Hey, all!
I know some of you are wondering what’s going on with the production (you know who you are!), since it’s been a minute since I last updated. No worries, I’ve been animating away behind the scenes pretty much constantly since the last update, and there’s been a ton of progress! Since finishing the principle animation for the big Kung Fu fight back in May, I’ve been working on all the action scenes that follow—from Kate getting shot through the chase through the streets of Chinatown. I’ve just begun animating the finale in the grocery store, and should have that completed by the end of August. That will get us to well over the halfway point on principle animation (116 out of 191 shots total or about 60%)






Why am I animating the second half of the film first? Great question! The answer is that James Oliva, our casting and voice director has been editing down the dialogue audio, and is on track to delivering that to me in the next couple of weeks. Working on these action scenes first has allowed me to make significant progress on the film without having to pause and wait for the voice tracks. Once I have those in hand, I’ll be able to go back and work on the all the dialogue-heavy scenes in the first half of the film.
And while I’m moving forward with animating these new scenes, Nina has been working on cleanup for the Kung Fu fight, and Alexander has started work on the sound design. So, we’re making definite progress!
And one last thing—I’ve also got some other big news: I’ve been selected to give a talk about my animation at this year’s Blender Conference this fall! I’ll be speaking about my journey from comics to animation, the making of Restless Sleep, and everything I’ve learned leading up to making this film. It’s a huge honor, and I’m really excited about it!
I’ll try not to wait so long before the next update—probably when I finish up the gunfight scene next month. Thanks for sticking with me!