Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Secrets from the Barnyard

There was much more music to the Paramount/Nickelodeon’s 2005 feature film, “The Barnyard”. It was decided to remove some songs because the film ran long. Originally Hanna the white hen acted as a Greek chorus and sang about the hero Otis and his situation. Here is an unfinished song sequence without textures or lighting. Notice the red-eye on some of the chicks, (fixed in final render), and the large freaky chick named Boil who falls off the log. There was a song with all the chicks singing “Peaches and Cream” to Otis and an opening sequence before the title that had some great animation of Miles the donkey drumming on crates and cans that began the first song and introduced Hanna. Hanna also had another song in the third act that was cut.

I did all the animation in this sequence except the pigs that were animated by Bart Goldman. Animation Director Dave Andrews, who really is a drummer, took over Miles from me and did a beautiful job which is not shown here.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

some of which was restored on the DVD in the "deleted scenes".

Anonymous said...

Man, I've gotta see what that would look like in stopmotion! The animator would probably keel over. That's a lot of work, even in a 3D program.

Great job on the timing, what did you use for reference?

prammaven@hotmail.com

Joel Brinkerhoff said...

Wow, thanks. No reference was used, that's why Dave took over the drumming later because he really is a drummer and understood it. I'm not a dancer but I was in a band as a singer and have a so so feel for music.

Anonymous said...

No problem.

I really liked your stuff from the Vinton years. Clay on glass. My favorite one was the Adventures in Wonderland "Tiny Dinosaur" sequence with the dinosaur who had a branch stuck in his teeth. That's actually what got me into this style of animation.

Over at my blog, I'm working on a film using clay in relief, but evenly lighting the background and avoiding shadows is proving to be a struggle. I'd love some tips!
Man, I wish I had been able to work at Vinton's during the Claymation years. I swear I miss everything. :P

Anonymous said...

Hmm,

I tried to post a comment, but either it didn't go through, or it posted twice.

I'm sorry if either happened. I don't know why, but my browser isn't working right.

Joel Brinkerhoff said...

I don't know why I published the one comment but it makes it look like more people are reading this stuff.

Anyway, thanks again for the nice Vinton comments. I really dug the "Adventures" stuff because I didn't have to worry about an armature or gravity for that matter.

I checked your site out and can't wait to see more!