Have parked D&D animating - started pre production on a bullshittery

Good evening folks. I hope you're having a smooth start to your week. Another editing update.

Last post I mentioned that I was going to spend some time doing that D&D cartoon. I had three tasks in mind:

• Queue some character work for the commissioned artist (characters 8 and 9).
• Use the graphics tablet to make some tweaks to final backgrounds/final puppets already animated.
• Add lots of final sound effects and ambience to replace the temp track.

Number 1 went smoothly. And whole bunch of work has been queued up. I'm just waiting on the results and will probably keep queuing up additional work regardless of whatever project I'm working on just to try and keep the ball rolling.

But number 2 fell apart when I experienced hardware problems with my graphics tablet - my pens refused to track on the surface. I ordered a replacement set, which arrived in the midweek. And I meddled with various drivers. But so far the problem has not been fixed. I'm not entirely sure why. I'm very much hoping I don't have to shell out for a replacement tablet as it's only 2 years old.

Number 3 though went swimmingly. And it's what I was focusing on while waiting for the delivery of replacement tablet parts. And by Wednesday I was able to finish most of the audio rework for almost the entire video.

But with my graphics tablet being wonky and the artist doing the art...it meant I entered Thursday with very little I could actually do that would be...useful.

Therefore in order to keep busy, I decided to dip into another project. I'll swing back to D&D later and will keep queueing up work for the artist. For now I want to stay proactive rather than sit on my hands.

Pre production:

So bullshittery pre production work is pretty straightforward.

It involves making a Master Project File in Adobe Premiere that is continually updated. Moving all streams off the long-term storage device and onto faster drives for review. Then just...doing that, alongside my notes taken (or shortly after) the streams.

I can then park anything I think might be useful into "Nested" sequences (a feature of Premiere) and allocate them numbers from 1 to 3 depending on how quick or slow the punchline is. Or how much laughter I think it might trigger in the audience. With 1's being quick gags, easily stacked together. And 3's being minute long stories or lengthy banter between people.

For example, this is what Space Engineer's master project file looks like. Lots of nested sequences.

The intention here is to stagger the clips in a 3 2 1 1 1 2 3 fashion in order to neither lose the viewer's interest with punchlines that are too slow to arrive, or overwhelm them with clips that are too fast to properly comprehend. It is a crucial part of making any compilation, in my opinion.

Insofar as target selection, I've intentionally picked a project that was on the prior poll. Picking one of the lesser options with the goal of moving them through the editing process. And it was in the end...a coin flip that determined the current work. I imagine this next image may bring joy to some readers.

I am doing pre production for Team Fortress 2.

For those not familiar, the clan and various regulars have been playing regular Sunday games for the last year, on the suggestion of someone in the steam group chat. And it has been fantastically fun. With very few people knowing the game well before collectively starting, and therefore a relatively level playing field on entry.

As such, as we've spent time familiarising ourselves with the different characters, finding our preferred roles. And have since found many opportunities to joke with each other.

Rotary is constant sniping and winding everyone up. Harry is often the Heavy, dispensing adorable stoner wisdom. Quebec is often the Spy, becoming a boogeyman. And Cake is humming musically...whilst incinerating people as the Pyro. There have been lots of moments of comedy expressed as these characters, with our distinctly different personalities bouncing off each other.

For the minute though there isn't a huge amount I really know about any future part 1, as this is very much a pre-production 'discovery' phase. Figuring out what's there and determining whether it's going to work. A process that's going to take the entire week, I'm afraid. I'll keep you posted on how it's going.

All the best to you folks. Hope you're all having a nice week.