I'm not going to go into much detail tonight of what's gone on this near past year since my last post, nor sharing a lot of work. However, I have been busy with a long term, trial and error, improve-my-skills, labor of love music video animation (no, not yet complete....but I swear it's made considerable progress and I do see the end in sight. I know better than to set a date but it is on it's way) in between searching for and adjusting to a new dayjob routine (dogwalking-I quite like it), small and longer mini animation projects, a painting commission, and working small black and white ink dreamscape pieces that may lead to my next animation once my current mini epic is complete.
There's been my coping and adjusting to the political and social atrocity running boldly in my country since the US election (my worst birthday, ever...as I witnessed the poll count with growing horror). I also said goodbye to my beloved best friend: Lola, my ragdoll kitty. She almost made it to 17 years old. It was both heartbreaking and a relief to let her go. She was getting so sick and weak from renal failure. There wasn't much comfort for her other than the brief respite hardcore painkillers can bring. Lola finally had peace, delivered in the form of a compassionate local euthanasia service that makes housecalls.
Lola was in first two of the animations that I'm sharing today.
First of all I'm going back several years. I had shared a previous video of my contribution to David Huntsberger's "One Headed Beast" (2014) comedy/animation special (performed live in Austin Texas), but I never had shared the audio due to licensing concerns. The video was possible to see in full as intended if you watched the "animation only" alternative viewing portion of the DVD (which I recommend--you can buy it from David here). David gave me the ok to share my portion with a pre special practice rough audio clip that I had worked off of in order to shape a piece for his live show. I uploaded this audio version tonight, so the imagery I've previously shared on youtube and this blog will have more context now, as well as being an overall more enjoyable experience.
"16 Second Story" (2017) a collaborative mini storytelling animation game (a different animator interprets 16 seconds of an improvised story told by an audience member at David's Junk show, once a month for a year) as a fire breathing dragon cat. There was another version I previously included, which tied other elements of the story in progress: Kafka's miserable boss of Gregor Samsa, but in the form of Donald Trump, who also makes shitty cookies at his umbrella corporation, and gropes the melancholy violin playing sister's ass. After reviewing it before the final submission I got notes that seeing Trump's face just wasn't welcome...his ugliness is saturated in our media and most of us desperately need a fucking break from that reality. I had to agree after reviewing it. It didn't flow all that great anyway: I had crammed too much into such a short period of time. So, it was edited and expanded to mostly feature a flying fire breathing Lola Dragon, which was a better fit.
My 16 second portion is 2:25-2:41.
David recently made another comedy/animation special performed nightly throughout August of this year at the Fringe Fest in Scotland. Many of the same animators from One Headed Beast came back to collaborate on this. Overall the animations were to be more loose, experimental, and flowy. That said, regarding the comedy bit I selected ("I Hope You All Die") David mentioned that particular piece may welcome somewhat more specific imagery, but within the more experimental flowy execution and spirit of the project. This piece closed out his nightly show.
I used and incorporated different video captures to rotoscope into this piece: (1) food dye in water with the tones and values inverted, as well as rotated to make the bomb/meteor effects (2) sparklers from the street on the 4th of July for the inside of the "uddership" (3) waves from a visit to Rehoboth Beach (4) gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery (5) oil in paint/water emulsions backlit on a makeshift lightbox and magnified with a smartphone fisheye accessory lens for the space background. (6) a blinking marquis sign that transformed into the futuristic hospital room.
I also took more advantage with my growing knowledge of Photoshop's video editor tools as you'll notice with various motion effects (POV traveling on a curved road, cockroach swarm, card scatter).
There's a section with cows, which refers to an ongoing theme and callback to the whole special. I may be switching out the early practice audio for a later, more developed version that specifically references them when it's available in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment