That's a Wrap!

Last weekend I had my shoot for David and the Lion. I won't be showing off the footage much, because it doesn't look anything like what the final shots in the movie will look like. All things considered, the shoot went well. This was certainly the most critical part of the process. Unfortunately, I can't spend the money to take my time and perfect every shot, which would save me countless hours in animating. But the actors were great and I (hopefully) got everything I need. Gabriel's nephew came from Detroit to play the part of Jacob. He had a great attitude and both of them were easy to work with.

Below is just a brief segment that I edited. Each shot will undergo transformations far beyond just inserting a new background behind the actors. When I use this footage as a reference to draw and animate the characters, the lighting will change, their positions (blocking) may change, and even body movements will be altered.

The awesome costumes were made by my very talented Mother-in-Law (Thanks, Dawn!). Also, thanks to Nic and Emil for holding the boom mic.

Meet Gabriel Notarangelo, aka David

I recently held auditions in Chicago for the part of David and David's 8 year-old nephew, Jacob. Park Community Church was gracious enough to let me use their rooms free of charge. Weeks before, I posted the casting call on various websites, and hundreds responded to the ad with their headshot and resume. Out of those, I invited perhaps 70 actors to audition. Out of those, 20 actors were available and came to the audition. Out of those, one actor stood out as the perfect David.

His name is Gabriel Notarangelo and you can see a segment of his audition below. We had some really good auditions (and some bad ones), but for me, the choice was pretty clear. Gabe had the look, the acting ability, and the intensity to really make myself forget I was watching an audition, and just lose myself in the scene.

David, as he scolds men of the Israeli army for their lack of faith... (Thanks to Dan for helping with auditions)

Rough Cut of "David and the Lion"

Movie directors don't usually do this (that I know of), but I thought it would be helpful to do a "practice" shoot and rough edit of the entire David and the Lion scene. This way, I could see if the movie in my head actually works on screen before I go hire actors and do it for real. Below is a 30-second clip taken from the middle of the scene.

I shot everything in my backyard over the course of several weeks. Whoever was in the house at the time became my actors. Even my dogs pitched in, playing both the sheep and the lion. David's character switches actors at least 9 times. A pregnant woman plays an 8-year old boy. The music is bits and pieces of blockbuster movies scores. What you are about to see will utterly confuse you...

Progress!!

David could have become king of Israel and conquered the Moabites, the Edomites, and the Ammonites in the amount of time I've been in preproduction. But I'm pretty pumped now because I set aside the tutorials and research for a moment and actually made something.

This first video will be the opening shot of the film (without the character animation yet). This shot was important in that it will set the look of the scene. I used a couple dozen stock photos, and mixed several animation techniques, including 3D animation (the field took about 15 hours for the computer to render) to get it to where I'm satisfied.

This next one's a rough character animation test. It's made from some footage I shot of my wife Josie running in the back yard. It's only a few seconds long, but it tells me what I need to know. This technique hasn't been used before as far as I know, and as you can see, it's pretty trippy, which I like. But you might notice there are a lot of bugs in the motion, which I'm sure I'll spend way too long trying to fix. Basically I paint the character in photoshop, anywhere from 3 to 10 poses a second, using the footage as a reference. Then I use a morphing effect to transition from frame to frame. This means I avoid drawing 15 or more frames a second to get smooth motion. It also means that I will need to shoot the entire scene with live actors first, which I had always planned on anyway, to use as a reference for characters and motion.

750 Photos for 211 Dollars!

For the last 30 days, I have been downloading 25 high-resolution, royalty-free photos each day using my Shutterstock.com subscription. So now I own the rights to every photo of Israel's countryside in Shutterstock's 5.5 million photo library. What do I plan on doing with these photos? Thanks for asking. They will be the building blocks of the backgrounds for David and the Lion's 158-plus shots. Elements of each photo will be cut out, color corrected, and composited in 3D space to build surreal backgrounds with depth.

Storyboards for "David and the Lion" - Wait... What?

Storyboarding helps directors visualize a scene. They generally look something like these samples I did on commission a few months back. When doing the boards for David and Goliath, it became more and more apparent how big a project this was. It was stressful to think that I would be working on this movie for the next 15 years (not joking). Then it hit me... the first scene is a movie in itself. It took me about 12 seconds to make up my mind... I would focus all my attention on only the first scene, where David fights the lion. Then when that's done, people will see that I'm awesome and they'll line up to give me millions of dollars to make the rest. ...I think that's how that works.

Script Finished!

Five long months after inspiration struck to make a movie, I've finished what is for me, the most miserable part of the process - writing. At 27 pages, which generally means about 27 minutes, the script is much longer than the 10 to 15 minute short film I originally wanted. But that's the story that came out, and I'm not gonna mess with it. I figure God knows what he's doing with this. Thanks to those of you who took time to read it and give their input.

Read a 2-page excerpt.

3D Not Gonna Cut It...

My original plan was to animate this film in 3d. There was only one problem... I knew nothing about 3D animation. Well, no problem... I plunged myself into hundreds of online tutorials for the free, but powerful, 3D modeling and animation software known as Blender, an open-source application. For three months, I did nothing else. And after three months, what did I learn? ...I hate 3D. I don't have near the computer power to do this in 3D. And 3D is not the look I want for this film.

So not only did the whole 3D animation process kinda make me sick, but it would be technically impossible, and I came to realize that 3D is not original. I wanted original. And as is the predicament with any 3D animated film, you're going to be compared to Pixar, and that's never good.

So that's it. 3D is out. I'm experimenting with other alternatives and will keep the site updated....

My first and last attempt at 3D:

3 months of my life gone, but it was totally worth it... I now have

this awe-inspiring sword that I used in the title!! (above)