Milk Paton Blog

Milk Paton 2011

2011-01-02T12:42:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year.

You may find us at http://www.milkpaton.co.uk

Enjoy!

New website

2009-11-19T03:53:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Please now frequent http://www.milkpaton.co.uk for your fix of Milk Paton news!

Thanks,
Drew & The Team

Work Continues

2008-11-29T08:56:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone,

Work still continues on the show, we are working on making the best possible 7 episodes we can!

More to follow.

Drew

Milk Paton FanService & Website

2008-10-03T11:10:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Here is a promotional image with boobies.

Also, Milk Paton has a new home. Shortly, you will be able to find Milk Paton at http://www.MilkPaton.Co.Uk.

Navy Air Support

2008-09-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Yesterday afternoon I filmed shots for this short scene, and today I finished roughly editing it together. The red title cards indicate cutaways to other characters elsewhere.

Police Car Shot

2008-09-22T10:24:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone,

Yesterday I taped a camera to a car roof, and added in a police lightbar. Here is the resulting clip.

Photographs by James Redmond

2008-09-21T09:57:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

James Redmond: the man, the legend has been taking photograph pictures of us filming for the past few weeks. Here are some of them with captions about them.

From a weekend of filming. Everyone blinked at the exact same time, except James!*

Mark, Steven and Laura examine phone.

I film many of the shots, but as I was in this shot, Will, my good friend filmed it instead. Will has helped film many projects before!

After filming for a day, everyone enjoyed some steaks! They were shit.

Here, Robert wears a pretentious t-shirt.

A closeup of a Bill Bryson book.

Steven Mould.

We spent about 20 minutes on this shot which is not getting used.

James Cameron esque frame.

Pictured: Robert with no trousers.

A Canadian female kisses Milk Paton.

A Canadian female boobs Milk Paton.

This was a sewage works but I will edit it into "Cloning Facility"

Group photograph from day of filming in forrest.

Coming back from somewhere?

Mark Paton, friend and foe prepares to drive his car along a dirt track for a shot.

Filming on a Sunday morning in Police costume.

Filming on a Sunday morning in Police costume 2.

Laura and Robert. Hint: Robert is on right.

Mark concentrates for filming.

This vest was tight.

Mark Enters "Jeep"

2008-09-08T13:54:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Here is a screenshot of a shot I worked on today.

Filming in the Jungle...Again

2008-09-05T03:47:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone,

As the summer season comes to an end, we have been filming in the local forrest frequently. Here are some pictures.

Music Creating

2008-08-17T15:26:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Here is a video from my first day of experimenting, trying to create an original score for the show. The keyboard playing and voice is terrible. It's a start.

Editing Work Continues

2008-07-24T06:59:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Editing work continues. Here is a screenshot from an image editing program.

I have quickly come to dislike the Jarvis Island episode for it's effects heavy narrative, and secondarily, as it is set outdoors, all shots must be keyed to allow for moving leaves, rivers etc... Inside I can often get away with not "cutting out" the characters as the background does not move behind them.

Filming in the Jungle again

2008-07-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

This morning we filmed footage to create another minute of the Jarvis Island episode. Here is a photo from the shoot.

A Plectrum

2008-07-12T17:46:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Here is an image of William after he has turned into a plectrum in a forthcoming episode.

CGI was never a strong point of the older episodes. As you can see this trend continues.

Jarvis Island Short Shoot

2008-06-27T15:05:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Last night we ventured out and filmed some shots for the Jarvis Island episode.

Here are two images from the shoot.

Robert Home Economics

2008-06-25T02:51:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Here is a nearly finished shot from a forthcoming episode. It was made with only 3 layers, believe it or not!

Milk Paton Shoot

2008-06-21T07:52:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

We went for a 3 hour shoot at the school today for an upcoming episode. Here are some grabs from the experience.

Planning For Filming

2008-06-20T03:35:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone,

On Saturday we have a long day of filming for Milk Paton. Planning for this, and planning scenes from several episodes in a single shoot is complicated. Here are some screen captures taken from planning materials.

Terrorist Arrows blowing up

2008-06-15T04:14:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Here is a bunch of clips showing Terrorist Arrows messily blowing up.

Jukebox Background

2008-06-02T14:57:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Last night we filmed in the local establishment the Blarmor briefly.

Here is a short video detailing the process of creating a background plate for a shot.

Filming and editing work continues.

Robert Drumming

2008-05-16T07:15:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone,

I unleashed my brother, Robert on some footage and he edited together this rough drumming sequence of himself for an episode.
_

Brightening Blair

2008-05-10T03:46:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Filming in a dimly lit pub makes for poor, grainy footage. Here is an image of Blair before / after editing. Work included removal of noise, resampling hair and adding texture to clothes to create a sharp, brighter final image.

Explosions

2008-05-08T16:00:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Here is some low quality footage of shots from an upcoming episode.

Blowing Things Up

2008-05-06T16:05:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone,

This evening we made some explosions for an episode.

Here are some pictures:

Jarvis Park

2008-05-05T13:32:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone,

Today Adam Plumbley made an excellent logo for use in an upcoming episode. This might spoil some things for a few people:

Fancy Dress

2008-05-05T06:46:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone,

As we prepare to film in the "jungle" in the next few weeks, I begun buying in props for the episode.

Here are some of the excellent props I have invested in:

I will take photos of them when they arrive.

Theatre Fall shoot

2008-04-29T19:10:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Today I had the good fortune to film in a pub, AND to film with band Theatre Fall for a new episode. A drunken man kicked milk paton and talked about cargo nets for 20 minutes, and we managed to film a pretty long scene and record voices in just 3 hours.

Here are some screen captures from the raw footage:

Work continues!

Dates Confirmed for Final Episode Shoot

2008-04-23T05:56:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

The dates for the bulk of shooting the final episode; "Milk Paton and Jarvis Island", have been confirmed. Wednesday 25th June through Wednesday 2nd July.

This finale episode will involve explosions, gunfighting and Terrorist Arrows! The first draft of the script was finished last night.

Milk Paton Game

2008-04-20T08:22:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone,

Whilst editing work continues at a respectable pace and I plan for more shoots, I have been working on a game based in the Milk Paton universe.

Here is a screenshot:

Music

2008-04-15T19:04:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Today I secured the background music for Milk Paton's song in the revised version of Milk Paton and QWERTY. The music is included in the video below and should be credited to Blair Stewart. Thanks Blair!

More Voices and Recording Studios

2008-04-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Today I added William's voices to a new QWERTY episode, bringing said' episode to around the 4 minute mark.

I also enquired about using the "Rise 2 Red" local recording studio facilities; not for recording voices, but to serve as a "radio station" in an episode. Their rates are most reasonable and of course, they are local.

Worms Armageddon

2008-04-12T11:23:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Today editing work continued on the new Terrorist Arrows episode. William is left in a room with Milk Paton, and breaks the awquard silence with an unorthodox impression.

The following video is a draft of the scene to serve as proof of concept. The voices will be redone, and some editing work is uncomplete. Red mattes take the place of Milk Paton's shots.

Editing work was extensive and included capturing of Worms Armageddon gameplay / loading footage using the Fraps tool, available at www.fraps.com

Work continues.

Adding Voices to an Episode

2008-04-10T12:57:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Here is a screenshot taken during editing of an episode.

My previous post mentioned recording of William's voices. Much of today's editing time was spent arranging his voices into an in progress episode and subtitling them. In the screenshot above, you can see an episode in the editing program Studio. William's voices are boxed in red, with the subtitles above each sound clip.

Placing subtitles and voices can be suprisingly time consuming.

The above screenshot shows how an episode typically comes together. Scenes to be shot appear as red areas, and the Geometric Story Teller's parts can be seen throughout. These are the first to be laid out and subtitled but the very last to be recorded; allowing for changes in the structure of the episode, this is logical - as the Geometric Story Teller's parts obviously refer to the plot of the episode - something that evolves during the course of editing.

The above episode has been edited to a rough time of 5 minutes / 21 - making it a roughly 25% complete draft of the episode.

Recording Williams Voices

2008-04-07T16:22:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

This blog is to tell everyone that work continues on the show. Tonight I sent across William's lines for 2 episodes for him to record and e-mail back to me.

Work continues this week as Robert is up from University, available for filming.

First Terrorist Arrows shot

2008-04-01T08:14:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Here is a screen capture taken from one of the 8 upcoming Milk Paton episodes, showing the new Terrorist Arrow.

Editing work on this shot was extensive and included addition of 3D arrow, shadow, animation of William and changing his t-shirt to red.

New Look Terrorist Arrows

2008-03-27T07:08:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Last night I worked with "Jarska", a friend who is doing the 3D work for Milk Paton on some new look Terrorist Arrows.

We begun by watching the old video on YouTube and discussing the look of the Terrorist Arrows. I decided against giving them eyebrows, at his suggestion. The new look Terrorist Arrows have a more aggressive "head", resembling the head of a spear.

"Jarska" does not reside in the UK, and I am fairly sure English is not his first language, although he speaks it excellently.

He sent me the following basic render over MSN.

Revisions followed, as I sent him back an edited image of ammendments.

Some time later, he rendered a "beauty" shot, which looked great! I like the bevelled appearance of the arrows shaft - a slight change in geometry from the first itteration of Terrorist Arrows really works wonders when shading is applied.

But, the revision work continued.

One of the reasons the new episodes take so long is because I demand everything to be correct. This results in a much more satisfying final product, for both viewer and creator.

Many thanks to "Jarska" for his continuing hard work on the show.

More filming

2008-03-21T09:21:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

William Richards, ("Will"), who appears in the episodes Milk Paton and QWERTY, Paton Break 7, Paton Break 8 and Manhunt, has been back up in Scotland over the past few days.

I took this opportunity to film his shots for 2 more of the upcoming 8 new episodes.

Here are two images of William during the shoot.

Deleted scene and update

2008-02-22T07:40:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

Yesterday I worked on a sketch with the Geometric Story Teller. Unfortunately, upon viewing the final version and getting some second opinions, I decided it did not make the grade. I have uploaded it to this blog none the less, as it shows off some improved animation work.

I believe the idea is good, but the execution is flawed.

We are shooting again tommorrow, and work continues as always.

Hate mail

2008-02-11T16:29:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

We've gotten a few hate messages this week, so I made this video in response.

Rest assured, new episodes are always released the moment they are completed.

Canteen shoot

2008-01-20T10:00:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,
_
Robert is currently back at home from University for a short time. With this in mind, I have been working on Milk Paton once more, with an eye to wrapping shooting of the current episode we are working on. here are some photos from a shoot that took place in December which I am now editing.
_

Shooting on January 4th

2008-01-05T10:12:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone,
_
Yesterday we shot a short outdoor scene with Lewim (Stereo Type), Robert and Mark before Robert returned to University in Glasgow.

Here are screen captures from the footage (I can be seen in blue jacket in the first image):
_

Happy New Year! The Milk Paton website, http://www.milkpaton.com/ is sadly down again.

Filming screens

2007-12-26T14:41:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

Here are two screens from our latest, short shoot. We will be shooting again tommorrow evening.

I am happy with the composition of these shots, although I am not happy about the bleak weather. It can't be helped, unfortunately!

Up until now, everything we have shot for this episode has been in the confines of the school. I will schedule some of the additional shoots to be outdoors to add a balance to the episode, so that this single scene does not stand out.

Website, Merry Christmas, Filming and Screens

2007-12-24T10:06:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

Merry Christmas! Thank you for all your support over 2007! We will continue working on the Milk Paton project through 2008, and we appreciate your continued feedback.

The website is FINALLY online again and will stay that way!

We did a shoot today of a short scene, and we'll be filming more over the Christmas season.

Here are some screens of the new Carmina design in situ.
_

Goodbye Carmina

2007-12-01T06:43:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

In part of our drive to make the show TV friendly, we're replacing the character of Carmina with another female character.

Here is a video showing I added a body to a head / breasts only image.

More progress to come tomorrow. In the mean time here is the new Carmina seen above in image form.

It doesn't look nearly as good closeup.

Wake up Call

2007-11-29T16:07:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

I can't go into too much detail about my personal targets or why they are there; but after some calculation I realised that to meet my quota of edited Milk Paton, I am going to have to turn out - at a conservative estimate - 40 seconds of finished footage. A day.

If that doesn't put the pressure on, I don't know what will. Time to get moving!

Lost promotional image

2007-11-29T12:58:00.000-08:00

We took some promotional shots for an episode that were never used.

Pictured: Us and an Italian man in a bin.

The flu

2007-11-29T11:43:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

I've had the flu for the past few days and have been unable to work on Milk Paton today because I've been busy catching up with my workload.

Here are some (fake) boobies as promised in my blog header to make up for it:

Just by chance, "she" is wearing a Milk Paton t-shirt, to show her support of the show!

Yes, I know it's a drawing. Props to whoever for drawing it; it came up on Google under "girl white top" when I was looking for a suitable candidate for my logo placement, but unfortunately there was no credit attached to the image.

Backwards day

2007-11-25T16:38:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

Today I had hoped to be very productive.

I wrote out and recorded 5 minutes worth of voice overs; however, upon editing them down and fixing them, I realised that the jokes weren't delivered correctly, and the three characters I was voicing all sounded too similar.

And another blow was the MilkPaton.com website being taken down again: I'll get to the bottom of this tommorrow.

Moving eyes!

2007-11-24T09:20:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

My friend Mark from the show had a party last night while his parents were out. Unsuprisingly he is now grounded, and so we had to cancel filming of the 24 scene.

Instead, I made some new, better eyes for The Geometric Story Teller.

Here are some "Google eyes". I bought a pack of 30 of these in a craft shop in Inverness.

With my friend Steven Mould, we spent a Saturday morning figuring out a way to get these things on the Geometric Story Teller, moving.

Here is a video documenting the process, along with the final result.
+

It's a bit sloppily done. Paticularily the drift correction. I think it works, however. The Geometric Story Teller will also get a new mouth to match his new eyes.

Milk Paton website makeover

2007-11-22T15:51:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone,

Just doing some work on the Milk Paton website. Not only will there be a prettier layout, more interactive things and more content, but also - importantly - the ability to "Digg" videos. And I have FINALLY signed the site up with the excellent free web statistics sevice over at http://www.statcounter.com/ - which means we can get a good idea of visiting patterns.

Here is a screenshot of the old site layout (some elements don't work in Frontpage while I'm working on it, as in this image).

It's not very clear, but hopefull you can see the above layout is a little but LEGO: with block green areas and a thick black border. Time for a change before the new year begins!

Here is a screenshot of how the new layout is coming along.

Please click and take a look at the lovely header section!

If you're online right now, you can probably see me working on the site in real time if you keep hitting refresh. (It's 23:57pm in Scotland)

Screens from upcoming episodes!

2007-11-21T07:52:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone; I thought I'd add a couple of screens here from two upcoming episodes to show a bit more has been done than a "24" themed intro.

You might have seen these on my Myspace before.

Milk Paton does 24!

2007-11-21T06:47:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone. The next episode of Milk Paton involves a short 'spoof' of 24, the Fox action series set in real time. We're emulating the format of the show including the intro sequence, the ticking clock and the split screen. In our show, the segment will begin with a title "03:24" as opposed to "24"; because our real time scene lasts for 3 minutes, 24 seconds. (Har har)
In the scene, Mr Man and a friend must break into a corporate building undetected and take back something that is rightfully theres...

I spent a few hours last night coming up with my own version of the 24 logo. You can watch the actual 24 logo here for reference.

Here's a screen grab for you.

And here's my version, in video form. It's early days, it's close to the original, though. I used the intro sound from the Official 24 soundtrack by Sean Callery, which you can find on Amazon.

More next time, thanks for reading!

Welcome!

2007-11-21T06:43:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone: thanks for visiting! I'm Drew, I write and edit the Milk Paton animated series found at http://www.milkpaton.com/ - I've been told many times by friends that a blog is a good way to raise awareness of a cause; in this case, the cause of Milk Paton.

This blog will pretty much be a blow by blow account of the creation process of the show, it won't be too in depth and I won't try and be funny.

Thanks again for visiting: it's very easy to update this blog which will encourage me to do so frequently.