The Gardener and The Gopher

Latest…

This shot will be cut to black a frame earlier than is shown here.

Some ref footage and stills filmed for the final stab shot:

Animation update soon..

Other than the troublesome gopher constraints in this shot I was feeling like the gardeners poses and movements were not quite right. So I set about acting out the shot and instantly realised the biggest mistake was that the hips should dip down as he sneaks across. I was stepping the gardener too high. Also spent a lot of time refining the timing and other poses in this shot.

Ref Footage:

And some stills I used:

Having fun with line of action in this shot:

The shot itself:

I was struggling with timing in shot 02. So I filmed myself acting out the shot…

Notes based on ref:

• Lose the pause when lifting flower out of pot and then sniffing.
• Look at wobbly flower should be touch longer but not move as far/possibly add a shift of pose
• Clean up drift on head when looking proud
• Jump back should be quick and snappy / doesn’t have to jump back far
• Snap back forward quicker after flower gone
• Alter arm poses

And the latest version, almost complete! I keep tweaking poses and curves but need to step away from this shot for a bit before final polishing.

Shot 02 latest:

Shot 09 research:

I have been struggling with creating a snappy jump awake in this shot. After watching lots of classic Tom & Jerry episodes I made these observations which really helped me work out the poses and timing for this shot. 

 Shot 09 – 12 latest:

•  Sound effect for flowers going down still to add in shot 09
• Shape animation added on chest when snoring
• Shots 11-12 still at an early spline blocking stage
• Cut between shot 10 & 11 needs a longer hold on gardener at start of shot 10

Story alterations:

• Lost the worm & dead leaf in shot 02 / added gardener sniffing the flower.
• Night to day transition slowed the pace too much & will aid rendering time to get rid of the pan up & down- removed shot 07 & 08 – fade out gardener falling asleep in shot 06 – come straight in to shot 09 .
• Lost one of the gun shots [2 instead of 3].
• Gardener drops in dismay after statue breaks instead of yelling.
• Shot 11-12 Gopher dives down hole just before the pitch fork stabs him rather than the gardener stab next to him and then gopher goes down hole [enhances gardeners cruelty].
• Will be changes to the post-credits shot.

Quick capture of shot 02 WIP. Hit a difficult point in that I want him to tug at the worm briefly before it pops out, and I want us to feel that stretch of the worm holding on. However the I’ve needed to set a pose constraint on the worm to lock it to the finger tip. I need the root of the worms rig to stay in place [inside the mud block] and using a constraint to do so results in the two constraints fighting against one another.

So I need to come with a logical solution, which was pretty obvious in the end: First constraining the worms effector to the finger tip [rather than a null] then with the root constrained in place the fingers tips may pull the effector. I then release the constraint on the root when I want the worm to come loose. The only issue is pulling the hand too far away when the worm reaches maximum stretch, I can overcome that by just being careful!  Here is a quick test of this set up in action:

Here is a first pass of Shot 05.

This shot will feature a panning camera on the final piece and also the gopher popping up at various places in the garden, however, we have decided to add this as a 2D element in post production.

As this shot ends, it will immediately cut to a close up of the gardener showing his reaction.