oddballwes » cg

In Search of Humans: Teaser 3

wesball — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:55:14 +0000

This is my sci-fi comedy I’m currently developing with a few people. It centers around the grand voyage of a delusional alien and his faithful sidekick. It’s shaping up to be a spectacular adventure with a lot of heart. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

btw, to view the teaser trailer, click on that little poster there on the left. And TURN UP THOSE SPEAKERS!

Nico’s Homeworld

wesball — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 00:20:35 +0000

ISOH Ship Design

wesball — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:14:20 +0000

This is the current design of the ship in ISOH. It was made in Modo, a program I find myself using more and more lately.

PONZIMATION: Animated Segment

wesball — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:36:21 +0000

A co-creation with my partner Justin Barber, this short animated sequence was commissioned for an original documentary called ‘Masters of the Heist’ included on the HD-DVD version of Ocean’s 13. Directed by Jonathan Buss and produced by Herzog & Company, it breaks down and explores famous heists of the century.

We had about three weeks to complete this from scratch. Most of the animation was done entirely in After Effects CS3. There’s also a little bit of Lightwave 3D in there occasionally. This was pretty much the biggest After Effects project we had attempted at the time. You should have seen the keyframes! Maybe one day we’ll do a making-of…

THE TREEHOUSE: Feature Pitch

wesball — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:33:03 +0000

So this teaser trailer was just something I threw together to use in the room while pitching the concept around town. It worked great. I felt it really helped to grease the wheels, convey the tone and ‘kind’ of movie I was thinking about.

VARIETY
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
CALLING CARD SHORTS
Other Links

UPDATE:
So I had a fun time working on this project. It was my first sell to a major studio and got to learn a little inside baseball on the studio process. Plus, I met and worked with some cool people. But as of now, Treehouse is dead. It’s time to move onto other projects.

While in development at the studio, the story underwent some pretty significant shifts in tone. Instead of the dark fairy-tale I originally pitched, it ultimately became a sort of ‘teen horror’… long story I might tell one day.

The movie file on your left is the original teaser trailer I used to pitch the concept around town. The images below are some concept sketches for what I refer to as the “studio version” of Treehouse. Artist credit goes to my talented friend Khan Muftic.

A WORK IN PROGRESS: Student Short

wesball — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:19:34 +0000

A WORK IN PROGRESS was my thesis film at the Florida State University Film School. Being my forth and last student film before graduating, I decided to seriously challenge myself. Having pulled off a few visual effects shots for previous films, I somehow came to the naive conclusion that creating a few minutes of full CG animation on my home computer was totally feasible. So I set out to do just that — create the school’s first animated short of a what was essentially a children’s book come to life.

Originally, I intended the film to be entirely animated, in other words no live-action. In fact, I had designed the characters, most of the locations, and were starting to animate when I came up with the idea to bounce back and forth between the live action artist and her computer generated imagination.

My friends [crew] and I scrambled to put the live-action shoot together. We scheduled the use of our school’s Super16 ARRI for one 10-hour day on a Saturday, and got to work on casting the roles with local kids from Tallahassee. This wasn’t easy based on the number of kids we needed. Two of the supporting actress’, Faith Galloway and Carolyn Crabtree were cast from previous films I had worked on. But the main role was cast with Melissa White, someone I had never worked with before. A quick side-note, there is an interesting story behind the band-aid on her chin. Two days before we shot, Melissa was attacked by a dog walking home from school. It bit clean through her lower lip. Obviously, I was going to cancel the shoot or re-cast the part, but Melissa wouldn’t hear of it. We caked on the makeup, covering the wound as best we could. But it still wasn’t enough. Finally, at the last minute, I said to toss on a band-aid. It was a real “the show must go on” moment. She’s one tough girl.

Now, it’s worth mentioning that I was at thesis level by the time of this film, so I had access to just about everything in the equipment room. HMI’s, G&E trucks, a Panther Dolly, steadicam, and even a 30’ jib I dreamed of using all through school. But I’m proud to say we kept things simple. We shot 400’of 16mm film on an old doorway dolly with two reflector boards. It ended up being my smoothest set experience of my time at film school. Although I will say, I’m still jealous of my friends who got to use the jib.

A WORK IN PROGRESS was seriously ambitious, but a true growing experience. As it stands, it’s probably my best student film, and certainly my most awarded. Here are the notable ones:

Winner of the Bronze Student Academy Award in the Animation Category.
First Place Animation in the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival Kodak Film Student competition.
First place at the Wolfson II Media Awards in Miami.
Jury and Audience Award in the animated short category at Film Fest New Haven.
Named a Silver Award Winner at the Crested Butte Reel Fest.

A WORK IN PROGRESS – Character Designs

wesball — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 11:09:46 +0000

I made these designs for a kids TV series I developed with some friends. We took it to some networks, but ultimately I think it was just too wholesome.