the groundhog day project

Not much to say tonight. Instead, a few images as I start sorting screencaps… Actually, first, a bit of an addendum to my discussion of Time Freak two entries ago : Here’s a few shots of Stillman’s timeline diagrams… Think back on my discussion of another short film, Tango and the complexity in planning that out. And, relate that to Phil’s final day in the time loop… Here’s what I listed for that day before: his report from Gobbler’s Knob (after presumably picking up pastries and coffee again for Rita and Larry) spending some time at the Tip Top Café (remember, it’s Doris who gets him up on stage for the bachelor auction) buying a whole bunch of insurance—“whole life, term, uniflex, fire, theft, auto, dental, health with the optional death and dismemberment plan, water damage”—from Ned a piano lesson with Mary fanning the flames of Debbie’s passion for Fred finding Wrestlemania tickets somewhere in town fixing Felix’s back saving the kid (Zacchaeus) falling out of the...

This Oscar-winning short film is how I imagine Phil Connors’ mind on Day 33 . It’s called Tango . If you’ve got 8 minutes, watch it before you continue reading. It’s an amazing exercise in… well, it’s live action, it’s animation, it’s trick photography, it’s a lot of complicated things. Anyway, if you haven’t the time, it’s one room filled with the actions of 36 characters, starting with a kid coming in the window after a soccer ball, and gradually introducing the other characters until the room is a mass of perfectly orchestrated and choreographed action. For some of the huge amount of work that went into designing this film, have a look here . 16,000 cell-mattes, several hundred thousand exposures on an optical printer. Seven months of work, sixteen hours a day. (I think Phil Connors could relate.) Particularly, notice the levels of complexity in this single gif: Or this graph of where each character (or group of characters) comes in: In his book, Animation Techniques , Ro...