I was recently in Chicago to see family, but while I was there I managed to sneak in a couple of PI related events. First, a private screening at the Flashpoint Academy along with a very fun Q&A with some of the students…
…and also an interview with John Montgomery for an upcoming episode of FXGuideTV. After that we headed up to Wrigley field for a Cubs vs. White Sox game along with Mark Dascoli. Oh, and the seats weren’t bad either.
Well, my first festival is officially over and it was fantastic! Pigeon: Impossible was selected for the “Best of the Fest” showcase and I was just able to make it to the last screening before leaving town.
I’ll admit it was pretty terrifying to watch it with a crowd full of strangers and I have a couple of little things to do better the next time around, but overall it played really well and I’ll do another post soon about those little things I noticed.
However, since its still fresh in my mind, I wanted to jot down some helpful tips for festival-going…
Don’t burn yourself out. At just about any given festival there’s more than enough movies, parties and panels to keep you busy so try to give yourself some down time whether its reading, sightseeing, or just hanging out at the pool. If you take it easy at the beginning, then you won’t be burned out after the first few days like a lot of us were.
Find out what the transportation is like at the festival. For US festivals, I’d recommend renting a car unless you’re in New York, downtown Chicago, or San Francisco. They had a great shuttle service between the hotels, theaters and parties, but I did get a bit stir crazy because I didn’t have much freedom to do things outside of those festival activities.
Its awesome to have a backpack with postcards and DVDs, but you need to be sure you can leave them someplace before heading out to the parties. The first party I had no way to drop stuff off at the hotel beforehand so i was “that guy” with the awkward backpack. However, one thing that worked really well, is that my business cards also have the logo/title and website for the film. So, print some of those up and kill 2 birds with one stone so you’ve still got something small to give people when you don’t have postcards.
And the last thing is to be prepared and know what you want. For instance, I had a couple meetings with distributors and we had very productive conversations because I already had a breakdown of the release timeline, and I knew what rights I could sell or needed to hold onto. I’ll post the dates and an in-depth discussion of those soon.
Just got the word that PI has been accepted into 3 more festivals! I’ll definitely be attending the screening in LA on July 25th so be sure to come out and say hi!
Well we had the world premiere of Pigeon: Impossible yesterday at the Palm Springs Shorts Fest. Everything went great! It was incredibly nerve racking to watch the film with an audience but all the feedback I’ve heard has been great. Of course, very few people have the gall to critique a film in front of the filmmaker so who knows what people are really saying.
The really interesting thing was seeing how the audience reacted. Particularly with comedies where the laughs are such a litmus test of what the audience is thinking, it was weird to see a lot of laughs where I never expected them, and a few moments that fell a bit flat that I wish I had tweaked the delivery. Of course, I’m particularly harsh on my own stuff so hopefully the average viewer doesn’t notice these things, but its good to jot down some notes for things to watch out for next time around. The big one I’ve been rattling around in my head is anything that jerks the audience out of the story. There’s only one big one I noticed in PI, and the second I saw it with an audience I smacked my forehead, but live and learn. Its actually a really useful thing to pay attention to because the next film I have in mind has an intentionally jarring moment and I really need to figure out a way to pull it off as smoothly as possible without tugging too hard on the audience. Anyways, more news soon!
We just got the film print back from the lab and my good friend Brandon Thomas and I went to check it out with the guys from DVFilm who did the output. First off, the print looked great. Very crisp and the color was amazingly accurate. That was my biggest concern in doing a film output that the gamma shifts and colorspace conversions would really muck with the color, but if anything, it looked better because it helped to hide some of the CG “crispiness” of the image and warmed it up a bit.
Honestly I had already seen some slide tests so by the time we got to the screening, I was actually more concerned about the optical audio track. There was a slight issue with the projection settings the first time around, but the second time it played back beautifully. It blows my mind that an optical audio track can sound that good. I worked with analog tape a lot back in college so I’m not afraid of the good ole fashioned ways, but just the idea of storing that information optically kind of boggles my mind. I wouldn’t think that there’s enough fidelity to pull off the frequencies you need for audio reproduction but like I said, the whole thing looks and sounds great so I’d definitely recommend DVFilm if you’re thinking of doing a film out.
Honestly the only thing that has bummed me out a little bit about the film print is that we got into SICAF in Seoul and I wanted to send them a print, but it was almost $110 for the slowest FedEx service, and there’s no way I’m sending it uninsured through standard mail. Ultimately I had to settle for a DBeta which I did ship through the USPS and I think it was like $7. Hopefully it won’t be so crazy to ship to Europe but I haven’t heard back from any of those festivals yet.
BTW, as much as I love the film print, I’ve got to give a major happy-filmmaker thumbs up to the festivals like SIGGRAPH and the KLIK! festival in Amsterdam who just want you to send them an HD quicktime. After all, this is the 21st century.
One of the questions I get asked a lot is “what I thought of the pigeons in Bolt?” In case you haven’t seen Bolt or need a refresher, here’s a promo scene and my podcast for your convenience:
So the short answer is that I thought the Bolt pigeons were great! Very different from mine, but a perfect example of how you can have two completely different animation styles that accomplish very different objectives.
Now first off, if you watch both clips, you see that the Bolt animators also had the same basic rules that I used. Short, choppy head moves with really fast blinks and twitches. But once they had those rules, they went the opposite way. They exaggerated all of those quirks. Fast moves became even faster, head tilts go way further, even the character design takes the essential “pigeon” qualities and exaggerates them. The result is the holy grail of animation: pigeons that are even more “pigeon-ey” than their real life counterparts.
But… That would never work for Pigeon: Impossible. And here’s why…
First off, the Bolt pigeons talk. If you look at the clip with the sound off, you can’t really tell whats going on. Its hilarious, but all of the erratic pigeon motions also have the effect of making it less clear visually.
Second, the Bolt pigeons don’t have a ton of acting range. They don’t need it for those scenes. However our pigeon has to go from cute, to quizzical, to excited, to vengeful, and several other pretty drastic emotions, while at the same time conveying WHY he’s acting that way. Its very hard for a wacky/crazy character to carry a heavy acting burden in a scene. Not that they can’t, but they have to tone it down for those more subtle emotions to come across.
Third, as I mentioned in the podcast, our pigeon had to look moderately intelligent. He’s basically operating heavy machinery, so if he comes across as dumb then it would push the suspension of disbelief to the breaking point.
So anyways, I think this is a great example of why we make certain decisions and how drastically the style of the animation can have on a character. And for all their differences, these examples are pretty similar. Imagine the differences between the Bolt pigeons and the Good Feathers from Animaniacs or the anthropomorphized pigeons in Valiant, but those are more “apples to oranges” comparisons.
Podcast #016: Animating The Pigeon is online and covers how to develop a “motion language” for a character that helps to create a consistent and unique personality.
Its official, “Pigeon: Impossible” will have its world premiere at the Palm Springs Shorts Fest on Thursday June 25th! I’ll be attending the entire festival so hopefully I’ll see you some of you there. I’ve never been to Palm Springs before but several people have said that its one of the best festivals for short filmmakers. Can’t wait!
Thursday, June 25 - 4:30 pm - Camelot Theatres
as part of the PET PEEVES program
One of my big goals with PI was to get into SIGGRAPH. Well, as you may have seen in podcast #15, we’ll be screening this year in New Orleans! I’ve already made travel arrangements and will be there for the whole conference. If you’ve never been, this is actually a really good year to go because they’ve cut the rates and the hotels are pretty cheap, especially if you book early.
Last year was my first time so I’m no authority, but here’s a couple of tips:
1) Book early to get the closest hotel you can.
2) They will run shuttles to the conference center, but not to parties. You’re probably better off taking a taxi rather than renting a car. (We’re carpooling from Austin, but the car will probably stay in the garage at the hotel. Still pretty expensive.)
3) Ask around about parties as soon as you get there. Some of them require you to stop by a booth and sign up for admission.
4) I’m a big fan of the full conference pass. Last year the panels and talks were my favorite part, but obviously its not for everyone and can get expensive.
