Thanks to Cartoon Brew!

I woke up this morning and checked my usual animation-related websites, and saw that Cartoon Brew linked to the film!

Since the film was completed, it's been in a few film festivals, and then it got way too expensive to continue entering "A Time for All Seasonings" into fest after fest.

Because the project was something produced out of a love for animation, it was more important to put it online for free, so anyone could enjoy it.

As for ChewBone, the animation collective that produced the film, Joe Merideth has started in on a new film project that I am very excited to be a part of. He has even started posting a few storyboard concepts on his blog. www.joesdrawings.blogspot.com

With SO MUCH animation being produced by talented artists these days, I was more excited and honored to see that Jerry noticed the film and wanted to help other animation lovers see the finished product. So THANKS AGAIN CARTOON BREW!

A Time for All Seasonings now has a WEBSITE

A Time for All Seasonings is now online!

www.theshakerbrothers.com

Animation at the Portage

On June 15th, ChewBone Animation hosted a private screening of works by nine Chicago animators. And what a success! We had a turn out of about 400 people and everyone was very impressed by the variety of work presented.

The films ranged from 20 seconds to 20 minutes and included CG, Stopmotion, Handdrawn, Flash and other animation techniques.






I could not have brought a show like this together without the collaboration of others such as Ben Chow, who designed every single poster at the event, Dave Facchini would found someone to print them all, Lisa Barcy who designed the programs and helped pull the show together, Dennis Scott who runs The Portage and was very generous with us first-time-festival-organizers, and of course everyone who came from as far as San Fransisco, LA and Toronto to attend this event.











A Time for All Seasonings played very well on the big screen. So now its being entered into various festivals around the country. We have had early signs of interest as well as our fair share of rejection letters. I will post soon about the NEW WEBSITE for the film, so keep clickin' back...

CLIP from the film...

Here is 40 seconds from "A Time for All Seasonings". I'm still not great at getting the best quality video uploaded to the blog. But still, here is what you've all been waiting for: a small clip from the FINISHED FILM!

Director: BJ Crawford
Animation: BJ Crawford, Joe Merideth, Mike Owens
Produced at ChewBone Animation by: BJ Crawford, Joe Merideth
Music: Patrick Sinozich

A Time for All Seasonings is COMPLETE

Just before midnight on April 1st, we rendered out the final version of A Time for All Seasonings. In the next couple weeks, there will be a final edit session and that will make the final wrap of the film.

Here are some pictures of the final day of production:


The director at his desk finishing the last 12 or so drawings of the film.


Dahlia sitting next to all of the final artwork from the film. This is what six minutes worth of animation looks like.


Doug came in every week and worked on mattes, scanning, painting and compositing. He's now taking a break to sketch out storyboards for is own production, "Restless".


Chang did some amazing art work for the film. He came in on the final day of production to do some last minute painting. There were some elements of the film that required a more detailed painting job beyond just filling an area with a flat color. Each frame of the curtain opening and closing on the stage had to be treated like a piece of the background art.


Tom went through every single frame of the film and made a list of any painting errors or misplaced drawings. He then went back into the project and corrected every single mistake he found. This is him viewing the final version to make sure all of his changes made it into the final cut.

more pics

Victor painted the last little bit of the unfinished elements of Scene 4. He waited patiently while the final version slowly composited on my three year old computer...




Joe, the co-producer, co-animator on the project viewing the final version of the film. With absolute glee.

Maria Sangre: Painted

Here is the painted version of one of the Maria Sangre scenes.

A Time For All Seasonings is getting very near to being a finished film. We have just sent a "90% DONE" version to the PLATFORM FESTIVAL in Portland. Knock on wood.

It's about time...

Finally, a new post! But first of all, since the header to the blog states clearly that the film will be done Janurary 2007 I believe I have some explaining to do. All I can say is that it has been a lot of work to get all of the puzzle pieces to fit together. But I have such an amazing crew of people that come in and do clean ups and scans whenever they have a free moment, that I can say with confidence that IT'S CLOSE. The score will be recorded sometime next week and by the end of FEB there will be an "almost complete" version that can start being entered in festivals.

Here then is one of the final pts for the film. There are just 3 more scenes to tackle after this one. I wish I could post Joe Merideth's animation for the final scene of the film, but, for obvious reasons, I elected not to! This test shows you how I work on a scene, starting with the main action and moving on to the details and the follow though action. This is the bloody mary charcter in the film, Maria Sangre.