Watch Lumen Soup's 'The Catipoce!' Recorded version

Here is a recorded performance of our animated theatre adaption of 'The Catipoce' by James Reeves.
This will be part of a show performed (slightly better than us!) to audiences of children later this year.
Expect to see some new content in the near future...


Don't forget you can watch this in full HD.

Please excuse the mess...

We are currently overhauling our website - changing the design, layout and adding new content.
Stay tuned and make sure you keep an eye on us in September when our next project kicks off.

In the meantime, why not head over to our own, fresh individual blogs? - Livvy Brewer and Jack Norris!

Jack Norris Showreel

Filming day

Great Job!

Work in progress: Practical stuff

We've reached that point where we now have to do lots of physical work to produce a recording.

This included a green screen shoot:

What's the deal with tech guys always saying how difficult chroma key is? This setup of a £10 green sofa throw from Ikea and 3 random desk lamps produced a perfect cutout!

And below are a couple of photos of us testing our screen setup in the basement of our building! (Please excuse Dexter...)

Long file is long

There must be something wrong with me, making a decision to work with such a ridiculously large file when I know there are simpler, quicker solutions. But frankly, they can't be as fun and effective as this!

The aim is to represent a film reel coming to an end, as part of some sort of technical malfunction. I was interested in creating that familiar effect where the speed of the film changes and makes the image appear to move up or down. I could have just animated the whole screen to physically move up and down to suggest this, but I think this would have looked too fake.

So, instead, I decided to actually make a digital piece of film reel, consisting of 25 frames. This one image is 25 times the length of 1080p. (Not the one I uploaded here, this is about 10% of the full image!)

Then, I bought this into After Effects and made it moooove real fast, downwards. I perfected the keyframes to make the car move up and down nicely.

A good few hour's work for what will be ONE SECOND of the film.

Isn't it great being an animator.......? :D

Watercolour kitchen interior

As you can see from the main wall image at the bottom, separating the cupboard was an afterthought - which explains the blob of cupboard still present in the middle of the wall (rescued from clone stamping)!

Interchangeable Catipoce scenery textures

 

Watercolour Backgrounds

Remember that old way of painting pictures? Ya know, with all the bristles and water and stuff. For the last couple of weeks I've enjoyed taking up most of the space in the kitchen with some A2 background art:

This last picture doesn't require any detail in the bottom right hand corner as it will be out of view. I considered painting the Sunflower from Plants vs Zombies there for lols, but I never got round to it. 

And, if you're interested in this sort of thing, here are the layered images on transparent backgrounds ready for compositing. The two little grassy bits are simply for the animated characters' feet to appear behind. 

 And here's the wide angle shot split into 3 depth layers:

 

Notice how the top edge of the middle image is mostly fading out - this is to help smooth the join between the layers, which is more obvious when the join can't follow the defined edge of an object (such as the tree).

Background complete...

As always, click over to Vimeo to see it in HD :)

Untitled from Livvy Brewer on Vimeo.

Backgrounds.

Thought i'd just whack some backgrounds up here for you to see as a little taster!

The first one is just a rough sketch of colour that I am working on in the background to get the light and dark figured out. I'm actually loving the colours of this one and its a biggggg background so I have lots of lovely details to work on which will be fun!

The rest are part of a collection of quick scenes that I wanted to just have some fun with, and make easily readable as they are only on screen for a matter of seconds. Enjoy!

Hello Kitty Movie Test Card, please stand by...

Your movie theater is experiencing kitty-related technical difficulties. Please stand by.

Hello Kitty movie theater test card

This cinema test card is in no way associated with a certain popular Eastern brand.

FOUR-AND-FORTY CROOKED TEETH

It has been discovered that the cat-like creature lurking in the shadows of the city has four-and-forty crooked teeth. 

A spokesman from the City Police has made it clear that 'it is unclear’ whether the teeth belonging to the 'Catipoce’ have been used to support the creatures’ terrible habit of engaging in outrageous, fear-inducing acts upon unsuspecting folk in the urban infrastructure of the city.

Since the Catipoce was first reported as a possible threat to the comfort levels of the generic population living in the City’s gritty urban quarter, The Local Council has been critisised for failing to invest in security which could possibly act as a potential barrier to perhaps protect people who feel they may be somewhat vulnerable to an unfamiliar  and possibly-undeniably dangerous unknown force.

" Avoid her face."        
 - The Narrator

At a time which was possibly 10pm last night, a photographer from City News  miraculously captured an incredible image showing what is unquestionably a feline-shaped shadow belonging to The prowing Catipoce as it prepares to presumably pounce and victimise two potentially innocent, compassionate and charitable local  civilian  citizens, maybe.    

Since the cat-related incidents started to appear two weeks ago, public opinion research has shown that concern over continuing  cat-related incidents is continuing at the same levels as before. This undoubtably confirms the universal belief that the continuation of cat-related events is due to a wider network of cat-related events.

'Some people find it hard to believe that this is a form of CAT we are talking about here,’ said Dr. Sam Witches, former Chief Executive of Cat-Incident Partnerships International, 'Most ordinary, law-abiding and unsuspecting citizens of generic, gritty American cities seem to think that all cats are fluffy, cuddly and lovely. Unfortunately, that simply isn’t the case.’

The news of last night’s show of strength by 'The Catipoce’ by showing her teeth came three days after central government launched an official investigation, quite literally. Linus Squidgeyface, Senior Investigator for the U.S. Federal Bureau of Cat-related Incidents (FBC-RI) departed from Washington D.C. in a one-man rocket in order to reach the epicentre of public outcry as rapidly as possible.

 

Inspirational quote of the day.

"Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it."
— Maurice Sendak

Animatics - New sounds.

Here are the two animatics with better voice-overs on them, these voice-overs are still not the final ones as we have some voice actors booked into do some recording for us in essex but could only do it in the new year.

Lumen Soup: Millers' End Animatic from Livvy Brewer on Vimeo.

Lumen Soup: The Catipoce Animatic from Livvy Brewer on Vimeo.