A Blue Day and Ahead Of The Game - two short animations

BigJKO

Hi,

Big-time lurker here. But I've recently finished my latest project, two short animations and wanted to share it with everyone. The music is composed by my awesome friend Helgi, from Iceland.

EDIT:


On YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6ZeVCyManY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6O2BaNjsl4

or.. my own mirror:
http://www.jonkk.dk/film/anim/aheadOfTheGame.mov
http://www.jonkk.dk/film/anim/aBlueDay.mov

Hope you all enjoy this..

P.S. reading the rules I'm thinking maybe I should embed the YouTube videos into the post. Would that be preferable?

Tweaked_Bat_

Not sure if you can embed YouTube videos, but maybe some screenshots?

If it's good stuff I think you may be able to get away with it

EDIT: I'll just post what I posted in the comments section:

Haha, cool.

Nice work. Short but sweet. The music goes well with it.

EDIT2: The second one is great. The ending part where he gets a new friend makes it excellent. Once again, the music was great.


How long does it take you to make one of these, and what's your process? Look forward to seeing more.

Angel_of_Bacon

!!!

freek

Good concepts! I wish we had more animators around here.

EvilKidStevey

Wow those are quality man...props to your icelandic friend for the music too, it was perfect for your style.

NeoRedXIII

Very excellent!

bread of wonder

Well, I definitely laughed

Forbe!

Your blue monster looks like 'Blue' from that Imaginary Friends show.

Good shorts though.

couch-potato

The fly's death was sadder than when ol' yeller had to be put down. A damn fine job.

RedPearl

Angel_of_Bacon wrote: »

!!!

Agreed.

BigJKO

Thanks for the responses everyone!

@Forbe!
Yes, I agree. Strangely, I didn't make the association until after finishing the short. But then again, 'Blu' doesn't have legs. Hope my character differs enough from 'Blu', but on the other hand it's only cool that it reminds people of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends as that's a pretty awesome show.

@Tweaked_Bat_
The process is still being.. tweaked. Both are made in Flash.

Ahead of the Game was animated "on-the-run" so to speak. Never really stopped to think where this was going until at the very end when you have to tie it all together. That's what's so wonderful about working directly in Flash, with a tablet. It started with me just drawing him walking into the view, then I suddenly wanted him to take off his head and pull something out. In the end, when everything has become more concrete I make the background and things like the intro with him driving. It's a real fun way of doing this. No commitment to any story. Just pure animation.

For A Blue Day I used a bit more time building a story, and unlike AOTG I had the scenes roughly "choreographed" in my head. But I still managed to remain completely unconventional, and unprofessional, by not even drawing a storyboard. It wasn't until at the very last that I drew up a storyboard to make cutting it easier. Even had to cut out a scene, something I never thought I'd do with these kinds of free-time projects. I used Blender, a free 3D/sequencing program to do the editing and those particle effects used twice in the film (and man, do I need to practice making those because they were pretty basic..)

I started Ahead Of The Game sometime in December and A Blue Day in February (IIRC..) It definately got easier making A Blue Day, because of what I'd learned doing the first. I'm pretty sure that if I'd have done these shorts full-time they could've been done in two-three weeks. But yeah, in my free time it took about five-six months.

Hope that was at least a bit interesting to read. :P

Aaron Lee

Great stuff. Blue Day got chuckles out of me, and that's not common.

I look forward to seeing more. And any input on your animation process are and would be welcome. I'm sure there are other artists here like me who have wanted to fiddle with flash animation.

DeeLock

You sir, have made me very happy inside.

Forbe!

Not really criticizing you for thievery, its more along the lines of facial expressions in your character that reminded me of Blu.

Godfather

This thread got me as happy as a STUDIOBLINKTWICE thread.

JCM

Great showing by new talents like this, is what keeps me coming back to this forum.

Well done.

Spidermangks

Good stuff! That was a nice laugh before a long day at work. A Blue Day, that thing just put a smile on my face. Well done!

BigJKO

Oh, man. I'm so stoked!

Wanted to, again, say thanks for all the wonderful comments. You keep me inspired to make more of these, and I fully intend to follow up on these with more, hopefully, great animations.

And I wanted to let you guys know that A Blue Day is being featured on YouTube's Film & Animation category right now. It got the short a serious boost in views and a couple of new comments.

I've got a story idea cooking with more of the blue monster thing. Hope I can have something to show before too long.

Macarello

Man, these are freakin great. Wonderful music, top-notch animation, and some excellent humour and ideas. I only hope I'll be able to do this stuff one day...