BDM124 stop-motion, Thinking ahead, 7 July

BDM124, Thinking ahead, stop-motion, 7 July

The trees are all gone, and have been made in to books.  The people don't want the books anymore, and the birds need a home.  They fly into the library and pull the books off the shelves with their little talons.  The books fall to the ground and trees and leaves sprout from the pages. 

Ideas 6 July

Artist: Eugène Grasset Medium: Chromolithography Publication Date: 1896 Art Nouveau 

I can see the seeds blowing away and forming the "wish" on the horizon.

BMA115, drawing, comic story development, 1 July

Things to research:  eugenics, DNA (Lisa Blackwell is looking over my story for an easy way to talk about DNA)

The Agency seeks to level the playing field by introducing intelligence, strength, artistic and empathic traits to populations in need of leadership from within.

It's helping me to write by remembering that I don't have to get it right, I just have to get going.  So I'm writing it in story form.  Then I'll go back and decide what I can show v. what I can tell.

"Really, young man, you don't want to keep doing this."
I hear her first, then I see a flash of red neath my blindfold and the cigarette that has been shoved, unlit, between my lips by Ike.  The guy is clearly programmed to like old spy movies.  Irritatingly, Ike gave me the cig and then refused to light it, citing FUZE environmental health and safety regs.  But I'm getting a little hit of nicotine, so I don't spit it out.

If I squinch up my face, I can see a little bit under the blind.  It's an Apple.  Shit.  I've only seen those in kid's picture holos.   It's both more an dless than what I thought it would be.  Now it's gone; I hear a crunch and it's back, this time with a bite taken out of it.  It's not red all the way through.  That surprises me.  But the smell... it's sweet and crisp.  It's incredible.  My mouth starts to water.  Even if I wasn't half-starved, I suspect that smell would set me off.  It smells like something I've forgotten and I'm just about to remember...

"No, thank you, " I lie.  "Ike promised me a meatball while I wait for my papers to be analyzed."

"You don't want that meatball, McMurdo."

This brings me up short.  Again.  Who is this?  I squinch my face again to move the blind, but now the apple and the voice are slightly behind me.

"Haven't you ever wondered how they make those meatballs, McMurdo?"

No; this is the FUZE: the Land of Milk and Honey.

"Cows.  The meatballs are so big here, sometimes you find a bell in them."  I can hear the smirk in her voice when she replies.

"Bossy's dead, McMurdo.  But you don't have to be, if you come with me. "  Who IS this?

"If you don't mind, I'm being processed for entry to the Free United Zone: Europa, right now.  Can you come back later?"

"You're always asking me to come back, and every time I do, you're dead.  Can't we just skip to the part where you come with me?"

(Transition scene TBA.)

 McMurdo is not where he thinks he is.  This whole time, we've seen him as he sees himself: in a dashing spy outfit, blindfolded and cigaretted in a pristine waiting room.  Mary Marie McMurdo thwhips him in the nose, hard.  As his eyes water and he reacts in pain, the scene changes.  They're in an abandoned industrial zone, overgrown with weeds, and instead of a bespectacled bureaucrat politely looking through papers, IKE the automated sentry squats.  McMurdo is wearing a grubby utility suit.  The "cigarette" is a stick lozenge with drugs in it that change his perceptions and keep him calm.

See blog entry for picture source.  

BMA115: drawing, comic, character bios and story outline, 1 July

I wrote this up weeks? months? ago, but I wasn't ready to publish.  I've come back to refine the story and block it out for 8 pages, so it's time to put it up.

 BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Tempus Agent Mary Marie Macintosh.  Birth date January 1, 1899, Death date (first time) January 1, 2001.  She is part of an elite cadre of agents, mostly female, to have been “touched by time” by having set foot in three centuries.  In this agent’s case, the 19^th, 20^th and 21^st centuries.  Limited duration of exposure to the century is no impediment to service.  While long-lived, she did not travel much and spent the duration of her life within the north-western arctic quadrant of the western landmass colloquially known as North America.  She chooses to set her appearance program to 37 years old and auburn for unknown reasons.  It is suspected that those reasons are quite personal as this agent is suspected, and has been censured on multiple time-lines, for her “pet project” of seeding unsuspecting populations with the recessive Human MC1R Gene (red hair).  Her lack of travel not-withstanding, she has studied history extensively and is fluent in a variety of 20^th century regional languages.  With no known relatives or acknowledged biological next of kin, her extraction from the geriatric detention facility “Hopeful Creek Pioneers’ Home” caused some paperwork but very little lasting disturbance to her epoch of terminus.   

Peregrineer F. Scott McMurdo.  Birth date autumn 2067, Death date (classified).   His parents were third-generation climate refugees, and McMurdo’s life has been no less geographically unsettled.  Fleeing from climate disruptions and ecological catastrophes, McMurdo’s parents paid smugglers to get them aboard a decommissioned research vessel heading for the Antarctic Land Grab.  McMurdo’s parents were lost in the Flood of 2071 and he and the other survivors were forced to roam through Africa and Asia Minor in multiple attempts to gain entry to the Federated United Scandi-Euro Zone (FUSEZ in a rebranding campaign in 2078).  His partnership with Agent Macintosh may be temporary as McMurdo’s acceptance by The Agency is unconfirmed pending his completion of latitudinal and longitudinal apprenticeships.

Section Chief William S. Pierce  Birth date 1564, Death date (first time) April 23-26, 1616.  Also known as the “Bard of Avon” and “World’s Greatest Dad”, 8 years running.  Where Macintosh’s agent status comes from her three-century life span and McMurdo’s from his “geo-ambulation”,  S.C. Pierce’s status is due to his worldwide literary notoriety.  His fellow section chiefs, C. Septimus Philopator, Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco, Elvis Presley and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi manage the day to day running of The Agency’s chrono-hubs.  Too famous for field work, the desk job gives S.C. Pierce plenty of time to covertly work on his play “Love’s Labour’s Won” and is famous for muttering “to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow… I’ll drop it off, you know, whenever.  Plenty of time, plenty of time.”

Story Outline

Tempus Agent M. M. Macintosh has pushed herself to the edge of her 21^st century time limit in a self-indulgent attempt to watch the sun rise on a fourth century.  The Time Window that allowed her to enter 2099 has shut and the automaton systems that have extended her life will go into torpor unless she makes it to the Window that will be opening over the North Pole.    While debating how to get overland in time, her Geo-chronometer registers readings that indicate the presence of someone who has an unusually high number of latitudinal and longitudinal incursion markers in their bloodstream.   Her readings lead her to the freshly dead body that is the source of the irregular incursion energy signatures.  She uses the last of the power in her short term time jump circuits to circle back 20 minutes.  The now live body belongs to F. Scott McMurdo, who is attempting to illegally enter the Federated Scandi-EuroZone for the 5^th time.  While negotiating with McMurdo, the two are intercepted by the Robotic Border Security Patrol that did, and still might, execute him.  When challenged, she gives blood for identification purposes and the automaton systems in her blood disable the Security Robots.  Tempus Agent convinces McMurdo to come with her by proving that the FUSEZ is actually empty- the people have been killed off by a variety of automated systems and starvation.  Refugees like McMurdo keep coming because the “Join us in FUSEZ” ad/propaganda campaign is also automated. McMurdo could help prevent this tragedy, if he comes and works with her for The Agency, a shadowy organization tasked with subtly influencing world events with careful “asset placement” (DNA and babies) through Epochs and Empires.  Macintosh can travel through the 19^th, 20^th and 21^st centuries but she can’t travel outside of where she’s physically been without a Geo-Ambulator, somebody who’s crossed all latitude and longitudinal lines.    She takes McMurdo to the Chrono Hub for his time-travel shots (bio-automaton systems and Vitamin D), then treks with him through her homeland towards the North Pole.  They’re racing against time, though, because a rival agent is attempting to warp the time line for their own ends.

Real World Applications: costume design for animated films and video games, 1 July

Tyranny of Style interview with Grand Theft Auto 5 "costume designer"
Interview with Lyn Paolo, costume designer of shows like "Shameless" and "Scandal".  Michael Kane from Rockstar Games, GTAV's developer, watched the shows and hired her to do the costumes for the game.  She wasn't told which game she had worked on until the day of it's release, that's how tight secrecy was.  Actors were scanned and so were their clothes, just like for a show. The costumes didn't have to be fully altered to fit and pinning them to fit was acceptable.  After scanning, the colour and texture of the garments can be tweaked.  Lyn says that if this technology becomes available to film and tv, she will work with the union to make sure that costume designers still retain some creative control over the look of the show.

How exciting would it be, though, to be a designer who wasn't restricted by what was available in the "real world"?  Many times, our budgets are really tight and we have to take what we can get.  In the video game world, you can 3D scan the cheap grey suit you found at Goodwill for $10 and make it a $10,000 suit that Donald Trump would envy.  Fabulous.  And the technology that lets fabric look and act like fabric is only getting better and better.  It's going to be a whole new way to work.  Bonus: no video game character is EVER going to complain about what their butt looks like in your costume.



Tyranny of Style interview with Frozen "costume designer"

Interview with Jean Gilmore, costume designer for Disney's Frozen.  Jean is an animator and makes costumes on the side.  She was brought on to the project by her friend Art Director Mike Giaimo.  CGI animation offers the opportunity for costumes to be "made" using real-world construction techniques and materials.  In addition to traveling to Norway to research traditional design, Jean also collaborated with costume makers for Disney's theme parks on how fabrics and materials behave.  The result are costumes that are full of detail and act the way we think clothes act.

I blogged about the costume design work done for Disney's Big Hero 6.  The research and design process brought out some really exciting textures and pieces that didn't seem to be reflected in the final costume designs of the film.  The real pieces were gritty and complicated and the animated clothes were smooth and featureless.  Frozen's costumes are nothing but texture, texture, texture, just like REAL costumes.  Costume designers LOVE to play with fabric, and you can tell that this designer is thrilled with the results.  

BDM124, Thinking ahead, stop-motion, 1 July

Three days until 4th of July and a big steak!  I might actually remember this year.

Story idea:  The Apothecary
People come in for potions to make them happy, sexy, rich.  Each bottle that comes off the shelf has a little bit of that story in it.  What's the twist?  What happens at the end of the story?  Does one of the bottles break and turn the whole world into what's in the bottle?  A re-telling of "Pandora's Box"?  Is there an exchange of money or memories that go into their own bottle to be sold/traded on? Does the Apothecist? bottle the person who's been in and pestering for potions?