For an animated short making the festival rounds, filmmaking team Andy and Carolyn London didn't seek out the most cutting-edge workflow, or the most efficient one. Instead, they ended up shooting Hi-8 video, loading it into Adobe Flash, and then painstakingly tracing each frame on a Wacom tablet in stark, graphic-novel-influenced strokes. The process was nothing if not tedious — but it got the job done, and the Londons now have an animated short with enough detail in the image to survive a 35mm film-out. The total cost was $7100: $2,000 for production, including a laptop computer; $1,500 for music rights (one song by the Pixies and one song by the Violent Femmes); and $3,600 for a 35mm film-out.
Andy London has a background as animator and fine artist; Carolyn London is a writer and director. In 1999, they founded London Squared Productions, where they create live-action and animated films, music videos and commercials. The story of "A Letter to Colleen" is loosely autobiographical — the narration is drawn from a 25- or 30-page letter Andy wrote to a friend from his high school days describing the sexually charged events of his 18th birthday. "I had been haunted by that night for years," he says. The Londons hammered out a distinctive visual look for the film that matched the tone of the prose and the music in their heads. "We always spend a lot of time making the medium match the message," says Carolyn. "We threw away four or five different styles before we hit upon this one." The result is both funny and disturbing — a downbeat look at a formative sexual encounter seen through the abstracting prism of memory. "A Letter to Colleen" premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival and is slated to screen at the Foyle International Film Festival, the Stuttgart International Animation Festival in Germany, and the Victoria Independent Film Festival in Australia.
The first video below is a one-minute excerpt from the film. The second shows the same clip intercut with samples of the original Hi-8 footage the Londons shot in their New York apartment. The audio track has been edited, with permission, to remove explicit language.
Posted by Janet Ziff on Thursday, November 15, 2007 @ 02:08 PM
2.
Ha! they needed interns???
although it looks like a nice end result, there are a few programs that would take the pain and time out of hand drawing each frame-- flix pro (convert video to vectors for flash import) and MSU Cartoonizer (free russian plugin for virtual dub, google it!). flix pro does the vectors, and you choose the level of color, and MSU cartoonizer does the outlines, where you choose the level of thickness of the lines (not bad for a free plugin!). because you can do this for a few hundred bucks (if you choose to buy flix) or free if you just want lines(like in this film), its makes this film, and this story, kind of underwhelming.
give anybody the Hi-8 edit, let them tweak some settings, and get near the same result, for free, in a few hours.
now if this magazine was about the story in the film, fine. cool story. but this is a mag about technique right? how is this unique? if these guys did a google search for "video to vector" and "cartoonizer", both those programs, and a few dozen others would have shown up!
Posted by j4 on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 @ 04:07 PM
3.
Sure you can even use software to convert to vectors, but it's not a organic as rotoscoping. Sometimes the look can be very mechanical, which is fine if thats what they want. Other times people want something a bit less perfect, handmade feel.
Posted by Rick on Thursday, November 29, 2007 @ 11:46 AM
4.
Exactly! what Rick said.
Posted by Carolyn and Andy on Friday, November 30, 2007 @ 12:00 AM
5.
Hi, looks great... I have a technical question for you: How did you export from flash to a final cut pro friendly format. I am making a short animated in flash but need to fit into a fcp sequence. The final destination is PAL DVD. I have tried exporting as said format but it appears 'glitchy'when imported to fcp. Please help, i am going mad scouring the net for a solution but as of yet only finding information stating to do what i have already done!!
Thanks and keep up the good work, even if it cost all you have... it is worth it!
Vince
Posted by Vine on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 @ 02:19 PM
6.
Hi Vince,
Sorry I missed your comment. I didn’t realize the article was still up. It’s probably too late, but here’s what I did.
I exported the flash files as a high resolution PNG sequence (1440 x 1080). From there, I brought each PNG sequence into After Effects, NOT FCP. Then, I exported the edited sequences as an uncompressed quicktime clip (1440 x 1080). After that I used Compressor to make various files types and sizes – mpeg-2, h264, HD, NTSC-DV, etc.
I used Final Cut Pro more for rough editing.
Hope this helps.
Andy London
PS Thanks for the compliment!
Posted by Andy on Friday, February 22, 2008 @ 05:41 PM
7.
well, the choice of whether to do by hand, or do automatically, that is a creative decision, sure. but for what they did, there is a free plugin that does the exact same thing, for free. and i mean exact, with warbly lines, uneven brushstrokes and all.
Posted by j4 on Wednesday, April 2, 2008 @ 10:02 PM
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