"Tanks for Nothin'," CSUN animated short

[Armstrong1]

This is my final animated short from CSU, Northridge. I used Photoshop, Flash, and After Effects to create the artwork and animation. This was my first solo film, so I had to figure a lot of stuff out along the way. Hope you enjoy it.

Tanks for Nothin' site: http://joshuamarmstrong.blogspot.com/2011/02/tanks-for-nothin.html

[Davelyman]

Nice!
Excellent art direction, animation (nice and "poppy"), great design, excellent timing,and a nice brisk story telling. Very good all around production.

I do wish that it could be made somehow more clear that the tank sprung forth from her imagination. I mean, you set it up right with the little purple cloud leading us in and out of her imagination. And the tank bursting from that little purple cloud. But its a little too easy to miss.

But that's minor. A fun little film there. Thanks!

[Trogdor]

That was sick! Im not familiar with after affects. Is that where you did the camera movements? What is after affects for anyways? I do believe its the last thing you do when your done with the animating.

Isn't Toon Boom just as good with camera movements?

[Armstrong1]

Thanks for the feedback, Davely! Yeah, what you were saying about the tank's sudden appearance at the end is probably true. Some of my classmates were a little confused at that part when it was still in the animatic stage. There were a few times where something felt obvious to me, but my test audiences (friends and family mostly) would get left behind. Fresh eyes are always good cause I'd find that I'd get to close to the project to be objective. I did want to leave some ambiguity to the end, though . I wanted the viewer to have to wonder if the whole thing was in her head or if a real tank actually manifested from her imaginary world, etc. By the way, I'm a big fan of your short "Boulderdash." Nicely done.

[Armstrong1]

Trogdor,
I actually animated the whole thing in After Effects. I don't necessarily recommend doing that, though. I was trying something new, but it was a major headache. After Effects isn't really set up for character animation. Most people who wanted to get a similar look, would animate in Flash and then composite in AE. I've never used Toon Boom, but I believe it's kind of a mix between Flash and AE. I know it has a multi-plained camera feature like what I did with AE, for example. I've heard good things about it, but I tend to just stick with what I know. I created all my artwork in Photoshop and then animated in After Effects. I used Flash for the purple smoke puffs in the end credits and a few other supplementary smoke elements.

Glad you liked my short. Thanks for saying so.

[Armstrong1]

Come check out this great project! By becoming a part of the effort to finish the awesome animated short Tanks for Nothin' you could get original signed artwork, a DVD of the finished film, movie posters, and even your name in the credits!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1462747860/tanks-for-nothin-the-animated-short

[Charles]

Giving this a bump.

Still making progress Josh with 13 days left.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/146 ... ated-short