Test Film: The BB "Best Boss"

Breaking an unannounced hiatus (sorry!), we have a test film to show!

Apologies to those of you that came here from the video just to see redundant content. But, we still got some goodies up ins.



See it on Vimeo
See it on YouTube

This film was SUPPOSED to serve as a way to work out the initial bumps in our collaborative working process - see what compromises we'd have to make in regards to filming, sound work, etc. We had no script, there was no planning, and essentially gave us the worst case working scenario.

I mean, we could have just filmed a flower for thirty seconds, but, y'know. You get an idea, you roll with it!

Match

In stubbornly keeping with our sporadic update schedule, we finally present to you, our finest readers, with our live-action star:

MATCH

No, we don't know why he has eyebrow holes.

Match is the only "real" person in the film, the silent co-lead with our equally-mute shadow-rabbit, Lennie. And as we alluded to in a previous post, their sole purpose is to assist other shadow-rabbits off this earth by re-enacting their deaths.

Photoshopped.

Being "real", Match has to bear the brunt of the physical damages inflicted while helping the rabbits, getting cumulatively worse and worse as the film plays out. His motives, far from masochistic, are more easily defined from an empathetic, almost martyr-like point of view. Though I suppose it's our job as the film-makers to show rather than tell, right?

Puny man! I crush with tips of fingers!

Now some of you may be thinking "Gee, a goth version of Roger Rabbit, huh?" And with all due respect, we'd only have to leave you on the doorsteps of Shady Oaks Psychiatric Hospital for making such an uncouth statement. You should be ashamed. Regardless, we can promise you right now that this isn't all doom and gloom! You'll pretty much have to wait and see what we mean.

But finally, we'd like to present to you a shot of our friend Circulating, who served as the originator in full for the look of Match. He's a talented musician and artist, so you would probably do well to seek out his work!

CIRCULATING

And as a bonus, we'd like to present our first pieces of fan art! Sort of! These wonderful, truly awesome speed-paint sketches were done by the talented TeddyBearLumpkins, and we heartily encourage checking his work out as well! He's taking commissions, by the way. If you have the means, we highly recommend picking one up.

TEDDYBEARLUMPKINS

And that's it for now! But rest assured, as slow as our updates are, we're always scheming, always working. So many whips. The lashes. Dragging.

Take care folks!

Shadow Rabbits

We told you we'd be awhile between updates! But we've got some work done on the pre-production side of things and figured we'd start introducing you to the cast.

SHADOW RABBITS

These are the extremes of varying body types, the names are
merely reference. Except for Kronk Edgemond, he's the man.

The shadow rabbits are the spirits of those who've passed on before their time and have yet to find peace, basically black "ghosts" that the live-action lead of the film, Match (more on him in a later post) interacts with and, through re-enacting the various ways that they died, helps to give understanding to their passing, allowing them to move on.

LENNIE

Matt held Casey at gunpoint to hand over the shadow rabbit
design references, in order to complete this turn-sheet.

This is Lennie, the main shadow-rabbit of the film, co-spiritual guide, (blog mascot!) and Match's partner. Far from a sidekick, he works as Match's assistant and friend, the relationship between the two running deeply to the point that they're physically linked. Essentially, whatever happens to Match, happens to Lennie as well. Their partnership extends years before the timeline of the film, and his reason for staying with Match for so long is tied to their mutual mission of helping the other shadow-rabbits find peace.

Next post we'll be introducing you to our live-action character, Match. Stay tuned!

Hey folks!

Welcome to Birdsock's production blog! We're Casey Buck and Matthew Davis, co-directors for a live-action/animated short tentatively titled, "Take My Hand". Casey'll be dealing with trying not to mess up the live-action stuff, and Matt'll be graciously handling the pretty, delicious animated work.

In the coming weeks, months, years(?) you can expect to see a lot of concept art, design-work and eventually stills for the project, along with general musings from the both of us as to the nuts and bolts of the goings-on pertaining to the short. Giving you guys glimpses into how we're going about making all this madness come together.

As of right now we're close to finishing pounding out the details of the story itself, and soon enough we're going to move into pre-production - scripting, animatics, location hunting and all of that good fun stuff.

So hey! Welcome again, and thanks for keeping tabs on us! We'll try not to dissapoint. (;