The Key Trailer

“The Key” is a seven minute animated film about the residents of a Town who awake to find the key missing to the Town gate. Only this key is happy to be lost and keen to show some things should not be found.

Here our trailer online for “The key” which  can be found at at out new link for the full website http://www.thekey.mewlab.com

“The Key” was made possible by our wonderful crew and colleagues who we would like to thank!

Final Stills for the Film

(click to view larger images)

Review in Watford Arts Forum by Grelle White

On the 4th april we had a “work in progress” Private View of the film at the Pump House in Watford, organised by Watford Live. The evening was a asuccess and we were delighted to see the Private View featured on the Watford Arts Forum, with an article by Grelle White.

http://www.watfordareaartsforum.com

Post stamp for the film

The game of creating small details for an imaginary world.

Almost ready for Festivals…

We are going to polish the film, finish the grading, correct the last few mistakes and update the website with Press Kit, Stills and all the necessary “equipment” for the film to be sent off  to festival…

We have a long list of festivals, tons of application form to fill, lots of postcards to create, tons of DVD copies to make send off… the journey begins.

Short films usually have a two to three year life around the festival circuit, the first year its all about the world premiere, and  each countries premiere

After that the film will be available to be viewed online and to be selected for the smaller film festivals.

It usually end up with the film travelling around the world and leaving us wishing we had the funds to follow it around

Private View for production team and crew only

On the 4th april we had a “work in progress” Private View of the film at the Pump House in Watford, organised by Watford Live. Our guest list comprised those who worked both in front and behind the camera, in post-production, and some of the dozens of people who coloured in over 5700 frames to make the film possible.  We were also joined by those who helped to fund, and gave us workshop space.

We take the chance again to thanks everyone that came and supported us through the production: the participants, the volunteers, the crew ,the funders, the Major of Watford Dorothy Thornhill, the actors, friends and family. We have loved every single moment of the production and we are glad we have met and involved hundreds  & hundreds of people .

We involved almost 500 people from age 2 to 90 in the making of the film.: locals have been acting, drawing, animating, dancing, and also colouring in a staggering 5700 frames for the animation! And to top it up we had 2707 views  to date on the site, and an extra 560 readers are actually following this blog.   

The project was part of Watford Live!, with the aim of encouraging people in the town to participate in an activity which they might not have experienced before.   There are  plans to have a workshop and a screening in 2014/2015 when the film comes off the festival circuit.

The evening was a delightful success and we are looking forward to finish off the film and  send it to festivals around the world and to find out where the film will have its own world premiere.

Daniel loading the DVD

On stage, the Mayor, the actors, Watford Live and Shaun

Sound Design & Mixing

Wonderful session with our Sound Designer, David Pringle and the composer Alex Harwood for the final mix for sound and music

Alex Harwood and Shaun Clark Listening to David Pringle Sound a moment of concentration discerning levels and details

Listening to blurred sound

Designing the sound with console, mouse, logic and monitors ( David Pringle)

David Pringle, Sound Designer editing the sound and music for the film

Sound Recording

On the 26 february we had a wonderful session recording all voices for the film. We spent all day with David Pringle, Our sound Designer. The voice artists joined us at his studio to record their part in the film. Paul Mundell was casted as the main narrator, while Ellie Mitra played the part of the Mum and the Dancer and finally Dylan Cousins did the voices for James. Here below few picture of the day.

David, the Sound Designer

David, Ellie and Paul before starting the Recording Session

Paul preparing for the recording session

Ellie recording the voices for the Dancer

Ellie talking to the directors

Dylan recording the voices for James

David talking to Dylan

Editing

Recently we passed the day with Benji Gerstein in the editing room to define the shape of our film. We talked about the story, what it means, what we want to tell and how to reach the audience. There are no better visual storyteller than Editors!
Here are some photographs from the editing day. Do not be fooled, all the pictures are really related to the film!

Location: The Shop Studios

Benji Gerstein, the editor, and one of the directors at the editing console

One of the Director writing notes

The faithful Assistant Editor. Raul.

The light in the editing room.

Subtleties

While compositing the animation we are already looking at the Grading of the picture. Starting from the original picture we are testing texture, shades and grain to combine  the different elements together. (Click the pictures to see it full screen)

Original

Grading 1

Grading 2

Grading 3

Miniature Milestones

On the 19 January the last frames was coloured in by Alan Bannister, while today we are delighted to announce that we have water-coloured  and captured the last shot. Proceding with the next step: to complete the compositing!

The Process

Every single shot has been first acted, then filmed, printed out, coloured in, water coloured,  and re-filmed under the animation camera. Then for each shot we draw, coloured, painted and scanned the background . Finally the different elements were imported in  the computer and we composited  the animation with the background and we start to animate the fog.

It roughly means we create about 25/90 frames (1-3 sec) a day from scratch depending on complexity. Here some gifs that show the last part of the process from the water-colour to the composited shot

The last frames coloured in! Thank you!

We would like to thanks everyone that, despite the snow, joined us at the WATFORD MUSEUM on the 19 January… we traced and coloured the last 500 frames!

Also we wish to thanks Watford Museum for their hospitality, Margaret Cheal and Alan Bannister from Watford Live, Stephen from Silencio, the GuidePost Trust, Amma Gyan and David O’Sullivan.

Leaving the Museum at 4.30…

Stephen

Amma

David

Colouring with dedication…

… concentration…

until the last frame!

Now another month of work to finish to composite the animation, then the postproduction will start : editing, creating the sound, recording the voices, composing the music and grading the picture! The last steps…

Last chance to participate! All Free!

Last chance to participate in our marvellous collective film! If you did not manage to come down to one of our drop in sessions you still have a chance to meet and join us at Watford Museum on the 19 January from 10.30 am to 4pm. It is free and we will have cakes and tea…

We involved almost 500 people: locals have been acting, drawing, animating, dancing, and also colouring in a staggering 5000 frames for the animation! And to top it up we had 1831 views on the site, and an extra 560 readers are actually following this blog.  Thank you all for your support!

Well why not join us for a lovely relaxing morning or afternoon with family, friends… the more the merrier!( With also a sneak preview of what the animation that has been created so far!)

Script Editor:Tom Hill

We are delighted we are working with Tom Hill, tidying up the Voice Over for the film.

Tom has recently graduated from the NTFS, and he was the script editor in “Head Over Heels” the short animated film  just nominated for an Oscar and it has won an Annie Award  only a couple of days ago. Congratulation Tom!

Well we held lovely conversation with skype about the little town, its inhabitants, James journey and lots more … and the voice over is shaping up nicely.

A wee bit of Movement

We are painting and filming all the frames to be composited together with the backgrounds, here some GIFs showing part of the process

I particularly love this second shot: on the right hand corner you can see “flickering by” all the names of all the people that coloured in the different pictures . In this GIF 10 different people coloured few frames each

A Winter Room of One’s Own

The days are short and to shoot an animation more often than not you need a dark room to maintain a constant level of brightness. Well, it can feel a little bit like “Groundhog Day” so a beautiful list help feeling a sense of achievement:

So far we did:

• 4000 frames coloured in
• 127 A3 Painted Props
• 66 A3 Painted backgrounds

And now we are about to watercolour and film 5500 frames… But we do still need to colour the last 1000 frames and composite the 66 shots together with the animation It will all takes two more solid wintery months. And after the animation we will do the edit, sound, music, and master it all for cinema viewing.

Here a small sample painting the character of 25 frames, this is only a second of animation.

We paint  and film each single picture.

But at least we have already done:

• 10 meetings
• 3 events with 350 people (+ one extra event on the way)
• 1 casting day
• 3 Days Rehearsal
• 2 Days Shooting
• 1 week editing
• 1 week scriptwriting
• 1 week research with 4 mood boards
• 1 week for 2 animated tests
• 1 week to create the whole storyboard
• 2 days to print the 5500 frames
• 3 days to photographs object for reference for the paintings
• and about 2 to 3 weeks administration to organise it all
• and lot of thinking and solid “dreaming”!

Well we are workaholics!

66 Backgrounds and 127 Props

Ticked, ticked, ticked! On the wall our lovely schedule tell us we have just finished painting the 66 backgrounds needed for the film!

We have not added yet the fog and the picture are not graded (hence the colour are not the final ones), but one can start to feel the town becoming real… we cannot wait to fill it up with the wonderful characters everyone has been drawing and colouring in…

Here below a collage of few backgrounds and an example

And our unglamorous but efficient schedule on the wall

Shaping a world

We are creating all the backgrounds for the film. We started with a fictitious map of the town and a long list of things we need. The maps are just rough sketches to gives us an idea.

We are painting the objects and items we need… These are the first ones. With more background tests.

Keep Calm and Carry on Drawing

We are inching our way towards the final frames, few hundreds to go…!

Then we will film each frame adding the watercolour.

After  we will create all the backgrounds, and  finally we will combined them all together.

MOODBOARD

We are working on a moodboard to find the perfect style for the backgrounds. So we just explore  a lot of books, illustration, and filmmaker we love.
There are images from  Andrei Tarkovsky, Yuriy Norshteyn, Edward Gorey, Michelangelo Antonioni and many more wonderful contemporary artists…