I could top all the morphing shtick. So I made it cruder instead of fancier, to the point where it looked like an Atari 2600 video game.

I got the soundtrack off a CD and turned it into an mp3 for Flash.

What would I do differently next time?

-better naming and folder conventions
-Less lip syncing (actually it's not that hard, but I ran into trouble when I fiddled with the timing)
-More looping animation (the dancing flower and the dragonfly are examples)
-More hand drawn frames(instead of body parts made of symbols). My hand drawing looks cruder, but it's more lifelike and less mechanical.
-Various "things I learned the hard way" about tweens, timing, masks, motion guides etc..
-Better character design. Never, never again will I design a character without eyebrows!

Thanks again for your praise. I'm flattered!

*The "Paul is Dead" crowd used to play the mumbling part backwards and interpret it as "Paul is dead man, miss him, miss him."

stray said...

This is fantastic. I am in awe. It must have taken forever!

Namowal (Jennifer Bourne) said...

Thanks, Stray!
It did take me a longer than I thought it would. I started it in February with hopes I'd get it done in a few weeks...

Sally said...

WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWO!!!

EXQUISITE!!

CHANGES ALL SIGNIFIGANT TOO- WONDERFUL!

Kind of shocking to check your blog just now and see it. The use of tweens is so masterly, the animation so charming!

Namowal (Jennifer Bourne) said...

Thanks, Sally!
Getting some of those shape tweens to work was a fight (Different layers and inbetween frames helped.)
Some of the shape shifting hardly used tweening at all- the giraffe-flower-dragonfly-saturn morph was mostly drawn frame by frame (okay, every other frame).

me again said...

Namo, when you finish a project like this, how do you feel? Are you elated or or you depressed or are you relieved? (Or are you just so tired!!)

Namowal (Jennifer Bourne) said...

Hi Me Again,
Being "done" with this was a gradual thing, since I had to fight with getting the start button to work, finding a swf converter, getting it on You-Tube etc..
I was glad to get it done, thinking Yay! I can fool around on the internet now!
Of course, now I want to make another one...

GhostBuild said...

Congratulations! It came out so wonderful!

And I love that ending... retro pixel FTW!

Namowal (Jennifer Bourne) said...

Thanks for visiting, Ghost! Glad you liked it.

BillGoat said...

I just think this is awesome! It's really trippy and scary at times - so well done and very entertaining!! Keep up the great work!!!

Namowal (Jennifer Bourne) said...

Thanks, Bill!
I'm so glad you liked it.

I am working on a new one...!