http://www.feel-rock.com/2/feel_The roses and the wine.jpg
Ok guess Iv'e got some explaining to do. Yes I did do this whole animation production myself. Took about 4 months to animate. After first designing and building the characters, instruments, props and some environments. There a fully 3d animated rock band that actually plays properly. So unlike other animated bands (eg Gorillaz) I was the musician too, which made it easier for me to make them actually play properly. A production of this size usually involves 20 to 30 people to make over many months. So I had to wear all those hats. Director, producer, animator, lighting, camera etc. This gave me and Phil total control. Ah yeah, forgot to say, I play guitar and bass, Phil Howland plays drums and vocals. I write the music, he writes the words. Pretty even spread of our music input. So behind the scenes we are a two piece rock band and to the general public we are animated vegy rockers.
We recorded and mixed the song and had Steve Smart (EMI 301 Sydney) master it for us. So Steve's the only other person that worked on it. It was weird watching Steve master. He does it standing up with his arms straight down turning stuff with his eyes shut moving a bit like Stevy Wonder. Has a good set of rock n roll ears. And only cost us $200 australian. Thats about $100 US. Bargan.
Since I had the mix on the same computer that I was animating it on, I mixed down a drums only mix which made it easier to animate the drummer to. My animation software has the waveform placed along the timeline so you can see the drum hits. I also mixed down a soft music, loud vocal to use for lip syncing the vocals to. Phil and I would sit around tanked up coming up with cool shit for these guy's to do in the music video. We watched a lot of rock video's for inspiration. In the first solo we had Punk Potato jump up and down like Pete Townsend then go right into the camera like Ritchie Blackmore then wriggle around on his back like Angus Young. BTW Angus comes from the same suburb as me. Never met him though. From there on we just made it up as we went. We did a Queen Bohemian Rapsody cut as well,
http://www.feel-rock.com/2/feel_3q.jpg
For the Abbey Road scene I had to first remove the Beatles form the image. Wasn't that hard, I just cloned bits of road over the top of them. The only tricky bit there was to paint in the other half of the volkswagen that george covered. For added realism and depth I animated a taxi on the left at the start of the shot driving away (like the one on the right of the real picture thats parked) and a mini minor coming down the road on the right. I also rendered out separate shadows of the 3d to composite between them and the image. This helped glue them into the scene better. Kind of puts them on the ground. Here's a shot of the band inspecting the completed background image.
http://www.feel-rock.com/2/feel_Abbey_bikers.jpg
Here's a work in progress shot with Paul and Ringo left to do....makes me sad when I look at it.
http://www.feel-rock.com/2/beatle abbey paul ringo.jpg
For some reason I removed Pauls cigarette first. Don't ask me why??
Here's the rest of the band.
Apple
http://www.feel-rock.com/2/feel_drumfr2909top.jpg
Carrot
http://www.feel-rock.com/2/feel_carrot.JPG
And the newly introduced (for the next music video) Chiko Roll. With Chiko Roll on guitar this will free up Punk Potato to work the mic stand and stuff and be more of a front man.
http://www.feel-rock.com/2/feel_chiko_roll.jpg
The second movie shows Chiko's audition into the band.
When I finished it we sent it to some of the TV stations music video shows over here in Australia and they liked it enough to put it into regular rotation for a while. Couldn't beleave it when I first saw it on tv. Mission acomplished. Its also been downloaded by an estimated 250 000 people so far from many different sites around the world. Thats many gold records in the old money. But I wonder how many would have downloaded it if they had to pay?
BTW, hope Paul and Ringo aren't upset about the use of the Abbey Road image. It was done in good taste and if you guy's read this and object, I will remove it from the cut. Oh shit, hope Michael Jackson doesn't own it.
Best regards
Scott Tansley
I watched it at work though, brilliant!
