graticule

Paper

Being a hard-print comics guy, a blue pencil and Rotring hardcore gloog, an early but reluctant adopter (c.1994) of computers, "html," "Photo Shop" and "Future Splash," it is odd for me now to sing the praise of paper animation. I have used ToonBoom and Mirage since V1 of each, have marveled at how easy it is to do this and that, how convenient. I could get a bunch of shit out, and FAST. But it was cheating, and it sucked. My favorite animations, be they Silly Symphonies, Ghibli or Fleischer Studios, were all hand-drawn. Something about flipping the paper, pushing into it...drawing. I don't care how good your Cintiq is. There is no substitution. It a lot more work, but anybody thinking animation is a labor-saving path is going to be dropped off the proverbial cliff. Odd how that works.

Floods

Floods in Iowa City have really put everything into a flux.

back at last

Well, I have really neglected this weblog for way too long. I've been really distracted with teaching, but especially with my band. We've been doing a ton of recording and songwriting and I am really learning a great deal about recording in general and Pro Tools in particular. There's a lot more to getting a great sound than I had thought, and even more to getting a good performance. I'm just glad that there are only three of us.
There's a new studio coming to town as well, something that I find tremendously exciting. Almost all of my experience has been at an amateur level (excepting flash stuff) and the opportunity to maybe work for a local studio is a dream come true. Here's hoping I can get an interview!

Clench and Cheese for YouTube

I've been working on a new sequence for YouTube that approaches more of a cutout style of animation. Here are some scenes from the storyboard.

Credit sequence

Here's some stills from the credit sequence I've been working on for Clench and Cheese. Yet another unfinished project, right? It's a sequence of images from the comic with some limited animation of the characters set to the theme song. I'm shrinking it down to ipod size to see how it plays on the eensy weensy screen.

been a while again

I keep forgetting to update this blog. I've been pretty busy doing very unsavory work for a local giant company.... video editing and sound "goosing." It's not really my cup of tea, but I'm growing in my knowledge of how to use pro tools to make even a crappy FLV sound pretty damn big. The autumn is really nice, but we already have snow so I guess it's over. The summer flew by and I replaced a floor with Ethan (the singer in Liberty Leg, a band I joined last spring that's more fun than chicken on a stick). We got the Ratatoulie DVD not long ago and it's as fantastic looking as anything. The long, tortuous history of its production makes me worship Mr. Bird more than ever. He'll have an oscar for sure from this thing. Add it to his collection, eh?

Comic News

I've been working on self-publishing a black and white comic version of Clench and Cheese, and it's weird to be suddenly dealing with print again. It's up on drunk duck if you care to see it.... Cheese Goes Straight. I've also dusted off the UPS movie and have been working on getting the sound into the animatic. I've been using my Zoom H4 as a field recorder to get all kinds of sounds that aren't usually available online (such as birds, UPS Trucks, etc). It's a tremendous help.

Recording Dope

My friend Tom has just started a very useful site focused on home recording called Recording Dope. It's got tons of extremely useful information as well as a free podcast. Tom is an extremely experienced producer and engineer who lends his particular wit and wisdom to problems that plague even the most seasoned recording artists. Check it out!

now now

We went to see Meet the Robinsons in glorious 3D last night. It was pretty cool, but not worth the hoopla (we had just seen it in a conventional theater earlier, so there was grounds for comparison). I remember reading that the new digital 3D was almost invisible compared to the stereoscopic technique used in the 50s. And I guess it is... you still have to wear dumb-looking glasses, but they're not red and blue any more. They are smoked-lensed military issue plastic jobs and they give you a freakin' headache after about five minutes. The actual 3d looks better with some stuff than others (for instance, rain on a window is a very nice effect, whereas stuff splatting toward the camera looks as tired as it did in Warhol's Frankenstein. My verdict: stick to the 2d version until they figure out how to do it without the specs.

In my own news, I've decided to get a project schedule down for the shorts. I think the first ones will likely be pretty bad. I hope to learn from my mistakes and improve as quickly as I can. There's a limited opportunity to get everything noticed and time is really running out. I'm very late in the game.

Children of Men

Dunno if you know this novel, a there-and-gone P.D.James dystopian Brave New World knockoff whose premise is mysterious infertility that topples human empire. James' spin is the benevolent government who proclaims that the primary reason for existence is to dwell on and be comfortable (not a far cry from the working philosophies of many a person nowadays). The movie, though, has much higher ambitions. Vivid images of scenes common in Iraq, Afghanistan and many below-the-news areas drill meaning in, as do several scenes of kinda-real violence.
The movie is very very good, doubtless. It made me think for more than a month about a single image that had less that a second of airtime: a mushroom cloud over mahattan. (too small, I think). The music is sperb, as is the earnestness. But is it the great work that is possible these days? Close, I think, but it fails. Maybe that was the compromise that got it distributed and is why I ever saw it. The thing that gives me hope is that Bexhill is a refugeee camp... it's like Coney Island or Cannon Beach!
But anyway, well worth seeing. Does it redo the Iliad? Nope.
Everything it says is already there. You just gotta look.

The comic...

Well, the comic has really taken off. It's been a solid month of work, and find myself producing far more than is the industry standard (that is, a full-color, full page narrative strip every weekday) while still keeping house, home and job together. I obsessively check the stats and so forth, but it's more of an annoyance. I know that one day the strip will go through the roof because it's good. The characters are unusual and there are some cool story lines. The fact that I am now using Mirage to draw them means, too, that much of the art can be used in the animation.
As for that, I've not done any work on the cartoon itself this month. My new approach was to focus on the animatic again, getting the drawings up to the new soundtrack. I know now, though, that the accents I used for two guys from Birmingham (Brummies, they're called) were wrong. I've found a repository online that has examples of many accents (ranging from the American south to South African) and it's been a great help. I speak to myself in Brummie all the time, in fact. The brits consider it the funniest of accents, a point in my favor.
As they stand now, they sound like they're from Manchester. Just like Karl Pilkington, whom Cheese resembles more than a little.

Clench and Cheese

Well. the comic is totally fun. I'm taking a month or so off from the animation, devoting myself fulltime (this means from 4-7am weekdays) to drawing the strip. I've been able to to get one finished a day thusfar (weekdays, that is). I hope to start gradually creeping ahead so I can have a backlog. The animation is really fun... not only is there the peasure of seeing everything move, there's all the cool acting and sound as well as cinematography. I'll get back to it, rest assured.

And now it's time for my day job! Oh boy!