I wasn't expecting much, but boy that was a swell trailer! Although, I think it was the music, and the timing of the music with the video that absolutely blew me away. Was that an original score or were you just syncing it to stock? Absolutely gorgeous, nevertheless.

Okay, I see

"Music is being composed by William Stromberg. His work, with his writing partner John Morgan, can be heard in the teaser video beginning with the bedroom interior scene."

By the way, the sound of the snow in the beginning, and then going into the room where i'm not really sure if you had some kind of ambient sound, but, it really pulls you in. Timing and everything, certainly even stuff I'm forgetting to mention is just excellent. It really feels like a complete piece, how much of this did you say you did again? Oh, favorite musical moment, when she whispers "hey mickey" the musical cue going on is so crystal dreamy perfect. Dang again!

An excellent piece of work, no doubt a serious amount of time went into it, makes my feeble efforts at 3D look really sad but it makes me very much aware of just how hard these things are to achieve even with the best tools.

Projectmessiah looks mighty interesting, taron_people blew me away and my wife watched it while way too close to the screen, that causes an interesting reaction.

Bob.

Very beautiful - can't wait to see entire feature.
Good luck - I'll pass it on to as many people as possible.
v

Thanks everyone!

Jonathan-- The music wasn't written for this, it was just something they'd done several years ago that I edited for this. As for how much I did, I did everything except modeling and texturing the characters and bedroom, and except for animating the boy in the bedroom and the first pass of the girl's animation.

Fred

WOW! I would love to see this, great work. Couple questions.

The sequence with the plane has a kind of Sky Captain and the World of Tommorrow feel, was that an influence. Where did you get the great plane sound? Would love to hear any details on your Vegas workflow.

Great stuff, thanks for sharing.

This was actually done before Sky Captain (and before Polar Express, while I'm at it). What I've been doing since then is refining the script while shopping the project around.

As for the plane sound, there are two different sounds, and both were just things I found on the web.

My work flow, after the 3D renders, was:

1) Composite in After Effects, softening it, adding glow, putting the vignette on, etc.

2) Edit in Vegas, adding further filters like Color Corrector, Film Grain, Magic Bullet (the one that comes with Vegas, Color Balance, Brightness & Contrast, etc. The look I was after was a color version of the soft look in "It Happened One Night."

3) Dialog was recorded to MiniDV with a cheap dynamic mic at the homes of each kid, then cleaned up and edited in Vegas. There are 8 tracks of audio, sent to 3 busses-- Dialog, Music, and Sound FX.

4) Music was edited in Vegas too, including some time stretching and other manipulation.

By the way, the sequence of the video doesn't really reflect the story-- the shots of him walking in the snow actually come long after the airplane sequence. It's just that for the purposes of the video, especially because of the music, it worked better to end with the plane.

Looks good. I would like to see it when it is complete, however long that may take. Thanks for sharing- I am now curious what the true spirit of Santa really is!

j razz

Too many questions I probably wouldn't understand the answers to and too many "holy sh!t" moments to comment. Suffice to say, this was great. Ok, I'll comment on the spacial aspects of the soundfx... cool.

Well done. Keep at it.

Brilliant work! It's practically flawless. Everything works so well, the animation, dialog, editing etc. Nice work recording the dialog onto MiniDV. First time I've ever heard of audio being done this way.

Great work - Intriguing - had a really nice look and feel to It. I too look forward to seeing the finished project.

Thanks everyone. It's good to hear that I'm on the right path so far with this thing. Hopefully we'll get the funding to continue it-- and with more than just me and one other guy like it was for the teaser test. Not that it wasn't a lot of fun doing it, but it would be way too much work to do the whole show that way. Plus, my character animation skills aren't up to what I want from the final product.

Fred

Wow. Very cool. It definately evoked a Polar Express feel ... in a good way. I'm kind of curious as to where I can find a plane just gassed up and ready to go to the North Pole that I could hop on.

I love the establishing shots ... the camera zooming through the window and then subtly cutting a closer shot of the girl in bet. Very, very smooth and well done.

Good luck getting a chance to finish the project.

I was curious about the use of Christmas lights in the 30's and if they had them then.
Also, again I think it is very well done what you have so far, but I was wondering if you wanted the blanket on the bed to look the way it did or if that is a limitation on the software?

j razz

They definitely had Christmas lights. Look here.

As for the look of the blanket, that's entirely due to my lack of skills.

Fred

Wow! I did not even think that we would have thought of such a thing way before the 30's. It is always good to have a good historical grounding.

Keep up the good work.

j razz

Even the DC3 sound effects are authentic.

I watch that trailer each day, it makes me happy :)