Summer 15/16, research, 4 December, Prostitute clown animation

La Comédie - Cyanide & Happiness Shorts 

 Just brilliant.  Short, quiet, atmospheric and emotionally moving.  And beautifully done with flickering old time cinema effects. 

Summer 15/16, Scheduling seminar, 1 and 8 December

Focus Lecture: The Practice of Scheduling
ordering your environment so you can survive, even thrive in it
engaging with others competently is correlated with our ability to coordinate action
scheduling might mean that objects in environemnt need to be organized to remind you to do things:
different things for different personalities.  strings around fingers, calendars, rings,  etc.
producers live in different worlds than inventors, performers or judges.
producers think about being on time constantly over time
performers might remember last minute, when prompted by something.  on time at the last minute
when people schedule, they schedule based on their dominant needs and how they react to time
producers schedule and record everything to the nth degree
perfomers require freedom and give themselves lots of leeway.  they only record commitments and hard appointments. 
inventors are certain and erase things once they're finished and focus only on what's coming up in the future, very scheduled. 
judges look at the past and record everything and only put things in the future that must be done.  they will avoid interacting with people whenever possible.
how do you reconcile these differing personalities in work environments?
One size fits all has never really worked because it doesn't account for differing world views.
Not just calendars, but biological natural statement about how each personality deals with life.
find out who you're dealing with... this will be specifically dealt with in next session
each person figures that other people SHOULD be doing all kinds of other things.
We all think we're doing it RIGHT  and everyone else is doing it WRONG.
Learn how to move with people, not against them.
Performers perhaps should not accept many commitments because they need spontaneity to be in the moment and nurture relationships.

8 December
trouble happens when we expect the different personalities to show up to meetings acting like the others.  performers should have freedom to be free, producers should have freedom to be consistent, etc.
scheduling for producers: might put most things into a calendar or another system like a to do list. many work on desks or on pads so they can use their lists.
judges have a  whole host of systems to manage themselves: lists, folders, many judges require alarms to warn them when to do things. this works because it reminds them of when to do things when they're intensely involved with other things
inventors and producers see the world of objects in the same ways: produce lists but inventors may not have task oreinted but big chunks of time set aside for thinking, ideaing and workingon things.
performers talk and walk at the same time, on  the go and multi tasking.  may need mobile thing to keep track of what needs to be done like a phone or ipad.
keep it simple, as a rule.  system doesn't need to be that complex. 

how to:  only schedule committed appointments.  write those appointments in the language of specific action. Not "work out" but "go running". specify the measured consequence ie how long or how far will you go running?  Also schedule committed appoints in other reminder systems.  To Do list, tickler file?  Set reminders and alarms to agitate yoru biology to remind you to return to another reminder system.  Attach files and links and aims a a reminder that tells what I need to know so I won't have to remember it later.

performers do best when they have no time left and have to focus.  if you try to get them to do focussed work early, its unlikely that they will.  for the performer, the clock is ticking is a consequence.  producers will do little bits every day to accomplish the task.  make an environment that allows the people to work in a way that helps them produce in the way that's best for their personality. judges might get it done just in time, or may ask for more time.  performer might need more talking it out time than inventors who need more quiet, focused reading, or judges who need a combination of both. 
You can't manage time, only commitments to a consequence.

Summer research, 2015/16, trailers, 27 November

maybe, making trailers instead of full stories is the way to go.  It looks cool, you set things up, then you bug out instead of having to connect all the dots.

http://www.openculture.com/2015/11/moebius-jodorowskys-sci-fi-masterpiece-the-incal-brought-to-life-in-a-tantalizing-animation.html

 Screen shot of the trailer to Dark Incal by Moebius and Jodorowsky, drawn from the comic books series The Incal.

Summer research, 2015/16, animated gifs, 26 November

Letters to India

walk-cycles can also be found on vine

Summer 15/16 Research,Film review, Rick and Morty, 13 November

This is a very funny show I was introduced to this week.  And I now have time to watch every episode I can get my hands on.  Huzzah!

animatics:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_6Iaoc2aJY
 I like that the backgrounds are detailed and have a dynamic perspective, while the characters are very simple.  I like how they've shown the lighting effect through the use of grays, and that these animatics have a lot of movement in them by changing the dominant character's movements.  They've kept the bodies very sketchy compared to the backgrounds which helps differentiate them in this monotone animatic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6Q253vh_V0

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woMU4XacQVE&list=PL8TsXuLZqrU6hqsfLCEo6oyCDFux2x6_p
Rick and Morty, season 1 episode 2 "Lawnmower Dog"

Throughout the series, animals and aliens are drawn with more texture and appealing bodies and faces than the human characters.  Morty's dog Snuffles/Snowball is a good example.

Summer research, 2015/16, Happy Tree Friends, film review, 15 November

Happy Tree Friends 2006

 minimal use of black lines, characters lined with slightly darker tones? of their colours, background done in pleasing swoops of lines, and soft purples and greens.

 Love the pop up book effect they've employed in the opening credits

does Harmony have a shadow module that can be attached to individual characters?

Waltz with Bashir

Photo realistic backgrounds, subdued colour palette, strong shadows, eerie use of the colour ochre.

BDM127, 2D, compressing the video for internet uploading, 10 November

H.264 spatial quality=100
quicktime- animation to make 100 gig file.  makes beautiful file that won't play, but looks great.
won't be uploadable.
brings it out uncompressed, everything is read.  It's made to make sure the colour is pure.  master file at a studio will be in animation format.
then take it into adobe media encoder which only delivers the final project and nothing else.
load up what you want to output multiple times into encoder so you can put them out in the different formats (vimeo, youtube, etc.) all in one go.

BDM127, 2D, ready for assessment, 9 November

Big talk in the last post about making monkey see-through when he hit a painting (no), giving him "whoosh" lines (no), or doing a big edit (most definitely not). The process of putting it all together ran pretty smoothly thanks to my decision to test render everything I had and then doing a final render out of Harmony from start to finish.  It gave me the opportunity to check each scene, make any adjustments that needed to be made and to put it into After Effects.  The two longest and potentially hardest scenes, Monkey jumping from painting to painting, were left until today.  In the end, I had to put in the puppets I had and flip them around.  The first scene looks good because I was able to use his tail to grab things and swing him around and I drew his coat flapping around.  It looks good.  The second jumping scene doesn't have any bells and whistles, but more camera moves.  I'll go back to it tomorrow and experiment with attaching modules to monkey and key framing them in, as Kathryn suggested, to make him change colours or something as he goes from painting to painting.  In the meantime, I am happy to bask in the satisfaction of being done with everything turned in!

BDM127, animating monkey, 6 November

I'm looking at old Looney Tunes cartoons for ideas on how to speed up/simplify the monkey jumping out of hte painting scenes.  I talked to Kathryn yesterday, and she suggested that I make him transparent whenever he's not in the paintings.  That will indicate that something is happening when he's jumping around and will hopefully cut down on colouring.  I definitely won't be colouring him in for each painting he lands in.  I noticed in one of the Road Runner sequences, that the camera  moves faster than the characters.  Some creative camera work may get me through this sequence faster.

BDM127, 2D, final push! 5 November

50 Hours to work before turn in...
Here's what I need:

Assets
fireman and firetruck
little girl at cafe

sequences
S3P7     monkey jumps from painting to painting #1
S7P3     monkey jumps from painting to painting #2
S3P16   monkey looks out window #1 (sees fireman)
S4P3     monkey looks out window #2 (sees GG)
S9P1     monkey leaps from patron to curb
S9P2     monkey sees Madame spraying paint
S9P3     monkey doesn't know what to do/steals crayons from little girl
S9P8     monkey draws across the street
S10P3   monkey looks up/down/sees hydrant
S10P6   monkey remembers fireman
S10P6   monkey sets off hydrant
S10P8   water knocks madame and painter down
S10P11 water uncovers GG

special things
facial movements
transparency module attached to ALL GG's
is there anything else that's going to make this thing look good??

Obvious things
edit in After Effects
get the sound down in After Effects
Export properly from After Effects

Eat and hydrate properly over the weekend.  Can't get sick again or will get fired.

Excitement!  I have experimented with transparency modules on GG and have discovered a way to have her look transparent.  I discussed the issue with Jesse from class and Kathryn and discovered that a transparency module must be attached to EVERY SINGLE bit of GG in every scene and when that's done, any parts that overlap turn into opaque bits.  It looked terrible.  But if a transparency module is added to JUST the brick she's painted on, then it looks like you can see the pattern of the bricks through her body.  Hooray!  Much easier, and the effect is as I'd hoped it would be.

 

BDM124, stop-motion, final product, 2 November

Ken and Ryan toddled off with the project Friday night and promptly dropped it.  Something shiny must have flown by... I'm getting mad and bitchy and I don't have time for that.  I thought with 30 hours of work on my comic over the weekend I would be done for one final stop-motion work session Monday.  No.  It took all day Monday and I skipped two classes to finish my comic.  I apologized to the group at the start of class and showed them the movie we had so far.  Were they happy to sign their name to it and turn it in, or were they willing to work on it for four more hours?  I heard a lot of whining along the lines of "I don't know how..." and  "Traci did this, Traci did that" until I finally turned my music up and blocked it out.  I owe Glenn.  He was finished with his editing and walked Ken and Anna and Ryan through Premiere.  He showed me some tricks on Friday or Saturday night but I couldn't do anything with it.
And to their credit, Ken and Anna, maybe Ryan, too, worked on it and fixed some of the big problems and re-edited the audio track.  Ryan made a credit sequence that looks great.  They threw out all of the dialogue- which worked!  The jarring techno music totally suited the jerky movements of the characters and the created a sense of dread.  I was really happy with the final result.  Yay, team!

BMA115, comic, IT'S DONE!!!! 4 November

 It's finished!!  Hooray!!  There's always more to tweak, but if I really want to do that, I can do that over the summer.  She needs freckles.  He probably needs stubble.  William S. Pierce's suit needs stripes!  There's always something.  But I expect that I will be ready to move on to new projects very soon.  Next year, we're supposed to do a 24-page comic.  I think that I spent, conservatively, 11 hours per page on this comic.  Sadly, the cover only got two hours.  But those are the breaks.  Next year, I will have to do everything much sooner.  One hour per page was spent on each of the following: story development, pencils, colour experiment #1 (failure), inking, colour experiment #2 (success), colour (basic), colour (detail), colour (filters), lettering and bubbles, editing, layout.  A second-year told me to start on the new comic as soon as possible.  Good call.  I think that I will carry on with this story (I already have characters, backstory, premise, basic story arc for the 24-pager) and Agent MacIntosh and F. Scott McMurdo can finish their mission to destroy The Machine.   Won't that be nice?  I should take the time and label my colour references now so I don't have to start from scratch next year.

BDM106, Assignment 4 essay, 27 October

    Auteur theory began after WWII when an influx of previously banned American films flooded French cinemas and critics began to notice trends emerging.  In his 1954 essay "A Certain Tendency in French cinema", Francois Truffaut claimed that film is a great medium for the expression of the personal ideas of the filmmaker.  (Pickering, 2010)  In the age of internet and streaming technology, TV and movie-makers have the freedom to more fully push their particular ideas and themes without commercial restraints.  Auteurs with small, but fervent fan bases, are able to produce works that have time to find bigger audiences without the constraints of ratings or the demand for mass-appeal content that will satisfy advertisers.  Audiences are free to select and consume (“binge-watch”) the content that they want without the taste dictates of others. (Isaacson, 2013)

               Two comedians with a distinct point of view are Tina Fey (“30 Rock”) and Mindy Kaling (“The Mindy Project”).  Tina Fey created her newest show, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” for NBC. They passed on airing the finished episodes and internet streaming platform Netflix picked it up.  As a result, Fey anticipates that in future “it (will) give us license to play with time and culture — or to potentially offend an advertiser or the NFL (National Football League)” and will be certain that their audience has deliberately sought them out as opposed to stumbling upon them and finding themselves offended by the experience.  (O'Connell, 2015)  Mindy Kaling, star and creator of “The Mindy Project”, has had a similar experience as her show transitions from the Fox network to streaming platform Hulu.  She no longer has to be involved in conversations with the network about audience numbers, restricted amounts of time to tell her stories or even casting decisions.  (CBS News, 2015)  “My relationship with Hulu is that they wanna be with us and we wanna be with them, and that kind of excitement is probably the biggest change, and it makes life so much better.”   (staff, 2015)  Furthering that sense that they’re really wanted at Hulu, an order for 26 episodes has been placed.  Typically, networks hedge their bets by ordering 13 episodes with a “let’s see” approach to a further renewal.  “The Mindy Project” now has the confidence to try bigger, longer term stories and expand the roles of peripheral characters.  (Stanhope, 2015)

             Not just places for edgy TV projects, streaming services are now attracting big names that previously worked exclusively on the big screen.  Working in TV used to have the stigma of “slumming” attached to it but streaming television services like Amazon.com continue to build cachet.  They’re seen as places with creative freedom, the sense of being part of something big and more financial support for projects that would be considered too commercially risky for theatrical release.    The Auteur’s Auteur, Woody Allen, has agreed to do a series for streaming service Amazon.  (Poniewozik, 2015)    “They said, ‘Look, we’ll do anything you want; just give us six half-hours,’” Allen said.  “’They can be black and white; they can take place in Paris, in New York and California; they can be about a family; they can be comedy; you can be in them; they can be tragic.  We don’t have to know anything; just come in with six half-hours.’”  (France, 2015)  Bringing in Mr. Allen and giving him what appears to be total creative freedom signals that Amazon has creative ambitions that it is determined to push.  Amazon Studio Chief Roy Price said, “I had always thought Woody Allen’s characters and comedy would translate beautifully to TV, particularly now with more serialized story lines and openness to nuanced characterization.  Once…you’ve binged 10 episodes, it’s increasingly hard to go back and watch television with 20 minutes of painful commercials and multiples weeks in between episodes because of show interruptions.”   (Steel, 2015)  In addition to arthousehe streaming services are also attracting blockbuster genre auteurs.  The Wachowski Siblings, Lana and Andy, known for ground-breaking sci-fi movies that are dense, elaborate and full of balletic martial arts sequences, have also brought a project to a streaming service.  Where their movies “Cloud Atlas” and “Jupiter Ascending” were thought too large scale in theme, cast and story for the movies, Netflix has given them 12 hours to strut their stuff in the series “Sense8”.  One of their actors, Brian J. Smith, described the series this way:  “The logistics of this are insane. You’re not supposed to do a television series that takes place in nine cities, all over the globe. Everyone will tell you that that’s undoable. The whole idea was undoable, and that’s what the Wachowskis love. If you tell them no, they’re like, “Watch.” (Radish, 2015)

The internet streaming services gambles are paying off in the arena that matters most to Hollywood: awards and viewers.  Without the constraints of commercial television, shows can take risks and the Emmy awards have recognized their efforts.    "When you look at the Emmys, they're no longer about what the popular masses like," said Billie Gold, vice president and director of TV programming research at ad firm Carat. "It's more about if you have top actors doing these really interesting roles, with multi-dimensional characters. … [With] mainstream television, you're trying to appeal to the masses.  Tina Fey’s “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” garnered seven nominations including one for best comedy series at the 2015 Emmys.  "We are moving toward a video-on-demand environment," said Brad Adgate, analyst for New York ad firm Horizon Media. "It's begun already with younger adults and will grow toward viewers in their late 30s and 40s this season.  (Collins, 2015)

 Word count 927

References

CBS News. (2015, August 10). Mindy Kaling grateful to Hulu for saving "The Mindy Project". Retrieved September 22, 2015, from CBS news: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mindy-kaling-grateful-to-hulu-for-saving-the-mindy-project/

Collins, S. (2015, September 18). Transparent' vs. 'Modern Family' and what Sunday's Emmys say about TV's cultural shake-ups. Retrieved September 22, 2015, from Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-et-st-emmys-change-20150919-story.html

Deadline Hollywood. (2015, February 20). Mindy Kaling’s Confession: Father Colbert Coming To ‘The Mindy Project’. Retrieved October 13, 2015, from http://deadline.com/2015/02/stephen-colbert-the-mindy-project-mindy-kaling-1201378242/

France, L. R. (2015, May 18). Woody Allen really regrets agreeing to do an Amazon series. Retrieved October 6, 2015, from CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/18/entertainment/woody-allen-amazon-regret-cannes-feat/

Isaacson, W. (2013, March 11). Why the TV Industry Needs Its Version of Steve Jobs -- and Fast. Retrieved October 12, 2015, from Hollywood Reporter: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/bastard-machine/tv-industry-needs-a-steve-

Pickering, S. (2010). Auteur. Retrieved October 13, 2015, from The Chicago School of Media Theory : https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/auteur/

Poniewozik, J. (2015, January 15). Woody Allen to Create First TV Series for Amazon. Retrieved October 6, 2015, from Time: http://time.com/3665353/woody-allen-amazon-tv-series/

Radish, C. (2015, May 29). SENSE8: Brian J. Smith on The Wachowskis’ Mind-Bending New Netflix Series. Retrieved October 5, 2015, from Collider: http://collider.com/sense8-brian-j-smith-on-the-wachowskis-mind-bending-new-netflix-series/

Spiller, M. A. (Director). (2012-2015). The Mindy Project [Motion Picture]. Retrieved from http://www.hulu.com/the-mindy-project

staff, N. (2015, September 12). In New Memoir, Mindy Kaling Has More To Say On Life, Love And Showbiz. Retrieved September 14, 2015, from NPR: http://www.npr.org/2015/09/12/439151410/in-new-memoir-mindy-kaling-has-more-to-say-on-life-love-and-showbiz

Stanhope, K. (2015, June 11). 'The Mindy Project' Writers on Hulu's Split Season, Longer Episodes and Casting Freedom. Retrieved September 22, 2015, from Hollywood Reporter: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/mindy-project-writers-hulus-split-801893

Steel, E. (2015, January 13). Amazon Signs Woody Allen to Write and Direct TV Series. Retrieved September 14, 2015, from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/14/business/amazon-signs-woody-allen-to-write-and-direct-tv-series.html?_r=1

Tina Fey, R. C. (Producer). (2015). Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt [Motion Picture]. Retrieved from http://www.netflix.com/title/80025384?locale=en-NZ

Wachowski, L. W. (Director). (2015). Sense8 [Motion Picture]. Netflix. Retrieved 2015

Wallenstein, A. (2014, November 21). Netflix Nabs ‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ from NBC. Retrieved October 13, 2015, from Variety: http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/netflix-nabs-unbreakable-kimmie-schmidt-from-nbc-1201362390/

BMA115, comic finish up, 1 November

After 3 hours, I have finished painting up the backgrounds of the sunrise scenes (building top) and the copper and wooden interiors of pages 9-11.

To Do
shade faces x3
colour M3 uniforms
chalkstripe S. Pierce
reflective tape McMurdo
Bubbles and words
box all panels
reformat
run through Illustrator
 We get kicked out of the building at 9 pm. Dammit!  I wouldn't care if I could get in here during the week more than just Friday, when I can stay until 11.

I'll come in early tomorrow and get the wording done.   I might have to "skip" class and work on it when I should be doing professional practices and stop-motion.  I need to figure out how to use my time bettter next year.  I might need to force myself to work for an hour after the kids go to bed each night.  Or choose less ambitious projects...  or take more time off so I use my working time more strategically.  I definitely won't be taking any extra classes.

BMA 115, comic colouring and inking, 31 October

100% colour and ink coverage!!  Yay!!!  Shading and shadows, texturing, words bubbles, WORDS... lots more to do.  Oh, yeah.  And putting everything into the new format, too.

BDM124, stop motion, editing, 30 October

Ken and I finished shooting our final shots Monday so we could all dive into editing from Thursday.  Thursday and Friday, Anna, Ken and I sorted through the shot folders and picked out fingers, mistakes, wires...   really, here's what I did for twelve hours over the course of two days.  I messaged everybody to remind them when and where we were meeting.  And kept messaging Ken and Ryan to find out where they were, two hours after "I'm on my way" and "I had a late night last night" or no message at all came back.  Anna was great and showed up each day around ten to work on stuff.  When Ryan and Ken came in after 3 or 4, I handed out assignments and then checked that they got completed.  I organized our folder and put away all of the files according to pre, production, and post.  I renamed all of the shots by scene and panel as per our animatic.  I found the right animatic and put it into After Effects after I tweaked the sound files.  I imported each scene, sometimes several times, into the timeline and ordered everything.  That took lots of time, I must say.  Vaughn showed me how to time stretch scenes, which was very exciting as it means we, I mean probably I, won't have to re-edit the sound to fit shorter scenes.  We've got a rough cut of all shots except for the glowing eyeballs in after effects and I've handed the project off to Ken and Ryan.  And they're toddling off with it.  Ken is doing the glowing eyeball shots and Ryan is working on the credit sequence.

Great!  I've got a comic to finish.  I'll come back to stop-motion when that's done.

  

Film reviews, 8 October

http://madizzlee.deviantart.com/journal/The-Last-Witch-Hunter-557481957

Last Witch Hunter trailer, Anna black told me about these animations in support of the film.

The Martian
I went to the movies!  And it all looked real, so I'm not sure how to comment on the CGI or the environment creation when it all looks so seamless.

Film Reviews, 25 September

Bo-Jack Horseman

good title sequence.  pretty watercolour effects on Bojack. And everything looks delightfully low-key and easy.

BMA115, comic development, 26 October

I've put in about 10 hours of work on the comic this long weekend.  I've got 3 pages to ink, but I've been dragging my feet and colouring the other 8 pages instead.  That decision is sure to catch up with me.  It was the same story during the penciling process:  lots of time/energy spent on the beginning of the comic, then everything petered out at the end.  As a result, my drawings weren't tight at the end which means I now have to catch up in the inking stage.  It will all come right, I'm sure.  One week until hand in.

And still no covers!!!!

BDM124, stop motion, final shooting day, 26 October

Ken and I THINK we're done shooting... if we just plop the animatic fight sequence in instead of taking pictures of each frame.  We're going to ask Vaughn if he's amenable to this.  It will free up more time to edit the stop motion sequences.  One week to go!  Ryan's mobile made it into the shots, but Ryan did not make it to film today and Anna was at Armageddon.  There's still a week of editing to go... Ken did most of critter movement and I set up the shots, did the timing and directed placement and movement.  At the end of the shooting day (10-4pm), I did some monster/light movement and monkey movement.

BDM127, 2D animating, 23-24 October

28 shots to go.  Which is a lot, but definitely on the finishing end of things.  Thank God for the long weekend.

Breaking it down, I've got 7 sequences and 3 solo scenes to animate before I've got 100% coverage.  Then I can go back and add/fix/refine.