The Pumpkin Moon

Screening in North Charleston, South Carolina!

2011-03-21T19:24:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, just wanted to drop you a line about an upcoming screening...

SATURDAY, APRIL 2nd, 7:00pm
via Park Circle Films
$5, at The Olde North Charleston Picture House, North Charleston, SC. Directions and info here.

Thanks to Nicholai for putting this together!

peace,
MPH

Trucking Forward

2011-02-23T15:35:00.000-08:00

So, we've had the film online for free for just over a week and a half now. We've received great feedback! Here's some of our favs:

Geekadelphia
Bad Lit
City Paper
Film Threat

We've gotten over 1,000 views on our Vimeo page, along with downloads in the hundreds from the website/torrents.

That's good, but I think we can do much better.

But I'm not sure how.

I'm not a PR guy. I know there is an audience out there for this film. But how do I find them?

Any suggestions?

peace,
MPH

...and here it is.

2011-02-13T20:57:00.000-08:00

Dearest readers -

Almost five years ago I wrote the first post on The Pumpkin Moon. Production had just started. I was embarrassingly energetic, and certainly annoying. I was about to make my first feature film.

And here we are.

And here it is:

The film is available on the website, www.theromanticmovie.com, in a variety of different formats.

We'll have the uncompressed file up by the end of the week.

Enjoy!

much love,
MPH

World Freemiere February 14th, Valentines Day!

2011-01-27T11:30:00.000-08:00

It is time.

After spending the past few months hunkered down, working on other projects and slowly tweaking The Romantic, it's finally time to release out on the internet for FREE.

So get ready.

It will be available in a variety of formats in a variety of file sizes. It's already up on Vimeo, but don't look for it - it's only available for those with the link and password. That will, of course, change on Valentines Day.

Spread the word. February 14th will be a day of romance!

peace,
MPH

Freemiere Post-pwned, First Glance breakdown, looking forward to Reading FF

2010-10-31T16:23:00.000-07:00

Hey folks -

So, major my bad time. Originally I had hoped to "freemiere" The Romantic tonight, putting it out on the internet to stream & download. Some of you might be coming here right now to watch the film, and I'm sorry to disappoint you. The film will be released for free, I promise. Here's why it is not being released for free tonight:

1.) This past month we've had an onslaught of distributor interest in the film. While this won't prevent us from releasing it for free (we won't let it), some of the distributors have offered us a chance to stream it on websites (like hulu) for free, though the viewer will have to watch a brief commercial beforehand. The contracts are non exclusive, meaning I can put it anywhere else I'd like, and I can earn some cash from add revenue.

I'm chewing over some of these offers right now, and am waiting to hear back from a few more people. The biggest thing I need to 'get over' to make this hulu-esque thing real in some shape or form is that I loathe commercials and think there is enough corporate brainwashing going on everywhere else I look. I don't really need to pervert something I made rather innocently and ideally with bad magic that, at it's most benign, is counting on you to have a slippery enough grasp on reality that you'll fork over your resources for some dumb consumer brick a brak that won't patch that weird hole inside of you and could possibly put you in debt when meanwhile, in a better kingdom, you could be redistributing your resources amongst your neighbors and friends and families and citizens of the world in order to, perhaps, even out the totally fucked up playing field that our economy has found itself dependent upon to survive.

Ahem.

Anyway, I'm weighing and measuring that decision currently.

2.) I haven't had enough time to properly get the word out for the freemiere, nor have I had time to prep the website. I really don't want to half ass this, so I decided to wait a little bit. Most of my spare time has been working on this short film:

...of Reynard & Emmeline from Michael P. Heneghan on Vimeo.

I wrote a blog about the making of it at my other film's website, which you can check out here: http://burpschristmas.blogspot.com/

It will be out by Thanksgiving. I promise!

So, two weeks ago the film was screened at the Franklin Institute as part of the First Glance Film Festival, Philadelphia. It showed before a pretty modest audience, most of whom were my gracious friends and family who came out to support me. Much love to Dan @ Geekadelphia, however, who wrote this about the film, and thanks to Film Threat, who wrote an overall positive review of the film, which you can read here.

Next weekend I'll be at The Greater Reading Film Festival . The Romantic is screening Saturday, Nov. 6th at 3pm and Tuesday, Nov. 9th at 5pm. I'll be there on Saturday. Check out their website for more info.

So that's it for now. Any questions? Email me at michael@michaelpheneghan.com

peace my friends,
MPH

Tickets on sale for 10/15/10 Screening!

2010-09-23T18:39:00.001-07:00

Hey folks! It's almost October and there's some great stuff coming in The Romantic world. Tickets have gone on sale for our screening at the Franklin Theater at the Franklin Institute on October 15th at 7:30pm.

Buy them here!

It should be a great time! We're set to screen with three other short films, so you'll get a lot of bang for your buck. If you're looking for something unique, scary and fun to do this Halloween season, this is a great pick! I'll be there, say hi if you see me.

Will update next week with more information on the World Freemiere.

peace,
MPH

First Glance

2010-08-12T16:01:00.001-07:00

Hey folks - two pieces of news.

First of all, a link to an interview I did with Galen Howard over at the Movies on the Big Screen blog.

Second of all, I'm proud to announce that The Romantic will be screening this year as part of the First Glance Film Festival: Philadelphia!

Details TBA - though I know that the film will screen between October 14-17 at the Franklin Theater at the Franklin Institute! I'm excited - October is always an appropriate month to watch The Romantic. If you're in the area, be sure to come on out!

Made some significant steps this week towards getting the film released online for you all to download (for free!). Looks like our world freemiere will be happening by Halloween!

Also, been working on the next film. Check out my process here!

that's all for now,
peace,
MPH

A Few Summer Updates..

2010-07-22T10:32:00.000-07:00

Hey folks... just a couple of updates...

Since I last wrote, we've had two screenings, one in Philadelphia at Liberty Lands Park (an outdoor screening), the other in Sacramento as part of Movies on the Big Screen (check them out, I wish we had this in Philly).

I was only able to attend the one at Liberty Lands. I rolled up kinda late (missed the first act) and hung out towards the back. The picture seemed pretty good except for a strange line across the middle of the screen. It was sometimes hard to hear the audio, probably because of the city noise that we were surrounded by. All and all a pretty cool screening - got some good feedback afterwards!

Not sure how Sacramento went, though I've received a couple comments via the internet from folks who went, voicing their enjoyment with the film. Nice! Thanks to Galen for organizing this - you the man now dawg.

Everyone I talk to wants to know when it'll be out on DVD. It's in the works, trust me. I'm still waiting on Dan to get me a final version of the timeline in final cut (no, I currently do not have an editable version of my own film unfortunately). When I finally get that squared away, I'll be able to move forward with our distro plan. From there - who knows? Keep your fingers crossed for a Halloween release.

On an exciting note, invitations to film festivals have been rolling in - really a blessing as I don't have money to send the film to festivals anymore. To everyone who has friended us on facebook, said a good word about us to a friend, or told someone in this weird industry about our film, thank you so much. This small time publicity is really priceless.

Also thanks to Patty for a lovely and encouraging eMail that I received late last month!

until next time,
MPH

It Takes a Long, Long Time

2010-06-12T09:23:00.000-07:00

So, I've let this blog be silent for a long while now. I've been avoiding updating it, mainly because, at this point, there isn't much news to report.

After 7 months of submitting to festivals (and three years prior working on the film), we finally had our world premiere at the Boston Underground Film Festival. My girlfriend Sarah and I made the five hour drive up to Boston to attend for the weekend. The film had it's first screening in the festival on Saturday, March 27th at 4:45pm at the Kendall Square Cinema before a pretty empty audience (maybe 15 folks or so). While I'm very very grateful that BUFF gave us the opportunity to show our work, I must say the lackluster turnout wasn't that good for my morale. I was, however, happy to see our MIT pal Cody in the house (thanks for showing up man), and, as always, we got great feedback from the film after the screening (thanks for the encouragement, David Finn!). Also thanks to Anna Feder for giving our flim a chance!

Since then, we've had a couple curators contact us about screening in festivals, having heard about our film either through Anna or the BUFF website, which is pretty cool.

Other than that, however, it's been rejection letter after rejection letter. I'm not sure if you're exactly supposed to announce that publicly on a blog, but I think it's important to be honest, if this blog is gonna be of any use to anyone. It's been a rough road to travel down after having invested so much of my life into this thing. We've spent the past year scraping together cash to send this thing to fests and it's pretty difficult to keep going without many bites. But keep going's what we are gonna do, even if I'd rather just drown my sorrows with whiskey and Elton John and the muppets.

We've taken a brief hiatus from sending the film to fests, at least ones we have to pay for. Not much money left in the coffers. We are, however, about to start a fund raising campaign on Indie Go Go, to try to pull together some resources to:

1.Keep sending the film out to festivals.
2. Get a professional audio of the mix mastered.
3. Get some DVDs produced.

And then, when that's done, we're going to release the film for free on the internet in HD, for folks to torrent/youtube/vimeo etc, with the option of buying the film on our site.

So that's the plan for now, I'll update this blog as more news arrives. If you're in Philadelphia, the film will have an outdoor screening here on Tuesday July 6th at Liberty Lands park, I'll post more info later next week.

Until then, check out burpschristmas.blogspot.com to keep updated with how production on my next film, Burp's Christmas is going!

much love,
MPH

World Premiere at The Boston Underground Film Festival!

2010-03-13T10:13:00.000-08:00

Hey folks, we're proud to announce that The Romantic will have two screenings as part of The Boston Underground Film Festival!

The first night will be Saturday, March 27th at 4:45pm. The second night is Tuesday, March 30th at 7:30pm

Tickets are $10, $8 with a student ID. All screenings are at The Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge, (Boston but not Boston) MA. Click here for directions.

I will be in attendance for the Saturday showing, as will a couple of the other filmmakers. More specifics on that as they come in. If you come out be sure to say hi! I'm sure I'll be up for a beer or two after.

Peace,
Heneghan

Some Quick Updates

2010-01-21T10:55:00.000-08:00

Hey folks -

Hope everyone had a nice holiday. Time is certainly flying by, we're getting close to the end of January already!

Sorry I can't update this thing more regularly. I know having a rarely updated blog is almost worse than not having a blog at all, but you must understand that this film was made entirely by dudes working on it during their spare hours - and this is still the case now!

There are a lot of things going on with the film. Here's a quick run down:

-Mike Amquist is working hard updating theromanticmovie.com. Expect some more content on the site, including our digital press kit and a revamped ABOUT section.

-I'm cutting a new trailer for the film.

-Finalizing some promotional materials - postcards/movie posters.

-Debating whether we're going to release DVDs ourselves. The release would perhaps tie in with a world "freemiere" of the film, where we will make the film available for free download, with either a creative commons license, or perhaps even a balls out copyright free deal ala Sita Sings the Blues.

-Still submitting to film festivals. Will have a more detailed post on that process soon!

Thanks for your patience and support everyone, we can't wait for everyone to see what we've made!

-Heneghan

The Waiting Game

2009-12-08T08:52:00.000-08:00

So. Here's the scoop for everyone following this film's progress.

-We've had two pre-screenings to test the film out with audiences. Both were great learning experiences. There are some sound issues that need to be taken care of.

-We're ready to premiere this film! But we're waiting. We've submitted to over 15 film festivals at this point, but we won't hear back from the first one until Christmas time.

-When we know when and where we will be screening, you will know.

-DVDs. Many people have been asking me for a DVD copy. Right now we have some DVD-r screener copies, and yes, we can give you one, but no, we probably won't, for now, at least. There are some issues with the DVD-r compression, and honestly, after waiting this long, I'd like to wait until we have something more professional out there before I start passing these things around en mass.

-Distribution - we have no idea what our distribution is going to look like. There's a chance someone bigger than us will dig the film and pick it up for DVD distribution. Or we'll do it ourselves. Maybe we'll raise money from kickstarter.com to make some really really nice DVDs that we'll sell on amazon.com etc. If we go this route, we'll probably offer a FREE digital download as well. Yes, we'd give the film away but also offer a nice package for those that want a hard copy and for those that think it's important to financially support the things you enjoy. I've been studying recent self distribution models ala Sita Sings the Blues which seem pretty effective. I'm not out to make money with The Romantic, though money wouldn't hurt. What's more valuable is the ability to raise money for my next film, Burp's Christmas.

So that's what we're working with right now. We're kinda in limbo right now, it's a feel I've had for too long at this point and I'm really looking forward to getting this film screened and getting it out on DVD. I've been spending my extra art time making visual art pieces as part of the Language & Arts team at Circle of Hope, making wooden ornaments called "Friendly Beasts", and working through things with Burp's Christmas.

If you want to help us out, become our friends on Facebook, and show all your friends our trailer! Post it on your social networking site, tweet about it, help us get the word out. We're kinda bad at it!

Thanks for your support so far, will let you know more info as it comes in...

-Michael

Philly Sneak Preview

2009-11-17T12:04:00.000-08:00

Hey folks -

I'm proud to announce that our Friday the 13th Philly Sneak Preview screening at Circle of Hope F&N was a huge success!

Before we opened our doors, the line outside went down the block, wrapping around The Rocket Cat Cafe.

After opening the doors, we reached our maximum capacity in about 10 minutes.

The screening itself went well, though the audio was a bit fuzzy at times and the venue got pretty stuffy in some places.

Afterwards, I got "on stage" briefly to introduce myself and the other folks that worked on the film. It was awesome to see some of the old crew again (some of the cast I hadn't seen since recording their dialogue, almost three years ago!). It was also neat to see members of the cast together. Each dialogue part was recorded solo during pre-production, meaning none of the voice actors were ever in the same room with each other. Instead, they only had me clumsily acting out the different parts to bounce off of.

The reception following the screening had tons of delicious food provided by Nikki Kleiberg. People hung out for a while and I got to talk to many folks about the film. Lots of great feedback, and some valuable critiques! Overall it seemed liked many people really enjoyed our little film.

Thanks again to Circle of Hope, Sarah Mueller, Daniel Pilger, Joey Mahoney, Jenna Jablonski, Josh Wentzell, Lina Moysis, Amanda Claussen and Siobhan Harper for helping out with the event!

Can't wait for the next screening!

-MPH

Philadelphia Sneak Preview!

2009-11-06T12:40:00.000-08:00

Hey folks, if you're in the Philadelphia area, come on out for a special sneak preview screening of The Romantic at Circle of Hope Frankford & Norris.

Here's the flyer:

Many of the film's cast and crew will be in attendance! Not a night to miss.

-MPH

Dan chimes in on the MIT pre-screening

2009-10-29T22:36:00.000-07:00

Nearly a year after posting the trailer of the film to Reddit.com and through a series of connections, we had a pre-screening at MIT, thanks to their lecture series committee. Though the screening was not without one or two technical hurdles, hilarity still ensued... And though I expect Mike will also chime in on our time up there, I just want to outline a few personal favorite highlights:

•MIT's campus (and the nearby areas of Cambridge and Boston) was breathtaking. In addition to the architecture and courtyards, there were rooms stocked full of gadgetry at MIT - I imagine it's what's space camp would have been like. I was careful not to touch any big red buttons for fear of creating a black hole and ending the world as we know it.

•During the screening, we could not have chosen a better spot in the auditorium to sit. The students in front of us laughed hard and gasped hard at all the right times and it felt great to experience such palpable reactions from complete strangers... especially considering they could have just as easily made harsh criticisms, not knowing the creators of the movie were seated directly behind them.

•The post-screening Q&A went very well... MIT students are some of the most brilliant minds in the world, and it showed in their questions.

•Back at our hotel, after a night of celebratory whiskey and beer, Mike clocked me in the face with an orange. The jury is still out on whether or not this was on purpose, but I still plan on getting revenge in some way.

Special shout-outs to Eric for showing us a couple good pubs in Cambridge after the screening, and to Cody for sharing his bottle of whiskey up on the roof of the MIT dorms in the wee hours of the morning.

This makes me really excited for our Philly screening in a few weeks!

Facebook!

2009-10-21T08:30:00.001-07:00

The Romantic is on Facebook. Are you on Facebook? Want to become friends?

Click here!

-Heneghan

Ottawa! And screenings.

2009-10-13T18:03:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update letting you folks know that tomorrow morning (Wednesday) I'll be driving up to Cananda for the Ottawa International Animation Festival!

If you're wandering around there and see a guy that looks like this:

please feel free to say hello! I'll have a couple copies of the film with me. Maybe you'll get one!

Also, quick notes on two upcoming screenings:

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27th
SNEAK PREVIEW at MIT featuring Q&A with Director Michael P. Heneghan
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 7:00pm. FREE. More info here.
In the 6-120 building of MITs Campus, Boston, MA

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14th
Philadelphia Pre-Screening! Come out and meet the cast & crew!
Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 7:30pm. FREE.
at the F&N Gallery, Circle of Hope Frankford & Norris, Philadelphia, PA 19125

That's it for now...

take care,
MPH

Three New Clips!

2009-09-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

Hey folks!

So summer is finally over and we're getting geared up to start our year at the festivals. Dan and I have been busying ourselves getting DVDs polished and ready for submissions (a lot of our submission due-dates begin in October/November). Lina Moysis and Mike Almquist have helped out by designing artwork for both jewel and amaray cases (some festivals are picky about what case you send your screener DVD in).

The film is 100% finished. So far we've got two pre-screenings in the works towards the end of October/beginning of November. More info as it becomes available. We're waiting to hear back from what we hope will be our "premiere" festival. Again, more info on that as it becomes available.

In the meantime, check out these three clips of the film Dan has posted on Vimeo, animated by Sean Dooley and myself with special effect work by Dan.

The Appleman recounts the creation of the pumpkin moon from Daniel Gauthier (Get-Kinetic) on Vimeo.

Fat Daddy addresses the people of Vauxhull from Daniel Gauthier (Get-Kinetic) on Vimeo.

Romance and Patience at the Lurching Turtle from Daniel Gauthier (Get-Kinetic) on Vimeo.

This October I'll be hard at work designing promotional stuff for the film. Before we hit the festivals, we need postcards, business cards, posters, and stickers to give away.

I'll also be working on Burp's Christmas - my next film! Check it out at http://burpschristmas.blogspot.com

Until next time,
MPH

Watching and Waiting

2009-07-30T09:11:00.000-07:00

No update in a while. Here's what we've been up to:

-We've submitted the film to our first film festival, hoping to premiere it there. We're still anxiously waiting to hear back!
-We're still polishing the VFX and sound design. Unfortunately, we had to submit a somewhat unfinished version of the film to the above mentioned film festival so we could hit the deadline in time. It was still a good cut, but the sound design was still pretty rough in certain places.
-Nate lives in NYC now. I'll be heading up to visit him in the next week or so to have our last day of mixing. Then the whole thing is 100% finished!

Then, after that date with Nate, we'll be sending the film off to many, many more festivals, and arranging our first Philadelphia screening!

It's pretty exciting.

Meanwhile, I've been beginning work for my next feature, Burp's Christmas. We're still working on a blog and website, which will be burpschristmas.blogspot.com and www.burpschristmas.com, respectively.

I also blog about my personal life and about other artwork I do at a blog called All the Friendly Beasts. You can check out a lengthy post I did on The Romantic here.

We have a rough mailing list for The Romantic with a few folks signed up. It started a while ago, but I still haven't mailed anything out. We will be sending out the first letter within a week or so. I also need to get in contact with all the voice actors and let them know how things are going. I haven't heard from so many of them in so long!

Also gotta design our promo materials - posters, post cards, etc.

A lot of stuff to do, will try to blog more often (hah!)

much love,
Michael P. Heneghan

Test screening

2009-05-31T14:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon, Mike, Nate, and myself screened the film in its entirety for a small audience of close friends for critique. The response was overwhelmingly positive! However, what was of equal value to the comments we received was this being the first time any of us had watched the film with music and sound effects from start to finish. It made me nervous. I don't know why - I believe we've got a great, though somewhat strange, little feature on our hands. Hopefully as we screen the romantic in festivals that feeling will evolve into pride.

Nate and I are doing the final audio mix at the end of this week and I am doing the compression to DVD over the weekend for submission to our first festival (and hopefully world premiere!)

Cheers!
-Dan

Nathan Terry Does it Again!

2009-02-20T11:29:00.000-08:00

Hello, Michael here -

I haven't been working on The Romantic that much. It's strange to be so distant from the film. Right now Dan is finish his post and Nate is working hard on the music, leaving me with not much to do until they wrap up. But I haven't been completely inactive. A couple weeks ago I finished aligning dialogue audio in Digital Performer, syncing it with the video (making it easier for Nate to mix later on). I've also been working with Mike Almquist on promotional materials (post cards, business cards, posters, etc).

Nate came by on Wednesday to play some music for me, and once again, I was totally blown away. When Nate and I first started talking about music for the film, I hurled a lot of contradictory ideas at him. I wanted it to be lo-fi (because we obviously couldn't afford to get a traditional orchestra to play our music), but at the same time it needed to be epic and sweeping (it is a mythological fantasy after all). It needed to be eerie, but also sentimental. Dark, but hopeful. Goofy, funny parts needed goofy music. Serious moments needed music that would break the audience's hearts. I gave him a schizophrenic list of references - Ennio Merricone, Phil Elverum, Vince Guaraldi, Sufjan Stevens, Tyrannosaurus Rex, The Kinks, traditional Irish music, ManMan, traditional choral music, and so on. And while I'd rattle off these diverse musicians, Nate would patiently nod. Sometimes he would get excited. And I would, too.

I went a long time (two years) without hearing any music from Nate, and to be honest, I was a little worried at what the finished product would sound like. I shouldn't have been. Every note that Nate's written so far has been so true to the imaginary music I've had in my head from the get-go. And all I've heard are tests! Somehow he managed to blend together those strange references into something that's as unique in sound as The Romantic is in vision.

Here's something Nate played for me on Wednesday. It's a small piece of music to play behind a traveling sequence, wherein Romance traverses the globe to find and fight the God of Hate. I want you to pay attention to the melody that comes in around the one minute mark... that's going to be Romance, and The Romantic's, main theme. It will be reiterated in different styles (sometimes loud, pummeling. Other times soft, whispery, magical) throughout the film. I love it. Hope you do to:

On the Path to Hate.

The next piece is far more unfinished, missing a lot of melody, but it's still fun and I wanted to share it with you. It's from a bar/dance sequence in the movie:

The Lurching Turtle.

That's it for now!

-Heneghan

Sound Check

2009-01-29T11:52:00.001-08:00

Hey folks, Michael P. Heneghan here...

Sorry for the long delay in posts. Things have been busy since the trailer dropped. Thanks to everyone that gave feedback! The main comment everyone's made is that the music fights with the movie's audio too much, but everyone seems to be digging the visuals.

We'll be releasing another trailer in the next month or so, this time with original music by Nate Terry. Speaking of which, want to listen to some un-mixed, un-finished sound clips? Of course you do. Check it out.

Right now Dan and Nate are finishing the special effects and music, respectively. I'm doing some sound work, and just finished a close to final cut of the film last week. Total running time is about 90 minutes, down from just over 100. I have room to cut some more, but I want to see how the movie is paced once music is added.

Still need to get a mailing list on the website and to finish the mailing list section.

Will try to be more consistent blogging, we'll see.

I've started working on a new feature film, which might, might, might be in production come October. It's called Burp's Christmas. I'm starting a blog for it in a couple minutes.

Anyway, that's it.

-Heneghan

So, the trailer is on youtube...

2008-11-24T11:06:00.000-08:00

YouTube's compression algorithms are sufficient for presenting compilation videos of lolcats or people falling over, but it really falls short if you're trying to show something of artistic value. The frame rate is low, there is pixelation damage & discoloration, etc. The "standard" is low. Thankfully, YouTube has recently enabled the playback of high-quality and even 720p HD video! So, I am pleased to present the embed codes for our trailer, which I say is of very high artistic value. (it makes me cringe to see this in "normal-quality" mode) Don't be tricked into using the embed codes they're trying to make you use on the YouTube page... use these:

The Romantic high-quality YouTube Trailer embed code (copy & paste)-

And here's the HI-DEF YouTube embed code (copy & paste) -

Note that you can change the viewing size by increasing the object width and height parameters. The HD version's width can be increased to 1280 and its height to 720 without much loss of quality.

And here it is, in all it's glory:

Thanks Redditors!

2008-11-23T10:52:00.000-08:00

Last night I submitted the romantic's youtube trailer to Reddit.com - My personal favorite "social news website", and my number one source for all things cool on the internet. I was pleasantly surprised when I woke up this morning only to find we made it onto the homepage! Thanks Reddit! It's only been a day and the youtube page already has about 350 views - I'm feeling very happy about that. I'm also feeling interested in people's feedback, we've gotten some good criticism via reddit so far, and I'm looking forward to more. I believe the next step in all this is to finish up the website so that there is more content on the "media" page and hopefully a newsletter so people can sign up and be kept updated.

PS - If you haven't already, go to reddit.com and upvote the trailer - a higher rating means it will be more prominent on the site and get more hits. Or check out our youtube site and rate and/or comment. Thanks!

PPS - If you'd like to display the trailer on your blog or myspace page, here's the flash embed code:

I Drank a Thimble Full of Fire

2008-11-22T07:45:00.000-08:00

It's Saturday morning and Mike Almquist pulled through the night to have the trailer ready to go this morning!!!

Some funky compression going on with the HD version, which Goat will be taking care of later, but it still does the trick. GO! WATCH.

WWW.THEROMANTICMOVIE.COM

cheers,
Heneghan

Blast! Damn!

2008-11-21T20:54:00.000-08:00

Foiled by rendering problems. Trailer drops tomorrow.

Ahhh well, such is life. See you guys for the Saturday launch.

cheers,
Heneghan

PS - Celebratory beers were great!

Almost

2008-11-21T15:43:00.000-08:00

Been working on the trailer for the past couple weeks, along with finishing up a couple small animation segments and harvesting effects for the sound design.

Before I could get cracking on the trailer's final sound mix, I needed to render out high quality voice clips (the ones I had been using were low res working files). I opened up the sound project Nate and I started a year and a half ago in Digital Performer. The project contains every single line of dialogue organized into separate tracks by character name.

I got pretty sentimental scrubbing through some of those tracks... it brought me back to two winter's ago when Nate and I began to record our voice actors in the bathroom-turned-sound-studio in his small house on Mole St. in South Philly. Nate and I were practically neighbors at the time, living less than a block away.

Now he lives in Los Angeles, far far away.

And much time has passed.

I remember the elation I felt when an actor nailed a line... and my characters, who had only previously existed in sketch and script started to become living, breathing things. I remember the hours Nate and I spent sitting on his couch with his roommate Jeff's lap top, sorting the bad takes from the good. It was hard work, but it was a great time. Though I wish Nate all the success in the world out in LA, I miss having him here, close to the film. A living, breathing character in my life.

While listening to the character tracks in Digital Performer, I was struck by how many lines had been cut from our original script during the filmmaking process. Five pages, at least. Maybe ten. Monologues slashed, bad jokes given the axe. Self indulgent sentences cut short, made economical. Made clearer. Ideas refined. Purpose honed.

The film is so very different than what it was. More grown-up. More honest.

Over the past month Goat and I have been struggling to distill the film into a two-minute trailer. A tricky job. We made a complex film. It was difficult to find a format that would showcase the various story elements at play, all of which are as important to the film as the heroes journey. So many characters, so many motivations.

But we did it. Tonight, after two and a half years of work, I'm proud to offer you the first glimpse into the strange word I've been living in for so very long. Goat is compressing the file as we speak, and soon Mike Almquist will be uploading it onto the website. In the meantime, I think a small celebration is in order. Time for pats on the back and a few rounds of drinks! Then back here, to make sure we're golden.

I'll see you folks in a few hours.

cheers,
MPH

TO BE CONTINUED...

Paupers budget

2008-11-10T15:57:00.000-08:00

Money is an obstacle filmmakers face at every level. It's like that popular phrase I once saw hanging up in the window of a tattoo shop - "good/ cheap/ fast - pick two."

I noticed on www.theromanticmovie.com's "about" section there is a blurb about how we did the film with a budget of less than $1,000. That is true on paper being the only costs outside of our computers (which we already had) and mike's cost of living, were for two pizza parties, some office supplies, and a little bit of beer. (correct me if I'm missing something, mike)

However we used a lot of our one luxury - time. So according to the good/fast/cheap rule, our film is good and has been done inexpensively, but certainly not quickly. Hypothetically, if Mike had gone the good and fast but not cheap route, I wonder what that price tag would say... I haven't been logging all my hours so I can't know exactly how much time I've spent doing post production - but I have a general idea, and if I compare it with my editing/vfx rate at Get-Kinetic (which is a very competitive rate) I'm guessing it would be over $180,000. Yikes. I guess that's not disgustingly huge for what most films are made for, but it still looks like a pretty big number to me. It's like, 180,000 really bad cheeseburgers. Thank God for the labor of love.

Parades and Riots will happen!

2008-11-07T13:44:00.000-08:00

Dan here - Wow! what an exciting week we've had. Phillies won the world series, Barack Obama makes history, and we launched our new website for the film! Although the site hasn't caused any riots or parades like those other showboats, Mike Almquist did a really great job with the design.

All along, Heneghan and I have been trying to estimate our progress by saying things like, "we're 23% done with editing", or "we're 78.5% done with vfx" but it's quite difficult for me to have perspective in terms of percentage of progress. Maybe because it's a very organic process - there can be revisions to our revisions, and things don't always go according to plan - we're only working on the film in our free time and often times we have little or no free time at all. Maybe I'm just hesitant to say how far done the film is since I don't want to over-promise and under-deliver. An obvious lesson since we were expecting to be done with the film over a year ago. All that said, I'm very happy with the film right now and things are progressing well.

Missing Michael

2008-10-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

Hey guys. Long time since my last post. Thanks to Goat for being a good steward of the blog while I remained in the shadows.

I fell off this blog for a while because I was caught up in long hours chugging through the production process of the film. I wanted to wait until that was done before I posted anything new.

So, here's some new stuff!

The film is in a good place right now. Dan Goat has been working round the clock adding FX shots to the animation and editing the film. It looks about 57% complete as of today. Meanwhile, Nate Terry is recording the score over the river in Jersey. I'm going to start doing a rough sound design next week, which I'll then pass on to Nate for touch ups and final mixing.

Our web presence is about to get a revamp from Mike Almquist. Hopefully we can relaunch around Halloween with the premiere of our very first trailer.

Yup, our first trailer is underway. I'm finishing the rough cut today. Then it'll head over to Dan for an FX pass, then back to me for sound design, then over to Nate for final sound mixing. Get ready to see this thing in HD, it looks beautiful. I want to have it ready to roll for Halloween.

No word yet on our first screening date. Dan and I have been discussing our premiere options. Stay tuned, as the holiday season approaches we'll have an exciting array of news to share with you.

Over and out,
Heneghan

Color Correction

2008-10-06T15:21:00.001-07:00

Here's a before & after example of color correction for the film typical of how I've been approaching evening shots. Although the original colors are quite beautiful, Mike & I wanted to more closely mimic the conditions of a real sunset. To fully detail what is happening here, a bit of smoke and flame have been added to the fire pit in the background and the foreground elements have all been slightly darkened, desaturated, and tinted blue. Although the brighter spots of the image (such as our hero's face and shirt) still show a lot of detail, the darker spots (such as the backpack and jacket) have almost fully fallen into silhouette. I have also added a slight vignetting to the edges and given a glow to the sunset in the background. This glow has been applied to an adjustment layer over the entire composition so that the light is allowed to slightly spill over the edges of the hilltops and our hero's hair to add another layer of realism.

Stay tuned for more video samples and a trailer.

Plugins & tech talk.

2008-09-30T18:27:00.000-07:00

I'll be posting some new stills or video soon, but until then I'd like to plug a couple of effects I've been using that really help some of these shots to come alive, you know, for all you vfx hobbyists out there... Of course, there are plenty of effects & presets that come prepackaged with After Effects that we use all the time, but there are also a few 3rd party plugins worth looking into. For instance:

Trapcode Plugins: Particular is a robust particle emitter and is used for all the starfields, flies, rain, dust, snow, and smoke in the film. I use this one a lot (if Mike learned how to use it himself, he may not have needed me to help him make this film - shhh!) One of my favorite techniques is to create a single blade of grass in photoshop (while maintaining transparency), bring it into a composition as it's own layer, hide it, and use particular's "custom particle" ability. I'll create a new solid, apply particular, set the emitter to directional, set the birth rate down real low, choose my grass layer as the custom particle, and the result is just a few blades of grass blowing around in the wind. Much easier than keyframing animation - and you can just copy + paste the emitter layer into other compositions in the same scene and simply adjust the environmental effects (eg Wind, Turbulence field) for unique gusts of wind. Also, Trapcode Shine is great for Fat Daddy's "evil eyes".

Video Copilot Plugins: Film Magic Pro is a set of color-correction AE presets I use quite often - For a lot of the night shots I'll put a "moonlight" or "enhance" preset onto an adjustment layer and it will require little to no fine-tuning to get the desired look. Twitch is also a great plugin for jarring flashes and transitions.

There are others used in the film - Genarts Sapphire, and CycoreFX HD to name a couple. But particular and film magic pro quickly and easily help me to achieve the desired shots. Now if only there were a plugin that would give me a back rub and cigar and fast forward time to where the film is ready to show...

Rendering: I'll have some cheese with my whine.

2008-09-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

Rendering, in lay terms, is the process in digital animation in which the computer takes sets of data from After Effects (the software we are using to animate the film) and makes calculations to generate a final image. In the case of this film, there are sets of data for keyframes, color manipulation, effects, transitions, and more. Our "final images" are Hi-Def lossless Quicktime Movies.

The more complicated the data, the longer it takes for the computer to render - and the amount of visual effects going into this film is quite tremendous! Example: If you can read the tiny text in the above screencap, the shot being rendered is a little over 12 seconds in duration. It has taken over five hours - with an estimated one hour remaining. That equals almost half an hour to process one second of video - and I'm on a fairly powerful computer. It appears a feature length film could take over 2,000 hours to render all the video files. For The Romantic, a lot of this is already done - and large chunks of animation are left to render overnight or over a weekend. Still, it's a lengthy process and to add insult to injury, renders will often stop for errors and need to start over.

I don't aim to just complain (maybe to feel a little justified in calling the completion of this film a "difficult accomplishment") but mainly to give a little peek into the not-so glamorous post-production process. And now you know.

Stay tuned! It seems like we'll need another month or so before we have a polished version of the film with music and fancy effects, but a rough edit has already been completed.

Rated G for GUTS & BLOOD!

2008-08-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

Brutal!! Some of the scenes I've been animating today are sure to give you the willies. Let it be said The Romantic is not a cartoon for kids.

A little too quiet...

2008-07-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

Good morning everyone! Dan G here - Well, it’s been quiet around here… a little too quiet if you know what I mean. As we approach locking down our first cut of the film and adding those VFX finishing touches, Mike & I find ourselves with very little free time these days. I remember when I cracked open my first After Effects project file for the Romantic - I added some adjustment layers for color correction, a glow effect here, a particle emitter there... fast forward two and a half years and we're starting to coordinate a festival premiere. Pretty exciting. Also pretty Hectic. Anyways, I just wanted to throw a quick blog up to introduce myself as a contributor and get y'all pumped on the possibility of our first trailer going online in the very near future. Go team romance!

More Stills

2008-02-07T16:53:00.001-08:00

More production stills. Some still awaiting lighting, effects, color correction, etc.

Still

2007-12-23T09:54:00.000-08:00

Some Pre-Post stills.

Some Lightning

2007-12-16T09:32:00.000-08:00

Back Grounded

2007-11-17T08:15:00.001-08:00

So last week I mentioned everyone working hard on the backgrounds and forgot to mention Tiffany Landis and her boyfriend Chris Cote, who together colored a few folders worth of BKGs for the film. Sorry guys! Staring at pixels all day makes my memory slip. I'll post some of their backgrounds once I shrink em down and format them for this blog.

Yesterday I met with Christie O'Brien and Kayla Halstead, both animators on the film. Each had fantastic work to share. Below is a clip of Christie taking on Patience and his babies:

Kayla is working on a cool sequence with Pjorrc which will be posted upon it's completion.

In the meantime, here are some more backgrounds:

Until next time, go see No Country for Old Men.

-MPH

Racing Towards the Finish Line

2007-08-28T15:46:00.000-07:00

Alright, I haven't updated this in a long time, so I am going to divide this post into parts:

PART 1: San Diego Comic Con:

Took a break from work in July to head to San Diego for the 2007 Comic-Con. Lots and lots and lots of fun - though a bit too crowded this year. While wondering the convention floor I met Chris Lackey - another indie animator who just completed his own feature film, The Chosen One . He gave me some good advice on what to do once the whole mess is completed, and how to get celebs to act in your film. Good luck, Mr. Lackey!

I also met up with the dudes from The Totally Rad Show , who hosted a great party over at Bar Basic on the Friday night of the con. Really really nice guys. Alex (from TRS and Diggnation fame) and Jeff (TRS) both agreed to do cameo voices for the flick.

Their various roles include evil prison guards (the stormtroopers of my film) and a group of prostitutes trying to hustle Romance in a bar. Alex also took on the part of The Spank... which he knocked out of the park. Here's a rough edit of some of The Spank animation Sean Dooley is working on:

I also handed out this:

... a little preview postcard I rushed to get done before I left for the con. I didn't try to promote the film much (that's for next year) but I wanted something with information on it to give out if the mood struck.

The rest of the Con was great as usual. I can't wait to return next year with a finished film under my belt.

PART 2: Animation

So, we're in the animation part of production and things are moving pretty smoothly. Chunks and chunks of the timeline are slowly being filled out, leaving me with solid blocks of continous animation. Good animation. I'm very proud of this film's quality. A lot of television and even indie-feature animation resort to cheap tricks to flesh out their extended durations. You've all seen it before - using frozen bodies and faces with limited mouth movement for dialogue scenes, or holding on a still frame for seconds (a long time in the animation word) to pass off as a pause in the action. I've done my best to eliminate these things as much as possible. One of the talkier scenes in the script, a conversation between King Crookie and Romance, was re-written to take place while the two ice skate over a moonlit pond in order to create a visually dynamic scene that still relays the needed information from the dialogue. We're not Pixar by any means, but we're doing our best to put out a quality product without cutting corners.

For various reasons I'm hesitent to post animation on the blog. Mainly, I want everything to come as a surprise to viewers when they see the movie for the first time (even for the few people that read this blog). There are a lot of 'money shots' in this film... including but not limited to: five fight scenes, one chase scene, tons of shots with magic, an ice skating sequence, a shot with a flying house, a sequence where monsters tear apart and set fire to an entire city, voyages to outer space, and a trippy finale unlike anything I've ever done before. I'm afraid giving too many glimpses into these shots will spoil the finished product.

The people who create trailers for feature films are very careful to put in enough quick flashes of the 'money shots' while not spoiling anything for the viewer.... but the context of a trailer is very different than an internet blog. You can show quick flashes in a trailer, but the only footage I can offer for the blog (at least at this stage of the game) are full sequences. I mean, who watches a youtube video that is only two seconds long?

On the other hand, I don't want to post too many calm dialogue shots because 1. Out of context, the scenes lose all emotional resonance, and 2. Posting exlusively conversational scenes paints The Romantic as a boring talk fest (which it most certainly is not). While these scenes are integral to the feature, when they are viewed solo they lack the appeal of those shots comprised only of action. What's a guy to do?

Well, hang tight. The trailer will be coming in the next two months or so. Until then, I'll be posting some stills and a couple pieces of footage.

PART 3: Special Effects.

Big shout out to Dan Goat who has been working hard on all the effects in the film. Here is a clip of some of the stuff he has been working on:

The mask effect is staying, but the smoke over the pot effect will be changed for the final product.

The guy is an FX genious. Seriously. Without him on board, the film would be a birthday cake without any candles or icing.

PART 4: Backgrounds.

Before this mess is done I want to have a post dedicated entirely to backgrounds and the people hard at work on them. Kelly Jones, Kat Hulka, and Sean Adams have been churning out some fantastic coloring work. Here are some examples:

PART 5: The Remaining Schedule

Last weekend I screened the film for Dan Goat and Nate Terry (the sound guy) so they could start brainstorming ideas for editing and music. While it was exciting to see the entire timelime from start to finish, it was also slightly daunting to think of all the long nights ahead of me til Christmas. The film is in good shape, however, and if all the animators pull through we'll have the film done on schedule. Until then, it'll be staring at the computer screen 24/7... wish me luck!

Thanks to everyone who has been working on the film... you guys are fantastic, and I can't wait to celebrate with you once this thing is in the can!!!

PART 6: The Blog

Updates to this thing have been sparse at best. This is, of course, because I'm really busy making a feature film. Posts will come more frequintly after the holidays, where I will continue the blog to walk everyone through the promotional/festival part of this process. Until then, however, all the time I have outside of making the film I need to use for, well, doing mundane life things. I will try to update two more times before Christmas, but I can't promise I'll be able to motivate myself during crunch time. We'll see!

PART 7: Goodbye.

So that's it.

-MPH

Better Great than Never

2007-07-08T08:53:00.000-07:00

It's been three months without an update. What do I have to say for myself?

Hurm, well, I've been busy. Doing what? Well, a whole lot of this:

Meanwhile, Sean Dooley has been doing a whole lot of this:

Why has it taken so long to post this animation? Honestly, it's a bigger pain than you'd think. Youtube, the server I use to host these files, only allows files with a max of 100mb. Most of the files I want to upload are much bigger. Now, of course, I could render out smaller files to upload - but here's the thing: Youtube's compression resolution is pretty shabby looking, and if I compress my files too much before uploading, the files become hardly readable. So it's taken me a few experiments to figure out what's the right resolution for the first compression to allow for proper readability after the second. All of this just became one extra not really crucial job on top of my many many other jobs as the director of this film.

Besides Youtube problems, the film is moving along nicely, with the animators submitting GREAT work. I hope to showcase some original Michael Klinger's next week. We are, however, a few months behind schedule. This is annoying, but it's not the end of the world. This is our first time doing this, after all.

Next goal is a rough cut by the end of October, with the final product ready to submit to the Philly Film Fest's X-Mas deadline. Go team!

til nex time,
MPH

Oh yeah, Dooley did this too:

Sound Check

2007-04-11T12:56:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, production is rolling right along! Background drawing is winding down, with the majority of them in the bag. Nate and I have pretty much wrapped up all voice recording (99.9%) and the animatic is almost completely finished as well.

I've seen some of the animators work and it is coming along beautifuly. Sean Dooley blew my hat off with some early Apple Man character animation, and I don't even wear a hat.

I'm meeting with Dan Goat this week to go over the major effects scenes (including a nifty Indiana-Jones-Drinking-From-the-Wrong-Holy-Grail-Turn-To-Dust-Rip-Off piece) and talk about just how we're going to make the fire smoke, the water splash, and the wind blow.

Not much to give you this week, except for an in depth look at three characters that are introduced halfway through the script. They are:

King Crookie is a happy go lucky little rascal who is in charge of a quaint cabin town that Romance visits in the second act. This is what he sounds like:

Ludwig is his right hand man - a quirky, high strung advisor who is mortaly scared of Fat Daddy and his evil crew.
This is what he sounds like:

Last we have one of King Crookie's guards. No sound clip for that fellow.

Gotta run, animation next update! I promise!

-mph

Top of the Mornin'

2007-03-12T17:25:00.000-07:00

Wow, no update in a month. The busy excuse is getting old, so I'll go into a little more detail about the belated arrival of this post. I've been prepping the animators to begin production, a task that includes:

-Finishing up dialogue editing with Nate
-Setting that dialogue to the storyboards (animatic)
-Organizing background and character files.
-Creating materials for the animators (burning DVDs, putting together production binders)

so on and so forth. But all that nonsense is kinda boring, so here's some fun stuff:

The above picture is a character height chart, showing all the individual main characters in proportion to one another. Having a chart like this is a useful guide for the animators. Click image to make it large.

I'll leave you with a sound clip of Patience. Click to hear him commenting on Romance's hygiene while stuffed inside his lanky companion's hat.

I'll post some animatic soon, and with a little bit o'luck, some animation.

Happy St. Pat's,
MPH

This Week's Stats:
Netflixing: Ride the High Country, Million Dollar Baby, Escape from Alcatraz, The Science of Sleep, Mississippi Burning, The Fisher King, Blade Runner, American Graffiti, Patton, Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
Reading: The Invisibles vol. 4 (Bloody Hell in America)
Listening To: Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!

2007-02-01T11:44:00.000-08:00

A long time since last post. Here's what has been going on:

Voice Recording:
Slowly but surely Nate Terry and I have captured all the main voices and the majority of the minor ones. We'll be editing the sound this week. I'll post a few segments over the course of the next month.

When all the voice recording is done, we can finally finish the animatic (which I'll also post segments of upon completion).

Background Drawing:
Still working on these things. Good news though, they are lookin' pretty good. I've taken a short break from background drawing to work on other items, but will return this Monday.

Character Work:
All the digital puppets are done, except for 4 of the main character which need re-working. This will be completed next week.

Animation:
I've spent the last week and a half parenting together all the character rigs in After Effects. "Parenting" is the conjoining of all the various character pieces (the foot to the lower leg, the lower leg to the thigh, the thigh to the body, and so on) to form a complete, ready-to-be-animated character. This is a lonnnnnng process, but will save a whole lot of time during animation.

I've met with about 3/4s of the animators and have given them a week or two to review materials and choose what segments of the film they will be working on. Things look good!

Walk Cycles:
Dooly has continued his pre-production work on walk cycles. Here is one of The Spank:

Check in Friday for some cool art,
MPH

This Week's Stats:
Netflixing: The Bridge On the River Kwai, L'Avventura, Carnal Knowledge, United 93, L'Enfant, Bubble, Evil
Reading: The Complete Sherlock Holmes, vol. 1
Hearing: The Books - The Lemon of Pink

2007-01-05T15:13:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone reading found some time to enjoy the holidays. I, myself, had a warm, cozy Christmas and a memorable New Years.

And now it's back to work. Still drawing backgrounds. As I don't have a proper drawing desk, I've been getting terrible muscle pain all over my back and shoulders. Yikes. It makes illustrating no fun at all.

Over my short vacation I recorded the voice of Ron Blasdell, who will be playing the parts of Pjorrc and The Apple Man. He nailed it, as always. I previously worked with Ron on a short film entitled Snyder & Newton. Instead of watching The Mummer's Parade tomorrow, I will be spending the afternoon recording the part of Romance with Jason Salerno. Mummers kinda freak me out, anyway.

Sean Dooley has been popping out more walk cycles, I promise to post his updated work next week. The Spank's cycle looks fantastic. Can't wait to dig into animating this sucker, which WILL happen, eventually, once these backgrounds are done.

Need to update the website and fix a couple things, might be able to get that done on Sunday. Busy busy busy. If you have worked on the film and want to have your bio and headshot posted on the site please eMail me ASAP.

That's all he wrote,
MPH

This Week's Stats:
Netflixing: Cool Hand Luke, Evil, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Reading: The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Vol. 1 (The Sign of Four)
Podcasting: Filmspotting #143

and to all a goodnight!

2006-12-24T20:05:00.000-08:00

www.theromanticmovie.com

The official site.

It's done!

Merry Christmas,
MPH

Deck the Hall with Boughs of Romance

2006-12-11T16:01:00.000-08:00

I've been slacking on the blog, mainly because all my extra time has been going into the official site. It's looking sharp... around 70% done. Will DEFINITELY be done by Christmas.

Other time has been spent sketching backgrounds and recording voices. Magee nailed it again as Patience last week. Now only a million more characters to go.

Busy busy busy! January should be a BIT more relaxed, with things returning to a less hectic pace around early February. I hope. Big thanks to lookingiswrong for making me take Gleaner breaks every now and then.

Rewrote the script... AGAIN! I really need to lock the bugger. Major changes to Act 1... drastically reworked Rumpelstitskin's scene to set up Romance's plight a bit clearer. The feature becomes less like the short film day by day - in a good way. Coherent, slower. The death of Pretty Lady is more subtle and makes more sense in the new script. I don't blush when I re-read certain sections anymore. I've turned what were sketches of good ideas into well supported, wll executed ideas. I'm pumped.

I haven't purchased one Christmas gift yet, but I have decked the halls. Some of them, at least. Looking forward to a brief holiday break, and perhaps even an X-Mas party or two.

fa la la la la,
Mike

This Week's Stats:
Netflixing: Kramer vs. Kramer, All the President's Men, Hang 'Em High, In the Bedroom, Harold and Maude
Reading: Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West (almost done!!)
Podcasting: RIP Geekdrome!

Thanksgiving

2006-11-19T14:34:00.000-08:00

This year I'm thankful for learning Dreamweaver.

Yes, the official website is moving along and looks snazzy. About time!

I've been cutting out props and doing some final character work. Should be completed before the holiday.

Meanwhile, I've been finalizing the casting for the film. Voice recording will start in December with the help of Mr. Nate Terry. I'll post sound clips once that materializes. Cast list will be posted on the official page once it's done.

This time is year is great, but always busy. I should be working on Wednesday, but instead I'll be baking pies. I make a mean pumpkin.

Nothing ground breaking to report on. This week I've re-fallen in love with Tom Waits, and can't wait to pick up his new album (a box set!). The Mindscape of Alan Moore, a righteous documentary/performance/lecture on and by Alan Moore was supposed to be released Saturday (the 18th). The website hasn't been updated - and dammit, I want to own this thing. I caught it in Comicon two years ago and have been itching to see it again.

Sean Dooley came through this week with two new walk tests.

This is the character of The Son... who is actually a toddler that has been grafted into the body of a middle aged soldier. Weird! I like his zombie-esque lurch.

This is one of the film's monsters, The Chomp.

I know I promised to post some new artwork this week, but I got nothin'! I could give you a sneak peak of the website, but that would just ruin the surprise. Instead, check out Tommy Keiser's new site at www.tommykeiser.com

Namaste,
Michael

This Week's Stats:
Netflixing: Delicatessen, The Frighteners.
Reading: Cook's Illustrated, The Best Recipe Cookbook, Gourmet Magazine (November 2004)
Podcasting: Fanboy Radio #349

Election Day

2006-11-07T09:33:00.000-08:00

A guy keeps driving by my house in a van with a megaphone shouting something, I assume it has to do with today being election day. I can't make out what he's saying. Guy needs a new megaphone.

Fat Daddy is a politician, but a darn-no-good one. He was able to take over the pretty-city of Vauxhul with a little charismatic mumbo jumbo and some spiritual hog wash. It wasn't long before he ran Vauxhul off a cliff for his own self interests, and started a chain of events that made the whole frikkin world fall apart. Oh gosh!

It wasn't his fault, though, he only took advantage of a big pot of idiots looking for someone to tell them what to pick up and put down. You know, reactionary types, unaware of the big bad badness that lurks behind the corner if the wrong drivers are steering the bus.

Don't be like the idiots! Vote! Read! Learn! Information is everywhere folks, and we're all turning into steam.

I've been doing a lot of voice casting this week. Things are set to roll for a late November recording session - gotta talk to Nate (sound man) about how that bird's gonna fly.

Working on the web site still (thanks for the comment, Kat), but I'm still trying to learn everything I need to learn in order to make it look A-O-K.

Drawing backgrounds (which, incidentally, gives me killer shoulder pain). Major scanning day this Thursday.

If you've worked on the film so far, pleasssseee send me a one paragraph (serious) bio for the web site, along with a head shot. Also - let me know if you want me to publish your web site/email addy.

Pumped about production, I've re-fallen in love with the material. Last month's script adjustments made me more confident in the story. I tried taking out all the naughty F-words.... but still left about 3 in. They work, though. I think.

I'll show you some pretty pictures next week.

Until then,
MPH

This Week's Stats:
Netflixing: Same as last week... I've been busy! But I did see Jan Svankmajer's Lunacy in NYC. Creepy fun.
Reading: Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West
Podcasting: Diggnation (Nov. 2nd)

Trick or Treat

2006-10-30T13:18:00.000-08:00

Anyone know how to make frames on a website? Every online tutorial I read just confuses me more. I have the general grasp of it, but I'm still a bit foggy. I need someone looking over my shoulder to say "no, that's what that does. Do it like this." If anyone reading can suggest a different website (preferably one made for web idiots), let me know!

I've been spending my spare time designing The Romantic's official website. I've already composed the layout in photoshop, now I just need to break apart my giant image and insert it into HTML. Easier said than done. I write my html by hand... I've tried using Adobe GoLive and Dreamweaver, but both programs confuse me. I need the iMovie of web design, something with big buttons and point and click simplicity. The previously mentioned programs look more like After Effects... a great program, but something with a learning curve that requires time to learn. I don't have time, at least for the website, that is.

So, the website should launch *soon*. Soon in Heneghan terminology generally means sooner than later, which generally isn't too soon at all.

Pre-Production should be finished soon.

Hah!

I've recently added another item to my digital studio - a WACOM Cintiq. Sort of. I couldn't afford the Cintiq 21 incher, but luckily the company released lower end models marketed for office and medical use, called DTFs. Not as swank as the Cintiq, but it does the job. I checked out the techno specs and they are actually on par with the Cintiq 15 and 17 inch models (which you can't buy anymore), if not the same thing marketed with a different name. For those that have no idea what I'm talking about, a Cintiq is a monitor on which you can draw. Basically, it's a tablet PC minus the PC. This little tool allows me to complete Photoshop and Corel Painter activities (including: background, character, and prop coloring and cutting out) about 75% faster. I used to complete these jobs with a computer mouse, which always felt incredibly unnatural and uncomfortable. Now I put on a record, plop my WACOM on my lab, and sketch away as if I was working on actual paper. The future is now.

I hope everyone out there in blog land is taking some time out of their busy lives to carve pumpkins, eat candy, and watch The Great Pumpkin. These things are health food for the soul - and if your soul is like mine, it needs a little bit of sentimental happiness every once and a while to balance out the no good business that is being an upright citizen in this day and age.

Happy Halloween,
Michael

This Week's Stats:
Netflixing: Nosferatu the Vampyre (Herzog), The Right Stuff
Podcasting: Moyers on America - PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS!
Reading: Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West

First Animation Test

2006-10-24T18:45:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, I'm fighting a fever so I'm gonna make this short - here's a quick clip of some walk tests of Fat Daddy and his assistant care of Sean Dooley. Enjoy!

More on Friday,
MPH

Props

2006-10-14T12:20:00.000-07:00

As I said last post - fall is the best season. I hate working in the summer. It's hot and I become sluggish. I feel as though nothing happens in the summer - it's my worst season creatively (for some reason I have a hard time formulating ideas when it's hot). During the fall, however, I can barely keep up with my imagination. I've already started writing four separate scripts for a series of holiday specials that revolve around a little boy in a wheelchair (something I hope to pitch post-Romantic), along with three different comic book outlines and a brand new feature length script. Each project is going well - I suppose there's something that I find inspiring about the natural drama of fall. It's a very visceral season... it has a distinct smell, sound, taste, and feel. It's looming - spooky but inviting. Romance!

Not much to update on since last post, although in the past couple days I've drawn almost all of the props needed for the flick. Just like a theater performance (or a stop motion film), every item, weapon, tool, food, article of clothing, vehicle, etc. that a character manipulates must be constructed. Just as I made the character "puppets", I have to draw a bunch of tiny items in a variety of perspectives. They look like this:

Those are a couple of old ones used in the short film. The ones for the feature are greater in number and complexity, but none of those are scanned in yet. Soon!

til next week,
Michael

This Week's Stats:
Netflixin': Streets of Fire, Carnivale (Season 1 Disc 1)
Podcastin': None - currently listening to Sufjan Stevens - Greetings from Michigan!
Readin': The Norse Myths (Crossley-Holland)

No More Boarding

2006-10-10T08:58:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess I have to eat (some) of my words - this entry is a bit late. But good news! Storyboards are done. Finally. Completely. And so is the script. Yes, I know I said the script was finished a while ago... but since then I have gone in and amended a few scenes. But now the backbone of the film is solidified, and we can all move on.

So - I've been spending my time mailing out copies of the script to the voice actors. Still need to cast about 50% of the film, but those are mostly minor parts.

Any voice actors out there?

Meanwhile, Sean Dooley made this:

It's a rough test animation for Fat Daddy's walk cycle. See: Picture of Fat Daddy (last post). It cracks me up every time I watch this rascal run.

I'm working on backgrounds now. Hard stuff. I wish I could draw like those Disney backgrounders. Talented bastards. Next film I'm going the UPA route.

Here's how the film stands, completion-wise:

Script: 100% Done
Storyboards: 100% Done
Character Designs: 95% Done
Character Coloring: 95% Done
Prop Design: 20% Done
Prop Coloring: 20% Done
Background Drawing: 20% Done
Background Coloring: 10% Done

Animation: 0% Done

Pre-Production is slated to wrap around Thanksgiving... things are pretty much on schedule, though I have to pick up the pace on background illustration. I'm gonna go do that - you, on the other hand, should get off the internet and enjoy fall. It's the best season.

Ciao,
MPH

This Week's Stats:
Netflixin': The Last Temptation of Christ, Do the Right Thing.
Podcastin': Diggnation (Oct. 5)
Readin': The Shadow Strikes! (Issue 8)

Back on Track, Back on Grounds

2006-09-27T14:56:00.000-07:00

Alrighty, it's been almost a month since I last posted. This will change. Starting this week I will be posting every Friday with brand new Romantic shtuff. I've been putting the blog on the back burner while I've been organizing things in my life - both professionally and personally. But not anymore!

Bryan Brink Man has been steadily sending me "cut-outs", something which makes me very happy. It's nice to see some of the finalized pre-production work. I did a small mock up of Fat Daddy which I've posted below. Things are moving on...

I've spent most of this month sketching out backgrounds, a task that is not always good for my self-esteem. Drawing is hard. Drawing a lot of things in a short amount of time is even harder. Every time something looks too sketchy I remember that this thing will be projected on hugemongus theater screens. Then I sulk.

Often times I second guess the visual style I chose to complete this feature. It would have been SO much easier if I had gone a South Park route... geometric characters, geometric backgrounds. Instead, I'm trying to draw semi-realistic organic background which automatically get compared to the likes of Disney and other big budgeted studio folks. My drawings, of course, are no where near as good. So, uh, yeah, drawing is hard, I need to get better, so on and so forth. I'm going to go 'on location' to the West Chester country side sometime next week to glean some inspiration for these things. Maybe I'll see a cool tree that'll shake me from my habit of drawing boring looking dumb-dumb trees.

Okay, self deprecation is for wimps. Back to the positives! Here is a Fat Daddy:

I'll talk to you on Friday about some other stuff, until then, drink beers.

bye bye,
MPH

This Week's Stats:
Netflixin': Solaris (Tarkovsky), Nashville, Dazed and Confused, The Deer Hunter
Podcastin': DC Comics Podcast (DC: Fans turn Pro)
Readin': The Shadow Strikes! (Issue 6)

Walking

2006-09-03T13:17:00.000-07:00

So, it's September and the next phase of production is coming to fruition. And what is that phase? Animation!

Yup, this is the time when all of that previous character work morphs into actual moving imagery. But don't get too excited, the animation that is about to ensue won't look anything close to a final product. In fact, it'll look more like animation tests. Why? Well, we're not done pre-production. Only the character construction phase of pre-production is ending. What's left? Tons. Here's a short list of things that need to be done before full blown animation starts:

-Voices must be recorded, and I haven't even finished casting the film yet.
-Storyboards must be scanned and put into an animatic.

and, most importantly:

-Backgrounds must be drawn and colored.

Well then, what exactly am I doing now? Walk cycles!

In this stage we take the previously constructed digital puppets and make them walk and run. The animation for The Romantic is brought to life in a program called After Effects. This program uses a timeline over which imported images (the character/puppet) are manipulated. The end result is a series of keyframes stretched over time that are digitally recorded - allowing us to look at the manipulations (aka animation) over and over again... and those individual keyframes can be tweaked, copied, and pasted.

So what we basically create is a set of keyframes that when played, show an individual character walking against a blank background. Later on during full out animation, those keyframes will be copied and pasted into new animation documents, allowing the pre-made walk cycle to be reused over and over again. That is to say: Romance walks a million times in a million different places over the course of the film. Instead of animating a new instance of Romance walking each time, those originally crafted keyframes will be pasted into the new scenario, providing us with two benefits. First, we save time. We animate the character walking only once, then reuse it (tweaking it occasionally to fit the current scenario/background, etc). Second, it allows consistency for each character's walk. There are many different animators working on different sections of the film. If the walk cycle is pre-determined, it prohibits different interpretations of the same action. Sure, Romance's walk should differ from time to time depending on his mood, but it shouldn't be radically different or else the audience will be confused and alienated from the inconsistent character.

I'll post some clips of the walks as they progress over the next two months.

So long,
MPH

This week's stats:
Netflixin': Sexy Beast, Heat, Death Rides a Horse, Roger Doger
Podcastin': LOSTCasts 33
Readin': Luficer (Issue 55)

Net Flickin

2006-08-22T14:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I last posted. That's what procrastination does to you.

Organization - I'm not always good at it. Juggling too many balls at once. I need to use my little date book that I purchased earlier this year.

The problem is, every time I've gone to write a new blog I wind up going to netflix.com instead. I recently just got an account.

It's amazing. Why? Well, not only do you get to make a huge all list of all the movies you want to see... and not only do they come to your house really fast (and it's always cool to get mail)... but it also gives you a way to rent movies you wouldn't normally see if you were paying 4 bucks a pop for em at the video rental place.

For instance, there are tons of movies I'm slightly slightly interested in. Maybe because I've heard good things about them... or I'm a fan of the director... or they are one of those movies that I want to have in my knowledge database, but they don't look appealing - I want to learn from them, but they look, well - boring.

Like I said, I have a lot of movies that fit this I-Want-To-See-It-But-Not-Enthusiastically list. When I go to the video store, I always happen to find something else I want to see much more - or, more importantly - something that I'd rather pay $4 for. But since the price of netflix is fixed, it gives you a "let's see how many movies I can see to make this the best deal" mentality. It's an all you can eat buffet of movies.

So I've been watching a lot of movies. This weeks selections are: Fitzcarraldo, Where the Buffalo Roam, and Heat.

But I've also been working on the film, which is why you're here, of course. What have I been doing? Photoshop work. Coloring characters and prepping them for "cut out".

This is what that means: As you've seen earlier, I draw the characters, then scan them (or - Bryan does), then color them in photoshop. "Cutting out" is when we take a finished colored character layout (pictured below) and cut out each individual part of the puppet. Every hand, eyeball, arm, mouth, etc must be removed from the white background and pasted into a new layer. The result is a single photoshop file, let's call it "Romance.psd", which contains a variety of different layers, each containing a separate part of the finished puppet. There is a separate photoshop file for each "movement", or perspective, of the character. The "Romance" folder on my harddrive contains the files Romancefront.psd, Romanceside.psd, Romance3q.psd, Romanceback.psd, and Romanceback3q.psd.

Big shout out to Bryan Brink-Man for taking on the task of cutting out these things. You're doing the work of angels, Bryan. The work of angels.

Animation starts September 1st. Yikes!

Check this out - Lindsay Kovnat's video for the Philly band Man Man. It's groovy!

Fee fi fo fum,
-MPH

Moving along

2006-08-07T18:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of a post last week. I've recently moved into a new house in South Philly and have been busy unpacking and getting the internet up and running.

I've still been working on the film, however. Before the move I managed to meet up with Sean Adams and Tom Weiser to go over some boards. The film isn't completely boarded yet, I've sort of stuck some of the segments on the back burner while I got the character construction and background drawing underway. Reason being that I've had folks waiting to work on tasks other than boarding, and it's best to get everyone up and working ASAP. The more I wait to start a new phase, the less time I utilize to it's maximum potential. If 6 people are waiting to do photoshop work and I'm still drawing on index cards, then my resources (aka the wonderful generous people who are donating their precious time) are going to waste.

While this process yields more work faster, it means I have to spread myself extra thin. Instead of supervising one stage of production at a time, I have to constantly monitor and direct multiple people running multiple tasks.

It's good practice, but I've been getting a bit sloppy. My email response time has been all but awful and my own person output has been somewhat mediocre. I need to use my weekly planner more often.

With the intense deadlines and pressures of school removed, I'm now responsible to light the fire under my own ass and be completely self motivated. It's hard to work fast when you're not being chased. But again, good practice. August started slow. I have to be running by September.

Wednesday I have dinner in New York with an animation producer/agent/distributor to talk romantic and hopefully glean some knowledge and advice. Wish me luck. If you're Mike Almquist - you've got mail.

Next week some pretty pictures,
Mike

Weeks are fast.

2006-07-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

The list of things to do is starting to grow.

I've set a deadline for myself: I want to finish all character layouts by this Friday. That means drawing/laying out at least 20-30 characters in four more days. A lot of work, yes, but it'll keep me on track.

I haven't yet begun to draw the backgrounds. I plan on starting them next week, August 1st to be exact. But first, I need to get the character layouts out of the way.

I need to eMail Mike Almquist more content for the website. Last week I mailed him my ideas for the layout, but as of now he has no solid information to plug into the empty pages. I think I'll start that tonight or tomorrow.

Sorry to anyone on Team Romance who feels out of the loop - I've been getting a wee bit bad at contacting everyone ASAP, but I promise that will change once I get settled into my new place of business.

Having a finished copy of the script feels mighty good. It was hard to finally say "this is it, this is all it'll ever be" but I did it and now draft two of The Romantic is floating around Team Romance land. There are so many stories and themes and background information that I had to leave out this time around due to time restraints. Most of these ideas will hopefully come to fruition later on. If the film is successful, I'd like to repeatedly revisit the mythology I've created - be it in animation, live action, or storybook/comicbook form. The world is very dense, filled with tons of parables and legends. I don't think a day goes by where I don't come up with some small story behind a certain character, background element, prop, what have you. Only so much time....

Weeks are fast. This week flew past.

In my leisure time I've been reading The Satanic Verses and The Invisibles - Book 2 (Apocalipstick). I recommend both. I've also been listening to Garrison Keillor preach The Gospel of Jesus. A good story. Very soothing.

I've spent the past week coloring characters, solidifying the palettes that Bryan, Matt, Kelly, and Christie will use to photoshop life into the black and white pieces. Big thanks to those folks. Your work is invaluable.

I like figuring out what characters are what colors. It's one of the funnest parts.

Funnest isn't a word, and neither is Heneghan.

But Romance is!

Uh, yeah.

-Mike

Late

2006-07-17T07:24:00.000-07:00

So, it's Monday. Ooops. It's getting harder and harder to actually finish these at the end of the work week.

By Thursday I had finished the second draft of the script. I didn't wind up changing as much as I had expected. Only two scenes were totally re-constructed. The rest of the changes included dialogue tweaking (making lines funnier/more character driven/subtler/'fantastical'), spelling/typo corrections, and the elimination of a few needless scenes. I also drastically reduced the amount of F-Word in the script by about half. I'll talk more about that next week.

On Friday I met with Nathan Terry, the lovely chap responsible for penning the score to the film. We ate lunch, drank beer, and went over a few ideas for how the music should sound.

I was no help to him whatsoever. Reason being - I'm extremely indecisive regarding the execution of the music (what instruments, what genre, what tone).

It's strange - this will be the first film I've ever made that includes music that I myself have not conceived. I'm not a classical trained musician by ANY means, but I've always been knowledgeable enough to get by with a synth composition or two. The tunes from the short version of the film were scribbled out in the final few days of editing - about three days before the film was due on my professor's desk. And it pretty much sounds like it. I would have loved to have had real string instruments...Hell, just real instruments in general, but time didn't allow. I had spent too much time watching LOST and going to wing night at Manny Brown's during the semester, instead of bunkering down with other musicians.

While I'm a fan of the semi-cheesy Rugrats meets Gumby sound of my synth, a feature film requires feature film music. Hence Nate Terry, who is in fact no stranger to animation land. The man has already scored countless short films, including CollectAll and Hyde, a sweet stop motion film by Uarts alumni Tommy Keiser. Watch it, and try to get the "Oooooooooh weeeee oooooooh oooooooooh" out of your head!

In other movie news - work is progressing at a good pace. Did the layouts for a LOT of characters! Should be done all the hand drawn stages(sans backgrounds) by August 1st - coincidently the day I begin my new life in a new house in South Philly. Wish me luck for a good move in!

Until Friday, (hopefully)
MPH

Paper Puppets of the 21st Century

2006-07-10T14:01:00.000-07:00

It's been a rather boring week around The Pumpkin Moon with not much to report on. Spoke with Mike Almquist - the film's future webmaster - about the upcoming website. I think I'll feel more professional when there's a real website up, not just this goofy thing. But anyway. As promised last week, I'm here to talk about characters.

But what about 'em? A lot goes into making a cartoon character. First you have to fathom the little critter, be it verbally or visually. Sometimes a character comes about after I make a neat doodle while on the phone, other times as I plunk out their dialogue in Screenwriter. Either way requires refining after their initial genesis - be it how they look, move, rotate, etc. or by defining their personality, history, demeanor, so on and so forth. I'm not going to get into those initial procedures in detail today. Later on I plan on posting weekly character profiles that will introduce each main character along with the history of its creation. Today I want to talk about the next phase - how those initial drawings turn into the characters you see on screen.

After I've nailed down the desired look of the character, I sketch out a full 'rotation'. This is done by drawing the character at a neautral eye level perspective in an anatomical pose (ie - with arms and legs on a flat axis, not stretching out to create forshortening). Usually I start with the front or side perspective. After I've nailed one of the poses, I then illustrate the same posture in about five different views: front, 3/4, side, back 3/4, and back. Thus, I can see what the character looks like from every angle. Some characters require more views than others. If a character has only one or two lines in the film, they may be limited to only two views. A main character (such as Romance) might have six or seven views which would include unusual perpectives (where the eye is above the waistline).

After I have the character rotated, I retrace him onto a new piece of thick paper one part at a time. That is, I will trace his head apart from his body, his eyes apart from his head, his pupils apart from his eyes, and so on. Imagine making paper dolls. If the character wears more than one outfit, his body is redrawn with the new costume on. Multiple hands are drawn - all in different gestures and perspectives. Finally, I'll draw a variety of eyes and mouths, reflecting the different facial expressions. Sometimes a character's layout will also include accessories, such as Patience's backpack and hat (seen in the short film). Any item that needs to move or change must be drawn seperately before it hits the scanner bed.

Later, these seperate parts will be inked (with just a plain black ballpoint pen - classy, huh?), scanned, colored in photoshop, broken into seperate layers, and parented together in After Effects. I'll get into those subjects in detail later, but for now, check out this illustration of King Crookie. He has already been broken apart, inked, and scanned, and now awaits the transfer to photoshop for coloring.

And that's all he wrote.
-Michael

Formatting the Feature

2006-07-01T14:51:00.000-07:00

I spent this week the same as all the weeks previous -storyboarding and character designing. Actual puppet construction should begin next week, followed by a blog explaining just what that means.

But for now, lets talk about output. This weekend I spent an hour or so converting many of my old animated shorts to the .m4v video format. For those that don't know, m4v is the format of choice (and the only one that works) for the video Ipod. My dad's birthday was last week, and the family celebrated by purchasing him one of the aforementioned technologies. I was quite surprised by how crisp and clear The Romantic (short version) looked on the tiny Macintosh screen. In fact - I dare say - it looked even better than viewing the film on the 'big screen' at my school's senior thesis show.

It's been a long time since I've actually watched a traditionally animated feature film in theaters (besides the occasional at film festivals). I like kids, but I don't really like kid films. At least most of the ones made today. Anyway.

About two years ago, the Ottawa Animation Festival hosted a Miyazaki retrospective. This would mark the first time I had sat down to see a full feature animated film in a theater since Aladdin. To be completely honest - I wasn't really impressed. Now don't get me wrong - I don't mean to insult or even critique any of Miyazaki's work. Princess Mononoke was one of the first DVDs to find its way into my collection. But that's the thing - I was introduced to the film on DVD - on a small screen which emphasized all the details within the frame. It looked beautiful on my home television - the movement, the detail, everything. But when I watched Mononoke on the big screen, the images appeared (for lack of a better word) cartoony. What once seemed very detailed looked blockish and empty. I could see large areas in black outline filled with only one shade of the same color. It looked flat. I was expecting to be blown away by seeing such an epic action film on such a large screen. Instead, I was surprisingly underwhelmed.

The reason for this is obvious: animation is drawn on a small piece of paper. Then it is projected on a big piece of cloth. Small = the more detail per area. Large = the less detail per area.

Most of you probably already know this, or could have easily figured it out without me (poorly) explaining. But this explanation is leading to the subject of what I'm currently trying to figure out: What sort of media do I want to output the final version of the feature film on?

Here are the choices. Video(720x480), HD Video (Somethingbigger x Somethingbigger), or 35mm film (Somethingslightlybigger x Somethingslightlybigger) The reason I need to figure this out now is because it will dramatically influence the shape of the film's production. If I plan to output on film or HD, I will need to work in a much larger format, requiring much larger files (background AND characters), thus requiring everyone working on the film to have computers capable enough of working such high-end graphics. The safe bet is to make the film the biggest it could be, then shrink it down for DVD and for the web. This way all my options are covered. This will eat up a lot of extra time, however, and I want to tame this monster in one year. The bigger the output is the longer it will take to render, and if computers get clogged by the massive amounts of information, the time allotted for animating the film might need to be doubled. Yikes!

Well, okay, I have enough flexibility that I can finagle the schedule to allow us animation time during pre-production wrap up. So why don't I work in the largest format? Well, I don't even know if it will be necessary. See, at this point it seems VERY doubtful that I will be able to ever export to 35mm film. Sure, it would be nice - but I could never afford it. Making a transfer from the digital files I work with on my computer to actual analog film will cost more than my life is worth - and much, much more than my tiny little film can afford. The only way The Romantic will go celluloid is if a distributor or kind producer steps in with the ability to fund such a transfer. Flat out, there is no way I could ever possible pay for it on my own.

Besides financial reasons, I'm not even particularly sure that the movie theater is the best venue for The Romantic. As I said about Miyazaki earlier, I think 2d animation might look better on a smaller screen. When I make my films, they are in a tiny preview box on my computer - that's how they enter the world, why should they be viewed a million times larger? This, of course, is hearsay for those that embrace classic filmmaking - but seriously boys and girls, the world (and marketplace) is changing. Home theaters are becoming increasingly common, as are DVD collections. More people are TIVOing, On Demanding, and Net Flixing, and less folks are hitting up the old United Artists. Straight to video is normally a derogatory term - but in this (and other similar) case(s), doesn't it kind of make sense? Can something be made for video simply because it looks better on video? Why does the big screen have to be the best screen?

I can already hear the slosh of eyes rolling in internet land. "Jesus, this kid just can't make good animation and wants to hide that fact via a smaller screen."

Well. You got me. DVD it is! ...and may no one be the wiser.

Tah,
MPH

4x6

2006-06-23T20:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown, out on the edge of the prairie...

...and a fairly productive one, to say the least. The stack of 4x6 index cards are piling up around me as the storyboard phase of preproduction marches forward. Most of you reading this know what storyboarding is - but for those who don't, here is the lowdown.

Storyboards are essentially small thumbnail drawings that rough out the actions of the screenplay and create the first visualization of the film. There isn't an industry standard for doing storyboards, most directors or studios pick their own methods for the process. Storyboarding for live-action films is generally a loose practice - used mainly to figure out camera angles and work out shot compositions. Some directors (like Hitchcock) rely heavily on storyboarding to organize their shots and to streamline their productions, while others feel that storyboarding limits their on-the-spot creativity. Just like painting - some artists wish to study their subject over and over through multiple sketches before they put down the paint, while others will bypass the pencil and go straight to the palette and see where their whimsical creativity will lead them. While I feel like I belong in the second category, animated film generally lends itself to the first. All major animated studio films are meticulously storyboarded before production begins. Every small action is preconceived and diagramed.

The storyboards serve as blueprints for the animators to draw a cohesive set of performances. There are no spontaneous actions or performances to capture in animation, unlike live action film. With animation, everything is pre-ordained. Storyboards keep everyone focused and give the animators a concise idea of what to do. Since there are no cameras in animation (at least traditional), there can be no spur of the moment camera moves or compositions. Everything has to be planned.

Here's the thing. I'm not a planner. I like to jump right in and get my hands dirty. While it can be extremely exciting to see my film transform from words to drawings, I often find myself rather bored while boarding. Hah hah. Honestly, though - creating storyboards can be very taxing, both on the brain and the wrist. Often times a sequence requires an enormous amount of almost identical boards, containing only slight variations in character expression or gesture. This means that 90% of the board has to be redrawn (including background and other characters) just to show a small (but important) difference. Thus, as my boards progress, the quality of each index card (my format of choice) decreases. While I often start a sequence with a nicely rendered (or at least passable) drawing...

...the end cards often consist of almost incomprehensible scribbles.

I can get away with this because, well - it's my film. Most importantly, however, I will be working with a small team of animators and I have the time to walk through every sequence with each one of them. Thus, if something looks like a cave painting (or worse), I can explain my good intentions face to face. The time it would take me to communicate with my team is far far less than if I rendered each board beautifully.

And that's all the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.

-Michael P.

The Power of Myth

2006-06-16T16:42:00.000-07:00

So here's the lowdown on my accomplishments for the week: nothing. Well, almost nothing. I spent Friday-Wednesday away in the woods with some buddies, relaxing and meditating on the long journey ahead of me. While not tactilely productive, I chewed over some hard spots in the first draft of the script that I hope to amend for go number two. I also received a nice new tool - an Apple G5 Quad computer. Way faster than my old i-Mac G4 (with which I completed my previous films). I haven't come up with a name for him/her yet... perhaps something animation-ish or a name from the film. Suggestions are welcome. I'm still in the early stages of configuring this colossus and transferring files from my old computer, so there are no new image postings for this week. Instead, I will talk about the backbone of The Romantic - the script!

It's always hard for me to describe this weird monstrosity of a cartoon to other folks. Is it a horror film? Sorta... but not in the Friday the 13th sense. Action? There's a lot of that... chase scenes, hand to hand combat, so on and so forth. Comedy? Well, if you think I'm funny, then... yes! Drama? Yup. Western? I wish. So, basically, it's everything except for a western. Does that give you a clear picture? Sigh... I tried.

Okay. This is what it is - it's a myth. But what is a myth... it is a faerie tale? Folklore? Not so much. Mythology is a tool used by man to find awareness, perspective, meaning and truth in regards to himself and his relations with his society, family, neighboring cultures, and environment. His place in the universe. This is executed mostly in story form through the use of allegory and metaphor. Often times in myths the significance dwells not just in the physical consequences of the hero's actions, but in the universal truths that those actions represent. In that sense mythology is timeless - they are stories of mankind looking around at his world and screaming "I know not what to make of this mystery. I know nothing." In that moment of humility, mankind proceeds to make an educated guess as to the nature of this beast we call life. These hypotheses are formulated with hopes of helping man further his species along the path to a meaningful, true life that harmoniously flows in balance with the world around him (and all that that encompasses.)

Throughout my life I have been fascinated by mythology. No, that doesn't mean I was reading The Illiad when I was four years old. At that time I was getting my myths through the outlets that most people do in this stage of our existence - movies and television. I have always been drawn to the hero concept - whether it was Ninja Turtles at age five, Evangelion at eleven, The Watchmen at sixteen, or Clint Eastwood at age twenty-two. They are at their bare roots the same tales that the Vikings told about Odin and Freya, or that the Egyptians told about Osiris. Our way of life has changed much over the past few millennia, but in many ways we are still the same. We are still human, and we still know nothing.

What has changed, however, is the motivation behind our myth telling. What is the difference between folklore and mythology? Folklore and faerie tales are stories told for entertainment's sake. While they often include elements of mythology, they are not constructed with the same reverence towards education and spiritual health. Imagine it like food - mythology is your hearty meal packed full with your essential-8. Faerie tales are the dessert. Both can fill you up, both can taste just as good, and sometimes.... sometimes a dessert might even have something in it that your body needs. But it's not the same as that plate of veggies you just demolished... and if you eat too much dessert, you're going to get fat. In our current society we've been eating too much folklore - too much entertainment - too many myths conjured only to make money, to complicate, to put people to sleep, to distract us from looking at this world and yelling "why is this place so screwed up, and what can I do to make it just a tiny bit better?" This epidemic has spread from movies and television into music and essentially every form of art. Money money money. Pop pop pop. Here today, gone tomorrow. And now we've gotten fat. Not to speak in absolutes, however. Of course there are great myths still being told in all forms of art. And yes, healthy mythology can be entertaining (and often is).... as pop entertainment can also be educational. But the majority is not trying - not nearly as hard as they should be - and the effects can be seen in every facet of our life. There is an ever looming sadness that is consuming us. Spiritual realization is at an all time low - and in turn divorces increase, bad presidents rise to power, and we all fall asleep. Our artists - perhaps descendents of early shamans (spiritual leaders and healers) - are outnumbered. So where do we go from here? Well, that's a rant for another day. I'm supposed to be talking about my film. Shit.

So I wrote The Romantic in the tradition of many other myth writers in order to invoke a story that reflects certain turmoils facing today's culture. There are one million monsters in The Romantic because there are one million monsters eating away at all of our souls. A lack of faith. A lack of parents. A lack of motivation. A lack of role-models and a lack of heroes. A desire to "not want to hear about it" and the constant use of cynicism as a defense mechanism. My story is a savage one. At moments it is downright cruel. Expect to see murder, violence and even sodomy. However, I cannot stress enough: I did not include these for shock. I am not a perverted weirdo who gets off making cartoon characters sleep with each right before they rip each other's heads off. The key is to notice how these characters react to these horrific events - most of the time, it's with passive acceptance... just how we react to our own savagery. It's easy to ignore the horrors of today unless they are taken out of context... juxtaposed against childlike cartoon characters so that they enter the brain without the same pacifying filters as they do when we watch CNN.

The Romantic is a story about a boy coming of age in a time where there are no proper gods and no proper myths to guide the transfiguration that is growing up. It has very few answers (those are in the sequel - har har har - Fat America and The Apocalyptic Loves) but instead offers a question mark for everyone to take into consideration. We know nothing. Lets start figuring out why.

Until next week,
MPH

"Man has forgotten his fundamental divinity, all the while cowering from his carnality like a broken dog - beaten and humiliated. Afraid of his sex and afraid of his soul. War came. Faith came. And in an instance, every damn beautiful thing up and burped itself into worthlessness. Numbess. The streets are filled with piss-freaks, pirates, weirdos and scallywags. Everyone is sad and no one knows why. They buy... build... fuck and feel guilty. The world has been perverted, and all the magic is gone. Welcome home, ugly."
-Patience

A Neverending Story

2006-06-09T13:53:00.000-07:00

Gotta make this post quick - heading into the jungle for a long weekend of beers, boating, and bonfires. Not much to report on this thus far - storyboarding and character designing like a loon. The Team is assembling and production is underway. Below is the promised story synopsis (so you cats can figure out what this film is about). Check back next week for a more detailed look at the scriptwriting process and how a tiny romance turned into an epic adventure.

Godspeed,
MPH

Click here to read the synopsis.

Intro and Overture

2006-06-02T14:13:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to the first post on my first blog for my first feature film - The First. I mean. The Romantic.

That was stupid.

Okay! My name is Michael P. Heneghan, the grand pooh-bah of what will be a 90 minute animated flick set to launch in mid 2007. Next week I'll publish a synopsis of the story but for now you can check out excerpts from the first act of the feature here. This film came to fruition as my senior thesis for The University of The Arts. Instead of creating a self contained animated short, I used this time to experiment with the style and storytelling format of the feature. The result is the first act sans a few scenes that are irrelevant to the arch of the 12 minute film.

The short ends in a cliffhanger (almost literally - har har) and sets the stage for the heroes mission. But in the words of Mr. Al Jolson.... you ain't seen nothing yet.

Production began yesterday, June 1st, but I've been working for a little while now storyboarding the script, sketching character designs, and creating the 'digital puppets' (as I've grown accustomed to calling them. I'll explain later.) The designs are killer and at least thirty-three times better than the ones showcased in the short film linked above. It's a mythological story - and this fantasy land is packed with a lot of weird dudes. I've drawn at least one million monsters so far. Count em. They're there.

The purpose of this blog is twofold. First, it will allow me to keep a running journal of all my anxieties and enthusiasms as I go through the daunting process off popping out an animated feature in a years time. Secondly, it will give all the three people that are already pumped for this ship to float (or sink) a chance to get an inside glance at how I'm actually going to bake this pie. I will post every Friday with news, updates, personal comments, thoughts, and so forth along with some sneak peaks at production art, music, and even some animation. Cool.

So yeah, that's it folks. Stay tuned. The babies have only just begun to burp.

Hugs, kisses, and homemade chocolates,
MPH

"The catapults are loaded and one by one they are going off, flinging who knows what at what knows who. For what? I don't know. But I do know this. He's gonna lynch you, old man. And I'm gonna show him how."
-Mr. Azarious Bergilmir Patience