Hold up! We're still here!

Hey guys! Wow! It's been one hell of a week (two weeks?) and I'm sorry we haven't updated the blog lately. Anyway, let me give you the down and dirty on whats been going on with David the Hammerfist of Fury:

May 7th we premiered the film at LMU's Mayer Theater during the Animation department's screening. It was a packed audience and there were a bunch of great films shown. DH:HoF was the last film on the bill and the audience ate it up! It was a resounding success that ended with the Dean of our school complimenting JJ on our hard work. But the best part is that She also offered to help us revise our sound design

*Short story*

In the last few hours of production JJ and I were throwing everything together like crazy and then we realized that we had not finalized sound. We quickly taught ourselves Soundtrack Pro and threw together a "final" mix for the screening.

*End Short story*

The mix $&%#ing sucked. Levels were off, you couldn't hear our wonderful score by the great Ric Zimmerman and....well if there was a weak point to the film, the audio mixing was it.

Well now that has all changed! We got introduced to Corey E. and now she is helping with the mixing of the film. And from what we've heard so far, things are sounding 1000 times better than they were. at the end of the month we are going into the studio to mix the whole thing into 5.1 surround and after that, this film will be done.

Don't worry though! We will still be updating this blog. We're going to have a trailer up soon and then who knows what. The sky is the limit, and you guys could very soon be seeing some good old fashioned David Hammerfist comic strips popping up here. Anyway, hope this clears up our reasons for the long silence.

Talk to you guys soon!

-Matthew

The Week Before Break

Hello all! Long time no see! And I do apologize for that. JJ and I have been working our asses off lately trying to get sequences done. We're still on schedule, but GEEZ! we have a ways to go.

In order to get this project all done we have enlisted the help from a couple of our friends in the grades below (Don't worry, they came willingly to the project) and some of these guys are amazing. One of our longest shots (a full twelve seconds) was animated by our friend Brenden and it looks fabulous! The character model is rough though so it makes my job a bit hard. At the same time, the primary animation within the scene needs to be cleaned up well to do it justice. The scene is 174 individual full bodied frames of David running (among other things) and will be a pain in my side for the next week or so as I slowly chip away at it.

Speaking of next week, Loyola Marymount has Spring Break starting this Friday! I will be in San Francisco until Tuesday at a journalism/cartooning thing and then I will return to LA and throw my nose to the grindstone. JJ and I will be going all out. Hopefully a lot will get done.

Anyway, next week we'll have a fun media update (aren't they all fun?) that doesn't have much to do with HoF, but will have to do with the Hammerfist characters. Until then, here's Dave doing what he does....action poses!

Messing around in Digital pro.

So we here at Hammerfist Productions are using Digital Pro for animating Hammerfists of Fury. It's a pretty intricate program, so there is a lot to discover. Now, while this render isn't really close to what the final product will look like, I decided I might as well just put it up for you guys to see. color designs are probably the only things that won't change much from this picture but no promises on that either.
We're testing out a bunch of different ways to output this short. We could go completely traditional and just color in Digital Pro, or we could rough it out on good could paper and do clean lines and color on the computer. We are also trying to figure out a color style (I think I'm making up technical terms now) for the short at this point. Animation officially underway so clean up will be coming soon enough.
For those curious, JJ will be doing the primary animation with a little help from me here and there, while I mess with the clean up and coloring/compositing on the technical end. While I may end up regretting putting this picture up because it's so primitive, I think I'll do it anyway so that you guys can see the progress as the film gets closer and closer to finishing.

16 weeks left! Whoa! That's not that much!!!


Oh and for those curious, the little blonde guy in the picture is Steve: The indecisive tile customer. His design isn't going to change at all.