Software used: Softimage XSI 2.03, Combustion V2.0, After Effects 5.0, Photoshop 6.0, Shake 2.50, Avid

Time: Total 8 months or so / real working time, 7 days max.

First of all there had to be an idea. I had it while driving to the FMX, desperately seeking alcohol.

Weeks passed until the day we had to start learning Softimage. It was one of my first characters I modeled and looked like that.

Weeks passed. Well, months passed. Then I worked on my soloproject to complete the semester. And I worked and worked and worked. Blaw .. boooring.

So I started to work on Lolo again. The storyboard was done in one day, including a great animatic. Several badly scribbled pictures attached to each other. It was ok, and did its job. Ain't that all that it's about ?

The actor was found very soon, too. One of my colleages. The real footage shooting took half a day, the rest I spend in the digitizing of it. Or getting keys, talk to the right people, find people. It was an adventure, I can tell.

The first animation was a desaster. The model was unanimatable. The black thingies were extra objects and the weighting was impossible to paint. Always penetrations. Not enough points in the face to animate anything. When modelling it, it wasn't meant for animating.

So, another day went by and a perfectly :) remodelled version of Lolo was ready. One more day went on to get these freaky sliders for the facial animation and the shapes and setup.

The final animating, rendering, compositing took 5 days, but I didn't work all day long because my mother was here for a visit and I was on holidays. "What are you doing! We wanted to go out!" You know.

Here are two how tos, thought it might help.

In the original footage the actor helds this black thingie. Acting without such a thing didn't work at all. It was painted away with the help of a clean plate. Taken from the same shot before he moves his hand.

Lolo was animated frame by frame to match the movement. Some frames, some fun :-).

And she also had to be painted out where she is behind the hand. It was done with Combustion. Lolo was also rendered with motion blur.

The following scene was one of the hardest. It had to be stabilized, a background had to be attached and in the end destabilized to get the cool camerashake back.

The background was attached via a simple mask. I created the cup in 3D so that there were reflections on it and the club was cut away. One thing less to erase.

I also had a clean plate of the cup witch I used to get rid of half of the pen. Unfortunately the pen was bigger than the club and had to be painted away. Pff. How should that work.

Once upon a time even I have luck and it worked with two feathered masks coming from the left and the right revealing the original footage and keeping the clean plate where the pen was. Due to the feather it's not to be seen. I hope.

Ok, enough babbling for now. If you have questions feel free to ask.