Intro
Welcome! So this is part 2 of my look back at the first year of Frame of Mind. If you haven’t read part 1, you can do so HERE. Otherwise, this blog will focus on the future. More specifically it will focus on year 2 content such as goals, updates and a couple of other things. Let’s get started!
Lay of the Land
First off to give more context, year 2 content includes shorts and videos that have premiered on my Instagram in 2019. I know in the last blog I kind of merged everything into year one, but now that I had some time to look back, I think this will make talking about the content a lot easier (before, due to how messy the production was, it was easier for me to classify everything produced up to June of this year as year 1 content). With that said, year 2 content includes the shorts:
The Weird Way I Sleep (January 13, 2019)
Bathroom Horror Show 1 (February 10, 2019)
God’s Plan (March 17, 2019)
People Sound Live Video Games (April 18, 2019)
My Little Shadow Part 1 (May 16, 2019)
My Little Shadow Part 2 (May 23, 2019)
Mini Cruiser Faceplant (June 23, 2019)
Plus these shorts that have not premiered yet:
Subway Rant
Kyle Vs. Pixar
Toxic Anger
Blind Beggar
To add additional context, the shorts starting from “My Little Shadow” to “Blind Beggar” were produced in spring of this year. Everything else was produced from November of last year to February of this year. I’m overall happier with this content than what I showed last year. I learned a ton of things between year 1 and year 2, and I think you can see the growth I’ve made. That said, I think there is a big gap between production quality of the early year 2 content and what I will premiere this fall.
When I started making these shorts, I had planned a creative arc in my mind. As I was able to store and re-use assets for quicker production, I would use the time saved to elevate the production in other ways: shifting styles, playing with film techniques, cleaning up and finessing the pre-made assets and so on. With the content coming for the rest of this year, I really feel like you will be able to see this creative evolution take place. It’s small and subtle at first, but this is the groundwork that will let me get really creative in the future.
I’m a lot happier with the final 4 shorts coming up this year, than I am with all of the shorts I’ve made so far. I think they outclass the older stuff in pretty much every way. I feel like I’m getting closer to my dream of producing high level animated content in a tiny fraction of the time it would used to take me. It’s exciting times for me, and I can’t wait for you all to see these shorts.
Behind the Curtain
While this won’t be as in-depth as the post-mortem in the first blog, I just want to take some time to talk about the updates made to increase the level of quality. Listed out, here are the main updates:
Change from cut-out rigs to deformer rigs acrosss all puppets
Pre-made scene compositions for setting up cuts
Addition of particle animation
Library of past assets
New tools in Toonboom Harmony allowing even easier re-use of animation
Addition of iPad Pro to production equipment
These 6 production improvements really elevated my process. In fact, the production these the last 4 shorts vs. the rest is like night and day. I’ll take some time to talk about why these updates were so paradigm shifting for my production capabilities.
Change from cut-out rigs to deformer rigs acrosss all puppets
This update was massive. It also took forever to implement but it was worth it. Here’s a short primer. Cutout rigs separate characters into multiple layers, and use rotation and position tools to animate the pivot point of a layer. It’s very speedy, and has the bonus effect of being IK compatible in Toonboom Harmony, but the problem is that cutout rigs can be very finicky. You work with a lot of layers, and if the anchor point (the point in which all animation of a layer is based around) is off, you are going to have a bad time tweaking and fine tuning animation. All in all, cut out animation is very speedy, but can be unpredictable (especially when using IK in Toonboom). Deformer animation can be mixed with cut out animation, but gives you a lot more control and speed. You can use less layers to get better results (and it has the bonus of being able to be interpolated via Toonboom’s master controller). Deformer animation is a lot more predictable and flexible. You can stretch and distort your assets without having to create new ones and a lot more.
To top it off, my puppets now have all forms of animation Toonboom allows: IK, cutout, bone deformer, curve deformer. So I was able to use the strengths of all styles of animation to produce the shorts even quicker!
Pre-made scene compositions for setting up cuts
This is probably the low-key winner of updates here. It takes a long time to setup animated scenes in Toonboom. You have to drag the puppets (which are big files and takes a while), move them across the time line, tweak them, and about 5 or 6 other things before the scene is ready to animate. After spending a lot of time setting up scenes I thought it’d be easier to just pre-make scenes with the characters so I can cut out the first 5 steps or so. This was a HUGE boost for me. Way more than I anticipated and sped up production by an insane amount. It was so beneficial, I decided to go even more in-depth with these assets that now include secondary characters, pairs, and so on.
Addition of particle animation
This is another small update that makes a big difference. In order to make the shorts feel more alive, I needed to find a way to fill the empty space in the scenes. Particle generation is the perfect way to do it. It doesn’t work for every shot, but when it’s used it really elevates the mood and fills the screen in a way that wasn’t possible before. There will be a lot more elaborate and complex usage of particle generation in future shorts, and I’m excited to update my custom particle library.
Asset Library, Toonboom Harmony 16 and iPad Pro
These last 3 updates are being compiled because they work in unison. The short of it is that past animations allowed me to build off of previous work, while Harmony 16 allowed me to produce animation quicker because of new tools (onion skin animation tool says hi) and the iPad allowed me to take about 60% of my production on the go. Here’s why these are important.
As explained before, the asset library allows me to focus on elevating other aspects of production which will gradually allow the quality of the shorts to increase over time. Since I’m not remaking basic things like walk cycles or blinks, or other things of that nature, I can plop those in when necessary and either tweak them to fit a specific scene, or use that extra time to better animate something else (and hopefully have that asset be re-useable). The asset library is the ground of production for Frame of Mind, and the more time that passes the more I have to work with.
Toonboom Harmony 16 was a great update. It introduced textured brushes, better animation tools and better stability. The best feature for my particular situation is the onion skin animation tool. There’s a scene in one of the future shorts where I animate a very long walk cycle across a pan that includes walking down stairs. This scene was going to be a nightmare and there were a lot of moving parts to it, but the onion skin animation tool came in at the perfect time. I only needed to create two walk cycles and I could paste those key frames across the timeline and make the proper adjustments so that the walk would work. It really came in at the perfect time.
The last update, the iPad Pro is probably one of the most impactful updates. Basically, I was able to move screen writing, asset production, story boarding, creating animatics, and other things to this one piece of equipment. Now, as someone who works full-time, this is a lifesaver. I can create assets on the train, during downtime at work, or at the park or cafe. It opened up a more modern and healthy workflow. Now i’m not isolated to my room for 40 hours a week producing shorts in the dark. The iPad Pro took over about 60% of my production capability to mobile and it has had enormous consequences in my life and for that I am exceedingly grateful.
Year 2 Goals
This last section, I just want to talk a little bit about the goals I have for year 2 content. Ultimately, I am still in a phase of growth, and I want this batch of content to continue the trend of growth that I have set, and hopefully to exceed it. Here are my 3 main goals for my year 2 content:
Higher quality of content and better ability to reach my audience
Better and more relevant secondary content that my audience enjoys
Seamless and non-burdensome production process
These goals are important to me and I think will allow me to keep my focus and vision for Frame of Mind in tact. As I’ve written before, year 2 will be able to open the door to a variety of production improvements that will elevate the baseline quality of my shorts. I want the time I save from my updates to be used to create engaging and personal content that my audience will be engaged with. This doesn’t mean pandering. All of what I make, I make because I want to, first and foremost. This is more about understanding why my audience connects with me and to deepen that connection with stories that are more personal so I can give a voice to those who need one. I want to also challenge my audience to grow as people. Video and animation have an uncanny ability to move people, and I think it’s a waste to just reserve that power to mindless entertainment. I want people to grow into their best selves, and I hope my shorts can be the fuel to inspire my audience to mature.
While the primary content will get more rich, I want secondary content to pull its weight as well. This is a lot more of a vague notion because secondary content can be anything from a spin-off series to alternative ways to engage. Ultimately it comes down to me wanting to connect with my audience in ways that aren’t specifically related to Frame of Mind. I want to create a community and I will need to use other methods to reach people. When I look at the type of secondary content I’ve made, I feel there’s a lot of improvements I can make, so it’s something I’m working hard on to incorporate. It takes a lot of experimentation, but I’m hopeful I’ll be able to build a more solid groundwork this year.
Lastly, I want the production of content to be seamless, easy and fun. Producing Frame of Mind has been it’s own kind of Hell. I have just started to get to the point where things are getting easier, and I want to continue that trend. I really think you can feel the energy that goes into making a short and I don’t want to hate that process. It stifles my creativity and it makes me lose the love and patience I have for this project. I want to have as much fun as possible making these shorts because the stories I plan to tell are rich, deep and fun. I want to focus on telling the story as best as it can be told, and not worry about my health or having a life. Every day I inch closer and closer to that reality, but there is still a far ways to go before I get to where I want to be.
Wrap-Up
In conclusion, year 2 looks to be the real start of Frame of Mind. There is a lot of groundwork laid out, and clear paths to growing. I do think I’ve gotten past the most difficult parts, and now that I have an easier time seeing the forest instead of the trees, there’s a ton of things to be excited about. By the end of this summer, I anticipate I’ll start production of Year 3 content. I’m not sure how things will go that far in the future, but I’ve began to feel the same excitement I felt when I first started animating Frame of Mind 2 years ago. I have a renewed sense of purpose and interest for this project now that the groundwork is laid out, and for the first time in a long time it feels like the sky is the limit.