Pittsburgh Green Clean Commercial

Hey!
Check out this commercial I made for my friends at Pittsburgh Green Clean!
I directed, designed, and animated this!
Music made by Rob Pantalone.

I Won First Place in the Laika Monthly Creative Challenge!

As the title states... I won with a record breaking 228 'LIKES' for their creative challenges.

I guess they are sending me something AWESOME and I'll be sure to post it when it gets here...

But I figured I'd post a few progress shots!

I painted this all with acrylic paint on newspaper.

It's based on the 1953 movie, "Robot Monster".

A Typical Day (With Progress Shots)

I have a few saved versions on my desktop already, so I'll show some just to give you a feel of my process.

A Successful Day

Just some more concept art for my "prehistoric" world.

A few females and a pup rest by the lakeside as the males cook the result of a hard days work.

Digitally Painted Caricatures

As it says, these are all caricatures I painted in Photoshop with my wacom Inteus4.

The first is my friend Dustin.
The second is my friend Shane as Jimi Hendrix.
The second is a self-portrait.
And the final is my girlfriend, Paige, as Goku.

Byrd VS Gravity (A Stop motion short by Rob Sassi)

Like I promised, here is my post dedicated to my second Byrd short, Byrd VS Gravity.

Initially, I had no reason/will to continue using Byrd as a character. I didn't want to get caught up in the whole "Tom and Jerry" scenario and around the time Byrd VS Worm got finished, I had invested a hefty amount of time into it, that I wanted something fresh.
It all occurred to me while chatting with my good friend, Trung Le, that I could make the stories about Byrd, and not about the relationship of Byrd VS Worm.
I decided overtime that I wanted to make a few episodes about Byrds' first few days walking the earth, which would all happen sequentially.

I will admit, at this point, I have a small series planned out (no more than 9-10 episodes), but being one person and trying to work on my portfolio to get a job, etc, I haven't planned on pursuing past the second short as a of now. It would be ideal to have more people work on it with me, or to pitch the idea to a company, but alas, time will tell.

At the time though, I had to find a nice way to blend the ending of Byrd VS Worm and begin Byrd VS Gravity. That's when I thought of doing a short where Byrd meets some crows, feeling they might be alike and that he could possibly fly.

 

I studied the way a crow's bone structure was, so I could make a puppet that had accurate joint movements.

 

And added feathers with hot glue, one by one...

Above is a scene I animated with three flying characters... probably one of the more challenging shots I had on the film.

A shot of the rig. I just used a bunch of tied of strands of armature wire.

I guess something worth mentioning, is the final scene before the credits where you 'think' Byrd is flying. I shot that on three plates, being the ground plane, Byrd and the background. I've never tried to animate a camera trick like that before, so it was a learning experience all together. The hardest part, was trying to move the camera in space, along with the objects, to try to convince you they were moving together.

Anymore questions are welcome below in the comment section...
But otherwise, here is the link to my film!

Byrd VS Worm (A Stop motion short by Rob Sassi)

 Everyone starts somewhere, and my somewhere was a walking skeleton named Byrd.

I initially made this character as a joke in MSPaint, while sitting in computer animation class, waiting for the rest of the class to catch up.
My neighbor thought it was hilarious, and at the time I was looking for a character to work with for my animation 2's walk cycle... and if you know me, I enjoy taking advantage on an open assignment.

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT, THE DEAD NAIVE WALKING BYRD WAS CREATED...

But he wasn't perfect.

This was my first turn around I did with my initial design, but I needed to add more appeal.

 Of course, I was pursuing a more stop motion approach at the time so I pushed the sculptural feel of Byrd... and this is what I came to before I started to build him. Somehow, everything I do turns out cute... oh well...

I wasn't as keen to documenting my process as much as I am now, so I am sorry to inform that I don't have much to show of the armature I used for Byrd, etc...

Also, this was my first "real" short that I invested time into, and I literally had no storyboards! I pretty much just had the general idea, and went with it... There were a lot of little things I added on the spot... But I really enjoyed how this turned out under the pressure... but wouldn't recommend it.

I was still pretty new to animating with a puppet, so experiencing first hand what I could get away with and such, was a very exciting time!

I made a simple story, a character with a goal, and it was reasonable for one person to handle. I honestly never thought Byrd would become such a big deal (or develop as much as he is at this point in my head!), but apparently people are still talking about him at Edinboro, even now that I am gone.
I did end up producing a sequel named Byrd vs Gravity, but I shall do a seperate post talking about that project.

Thanks for the read, and below is the link to my animated short, Byrd VS Worm!
(Filmed Fall 2010 @ Edinboro University)

PS. I composed the music in this!

Cut Paper Storyboards

 

Here are some handmade storyboards I did in cut paper. I am actually going to animate this in flash. I already started, but it's kind of a side, side, side project, haha.

Outlaw'd

Some outlaw design I am messing with. I may or may not make this into a puppet, maybe a maquette…

Lunchtime Predictions with Nostradamus

And here's what I've been working on for about the past month...
I also only used an x-sheet for the first 1/3rd of the lip sync... so enjoy!

Animation Begins Today

I wanted to do a brief update before I start animating my two person lip sync.

A picture of my friend, Sparkles, helping out on the construction of the set.

Some shots of the puppets before the shooting. As you can see, you can barely tell I used newspaper for the clothes.
This shall be interesting...

Clothes for my Puppets!

Here are some more progress shots of my puppets I am building.

Going to paint these babies tonight. Made the clothes out of newspaper… obviously. The puppet on the right has his mouth on, which is made of clay… and I will be sculpting the mouths frame by frame. Eyes, brows and wrinkles, etc will be made from clay, and stylized in an unique manner.

Progress Shots of my Puppets

I am trying something new with these two puppets. I am going to be attempting to  build replaceable jaw pieces to get a fuller sense of motion from the lip sync. I have never done something like this, so this is an experiment as well as a performance test.

The hands are covered in masking tape now, so I can get more of a curve out of the finger motion, without having one weak spot.

I plan to eventually make their clothes out of newspaper, so that's why the body isn't sculpted like the face, etc.

Stay tuned for more updates on this project!

New Puppets

These are a couple shots of the armature of my newest puppets.