One Week to Go

My final cut is due in 7 days (6 now?), which is stressful, to say the least. I know ill be able to pull through but im sure if ill feel really happy with it. its weird, ive never cared TOO much but i realized that people are actually going to see this stuff now so i feel a lot more.. self aware?

Anyways, school aside, I almost know where I'm living next year. 95% chance I'll be home this summer, so fun things will be happening. Right now im aiming for mid-june arrival? Im actually really excited for this summer, even though it will probably be spent working an irrelevant job for minuscule amounts of money. but drums. lots and lots of drums. alllll day, in a hot garage. and driving, oh my god.

last week I got the chance to meet with Takeshi Murata, one of my favorite contemporary animators, and it was probably one of the most reassuring things ive had in a while. Hes actually a RISD grad from.. 97 I believe? who is doing quite well simply making limited edition animations and selling them to galleries/collectors. It's an unusual place for an animator, and its nice to know that there is potentially something outside of the commercial world and the festival world post-risd. if youre good enough. by the way, if you get the chance too see his stuff definitely check it out--but not shitty quality youtube rips. i never really appreciated a lot of his stuff (like Melter) until seeing it in good resolution. And theres so much of his stuff that isn't available online-- his more mediocre stuff is up, but if you can find a copy of Cone Eater its mmmmm delicious (soundtrack by Robert Beatty, from hairpolice/ex-wolf eyes i think). But yeah, Takeshi was basically the nicest man on the world and I wish I could be his best friend. Something about late 90s rhode island was just spitting out all these guys who are the sweetest people youll ever meet who made a pretty good name for themselves. I wish it was more like that now. RISD appears to be on more of a stint since the 2000s.... i guess theres Seth McFarlane? Yeah..

Hey, this is like the most stuff i've written on here in months probably. Most likely because i've spent the past few weeks holed up not doing anything or talking to people trying to finish this train wreck, aaand my camera is still non-functional. I have so much to put up on ahayhoy too but ive just been so preoccupied... But yeah! In one short (long) (short) week ill be oeveeerr and ill be floatin down a river sippin mixed drinks. hopefully. guys, lets go to hurricane harbor this sumer.

Monday Blues

Flight canceled, S.O.S.
Fall Animation final #1/2
Watch it with good sound, if possible
kthx

Well--

that was only the longest week of my life. So glad to be able to finally move on (well--almost). My crits actually went surprisingly well, which I'm happy about because i was actually pretty pessimistic about both my animation finals until they were about 95% done. I feel good about both of them now. As of a few minutes ago I just finished my final Brown paper, and now I'm home free--quite literally, my flight leaves at 1pm tomorrow, and I should be getting into LAX sometime between 11-12. I just hope the massive amounts of snow don't create any unforeseen problems. I still have a bit of sound work and post production to do on my puppet final so that won't work its way on here until i get back from break, but my other final should be up by the end of the night. Regardless, ill be home soon, lets get some food, play some music, and go to disneyland. 4lyfe

Is this going to be forever?

WHY, I BELIEVE IT IS!

LIVIN' TH LIFE

THE PUPPET LIFE, THAT IS

Color Tests

Here are a bunch of old color maquette tests i did a while ago. I did a million of these, but these are my favorites of the bunch. I'm still not quite sure which direction to take it--theres so many possibilities with this set, and since its all on such a small scale theres such great control for tweaking. I could spend an entire semester just lighting these sets, theyre so fun to do and theres somuch you can get out of them. SUPR FUN

Right now im probably leaning more towards the pink washed lighting, maybe with cooler highlights, although the deep red is kind of really nice too. But I'm also into these night-ish shots with the unfiltered highlights, and was really happy with how it looked straight up naked with no gels, but i dont know. Perhaps you guys have some suggestions? Although i will probably inevitably end up going with an overall pink or red lighting scheme, as i tend to do.

Finally Ready

After six or eight or ten or whatever its been long weeks, I'm finally ready to move beyond puppet construction. Getting excited again, gonnna bee fuunnn to work on this again. I also have a million process photos that will work their way up here eventually and i can explain the ridiculous (extremely unnecessary) fabrication process and experimentation i went through to get these simple puppets, but im not sure if anyone reads this blog for that kind of stuff (..Sean maybe? Are you out there??). Still, itll probably be a good resource for me to put together. I learned a lot about silicone that I couldnt really find information about on the internet (Zap-A-Gap? Really?). I'm just extremely happy to finally get this indecisive puppet fabrication phase out of the way, because the actual animation and editing is much more free and stress free to me, which is quite. nice. Something to look forward to for me.

A Brief Update

I've fallen so far behind on what i've been meaning to post here. I've explored a whole world of potential puppet construction methods, thoroughly documented, and one day i will get around to making a mega post with that. But not tonight. I am, however, finally making progress on this excruciatingly slow project, and am almost at that delightful animation stage. If i can get the puppets up and running (haaaaa) by next week, that gives me two weeks animation time--an eternity, considering Fort Gloom was shot over the course of one to two (very long) days. I've definitely gotten too obsessed with exploring puppet construction techniques, but so much has come of it that I'm not really upset about it. Plus, kind of exciting things are starting to happen. The first step of the head cast was done tonight, so we'll see how that goes tomorrow (pictures eventually, really), which was my primary indecisive roadblock in moving along with this project. I kind of wish I had just gone with puppets like the one above, that was I could be well into animating a ridiculous puppet carnival. Maybe in the spring.

I also found this friendly gradstudent down by the canals who was moving to Seattle, and thus selling extremely cheap studio supplies--namely, $1 high gloss wood epoxy and $1 crystal-clear resin, which basically means im hoping to have extremely glossy floors for this animation, which I'm super excited about.

On another note, Thanksgiving was wonderfully rejuvinating, just what i needed. Im once again excited to work on these projects, and finish two animations in three loooong weeks. Getting ready for more naps in markethouse, and expensive brunch treats from cafe choklad. I also of course have a big thanksgiving post to put up, which should be coming around sometime this week. I've been neglecting these long status-update posts for a while, but they're nice to have around every now and then, if not just to sort out for myself what the hell im doing with these projects.

Oh, and this break has allowed me to finally get Windows 7 up and running (Digital River nightmare), the first OS upgrade I've had since 2003 or something. And I am happy to finally be running 64-bit--aside from the extra glossy-ness, there is a definite increase in efficiency that I am enjoying. Makes me wanna do after effects all day or something.

Belly God

a one-night candle-lit concert serenade, tragically ended before its adulthood by the authorities. worth it? definitely--post party, our house is the cleanest its been since we first moved in. risd kids: so considerate in your party-going. thanks for enduring the walk, i know its tough but always worth it, maybe future basement baptisms will occur if we can find a way to navigate around providence's tough noise ordinance (three telephone poles is the official measurement, guys) and the old woman with bass problems next door. Maybe.

Spyin on some puppets

always makin a fool o myself

Some Color Tests

Like them, but think i might stick with graphite for the sake of time/sanity

Halloween 029009

(And hey, happy 200th post)

Can't Stop Doing These

Crystal Stills

Some quick compositing tests that will probably end up in my puppet project at some point. Crystals by jeremy. Ill have a video up soon.

Animation Concept Doodles/Storyboards

Steady Your Nerves

VICTORY WILL BE YOURS

Sneak Preview

What I'll be doing for the next two and a half months