Done

On Call is Done, and Morning just needs a few last touches.

Phew.

Poking Something Obvious: Sarah Saves My Life in Shake

There is something glorious yet humiliating in being shown the solution to a problem I've been on for a week. Monday seems like a lifetime ago. The intervening days have been foggy with frustration and circular reasoning. I read bits of the manual several times. I poked at things, but in each step I missed something gloriously, devastatingly obvious. The last key to the puzzle:

Activate the node.

The sunrise was beautiful this morning. Tomorrow morning I may photograph the sunrise. Its a beautiful morning.

What the Noodle?

Noodles, Nodes, FileOut, Rendering.... I need a large glass of KoolAide, my backyard, and a sunny day to read the Shake Manual. As it is I'm getting by in ASH 221, which is dark and cool, so as I'm tracking my animation I float down into that odd mental state I get with fiddly, repetitive tasks. Its sort of mid-way between detachment and concern, and my shoulders and my neck are very relaxed, and when I see something new my head ticks up and over, to scrutinize the screen. I babble to myself a little, I coax and cajole the program and hum to myself. This is why I like working on this alone, away from all of the crowing Collaborative Animation kids, who crow about odd shadows and surface values, jabber and play Snood.

Right now I don't know if its working. I don't know because I can't seem to figure out how to get the thing OUT of Shake. I watched Chris do it several times ("I'll let you do it because..." "If I don't I won't remember," I said). I did everything but take the thing out. Now all I get are solitary frames or massive, life-sucking Shake QuickTime FlipBooks that crash the computer.

I love computers.

Progress and Regress

The majority of the editing for "On Call" has been finished. I feel better knowing that it is nearly finished. I had a better time than I thought I would editing Tania's interview, though there are still some very strange pauses. She said a lot of interesting things, but for time and attention span concerns I ended up cutting much of it out... I'm reasonably pleased with how it came out.

My main concern now is getting Shake to cooperate. I need a good four hours or so of good blood sugar, good mood and good ambient noise to fiddle about with Shake. I walked into ASH lab and found it teeming with Comp Anim peeps working on "Uprising" (which looks interesting, very interesting) and a few assorted other animation people. It was very loud and I was already feeling a bit loopy. Shake makes more sense each time I open it, but I'm missing some very simple things, like how to move the viewing window, and how to render out video. I need some quality time with the manual and a few more weeks. I don't have the 'few more weeks' but I should get some quality time with the manual. I'll probably go into ASH early tomorrow and beam out before the Animator Horde reappears.

Shake: Salvation?

Okay, so I got a quick lesson in Shake today. Shake is a post production program. It does more than just stabilize the camera, but right now all I need is the stabilization. It works by tracking marks and aligning them. I have to assign trackers to marks and then manually align then when the program can't. It works amazingly well. The only problem is that it has a hard time dealing with the odd blurry frame in the sequence; it loses track and stops when it hits them. I've got some pretty strange angle changes and a lot of rocking in and out, so seeing the stabilized animation is quite amazing. Now, will I have the time to master Shake? Perhaps. After seeing what it can do I would like to get all of my stuff stabilized.


This is the introduction before being fixed by Shake:


There is an obvious jump in the camera. When I get back onto Shake I'll upload the stabilized version. Right now its too large to upload.

Editing is the Heart of Film Making

I've started the process of editing, and looking back at that interview with Tania makes me a bit uncomfortable. She obviously hasn't done a terrible amount of interviews and she is very hesitant. This is going to be a challenge to edit. She takes a great deal of pauses and makes a few retractions.

Of course I had to complicate things and accidentally tape over a mid-point section in the interview. She talks very quietly so I had gone back to listen to it, to make sure I could pick up her voice. She wanted to add something to the interview and so she just started talking randomly. Knee jerk reaction was to press record. Tapes are, I'm sorry to say, a bit of a foreign object to me, and I obviously have no ingrained concept of how they work. I had gotten kind of used to the nice Edirol recorder, which just makes new files each time you start it. Was that what I was expecting? Perhaps. It is a sloppy mistake and somewhat worrying. I lost a three minute section of the original interview, and taped over a bit I found interesting, which is a crying shame. Elizabeth's interview was much more composed and coherent, in retrospect. I was also much better prepared and far less flustered in that interview. I think the lesson here is to stay calm and try to think about what you're doing before you do it. Its been a trying week, to be sure.

I haven't decided how exactly I'm going to edit this smoothly. Her speech has very many long, contemplative pauses, sometimes within sentences. I can't cut out these pauses without jump cuts, because the sections around the pauses are too short, if I did a fade between the sections it would just look very strange. It would certainly take away from her words. I guess the easiest thing to do would be to go around and take more stock footage to paste over the more awkward of the transitions. I don't have a terribly clear idea of what I would use for the stock footage. I've really done the emergency light thing already. Maybe I could sort of continue this, but I feel there should be more to it....

I'll have to contemplate this for awhile.

373 frames

So... the marathon is over... for now. I've done 373 frames in the past three days. Today it was 181 frames... far over the previous record of 160...

Total: 583 frames

whooo... now for the rest of my homework...

Somewhat Serious

Today is Sunday, day 3 of my animation marathon. I've done 74 frames this morning, heh, a feat! The most frames I've done in a day was 160 give or take. I've got a head-start on that number now. I'm waiting for my camera to charge. My camera is my biggest limitation right now (since it is my only tool). It can work continuously (as it has to) for about an hour and a half, and then it takes an hour to charge. This really cuts down on the time I can put into this.

The animation itself has become a tad more serious than my initial idea. I now wish I had not said so much before. I fear people are expecting something much different than what I have.

Another niggling problem is the November 26th check-in. As I've been focusing so much on getting frames completed, I've forgotten that I can't just waltz into ASH this weekend (as its a holiday) and use their computers. I have to find some way of getting my stuff into a QuickTime movie. I may have to resign myself to bringing along a folder of my images. I'm anxious to see how the animation looks, though. Right now all I can do is scroll through the images quickly in my download preview window. This gives me a sense of movement but no timing... I can't control how fast it scrolls. The scrolling moves much faster than ten frames per second.

The good news: I've already surpassed my initial goal of 45 seconds. I'm at about 47 seconds and can easily get more than that today. I want to get as much as possible done today before I have to return the tripod, and I really want to be able to focus on my media project during the week. Editing interviews is fiddly work.

A Long Weekend

I began my animation marathon yesterday at noon, or thereabouts. I've got around 8 more seconds of footage now. Heh.

My most persistent issue is keeping the lines clean. I apparently possibly have a way around the shifts in the camera angle. Chris told me about a program called Shake which picks out register marks and aligns them. Shake may also standardize the color of the background. Sounds a little too good to be true...

1 Second

"Morning" is greatly impeded by daylight. I got up this morning at 7:20 and shot about a seconds worth of animation. In those ten frames the sun was rising, so the shots are very different. I've figured that each frame takes me about 2-3 minutes to complete. That second took me about a half an hour to do, then I had to pack up my stuff and take my tripod over to media services.

A Clear Horizon

Finally got my interview with Tania Sherman. She was very obliging, and came early (imagine that). She was wonderful. I, on the other hand, had a few issues. For one, I forgot my tape and had to run all the way back to Dakin, and for another, the mic I got decided it didn't want to work, so I ditched it. The humming in the audio makes me sad, but between that and no sound at all, I'll take the humming, thank you very much.

The interview was very interesting, a good difference from Elizabeth's interview. She got much closer to what I was really looking for in these interviews.

I'm still terribly awkward giving interviews. The camera equipment never helps, as it is sort of intimidating in of itself. People clam up when put in front of a camera...I wish there was a way to forget or mask its presence. I get such wonderful responses talking to people, but when I put a camera in the way, people become self conscious. I'm not a skilled enough interviewer to draw attention away from the camera. Perhaps I should have a sort of 'run up' in which I talk to the interviewee about something random to give them time to get used to the situation.

I would really like to get a quick interview from one of the prospective counselors. That is my next goal. Lets see what happens...

A Slow Morning

So, I spent today alternately waiting for my camera to charge and shooting my animation. I've had a hard time keeping the shots consistent. This has been my third restart, so I broke down and drew registers on my desktop. If I have enough time I'll photoshop them out or at least crop the video. The registers make it so much easier to realign the camera. I was doing so well without the registers, but then I would knock into the tripod and all would be lost.

The other issue I am having, which I foresaw somewhat, is the quality of the light. As shooting takes practically all day (this morning I started at about 8:30am, and stopped when the natural light got too dim for my camera to focus easily at about 4:00pm), the amount and quality of light shifts from shot to shot. I suppose I could rectify this in Photoshop, but it would be time consuming...well, all of this is time consuming so far.

I've gotten about 16 seconds of viable video now, after a whole day of work. Oh man, animation, how I love thee.

A Break in the Clouds

So, I have a confirmed interview with Tania on Monday now. Okay, at least I will have one other person. This makes me feel so much better.

I can see stars now.

No Fair Winds

Its raining and things are getting steadily worse for Good Ship Reckoner.

I went to CHC last night and found Tania, one of the CA's I was planning on interviewing. She had emailed me earlier saying that she wasn't up for an interview hat day, but I brought along my stuff any way in the off chance Emily or Kerianne would come around later. Jessica and Elizabeth had informed me that Kerianne wasn't going to come by until much later. So I sat around with my equipment, getting more and more discouraged, until I decided to pack up and leave. Of course, law of the universe, Emily appeared probably right after I left, and of course, since I missed her that night she probably won't be available until after Thanksgiving.

Its raining.

Now, of course, ALL of this could have been avoided had I emailed them this past week, at some point, to confirm times and such. I've been running about back and forth from ASH, talking to my adviser about the debacle that was Spring Pre-Reg, so I've been completely negligent to all of the nice planning I was supposed to be doing. When I have to put my faith in the Universe to get things done, it usually doesn't return the favor.

Its raining.

Preliminaries for "Morning"

Here are some doodles I made in a porcelain bowl to illustrate where I want to go with "Morning". Where I want to go and where it will end up may be two very different things though.






"Morning" will be drawn entirely in dry-erase pen in a porcelain bowl. It is about remembering the night before, and cringing at what mistakes were made or what crazy stuff had happened. Its about not being able to escape from the consequences of that night.

The style of "Morning" was inspired by Kristofer Strom's work, particularly Minilogue. I realize the whole dry-erase thing has been sort of over-done since Minilogue hit the YouTubes, but I really liked the idea of animation which would be conducive to metamorphosis and spontaneity. I'm hoping to start the process this weekend.

The Best Laid Plans...

When working with people is paramount to keep in mind that sometimes they just forget about things. I've got an awfully tight schedule and already it looks as if I might not be able to interview as many of my subjects as I would have liked today. That and I was informed sometime this morning that my space would be taken up by a Drug Abuse Task Force meeting. Its not too much of a set back, but after the first interview went so smoothly I suppose the Universe is taking its due now. No luck for you today.

We'll see how it goes later on tonight. Fingers crossed for good winds.

Tenative Project Schedule

November 12- 18 (week 1)
Nov. 12 iChalk Animation tests
Nov. 14 Set up camera/tripod
Nov. 15 General iStopMotion Animation tests
Nov. 16 Start general sequences


November 19-25 (week 2)
Nov. 19 continue animation
::goal:: shoot intro sequence
Thanksgiving: 21-23
Nov. 24 Continue animation
::goal:: shoot pixelation sequence

Check in: Nov. 26:
Show intro sequence

November 26- December 2 (week 3)
Flesh out/ complete all sequences
edit and incorporate music
any necessary edits
::goal:: to finish before final week of classes

Media (week 1)
Nov. 14- Counselor Advocate Interviews/ Stock footage ::camera rental from Wednesday, Nov. 14-Friday Nov. 16::

Media (week 2)
Further interviews (tba)
Start editing
::goal:: complete all clips and subclips
::goal:: show progress to CAs

Media (week 3)
EDITING
::goal:: a coherent rough edit, over ten minutes

This is going to be fun.

Picture Box, Animation

Animation shorts so far (very short)
Flutter, Lotte Reiniger Project


Evolution, Mary E. Bute Project


I'll post my video shorts once I get more organized.

Welcome to the Good Ship Reckoner

This will be my project blog for my final projects for my Fall 07 classes. These projects include:

"Morning", my animation final (more on that later)
"On Call" my short documentary on The Counselor Advocates for Intro to Media

and, possibly, some side projects like NanoWrimo.

Okay, Allons-y!