Jesus Storybook Bible: A New Beginning

The latest video has been posted on JSB.com, but you can view it here! I've recently been asked to start working on one of the Christmas stories in the book. While it makes sense to use the new video in seasonal promotions, it is way out of the order that I was working in, so I had to stop my current workflow and pick that up.
When I work on these videos, there are usually three steps that every illustration goes through:
(What the image looks like when I start, from "He's Here," the Christmas story):

1. I cut all the main pieces of the illustration into separate layers, so that they can move independently. (Photoshop CS4)

2. I fill in the background elements using the clone tool so that when individual pieces move in the video, there is a background behind them when there wasn't before. (Photoshop CS4)

3. I animate the illustration in Motion 3, and edit it in Final Cut Pro 6.

This is a pretty tedious process and can take quite a while. For the first 11 stories, I went through steps 1 and 2 on each illustration, and then animated each movie in chronological order. With the new Christmas story, I took a day off from work, and burned through steps 1 and 2, so now I can animate the video this weekend. I'm pretty pumped, because I was expecting to take at least two weeks to do the new video, and it looks like I'm going to be able to finish it in about 16 hours (1 week of work). So, that's just a little update on how I work, and what I'm working on right now.

Now for the latest story video - A New Beginning:


A New Beginning from Jonathan Michael on Vimeo.