Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX3ewj2mZ_k

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkTKpJiwie8

Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILpm1CUPwc0

Now for some background.

The film is based on the NBC radio play The Two Fiancées Murder Case, which was broadcast on September 13, 1951. It is one in a series featuring Inspector Thorne and his sidekick Sergeant Muggin.  In this episode, Thorne has to solve the case of the murder of Keith Cameron, who has two fiancées, although without their consent. The story begins with a party where both fiancées are present and find out about each other. Keith gets murdered after the party, but who did it?  It could be either of the fiancées, the older Elaine Martin or the young Carla Carroll; or maybe Carla's former boyfriend, Steve Mitchell; or Keith's agent, Jack Parker, who has been stealing money from Keith and whom Keith has threatened with jail. All four possible suspects lie to some extent and it is up to Thorne to sift out the truth.  He is assisted by Muggin, who is far less talkative, but who can be relied on.

For this film, I choose to follow the storyline from the radio play, even though from a cinematic perspective this results in more dialogue than usual. I designed the characters and the sets based on what I felt would fit the spoken word. The animation was done in iClone 3. CrazyTalk 5 was used for the facial animation. I kept the original recorded dialog, with a few minor changes. To complete the soundtrack, I composed the score and created the sound design. To give the impression that we step into the world of the radio play, I used part of the original radio announcement in the beginning of the film.

I have more information about the production, which I will make available on-line within the next few weeks.

That's the 2nd time I've seen someone adapt a story to an old radio play - and you really brought this story to life with your animation.  I think your characters faces were quite unique and different to give each character a distinct look and I liked how you re-textured the jackets for each character.  I also thought the gestures, etc. looked quite natural - you handled those quite well.

Aside from wishing to see more facial expression, I thought this was excellent - I absoluetly loved it.

In iClone 4 it should be easier to add additional facial expression using the Puppeteering feature. I did one pass using CrazyTalk, which was not ideal due to the lack of immediate feedback. I was also literally learning as I went along!

that was really awsome, a lot of real hard work and planning ( not to mention a few lat nights I'd say) went into these productions and it shows.

Everything was brill, Great work again man. :)

It sure was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun building everything up and seeing it come together in the final editing.

As to the time period, I decided early on that I would not try to be specific with respect to the period or even the location, as it would have been very hard to make it consistent in that regard.  One of the other series I considered plays in San Fransisco and refers to specific locations in San Francisco and I didn't quite know how to accomplish that.

The hat is funny of course and the way Thorne keeps his on is an anachronism.  (We need more removable clothing in iClone!) It's not atypical for the time though. I recently watched "Detective Story" and the hats stay on inside, no matter what.