Topic: Gray Latitude - Part One

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Gray Latitude - Part One

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Part one of four. In this epic steampunk-inspired Brickfilm, Peter Gray must confront menacing forces in late 19th century New York City.

For those unfamiliar with this project, I began working on it in Summer 2010. I completed the script in January 2011 and filmed it from then until March 2011. I completed voice recording in November 2011. By early 2012 I had finished much of the editing and visual effects. However, I became busy with college and couldn't take another look at the project until fall 2012, by which time I was beginning to realize it had some script problems that it was too late to fix. I didn't have much motivation left at that point to finish a project that was by then far below my current skill level. Thus it remained unfinished for the last year and a half.

I finally took another look at it last month and decided to finish it. So far only part one has been completed, and I'll work on the remaining installments as I have time. Melting Point is still being filmed at the moment, so that takes up most of my time.

Last edited by Nick Durron (May 15, 2014 (11:49am))

Re: Gray Latitude - Part One

I'm glad you decided to finish this. The CGI is pretty nice as well as the animation and basically everything else. I'm looking forward to Part Two!

Re: Gray Latitude - Part One

An interesting premise, and I will be following this series. My only qualm really besides a desire for more detail in set design would be how hard it was to become attached to the main character.

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Re: Gray Latitude - Part One

This was great. Intriguing, and it has a bizarre sense of humour, but the CGI and the physical sets (and the combination of the two) are what make this really shine. I look forward to the next parts!

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"Nothing goes down 'less I'm involved. No nuggets. No onion rings. No nothin'. A cheeseburger gets sold in the park, I want in! You got fat while we starved on the streets...now it's my turn!" -Harley Morenstein

Re: Gray Latitude - Part One

All those CGI buildings...

I really liked it, there's not much happening and although there's a few bits that are weird...

Spoiler (click to read)

like the scene where Peter enters the room and already starts discussing with the police about what could've happened. Details like that should be told to the police when they're researching the murder/suicide/whatever and not when they just find out about it (in my opinion).

...the animation is very nice and the kinda slow pace really helps with getting to know the characters.

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Re: Gray Latitude - Part One

WoutStopmotion wrote:
Spoiler (click to read)

like the scene where Peter enters the room and already starts discussing with the police about what could've happened. Details like that should be told to the police when they're researching the murder/suicide/whatever and not when they just find out about it (in my opinion).

Not really...
Anyway, great job Nick! I really liked the animation and the CG was really good. As RealBrick said, it was hard to become attached to the main character. The worst thing about this film though, were the donuts, they were grey. Gross.

Re: Gray Latitude - Part One

Okay, so I was wondering why the animation quality was lower than some of your other work, but the date clears that up. I'm liking the story so far, if I'm not completely off on what's going on, I like the premise and plot. You might not like some stuff about the script, but I'm not a good enough writer to see anything wrong. It's good work, especially keeping in mind you made it awhile ago. mini/smile

Re: Gray Latitude - Part One

Very nice, I especially liked the creative use of CGI, and the voice acting. I don't want to say anything about the story just yet, I want to see where it goes first. Also, the music is marvelous.

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Re: Gray Latitude - Part One

This was definitely a pleasant surprise. After seeing the trailer more than two years ago, I thought this film was long gone.

From only the first minute of the film, I was intrigued. The set design, complemented with the CGI environments, is superb. Also, I thought the lighting and color grading is very well done. One aspect, in particular, in all your films that I enjoy and find visually pleasing is your use of mouth animation. It's something that is not necessary by any means in a brickfilm, but it is surely a nice touch. Coinciding with the lip-syncing, the voice acting is definitely above par. More than exceptional than most modern brickfilms.

I am looking forward to the future installments, and I wait, anxiously, for Melting Point!

Re: Gray Latitude - Part One

It was nice CGI and animation, but the story, plot, and VA'ing just wasn't there. I was disappointed with this video as your videos are usually knocked out of the ball park when it comes to quality brickfilms.

A Life? Cool! Where can I download one of those from?

Re: Gray Latitude - Part One

Gonna talk about spoilers for this video ahead.

I feel odd that you introduced a murder without us ever getting to know the victim.  This would have been okay had it been from a police prospective, however, it's from the point of view of someone who knew the guy, so I feel like we should have had him introduced first so that he death bears some more significance.
On a more positive note, however, the way that you showed the body was marvelously executed.  That was a glorious shot.  I also really liked the cigar joke, which made me totally L-O-L.

The facial animation was very, very nice, however, I feel like the main character should have had a different face, perhaps something with a more neutral expression.  His face looks happy, but throughout the film I don't think he ever really feels happy, and after everything he says he always reverts back to that silly smile.  It's nice that you made him frown for that one part, though.

Also, the custom torsos felt a bit weird.

Re: Gray Latitude - Part One

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I'm glad that most of you enjoyed it.

RealBrick wrote:

An interesting premise, and I will be following this series. My only qualm really besides a desire for more detail in set design would be how hard it was to become attached to the main character.

Yep, totally agree.

Rockydude411Bricks wrote:

The worst thing about this film though, were the donuts, they were grey. Gross.

A worthy criticism. I really have no idea why I did that.

CarrollFilms wrote:

It was nice CGI and animation, but the story, plot, and VA'ing just wasn't there. I was disappointed with this video as your videos are usually knocked out of the ball park when it comes to quality brickfilms.

Out of curiosity (if you see this), did you enjoy Picturesque? I feel like this film suffers from many of the same problems... convoluted script, bad dialog, overuse of CGI, etc. Which is ironic because I was trying not to make the same mistakes.

Squid wrote:

I feel odd that you introduced a murder without us ever getting to know the victim.  This would have been okay had it been from a police prospective, however, it's from the point of view of someone who knew the guy, so I feel like we should have had him introduced first so that he death bears some more significance.

Totally get where you're coming from. There is a reason I started the story when I did, which becomes apparent in the end.

Squid wrote:

The facial animation was very, very nice, however, I feel like the main character should have had a different face, perhaps something with a more neutral expression.  His face looks happy, but throughout the film I don't think he ever really feels happy, and after everything he says he always reverts back to that silly smile.  It's nice that you made him frown for that one part, though.

I agree, the smile is odd. I would have changed his expression more frequently but it was a lot of work. As for the choice of head, I wanted to avoid using the serious Luke Skywaker face, which at the time I felt was overused in Brickfilms. This head seemed like a good alternative.

Squid wrote:

Also, the custom torsos felt a bit weird.

Yeah...

Re: Gray Latitude - Part One

Squid wrote:

I feel odd that you introduced a murder without us ever getting to know the victim.  This would have been okay had it been from a police prospective, however, it's from the point of view of someone who knew the guy, so I feel like we should have had him introduced first so that he death bears some more significance.

Actually, it makes sense done this way: it is said that the two (the main character and the victim) didn't have a very strong relation. So the fact that we see a dead man we don't even know might be justified with that: the man was a stranger to his son.
What I found strange was that the house didn't have any barriers around it, something that usually is present when the police has arrived to a place where a murder has happened.

This is just Part one of 4, so I can't really say much about it.
In cinematography, I felt some of the angles were weird, the voice acting could be better in some parts. For the rest, the animation didn't have anything spectacular but it worked, and the facial animation was very well done.
Not too impressed with this video, but I'll watch the other parts.

Re: Gray Latitude - Part One

As there is more to come, I can't really bag on the plot. My only real problem was the weak dialogue. All the conversations seemed forced, and it just felt like they were reading it straight off the script. They need to be more loose and relaxed. Other than that, I really enjoyed it. I look forward to future parts, as I am intrigued by the story.

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