Paper-to-Post Pipeline

I've devised my methods- save the main coloring processes, which I still need to nail down for the narrative portion of the film. I think I'll keep that pretty traditional (three-tone) for the first pass and augment with an additional beauty pass. Until I get there, though, I've devised the scanning/compositing methods and chosen the final output res.

The scanner I picked up is a Mustek Scan Express Pro A3 1200, which fits 16f (12.65X17") sheets comfortably. The drivers are a bit dated, but it's inexpensive and TWAIN compatible with photoshop -- and that's all that matters.

Scans will be 16-bit color @ 200 DPI. Why not grayscale? Personal preference. I'd rather avoid a grayscale->RGB conversion step in my photoshop phase. Even tho macro automation makes it fast, I don't want to deal with software conversion of colorspace or bit depth between the scan and the composite.

Been working with After Effects for 2D stuff until now. This time, I'm bumping up to Combustion 4 for almost all output. Output will be Digital Cinema 4k 1.85:1, or 3996 × 2160. About twice current HD. This is pretty close to actual film, the difference being that the crop to 1.85:1 will occur during the actual composite. (For those not interested in techie stuff, skip: Combustion 4 doesn't actually include a comprehensive image sequence editor. There is an edit node, but having 60-150 images in line as a footage layer proves pretty unstable and actually makes for a huge hit to performance. There's also a fine .TIF sequence import, but since it only allows for single frame numbers, it's far too labor intensive to reorder any drawings as the animation may require. So I'll be importing the individual drawings into AE or similar motion graphics suite, and exporting these layers as uncompressed .movs with premultiplied Alpha to import into C4 as footage. It'll work, even on my 6-year old G5 rig. It's actually not too taxing on the machine until you try to render a preview to RAM- which is when 1/4 res proxies come in handy.) The goal here is to create something that can withstand the next rollout of HD media, which will be larger than 1920X1080 (1080p.)

Finally, instead of just a trailer- I've decided to execute a whole sequence of the film to use for fundraising. I think the film timeline is too large and varied to open up with a musical trailer mishmash, so I'll hit the story. After that, I'll see if a teaser or two is in order for publicity and go from there.

Insert Money into Mouth.

Day job acquired. This has been a major step forward in my film's production, as I must now pay rent on both living space and a studio. More soon.