Mormon Secrets- FINALLY finished!!

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CSCorbridge
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Location: Rochester, NY

Mormon Secrets- FINALLY finished!!

Post by CSCorbridge »

Several months back I posted a minute-or-so long teaser for a project I had been working on, at the time entitled "What Mormons Don't Tell." The project is FINALLY completed after about 10 months working on it. The project represents the culmination of pretty much all the animating skills I have been able to develop over the past 3 years or so playing around with AS. So take a look. Comments welcome, including critiques for me to take forward for future projects. (and make sure to change the youtube settings to 480p or it looks really pixelated and crappy!)



Thanks for watching!
-Casey
Daners
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Re: Mormon Secrets- FINALLY finished!!

Post by Daners »

Nice work. *sigh* mormonns.....shakes head
Danimal
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Re: Mormon Secrets- FINALLY finished!!

Post by Danimal »

There's a lot good happening here. I like the basic character designs and the characters genuinely speak as if they believe in what they're saying. Given the limited nature of the environment, is was great that you used different degrees of closeups. I laughed a few times, not the least of which was then the Star Wars crawl began.

Now the bad, and believe me this is kind of nitpicky stuff here. The woman's voice sounded like it was recorded in a completely different room, and possibly over the telephone. She had an odd sound that didn't match the two guys. The back shot of the guy with lighter hair showed some of his head shape just at the top through the part in his hair. I thought it was great when the tall guy hit the short guy accidentally, but didn't like that the short guy mentioned it. Rubbing his head would have been enough. And finally, the woman was pretty grating as she fell into the cliché TV trap of just repeating back everything they said so they could continue. That really was the biggest flaw, the other stuff was pretty trivial.

I watched all the way to the end and enjoyed it, like I said those problems are pretty minor.
~Danimal
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heyvern
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Re: Mormon Secrets- FINALLY finished!!

Post by heyvern »

Nice job! I agree with the previous critique. I think though that the issue with the woman has more to do with "acting" skills. She was reading her lines... but there wasn't a convincing emotion behind it.

A few other things that stuck out to me:

Because there wasn't a lot of "action" (characters standing in one place) the use of body and arm movement to add some action was an effective solution (I have had to do this myself in the past). However because of that the shoulder joints really stuck out. This occurs when they raise their arms above their heads. Every time this happened my eye was immediately drawn to the "broken" stroke in the shoulder area where the arm is connected to the shoulder/body.

The other thing that stuck out and drew my attention were the eye blinks. When the characters blinked, their eyes "disappeared" because the lids are the same color as the face. A subtle stroke shape or a slightly slightly darker fill color for the lids would help.

Another small issue is that this concept was already done to near perfection by South Park. Anyone watching your animation who has seen that episode would immediately make a comparison. This doesn't mean your idea is "bad" but it means you would may need to make it stand out either in quality of animation or the story.

-----------------------------------------

p.s. I actually worked for years at a company owned by a Mormon. He was an awesome guy, had no issues with his religion (I was raised as a Mennonite which quite frankly... does the same thing as Mormons but focuses on 3rd world country mission work rather than going door to door here at home).

I felt bad though about the no caffeine or alcohol. The other employees were all addicted to coffee. I drank it constantly during the day. Company parties he would never drink... so... we had to watch our own behavior if we got too tipsy. He treated everyone great and his religion never had any effect on the employees. ;)

Because of the "no debt" aspect of the Mormon religion, when the economy started to go down hill, he was forced to lay everyone off. Maybe he could have kept things going and gotten through if he would have secured a small business loan but avoiding that kind of debt is still a good idea regardless of your religion. He was adamant about it. He did give us 3 months notice so we had some time to make plans.

I wish I had taken video of my last day in the offices. I was the last person to leave. I was no longer a "full time" employee but he needed someone to finish projects and kept me on as an outside contractor. In the morning of the last day, I still had a desk, a computer, a phone, a lamp and a chair...

... by the end of the day I was sprawled out on the floor working on projects in a very dark office. Almost everything had been sold and carted away as I worked. I "stuck around" working from home to finish existing projects and and the two of us kept things going for a couple of years. I did get two really good computers as "compensation". Used those for years on freelance work.

I actually enjoy talking with the Mormons who visit my house every once in a while. They are always extremely friendly and I have had some amazing discussions about religion. I always make it clear my complete and utter lack of faith so there is no confusion about any potential conversions.

I don't follow any religion. Left the Mennonite church in my teens because I was just lying to everyone, pretending to believe. I just can't buy into some of the hard to believe magical stuff. But since my father was a Mennonite minister, I think I still have some skin in the game. I'm more of an agnostic than an atheist. I told my dad in the months before he died to make sure he saved me a place, put in a good word for me, just in case I was wrong. I wanted to cover my bases. ;)

October 16th is Steve Jobs Day. That was the same day as my father's funeral. They both passed within a few days of each other. I told my dad before he died that he may bump into Steve waiting in line to "get in". ;)
CSCorbridge
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Re: Mormon Secrets- FINALLY finished!!

Post by CSCorbridge »

Yeah, the audio was a bummer, I was hoping it wouldn't be overly noticeable but I couldn't edit it enough to make it better. And yes, they were separate recordings. Both missionaries were my own voice acting at my house using a condenser mic. The chick's voice was just a coworker of mine recorded in a back office using my ipod's voice recorder. Best I could improvise with - ultimately disappointing. Oh well. I see what you're saying about the eye blinks, definitely something I will address in future animations. The biggest surprise to me was the interest in this thing. Its only been up 2 days and already has over five-thousand views! Go figure.
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3deeguy
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Re: Mormon Secrets- FINALLY finished!!

Post by 3deeguy »

As of 10/11/14, 11,239 views. Excellent.
Cheers, Larry
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