The Making of: The Rescue

While making use of the Post feature on Utreon, I could use this as a blog to give updates and provide commentary on the videos I make. And I figure I should start things off with my most recent short: The Rescue.

This is my first "animated" short I have ever done. Though, it's different from most animations in the fact that I sort of cheated using the power of A.I. In fact, I used a program called EbSynth to animate for me. This knowledge came to me through a rising star in the Youtube community named Joel Haver, whose channel spiked in popularity due to his quirky shorts and his unique style of animation that came from the assistance of this program. If you haven't watched his content yet, I highly recommend you do, though there's a good chance you already have.

As soon he dropped his tutorial on how he makes animated shorts, I immediately downloaded EbSynth and toyed around with it. There is a lot of potential with this software and further makes animation a more accessible art form for creators. The advantage of animation over live action is that you aren't as bound to the rules of reality. The bounds of settings, character design, and genre are easier to accomplish through animation than through live-action. It opens the door for me to have a wider cast of characters for me to play as since I am an one-man show. And even in live-action videos, EbSynth can be used to enhance the video. I've seen some people using it as a means of applying special effects or aging effects on characters.

That being said, EbSynth does have it limitations. Any extreme change in motion or any new element brought into a new frame will confuse the AI and make the clip go fritz. There will be major artifacting and bleeding. Thus, you may have to work on multiple keyframes in order to make it as smooth as possible. While you still don't have to draw as many frames as you would for a traditional animation, it can still be tetitious and will increase the production time of a regular live action short film. Despite being less than a minute long, The Rescue took about 4-5 days to work on, and even then, it still has noticeable flaws. Had this been a regular short, it would have taken me 1-2 days to edit. Still, I like the look of video and it gives off an old timey cartoon that has aged with time.

Which I should discuss the plot. Though, it is a straight forward parody of Westerns, particularly towards the Red Dead Redeption series because I've craving to replay it. But it also takes me back to my LARPing days. We go on a mission to rescue to save someone from trouble, only it turns out the person we just rescued was an evil person. And in murderhobo fashion, we just kill the guy we just rescued, looting his corpse and collecting the head for the reward money. Definitely plays into the "we're going to shoot first and ask questions later" aspect in mission design.

I will continue to make more of these animated videos, and I do have more in mind. I also wish to use the oppunity to use it to improve my art skills and hopefully my future animations will feature less glitches and feel less like I simply traced myself. I'm hoping that this could be used as stepping stone into making true animation, which is something I have always wanted to do.

Anyways, I hoped you enjoyed this insight into the making of The Rescue. I'll continue to make more of these commentary blogs on this site (and possibly transfer to other platforms).

Until next time, Tater.