WACka-Motion
Cohoe's NEWS
& BLOG
& BLOG
NEWS
| Fri. June 22, 2007 Blog established. News and Blog, and Cohoe's Page for updates and clips have been set up. Once i figure out HOW to set up some sort of interactive feedback forum thingie for this YAHOO site we'll really be in business. At this point setting up this web page is harder than the animation stuff. Hopefully I'll get the hang of it before it becomes a distraction. If anyone has other suggestions for a forum that would be easy to maintain please let me know. I am hoping to do some initial sound/dialog tests this weekend as well as shoot some digital stills and tape of Stanley to start the process of animating our live actor and seeing how dialog matches the animation styles.. At this time there's only like 7-8 people who can access this page. So I'm pretty dependant on you to let me know what's working and what aint, as well as what's hard to use/see, etc... So please help me get this thing organized and working smoothly. Feedback feedback feedback! This going to be a great film with your help. 7:50pm For those of you who accessed this website during the day I apologize. Who would have thought an html error and 80 megs plus of video on a page would lock up every single person who tried to access the page to the point they'd have to reboot? Problem fixed. And again sorry. Am now working on linking files to pictures so you can pick which files to run, and make access/choice easier. For now they're Download/play links under the files description. 10:25pm Pictures now accompany the dloads so you can see what you're downloading. Hopefully there will be some new files to see every few days. I won't post everything as other work would grind to a halt. But I will try to keep people up with a good sampling they can enjoy and access. Sat. June 23, 2007 What can I say? I'm a filmmaker/animator not a web-tech. The clips on the Cohoe's Page continue to be a problem. It's nothing we won't work out in the next day or two while the computers are rendering other stuff. I believe several of the clips simply have their descriptions/titles wrong. Every letter/every CAP has to be right for th links to work. The video files themselves still obviously need to be made smaller as sometimes they work and other times I think they're timing out. What we need is to find a web wizard so I can concentrate on solving the animation problems and the creative stuff. Some stuff works consistently, some sometimes, some just doesn't but will shortly. I'm not going to let these technical issues stop the actual work on the film. I'll get to them as soon as I can. Hoping to do first sound tests with actors Sunday. Mon. June 25th, 2007 All the down loadable versions of viewable samples/files etc are now version 9 WMV files and are small enough for anyone with a reasonable speed Internet connection to download. The actors i wanted to work with Sunday were unavailable so no voice recording occurred. The static BLOG (this text) is working fine, but the interactive Blog program is still offline while I tweak it and learn a little more about how to use it. Within a few days "guinea pigs" will be selected from among you to help me shake the bugs out. Volunteers? Additional pages "Meet the Actors" and " Meet the Characters" have been added but are still limited in their functionality. Have a look and give me feedback. I think they are pretty easy to use and understand as they are, but then again I designed them so they would be to me. Wed. June 27th, 2007 The official blog is working. There's nothing there yet but the page is available off the "NEWS" page. Please hold off using it till we have something there to respond to... Have again tentatively scheduled some of the dialog tests and voice work for this weekend. Plan to record some of Margaret's dialog and at least the first scene or two of the narrative. Stanley is not yet scheduled as he is still building the sets and studio. Actually we're still in the demolition/ cleaning up a work area phase. Started working on some more new extended Stanley street scenes of the fish stand street. Thurs. June 28th, 2007 A decision has been made to go absolutely full disclosure and allow everyone who visits the site to have input into and see practically everything. Of course my decisions remain the final word, BUT we have decided that this will be the very first absolutely completely open interactive as it happens see every step film ever made. The only things closed to our web based participants will be the actual shoots which it wouldn't be practical to allow the public into if we want to get anything done. We're releasing stuff from every shoot, every brainstorming session, as much of the test footage, photo's, actual clips , bio, fund raising, etc... that is practical to the point it doesn't interfere with production. We'll even shoot pictures and tape of us working! You see it all. We thought this would be unique and being part of it, every step of the way create interest and maybe even a sense of film family, and in the end generate enough interest to get you to either buy it or go see it at the film festivals. Several people have told me this sort of full disclosure will give so much away that nobody is going to be left to see it, since they've already pretty much seen it all. Well, I guess we'll have to see who's right. Me or practically everyone else and conventional wisdom (IE the way it's always been done). So what won't you see? What you won't see is the ending, and pretty much only that. Of course, you'll only see it in pieces... but what other film goes even half that far? You'll see th mistakes, the success's, the profession moments and those amateur first time making a 30 minute animated film moments as embarrassing as they are. WHy? Full disclosure, and more importantly maybe our blunders recorded and exposed for posterity will help some future film maker in avoiding the pitfalls we fell into, the walls we went face first into , and other neophyte humiliations, screw ups, and monumental blunders we made in making this film. Yes, we're taking one for all of you!!! Fri. June 29th, 2007 Most of what is here will be going to the blog page shortly. This will be the NEWS and EVENTS page now the blog is almost where we want it to be. Hopefully with most of the technical stuff on the web page dealt with we can concentrate more on the actual business of actually making the film. Construction of the web page will take several weeks more before it's completely interactive and everything is... disclosed...lol. Sun. July 10. 2007 Not a great deal to report in terms of MAJOR developments this week. Work continues on different developmental aspects of the film including some new areas of this website. Tues. July 03, 2007 Meet the Cast pages are now available but still under development. We expect to have some early cast readings of the script available shortly. How the "LIVE" Stanley will appear in the film is being tested and some of those screen tests will also be (we expect) available in the near future. Script revisions (ON FRIDAY THE 13TH?) Recent changes have led to the announcement that Kevin Muise has been added to our cast to play "Henry" (the greasy fry guy), a newly and very funny expanded part. Tues. July 17, 2007 Possible composer /music news and (definitely) new production stills. Some Sound Bytes are now available. Thur. July 19, 2007 A very rudimentary Video/animation archive is now available for viewing. Tons more behind the scenes and in progress clips coming... just not today! Sat. July 28th,2007 We've got Margaret "in the can" and are beginning to work on syncing her dialog to the animated story boards and rough test animations. Sudden terrible realization: After adding "Henry" as a speaking character, and looking at the music (way too much, way too good, and looking at the little short scenes we had to add because they made the story better/ fuller/more complete, and a hell of a lot of cutting (only to put it all back because it belonged in), it became painfully apparent that COHOE's isn't a short at all but a FREAKIN FEATURE if we're t do it ANY justice. The fact that Chuk Cooley's music unintentionally added a new character and dimension to the Stanley /Margaret relationship dynamic made it impossible to proceed with the Cohoe's short. What was to be a short finished in another month and a half is now my life's work.... Thanks Chuk... Thanks a lot! (no really thanks ;) So thanks Chuk, and GUGU and Toxic Waste , LADD EHLINGER (the guy that suggested a new character in the first place. I WILL GET YOU! I know where you live!), and anyone I missed who suggested anything that put me in this position, to make a great film instead of a decent film festival short... in a word- THANX. Wed. August 15,2007 We've solved the live to animated background problem and can now start laying live action and animated characters onto test 'sets" real and virtual. This had been a major hurdle to moving forward. A new Margaret clip using this "background" is expected to be posted to the website shortly. Thur. August 23,2007 First look at rough SQUID/tentacle clips now on animation/ test animation pages of this site. This includes the very 1st "Calamari Hell" scene stuff, and "tentacle TV". Sat. August 25,2007 Pending the SAG paperwork going through Ok , we have our GUY for the pivotally important narrator role. More once we have made it all official. Tues. August 28,2007 Got the SAG paperwork to use a "real" union actor. In the words of the greatest philosopher of the 20th century: "Good grief!!!" Going to have the guy at the SAG office walk me through it ONE LINE AT A TIME. Mainly as a result of the way the films been made (up to this point) I'm not sure what actually applies to us and what doesn't. In 20/20 hindsight I'll do a lot of things differently next time to avoid painting myself into the proverbial (and in several cases... literal) corners...lol. So much for sign it and send it back. (It was a nice delusion while it lasted). Welcome to the REAL world of film Mr. Collette. Wed. August 29, 2007 Stanley. CHUK, and some errant tentacles get together for the very first time ever in this very early test footage shot with a hand held cheap camcorder. More details of this event will appear in the BLOG. Video available on site. Sat. Sept. 01, 2007 Several of our characters from "COHOES" are now hanging out at MySpace. The MySpace film site is also now open for perusal (thats looking at). Check it out at: www.myspace/sleepingwiththecohoes.html COHOE'S friends include all the new characters who are ready to interact with the public and answer whatever questions you might have about COHOES, or just chat of you like! |
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