The assignment that launched a thousand kibbitzes

I finished versions 1 of the bird-into-plane sequence and the rain-into-bombs sequence. The bird-into-planes sequence seemed to generate all sorts of comments. Ben had this idea that it should look like a fireworks explosion where the birds come to a point and then the planes accelerate out of that point. Then he had the idea that the way to do it would be to get a video clip of a bird and a video clip of a plane and somehow merge them together. Not only that, after I told him "yes and where am I supposed to get footage" he found me some clips on the web. Then Craig got into the act. On Thursday I asked him if he wanted to work on that sequence. He didn't say anything so I figured he didn't want to do it. But today he sent me a clip. He used a true morph so it was interesting seeing that. Plus, like Ben, he had the planes accelerating out of frame. But the birds were too flat. Plus, I was already done. Oddly enough, the bird video that Ben sent was also way too flat looking. Plus the bird wasn't flapping wings and worse, parts of the bird were going out of frame. So I'd have to track it, rebuild the wings, and then rotoscope to get this bird working and it wasn't very good to begin with. Very cute though Ben, just like when Sean tries to help me make dinner.

It's funny the acceleration idea kept coming up. Ben later looked at my finished video and then decided it would look OK if I did an anticipation and then accelerated out after the transition to the jet. I kep telling him that if I accelerated out, no one would see it. Plus I think the anticipation would make the sequence look too cartoony. These are tiny jets here. Craig's acceleration was way too fast. In the current version I transition the end planes more quickly so we end with the feeling of planes rather than birds. This probably doesn't work that well though. If I have to make changes to this animation, I'll probably make the transition later so the audience will be able to see it better. Seeing the transition is more important than ending with planes I think.