Saturday, August 11, 2012

Summer summer...

Had some trouble posting here earlier.  Will add new material as I am able. 

This summer has been more full of inspirational gold than I had expected.  Getting to spend time with former teachers and with friends who have inspired me in the past has been something I've been neglecting.

This week has been Orange County and LA - visiting with my folks and catching up with some LA peeps... (working on coloring some frames in Mustard Seeds while waiting in the airport or hanging out in the afternoon!)
On Wednesday, I spent the afternoon at Siggraph.  I don't know how it is that I have not been to Siggraph in the past, but it is certainly worth checking out. More importantly, I was able to spend an afternoon with Mar Elepano on Thursday - Mar is a mentor from my days at USC, and is a good friend. 

The other week I was able to spend an afternoon with Scott Northrup - watched "Dark Knight Rises" and hung out at the record store.  The week before that I spent an afternoon with Larry Larson - I always find the directions our conversations flow to be fascinating.  And before that, I did a few tiny inbetweens for Steve Stanchfield - always a little bit daunting at first to work on someone else's project - especially if you have only a couple of hours to get a feel for the animation before it needs to be done for a client - but it's good to get your hands in now and again...
(I do hope that I'll get a chance to hang out with some of my other colleagues at CCS in a "non-work" capacity - we spend time together on school stuff, which is OK, but I work with some amazing people, and don't always get to see them in "regular person" mode.)

If possible, I want to take a quick trip down to Tennessee before the semester starts.  I would like to catch up with my undergrad advisor, Carlos, and also see his "Iona: Art Sanctuary" structure, grounds, and installations.  (It has been WAY way to long since I have seen him.  I do get to chat with him once or twice a year, but I haven't been down for a visit to Sewanee since 1999, just before I drove out to California to start grad school at USC.)

JEH

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Traversing within and without

l copyright 2012 Joshua E Harrell

The Golem

copyright 2012 Joshua E Harrell

No, not Gollum. Golem.

Omega returning.

copyright 2012 Joshua E Harrell
Elements from all of the scenes can be found in this, which transitions to the Glyph.

Rambling on...

So it seems that Blogger does not particularly like to upload a ton of video.  Eh... no big deal.  Just means that I'll have to dole things out a little bit.

The amoeba motion tests below -  the first test is the cycle section, the second test is a very rough transition section.

The way Mustard Seeds is structured is a little bit... amorphous.  There is a general structure, where the major images are like the sephirot of the "tree of life," (but I doubt if anyone watching the film will ever make that connection unless I state it explicitly somewhere).  Beyond that structure, there are the image themes of the Golem and the Amoeba (Glyph and Grapheme), which interact with one another, alternately competing and coexisting, then absorbing one another, and ultimately becoming intertwined - the Golem is the Amoeba, the Amoeba is the Golem.
(The only overtly metaphysical statement I had planned on making about this whole thing was summed up basically in the title itself, "Mustard Seeds", which comes from a few places: The parables and sayings of Jesus found in Matthew (13:31–32; 17:20), Mark (4:30–32), Luke (13:18–19; 17:6), and Thomas (20), and the Buddhist story of Kisa Gotami. I'll leave the interpretation of what it all means and how/if these can inter-relate to the viewer.)

Motion tests so far... Amoeba cycle

copyright 2012 Joshua E. Harrell

cycle

copyright 2012 Joshua E Harrell

transition to image $

Monday, January 2, 2012

Vacation...

3rd year of working on this project while on vacation - here's to finishing Mustard Seeds this year (and working on new projects during future vacations?).