After taking a brief rest, during which we caught up on all the things we had been neglecting during the big rush, I designed the characters and laid out the storyboards for \bThe Item.\b Some time into this process, my crotchety old boss decided to fire me without notice, since the designer who filled in for me during the cons appealed more to her.
Suddenly having more free time, I completed several shots and tried to get the apprentices to assist me, but most of them had had enough of animation for the time being. Ray, Louie, and Jess remained to help out.
Things were progressing pretty well, with the addition of a stabilising patch for Photoshop (the old version had been plagued with extremely frequent crashes), when a month later, PIP called me back to work. Seems my boss didnÆt like the new girl better after all.
\b\c04\iThe Making of AX95 Annie May\i and the \iWhite Radish Reader\b\c00\i
Soon after the con, Jerry wrote up \bThe Making of AX95 Annie May,\b which was promised in the order forms to be included with any orders for the video. It was a rush job, as was evident by the final product. He had opted to set it up full-size rather than the slightly more troublesome half-size (such as this booklet), making for an ungainly, extra thin sheaf of papers that did not hold very well in the plastic clip. Poor quality photocopies enhanced the cheapness of the product.
The company history and other information it contained was full of errors, as well. Events were out of order, intentions were misplaced, and there were a few instances where he seemed to be covering up for things. I was not asked for any information. He relied on his own memory, despite the fact that I had been keeping a detailed personal log (from whence comes much of this information, in addition to personal correspondence). To be fair, I \bwas\b somewhat busy and under a deadline. I \bdid\b go over the draft, pointing out errors here and there, even going as far as to print out selected passages from my log for him, but it would have taken a lot of rewriting to correct some areas, and I decided it wasnÆt worth it. For the few that received the \bMaking Of,\b this booklet should serve as a more correct history.
Jerry also put out a few more \bWR Readers,\b and all of them contained either erroneous, premature, or flat-out misleading information. Many intended projects (which should never have been mentioned) became impractical or unavailable. Rather than admitting this, however, future \bWR Readers\b merely ignored the previous proclamations, and made a few more. Eventually, for lack of any other information, Jerry filled most of one with the technology concepts of the TÆkan starships. ItÆs unclear how widely these \bReaders\b were circulated.
\b\c04Progress slows on \iThe Item\b\c00\i
Things went bad a few months into production. A 1-gig hard drive, which I had been using despite slight structural damage (we had dropped it on the pavement) suddenly lost half the completed frames. It happened just after I had finished MechaÆs energy ball shot, and before I had accumulated enough frames to warrant transferring them to the other computer.
I got a new hard drive and recovered as many files as I could, but I ended up having to redo most of the Mecha frames, which was especially tough since it contained a "rotoscoped" special effect. Moreover, after the shot was transferred, I found that there was a repeating skip on her face. I had fixed the error before the hard drive crashed, but the recovered file was the old one. The error remains on the final version.
\b\c04More lethargy\b\c00
Jerry got started on \bParanatural Protogenesis Annie May\b by designing the characters, and this took a few months alone. It looked as if I would have plenty of time to finish \bThe Item\b before working on \bAnnie May\b (which played a hand in my own sluggishness as well). Eventually, he got on to writing the script, and even did some rough animation of a shot or two. He would still be in the script stage at \bThe ItemÆs\b end. Meanwhile, Ray set to work modelling objects for the cathedral in LightWave (which ultimately would do Jerry no good, as things turned out).
He also made a trailer for \bParanatural Protogenesis Annie May,\b and fixed up the last shot of \bAX95 Annie May\b (the only shot we did not do ourselves; it was provided by Russ Isler, rendered in LightWave). For an unknown reason, as the planets were crashing into the sun, they suddenly switched direction. Jerry discovered that the frames had somehow gotten flipped upside down, and by flipping them again, the problem was fixed. He also enhanced the shot with extra effects that made it look more like the sun was becoming unstable. I generated a new starfield with LightWave for the opening credits, and Jerry added a few enhancements to the titles as well.
\b\c04New methods\b\c00
After four or five shots of \bThe Item,\b I finally dropped the "soft shadow" effect pioneered by Jerry for use in \bAX95 Annie May.\b For one thing, I thought it made the cels look muddy. It was also a time-consuming extra step which was barely noticeable on video, and had some nasty side-effects; Edges that should logically be darker are instead lighter, due to the nature of the process. This is very noticeable in MechaÆs energy ball shot.
I had, however, been working on the problem of how to implement highlights (the shines in the hair, reflections off metals and plastics, etc.) Jerry disapproved of the idea, since it was an extra step, and he didnÆt like the look of it. (I favoured a "slick" look, and he favoured a "Roger Rabbit" look). Through a meeting of minds, though, the two of us managed to solve the puzzle of separating three ink colours on the cels, rather than the two we had been using. It was a rather lengthy and cumbersome process at first, but it was improved and refined several times as the production went on (much to the annoyance of the people who had to constantly re-learn the methods), and I ultimately reached an unsurpassed breakthrough after \bThe ItemÆs\b completion (but much of this is no longer a concern anyway, with Photoshop 4.0Æs new "recordable actions" features).
\b\c04New apprentices\b\c00
Recruitment continued, but it was very hard to find anyone talented enough to animate. There were willing talents available, but they all lived too far away to make it practical. Eventually, one more apprentice, Rus Silmaro, came in to work on \bThe Item.\b
