Just a quick hello to everyone from CTN who might be stopping by for a visit!
This blog is updated sporadically...but when I do update, I promise it is full of EXCITEMENT AND WONDER. And drawings. Mostly drawings.
Enjoy this drawing - a medley of older designs for the Main Character - while I pack up and head to the Bay Area for Thanksgiving! I'm bringing my laptop and cintiq...maybe I will have something to update while I'm there? Eehh?
I am a sucker for trailers, and so I decided to put one together for Debris. Watching it makes me happy, and keeps me motivated to FINISH THE FILM AT SOME POINT.
Yes kids, this self-indulgent little romp is a work in progress. Goal for the next 3 weeks is to get the rest of these trailer scenes animated, so I'll have something to put up on the website I fully intend to build once I get a minute.
The music used is "Pepita," from Calexico's album "Feast of Wire." Haunting, lovely song; I think it works perfectly. I actually haven't given much thought to how I'm going to score Debris yet, but this track gives me a lot of inspiration.
I'd love to hear your thoughts and impressions of the bits/pieces I've strung together so far...love it? Hate it? Bored? Want to see more?
I was out with a friend tonight talking about our various creative projects, and my friend asked me why I chose to animate Debris in black and white. Honestly, it was mostly because color is one more (complicated) step in the production process, and I wanted to make a film I could realistically finish. I'm using color to embellish certain props, but other than that I'm sticking strictly to b/w.
Then it occurred to me - the theme of the film has become "people on autopilot." Everyone goes around a little robotic, and nothing feels real. I think of "The Wizard of Oz," where the viewer doesn't really feel like they're "in" the story until the color appears. The main character isn't connected to the world around him until the end of the film. Why not use color to represent that? Why not color the last two scenes of Debris?
How weird that today is the first day in a couple of weeks that I've had time to work on animation again...
I was feeling uninspired and busy with other stuff, but I took some time to re-watch the animatic (again,) and it reminded me why I wanted to make this short in the first place. It's a dark subject, but I'm drawn to it. It fascinates me, and I can only hope that I'm capturing it well, and doing it justice.
Thinking of you today, Dad. Hope you're having an okay day, the animals are behaving, and the Bay Area weather is sunny and breezy. :)
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Lucky scene 13. A couple things I'm noticing as I'm starting to amass a pile of scenes that link together...
1. Main Character seems unemotional? Make him sleepier, especially in the longer scenes. It's 2:04 AM, dude needs some heavy eyelids. (note to self - revisit That One LONG Pain in the Ass Scene I Wasn't Happy With Anyway and re-do it, with exhausted gusto.)
2. Main Character's model is morphing slightly from scene to scene. I really didn't have a model pack when I started this, I just sorta dove in with a couple sketches and a rough idea of what he looked like. Good thing? Bad thing? "Artistic" thing? (Note to self - wait until production ends, several years in the future, THEN go back and fret over old, "crappy" drawings. Cry a little, while tweaking nose size in earlier scenes.)
3. Looking at all the finished scenes I've accomplished so far is - despite the mistakes I spot - really, really, really fantastic. :)
I have some art on the wall at Meltdown Gallery with the GirlsDrawinGirls "Girls of Summer" show! You should check it out, along with the work of 49 other talented ladies.
Been super busy with this, and other GDG projects, but I'm steadily chugging along with animation. Little by little, the scenes get done...proper update next week, I promise.
I dove back into the Debris storyline recently, and I found myself cutting again--this time, a couple of sequences that I found redundant when I looked at the whole story. I really like the feel of the film a lot more now...the line between hallucination/reality is suitably blurred, but (hopefully) not to a point that will leave the audience completely baffled. At least, not baffled in a bad way.
That's one of the great things about working on something that's not a TV production...I can do things like go back and cut entire sequences, and no one gets pissed! HA!
ALSO - in Non-Debris Related News, GirlsDrawinGirls (the art collective I am a part of) will be exhibiting at COMICON 2009 - booth 5428!! Come by and say hi and check out some sassy pinup art drawn by sassy ladies. I will not be there this year, unfortunately, as I will be careening down the Colorado River in a rubber raft, 50 miles from a paved road. Wooo!
