I have a new camera now, and while I'm ironing out its idiosyncrasies, the picture quality is much higher, even though I'm shooting at the same resolution!  Not only that, I'm able to keep it much more stable, meaning that stability problems have been reduced to nearly zero.  The light flicker is infrequent and less dramatic when it does happen.  The result is a smoother, brighter brickfilm!  I'm not even using a camera brace at this time!  I'm just placing some 1x1 round plates on the baseplate and placing the camera in the "crater", and I still have more stability!

I reshot a scene from episode 4 that I shot on my older camera, as a test.  I'm going to try to get two quick renderings done to see the difference in quality myself.  I also am going to post an image from the new scene on tumblr soon, and you can tell me if you think if it looks overexposed or underexposed, or just right.

It looks like my brickfilms will finally have a quality reasonably on par with the average brickfilm.

I've had family emergencies and sicknesses, but I finally got some animation done.  Animation for episode 4 is about 15% complete.  The next hurdles will be buulding the sets.  The scenes in this episode include:

1) Schneider living room (the main set)
2) Melissa's bedroom (already built)
3) Brent's basement (in 3 scenes)
4) Antwerp Mall
5) Collectible shop (in the mall)
6) Town hall
7) Town hall lobby

So that means I'll need 5 new sets, starting with the basement.  3, 6, and 7 are in LDD form already.  The big challenge is the mall.  I want something really grand and modern-looking.

Animation is taking a short pause while I build the second of two new sets.  The basement set is finished.  LDD images of it are on my tumblr page, in my signature file.  Actual photos will be posted soon!  I just began the municipal building lobby set.  The scenes in this location features some incredibly superb voice acting from BiM's Jay Silver!!!!!!!

Episode 4 is 36% animated.  This number is significant because that's how much I had done (after the hard drive crash) before the summer took me away from the project on the previous episode.  I'm confident that I can produce a completed episode within a few months of episode 3's release (excluding the summer).  And, as soon as I reach 100%, it's right into shooting episode 5 while episode 4 is in post!  5 is a Brent episode with Angela playing an active role, too.  Also, Johnny Strange becomes the influential character I first intended him to be, as he is in episode 1.  I didn't realize as I was writing the early episodes that I haven't been fulfilling his role with enough justice, but in 5, 6, and especially 7, he really inspires Melissa to do things that cause her parents stress, especially Brent.  I want to do something fun wiht him in episode 8, but still have some writer's blockage there.  Episode 9 changes the pace a bit, and it's mainly a Brent/Angela story with some nice development from the teens.  Okay, this was supposed to be about episode 3, but I went pretty far into the future.  I don't know what stories will be used beyond 9, but that's fine.  The 9 episodes I have scripted (or outlined) will keep me busy for years to come, and I'll have more ideas for the cast by then!  The focus is to make the gumor character-based, and really write solid, believeable characters whose world you really feel a part of and you'd wish to visit for many adventures.

If you have any questions about the world of Holding Our Own, including the town of Bremen in 2009, background information on the characters and their personalities, or other universe-specific trivia, just ask.  For instance, Angie's gun is a Luger 31 manufactered in the early 1930s, and was once owned by a Chinese lieutenant in the Second Sino-Japanese War.  As long as it won't spoil future episodes, I'll share some of the inner setting.

After a short break from animating, it seemed time to set up the framework for episode 4, so the first 19 seconds of animation are sequenced.  (sequencing!  That's the word I've been looking for all this time to mean making animation out of the frames that were photographed!)  So glad that the process of numbering the frames is so much easier.  The resulting animation is also much smoother, brighter, and consistent.  You'll be pleased to see that Episode 4's technical aspects will be on par with the average brickfilm!

Of course, I did bump the end table with the telephone on it outright in the first sequence...

With animation approaching the halfway mark, I took a moment to do a frame count: 5600 frames, but this time, only 800 are rejected frames, with is about 15% instead of about 40%!  Percentage will probably decrease as the animation continues, because it took a bit adjusting to the new camera's feel.  So over 9000 frames for episode 4 is an estimate.  Wow!

In the next post, I'll tell a little bit about the episode, without revealing too much plotwise.

Well, it's not for episode 4... it's for episode 6: Mike Shields, who portrays Hector Bing in episode 2, will be the voice of a semi-regular character.  He will be the drummer in Johnny Strange's band.  Mike's character will first appear in HOO episode 6.
Animation resumes in 3 weeks.  Still at 51%.

I just began animating again at last!  It took a bit to get used to it again, but I'm back into the groove!
Johnny Strange is playing his guitar in the sequence that was animated today.  Some pix will be up on my tumblr page, which always has nothing posted on it during the summer.  It will be good to have something new up on Tumblr again!

Yes, it is.  thank you for your support, and all that you've done for the series.

Currently I'm putting audio together from all the voice talent so that the conversation is one file.  I've also been numbering the frames for sequencing.

it's a really good day for episode 4, and so, I've got a long post.

Well, the animation's starting to look really nice!  I've sequenced about 2 1/2 minutes of animation for episode 4 so far, which is about 10% of the completed film.  The animation is in sync with the voices.  It really looks like it's on another level.  I still bump the furniture sometimes (though I'm improving there, too.)  Mainly, the flickering is less frequent and less pronounced at the times it is present.  The jumpiness is also much rarer and less jittery.  And I owe it all to switching cameras.  I did forget what settings I was using, though, and have to remember and experiment to recapture the crispness of the color.

There is one short panning cut, about 10 seconds in length, that was shot with the older camera.  I tried to shoot it several times on the new one but it just never came out right after 3 sessions.  So, you'll be able to easily spot it when episode 4 is released.  The yellow of the Schneider home is now so much more asthetically appealing.  It's brighter, almost like Lego's light yellow, found in Heartlake High and Stephanie's Beach House sets rom Lego Friends.  But it's the same primary yellow it always was.  You know, a lot of those bricks came from the famous (not Stephanie's) Beach House set from about 2009.  I really wish I could, just for a while, disassemble the Schneider living room and rebuild that awesome set.

Next week, animation resumes again AGAIN!  This time I hope to get 3 to 4 sessions in per week.  It's fun to watch what I've got complete, as the only audio is the characters' dialogue.  No sound effects or laugh track were added yet.  Even the TV tracks (when the TV is on) are still silent.  By the way, there's a scene where Melissa is watching "The King of Queens", and I'm trying to find a girl who can do Carrie's voice from the show.  If you know of anyone who can do a voice at least moderately like hers, please send her to me!

Some of Bricks In Motion's best voice talents will have roles in episode 4!  First up is Jay Silver AKA Jay.  Anyone fortunate enough to have him voice for yuor films knows how he is both talented and dynamic.  He has the role of the male municipal clerk.

Then there's BiM's own Rachel Dew, AKA Dew Films.  Dew Films will portray the voice of the female municipal clerk.  She will also play a semi-regular character, Bridgette Drexler, beginning with episode 5.  While the female voices on BiM are few, every one of them is very talented.

Speaking of female BiM talent, Mary Charles AKA Brick 7 will be Angela again, and Allana Carnie (AKA AC Films) will reprise her semi-regular role as Melissa's best friend, Chay.  Chay and Carleigh (voiced by Jakunen Neesan, a non-BiM member) will both reappear, as well as their mutual friends who are making their debut, Grisjahilde, Hedwig, Kikka and Perahta. 

And since I'm praising everyone from BiM who is helping, let's not forget Brandon Fields, AKA DarthVincentPrice, as Johnny Strange.  He deserves the praise as well!  I have got to tell you: I just CAN'T WAIT UNTIL YOU HEAR HIM THIS TIME!  He went beyond the call of duty, straining his vocal cords to the limit "singing" the Johnny Song of the episode.  (You did notice that Johnny sings an improv song EVERY EPISODE, yes?)  It must have been difficult to pull off, but the results were phonomenal (sp?)!  And HILARIOUS!  I still crack up with each listen!  Words may seem mildly funny when they're read on the page, but it's the voice actors who really make them comedy!  And Johnny delivers!  It's in a scene with Johnny and Brent, sort of an acceptance of Johnny (a bit) by Brent.  He realizes that Johnny's not going away and he is able, at least a little bit, to get along with him by building on something they have in common: finding Missy hard to deal with!  For Johnny Strange fans, I'm pleased to say that starting with episode 5, his character is turning to the direction I had always wanted: the guy who influences Melissa toward things that drive Angela and Brent crazy!  It's a balance here: Johnny is an influence on Melissa but Melissa is an independent thinker at the same time.  So it's hard to pull off a balance because Missy is assertive and often it seems the other way around.  Early in episode 2, for instance, Melissa seems to intimidate Johnny a bit.  It shows her as strong, but Johnny is supposed to be strong too, not overly fearful of Melissa.  By episode 5, I think there's the right balance, and both characters seem strong enough without overlapping.  I'm saying this because Johnny in episode 4 has a crucial role in the plot near the end, but is still not fully at the potential I want him to have as an influence on the story.  I really love Johnny in episodes 5 and 6, and hope you will too, but that's another story, literally.  I think you'll love him in episode 4 too!

You also get to see the Schneider's basement!  Hint: It looks a lot like the basement in "Everybody Loves Raymond."  But if you see a pattern here, that's not a surprise.  Anyway, with more free time expected to come my way, I intend to post a few pics onto the HOO Tumblr page, something that hasn't been done in months.  Keep watching this space for Tumblr updates!

I have to build the Antwerp mall soon for the second part of the episode.  Been having trouble on the style.  I'm open to ideas.  I like modern.  Or if you see good photo ideas on the net, email them to me or post them on the thread.

Oh, yeah.  I guess it's okay to give the name of the episode!  Well, maybe next post.  Hint: just like every episode, it's a joyfully bad pun.

I'd love your comments and questions about the series and the characters and Bremen and the rest of the world of HOO.  Have you been losing sleep because you've been wondering when Melissa's birthday is, or what's Johnny's last name, or what Mark Manchester's endgame is, or if that blue bird that seemed to be eaten by a cat in episode 1 survived and is the same one that's been appearing in every other episode, or anything else like that?  Just send a reply right here on this thread if you had anything on your mind about the series!