A little back story of what inspired this film (Long post is long)

I have wanted to be an artist ever since I watched my first cartoon.
My mom even told me that when I was around 1, I knew how to work the video tape player to watch my favorite cartoons.
My favorite subject was always, of course.. art. That being said, in elementary, I was pratically shit in all other subjects LMAO
Although I was extremely quiet and not exactly the funnest person to talk to, my drawings could always spark up some conversations with others.

That was what made me keep drawing.

But of course there is a reality. Everything I made when I was younger looked like shit of course. I would see my art very oftenly thrown away in the trash can, even though I made all that effort to make it and give it to the people I care for. That has always been very painful for me to see. Something I made being deemed as trash.

Even when we had those class presentations of "what you want to be when you grow up," I would obviously answer, "artist."

The response from my teacher: "Don't they have very minimal income?"

It has always been like that since I could remember. To others, being an artist is not a pratical job.
Everyone else, what ever they say... fireman, police, singer, etc. The teacher would be like "that is a great goal."

But being an artist. To them, it is only a hobby.

I still wanted to be one though, even though I didn't know what kind.
It was my dream.

But with all the other school subjects, was being an artist really encouraged? I understand it was necessary to truly realize what you want to do, but... even things like being a "leader" in high school. What was the requirement? The BEST grades. A's, tops.
It has always been Academics. Academics. Academics.

I wasn't that bad in academics and I had high enough grades to go into SFU or UBC business. But it wasn't exactly outstanding.... All the students around me was incredibly competitive in academics. I am a competitve person... especially I feel "challenged," so being the idiot I am, it bothered me when people were doing better than me and literally shoving their grades in my face.

That said, my wish to become an artist died a bit at that time. All my time was occupied by academic homeworks. But I was not happy at all and I was too stupid to realize why.

In high school I was also in a kind of relationship, or puppy love in you will. When I was going into grade 12, I talked to my boyfriend about how I wanted to try applying for Emily Carr and go into arts. Like everyone else, he said arts was just a hobby and I should consider doing something more "pratical."

Being the girly shit I was, I started kind of sobbing like a useless bee, and he was literally like "You are crying.. AGAIN? -roll eyes-"

He said this other guy that was better than me couldnt even get it, so I would not stand a chance.

Even one of the person I cared most for thought it was unreasonable, So I highly considered going into business. In fact, I was prepared to apply for it.

For what my family thought about going into arts.. My dad kind of wanted me to reconsider, but are still respectful to my decisions. My mom and sister said go ahead. And I believe my brother also thought it will get me no where.

A great thing happened to me BEFORE I had to apply though, my boyfriend at that time finally dumped me.
And it was at that time that I was like "what have I been doing?" I didn't even had the balls to do what I really love and was lingering between the shit thoughts of others. I forgot what I wanted to do.

Funny thing is in the most important year, grade 12... I started not giving much shit for academics. I still took everything but I wouldnt bawl over a bad mark. I think that year was the year that I finally developed a personality.

And I say that because after the break up, I was finally like "No. This is what I want to do. And I will PROVE that I will get somewhere doing something I love."
Rather than doing a job I hate and only doing it just cause I need money to live, I will be doing something I love and earn money having fun.

Just because others cant do it, they think you can't do it too and try to pull you down with them. People should do what they love before they realize it is too late to turn back.

I ended up pursuing my dream and I did not regret it even for a second.

Young Richard test

A test of young Richard's lines and colours. My screen is quite bright so I have no idea what this looks like on other computers LMAO.. Hopefully it is fine..

I want his lines to be slightly messy to keep him more lively looking. Though it looks way more clean when I shrinked it LMAO. Grown up Richard will have the cleanest lines and Lay will have the messiest. I have no idea how that is gonna go cause I'm really anal about my lines XD I'll try to stop myself from cleaning too much.. ;w;"

Sometimes...

We just have to go with what we think is best for our story.
Everyone has a different way of telling stories, so people will end up giving mixed suggestions.
There will NEVER be a perfect story and not everyone will like it.

For example, I love Wall-e, yet my sister thought it was boring as frig and fell asleep.

I am thankful for the many suggestions people have given me and I have definitely take them into consideration. Yesturday I had my third critique. Everything was fine except the ending. They want Lay back, even though in the second critique they thought it was not necessary. If something isn't working, then it isn't working. I will try to find a good way to bring Lay back in the end without making it look like it is his ending =). Hopefully this will make my story that much stronger.

The critique that troubled me was style. My teacher mentioned that it was not working for her and asked the class what they thought. Another person put her hand up so that is like.. 2 people out of the whole class. As grateful as I am for the critiques, this is one that I must think for myself and go with it. Why?

Well
1. It is almost November. The film needs to be ready in a couple of months.
2. I have started animating
3. I, myself, feel this is a better style to animate in and enjoy doing so.
4. It only bothered 2 (including my teacher) out of the class. I asked others personally and they thought it was fine.

They were talking about my style looking anime and manga... which I have been trying to avoid.. but I guess  I am failing. If it looks that way to others, then I guess it is. What other people see is sometimes more accurate than what you see yourself. I guess it is the eyes.
My cousin did tell me about how some critiques may get out of hand, and start to make you hesitate when doing the film. I have to say this is one of them.
First of all, I showed my styles to the class in the first critique and this style was more preferred (cause my other normal style would take too long to animate.) Second, when I showed my leica the second time in my current style, no one had a problem with the style. That time, I have not started animating so it would be fine if I wanted to make a style change. What bothered me about this particular critique is not about them not liking my style, it is about the time they gave me this critique. By this time, I cannot be thinking about changing my style. This is when I have to step in as the director and be like... I am doing this.

I am doing this because I am telling this story and this is how I want people to watch my film.

As rude as that may sound.. I apologize, but I have to go for it.
This film will have its flaws, but I am only human, I can only try my best... and hopefully, I will be able to make some people smile.

So what's up now?

I showed my story to my friends Betty and Melanie yesturday and it seems like it makes sense now. I just need to change some minor storyboard frames and then I'm ready to go!! Looks like I will be able to do this after all =D~ Here are some of the sketches I did about 6 months ago (the prev designs) and some that are done about a month ago. I also added the problems I encountered and why my story did not work.

Test frame

Sooo.. Yesturday we had the grad film pitch night and I currently have 3 paint bucketing helpers and a sound designer I'm still contacting to see how that will work out XD. I'm still searching for more people willing to help me paintbucket my animated frames (when I get em done XD), sound designers (only if the person I am contacting doesn't work out ;w;) and a MUSIC COMPOSER (NEED THAT.) Anyone who helps make my film possible will of course have their names added in the film's credits. And for the people helping me paintbucket, I will definitely be helping them on their grad films when the time comes XD (that is a given *w*) This will go great on a resumeeee~~~~ -nudge nudge-
This is just a test frame I made for the pitch... I did it RIGHT BEFORE the pitch (fails.) In this frame,  Richard's boss sees Richard's pleasant little sketch of him on the company's contract form for the customers.
Meaning... he's in shit LMAO. I will be updating my sketches soon XDD (I keep saying that... OTL)

Happy Birthday Taiwan!!!

I was going to work on my storyboard again after my friend's birthday... but my other friend suggested that I should change my facebook profile picture, so I was like.. you know what? I WILL. It's Richard in Hetalia Taiwan's clothes hahaha XDD~

Happy Birthday Taiwan!!

Anyways.. For anyone that is curious why my second storyboard failed, here is a link to my old anamatic:

http://www.ecuad.ca/~jchen/movies/jenny_rough_anamatic.mov

it isVERY bad and LONG as shit. There are a lot of unnecessary details and shitty scenes. That being said.. I changed almost all of the scenes from that one. I will post my sketches sometime soon.

Currently...

I am working on my THIRD storyboard, cause the last two was not good enough and did not satisfy me.
Thankfully I have a class where everyone can watch my animatic and give me very helpful critiques ;w;".
I have to admit that I was upset that the second storyboard did not turn out as good as I thought... but in a way I am glad it went through the ripping apart that it needed, cause now I can try to make it even better. I am only upset in the way that I did not do a good job, not upset of the critiques that my classmates and professor was nice enough to give me (Thank you guys so much for the help!)

They said that my second storyboard was a great improvement from the first one... but it is not there yet. It is too long, too flat (the camera angles), and there were a lot of unnecessary things. Technically, I just need to edit, take out, and switch some parts around in the second storyboard... Hopefully I will make it better. I only have a couple of months to do this and I really need to start animating ASAP.
I want to get my storyboard done and solid by NOVEMBER. I need 1 minute of animation by November 30th so I really need to start animating. By that time, I'll just have to go for it. If possible, I will edit while I am animating but I'm not sure how the stress will help me on that...

I will update a few pictures on the next blog LMAO.. cause I haven't really updated much.. so next blog, I will show all the characters I have eliminated, the style I decided to not do for this particular film, and the current characters that will be in my film.