Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Friday, October 21, 2016
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Monday, June 6, 2016
Animation is all done
pwd is mustardseeds
I will need to work on some color correction or rephotograph it, but that is what the film looks like at this moment in time. (Also, there is an edit or two that I have fixed in the film project file, but I have not yet rendered and uploaded that version to vimeo.)
Nice to have it finished. Hopefully it will play somewhere.
Friday, May 27, 2016
...might get it done today...
So... after a fairly intense week of cleaning up shots, finally finished reshooting everything. I think.
Whether it is the final photography or not, the plan is to get at least a preview version ready to upload to YouTube or Vimeo so that I can submit it to a couple of festivals. (Ottawa's deadline is midnight tonight.... I am going for it on that, but depending on how everything turns out, that MAY have to wait another year. But I will do what I can.)
It takes about 10 to 12 solid hours to shoot the thing... would have been unbearable if I had kept the camera set-up in my studio's loft. Thankfully, I moved it down to the main area, had the air conditioning on full blast all night (now the main area is comfortable - the loft is STILL a sauna!).
After posting this, I will be backing up the files, then do the editing (if I still have any steam). Probably another 10 hours if work ahead of me. (Fingers crossed...)
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Saturday, March 12, 2016
Friday, March 11, 2016
Spring Break updates and random thoughts
I finished coloring the shot from the above photo, (pictured is an in-progress frame), re-organized my approach to the last few bits. There are a few dynamic holds (multiple copies of the same frame, which I can shoot in a random order to create a hold that still retains a feeling of the changing images), the 'title' images for each movement, and 1 major transition left to do, at which point the animation and coloring will be complete.
I started keeping the pencil shavings in a drawer in my studio. Perhaps I will use them for a stop-motion piece down the road.
One thing that I wanted to do during break, but have not done yet, is find a good lighting solution for down-shooting in my studio. I had hoped that the solution I find for myself would be suitable for my classroom studios at school, but it seems likely that I will need to have a more flexible solution. (The lights at school need to be sturdy and relatively immobile - I like sturdy, but I think I will probably want to use the lights for multiple purposes - downshooting, stop-motion stages, etc.) My Huion LED light works fairly well for the time-being, but not a setup that I would suggest to students (tipping it on end and pointing it down on artwork beneath the camera - a bit 'janky', but ok for quick tests until I get a better setup.)
The deadline for this year's OIAF is looming - might be doable, depending on outside factors, but not a done deal.
The ups and downs of production seem to be a pulse - "this is going to be great" to "what am I even DOING" move through consciousness, sometimes dominating my thoughts, sometimes hovering on the periphery. I know this is fairly universal, but it would be wonderful to fully dispose of this kind of thinking during the act of making - both the good and the bad thoughts/feelings can derail process at times.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Monday, March 7, 2016
Saturday, March 5, 2016
Friday, February 26, 2016
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Friday, February 19, 2016
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Monday, February 15, 2016
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Friday, February 5, 2016
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Monday, February 1, 2016
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Friday, January 29, 2016
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Friday, January 22, 2016
Monday, January 18, 2016
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Computer annoyances
So... got a new laptop. MSI... seems ok.
Got Dragon frame loaded no problem, shot a test series for some documentation... that went well.
Then it came time to install After Effects. What a headache. After installing it, the machine kept hanging. Did some research, got the Microsoft components updated, no luck. Uninstalled and reinstalled After Effects, the crashes were worse, with Blue Screen of Death errors referencing a kernal security check failure. After more research, went to update the Nvidia driver... had to download Java to use their site, but ended up STILL having to manually search for the right driver. After all that, After Effects seems to be happy now.
(Fingers crossed).