Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Thelonious Monk = very good. I've watching Ken Burns' documentary Jazz for a few months. I need to listen more Jazz.
Christmas was all right.
What great blog entry.
I'm going New York City tomorrow. Until. Sunday.
Christmas was all right.
What great blog entry.
I'm going New York City tomorrow. Until. Sunday.
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Today I was watching The Triplets of Belleville and I sort of had a revelation on how to draw characters (well, how I'd like to draw characters anyway; and Sylvain Chomet's character style is probably the closest to what I've always tried to accomplish). In short, I realized how important the shape of the body is to action. I knew about "lines of action" before, but I think I always took a really stiff anatomical approach to drawing the character and wound up not really conforming to the line of action at all. This might just seem like mumbo-jumbo, and it probably is; I'm not sure how to explain what I'm talking about. But let's just say I've discovered new horizons in character design.
What this means, of course, is that I have a lot of new momentum for the production of the long-awaited My Name Is Jake II, which has officially been given the subtitle At The Gym. You see, a long long time ago, Jake and I recorded a lot of his classic vocalizations with the intent of making a MNIJ sequel, but later I wasn't really happy with the soundtrack edit I put together so rather than fixing it I gave up. A long time later, today in fact, I was playing around with the new character design and got so excited that I invited Jake over and we recorded some more of his voice for the project, and I'm now going to put together a new, better edit.
I like animation.
So, because of my tendency to take everything so bloody seriously, I'm going to keep a sort of production diary in this blog, to chronicle the making of this epic film. This one, like many sequels, is higher budget than the first one (which was a fairly horse-and-buggy operation consisting of me tracing on note-cards against my dorm window at UNM), and is going to take a lot more work. But I'm a FUCK of a lot better at drawing and animating than I was three years ago, and dammit, this project is not going to go away. I need to finish it. Winter break is my golden opportunity.
I've put together a checklist of things to be done.
1. Concept
2. Soundtrack
3. Lip Synch
4. Storyboard
5. Background sketch
6. Keyframes sketch
7. Inbetweens sketch
8. Background render
9. Frames render
10. Special effects!
This may sound totally ridiculous, and I'm hoping no animation biz types are reading this because I honestly don't know what the real terms are for these things. So I've gotten past step one... pretty easy, with MNIJ movies you just figure out the setting (with the first one it was a grocery store and with this one it will be a gym) and you've got yourself a concept. Steps two and three are what I'm working on now: putting together a final soundrtrack edit and going through it frame by frame to figure out the timing of all the sounds and speech. Step four is pretty simple, basically just making a long rough comic strip that sums up the events of the movie. The rest of the steps are the time-consuming ones.
(Let's see if I can be goal-oriented). My goal is to be ready for step five tomorrow.
What this means, of course, is that I have a lot of new momentum for the production of the long-awaited My Name Is Jake II, which has officially been given the subtitle At The Gym. You see, a long long time ago, Jake and I recorded a lot of his classic vocalizations with the intent of making a MNIJ sequel, but later I wasn't really happy with the soundtrack edit I put together so rather than fixing it I gave up. A long time later, today in fact, I was playing around with the new character design and got so excited that I invited Jake over and we recorded some more of his voice for the project, and I'm now going to put together a new, better edit.
I like animation.
So, because of my tendency to take everything so bloody seriously, I'm going to keep a sort of production diary in this blog, to chronicle the making of this epic film. This one, like many sequels, is higher budget than the first one (which was a fairly horse-and-buggy operation consisting of me tracing on note-cards against my dorm window at UNM), and is going to take a lot more work. But I'm a FUCK of a lot better at drawing and animating than I was three years ago, and dammit, this project is not going to go away. I need to finish it. Winter break is my golden opportunity.
I've put together a checklist of things to be done.
1. Concept
2. Soundtrack
3. Lip Synch
4. Storyboard
5. Background sketch
6. Keyframes sketch
7. Inbetweens sketch
8. Background render
9. Frames render
10. Special effects!
This may sound totally ridiculous, and I'm hoping no animation biz types are reading this because I honestly don't know what the real terms are for these things. So I've gotten past step one... pretty easy, with MNIJ movies you just figure out the setting (with the first one it was a grocery store and with this one it will be a gym) and you've got yourself a concept. Steps two and three are what I'm working on now: putting together a final soundrtrack edit and going through it frame by frame to figure out the timing of all the sounds and speech. Step four is pretty simple, basically just making a long rough comic strip that sums up the events of the movie. The rest of the steps are the time-consuming ones.
(Let's see if I can be goal-oriented). My goal is to be ready for step five tomorrow.
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
My band, Dirty Sixty, rehearsed last night for the first time in a while. We had fun, as we usually do. It's kind of strange, though; I don't really know where this band is going. I kind of want it to be a cutting-edge indy sort of band, but Jake seems to be more influenced by jam bands, and I think Danny is more influenced by classic 70s rock. Plus, I don't think anybody's really sure just how seriously everyone else takes it, so nobody really criticizes anybody else. Doing original songs is difficult. I write these songs and usually make simple demos of them on my computer, and then when I take them to the band and we play them they wind up sounding not at all what I expected. I usually end up preferring the demos. I think I have an antisocial complex that prevents me from having good collaborative relationships with other people. Um, make that good relationships period. But anyway, I think it can be said that I have a lot to learn about this "rock" music.
On a related note, my friend Chris was in town today, and took the time to come over to my apartment and discuss the clarinet & piano piece I wrote for him this fall. Earlier I worried that he just didn't like the piece at all, but fortunately this turned out to be wrong (damn my tendency to automatically assume people disapprove of what I do!). The piece needs a lot of revision, and Chris, a pretty talented composer himself, gave me a lot of great criticism and tons of ideas toward fixing it. It's so important to have friends who can give your work a frank dressing-down, because little else can give you that creative charge to accomplish.
The past two days I've been listening to Yusef Lateef's album Eastern Sounds over and over and over. All of the songs are just so incredibly pure and mellow. I can't really describe how amazing this music is, because it's the sort of music that you don't want to think about, you just want to listen to it. A lot.
I'm very interested in buying a domain name and some hosting. I came very close to doing it today, but I want to make sure it's something I actually want, rather than some impulse that I got because I'm overcompensating for not having an internet connection for two months. Nevertheless, I do feel that it would be good for me to get involved on the internet again, and having a web page would probably make me want to do art to justify its presence (which can only be good, right?) so yeah. Probably gonna happen. Note: yes, I do have a web page at ATT, but they're not letting me access it and I can't update it or anything, which is a pity because I'd like very much for it to be gone.
On a related note, my friend Chris was in town today, and took the time to come over to my apartment and discuss the clarinet & piano piece I wrote for him this fall. Earlier I worried that he just didn't like the piece at all, but fortunately this turned out to be wrong (damn my tendency to automatically assume people disapprove of what I do!). The piece needs a lot of revision, and Chris, a pretty talented composer himself, gave me a lot of great criticism and tons of ideas toward fixing it. It's so important to have friends who can give your work a frank dressing-down, because little else can give you that creative charge to accomplish.
The past two days I've been listening to Yusef Lateef's album Eastern Sounds over and over and over. All of the songs are just so incredibly pure and mellow. I can't really describe how amazing this music is, because it's the sort of music that you don't want to think about, you just want to listen to it. A lot.
I'm very interested in buying a domain name and some hosting. I came very close to doing it today, but I want to make sure it's something I actually want, rather than some impulse that I got because I'm overcompensating for not having an internet connection for two months. Nevertheless, I do feel that it would be good for me to get involved on the internet again, and having a web page would probably make me want to do art to justify its presence (which can only be good, right?) so yeah. Probably gonna happen. Note: yes, I do have a web page at ATT, but they're not letting me access it and I can't update it or anything, which is a pity because I'd like very much for it to be gone.
Monday, December 20, 2004
Last night I went to Megan's 21st birthday party. It was very wild. Oh my goodness. Yes.
I just got back from the worst work shift ever. I had to drive a bus that had no working heater. This was bad enough, but the emergency escape window kept opening by itself, which A) frightened the passengers and B) made it even colder inside.
Stupid winter. And the solstice isn't even until tomorrow!
I just got back from the worst work shift ever. I had to drive a bus that had no working heater. This was bad enough, but the emergency escape window kept opening by itself, which A) frightened the passengers and B) made it even colder inside.
Stupid winter. And the solstice isn't even until tomorrow!
Sunday, December 19, 2004
I think I literally am dependent on a substance. I can't think very well without caffeine. Pretty scary, eh?
Even more scary: there is an interesting article on Michael Moore's web site that compares the relationship between Democrats and Republicans in this country to the relationship between victims of domestic violence and their abusers. And it's totally true, isn't it? That's basically what's going on: ideological abuse. The far right wing figured out in the Clinton era that character assassination is a far more powerful political weapon than anything in the realm of moral righteousness. And since then, the neo-cons have been wailing on any liberal politician who threatens to become powerful with this technique. And it's working. We meek, modest liberals are no match for these ad hominem assaults. All over the place, democrats are apologizing for their existence. There has been some consensus that Kerry's loss of the election was a result of his being "too liberal."
There are those incredibly painful pictures of Kerry waving guns around, trying to tell America, "See? I'm sort of like a conservative, too!" In doing stuff like this, he was sort of admitting defeat. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
It's a sort of metaphorical yellow star of David that we're having to wear now, and I fear that the democratic party is going into the gas chambers, single file. They've already succeeded at turning this country into an episode of "Hannity and Colmes," now will they stop at that?
It seems, though, that another reason that liberals have lost pretty consistently recently, is that they actually talk about how shitty the world is and how shitty it's going to be if we continue doing what we're doing. Liberals look you in the eye and say, "thousands are dying in Iraq, and will continue to do so, all because of a war that nobody is really sure why we're fighting." Nobody in America wants to hear that, even if it's true. In America, where war and politics are abstractions, nobody will accept any reality other than the one in which everybody is happy and nothing goes wrong, and politicians are preferably former movie stars. Not that this is unique to present-day America; in Nazi Germany, for example, few Jews believed rumors that the government had set up massive death camps for them, even though it probably would have been in their best interest to believe them. The more atrocious reality is, the less belief people are going to invest in it. And the more liberals insist on basing their philosophies in reality, the less people are going to support them.
Ah, it feels good to write meandering, pointless text now that school is out. Cohesion is overrated.
Even more scary: there is an interesting article on Michael Moore's web site that compares the relationship between Democrats and Republicans in this country to the relationship between victims of domestic violence and their abusers. And it's totally true, isn't it? That's basically what's going on: ideological abuse. The far right wing figured out in the Clinton era that character assassination is a far more powerful political weapon than anything in the realm of moral righteousness. And since then, the neo-cons have been wailing on any liberal politician who threatens to become powerful with this technique. And it's working. We meek, modest liberals are no match for these ad hominem assaults. All over the place, democrats are apologizing for their existence. There has been some consensus that Kerry's loss of the election was a result of his being "too liberal."
There are those incredibly painful pictures of Kerry waving guns around, trying to tell America, "See? I'm sort of like a conservative, too!" In doing stuff like this, he was sort of admitting defeat. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
It's a sort of metaphorical yellow star of David that we're having to wear now, and I fear that the democratic party is going into the gas chambers, single file. They've already succeeded at turning this country into an episode of "Hannity and Colmes," now will they stop at that?
It seems, though, that another reason that liberals have lost pretty consistently recently, is that they actually talk about how shitty the world is and how shitty it's going to be if we continue doing what we're doing. Liberals look you in the eye and say, "thousands are dying in Iraq, and will continue to do so, all because of a war that nobody is really sure why we're fighting." Nobody in America wants to hear that, even if it's true. In America, where war and politics are abstractions, nobody will accept any reality other than the one in which everybody is happy and nothing goes wrong, and politicians are preferably former movie stars. Not that this is unique to present-day America; in Nazi Germany, for example, few Jews believed rumors that the government had set up massive death camps for them, even though it probably would have been in their best interest to believe them. The more atrocious reality is, the less belief people are going to invest in it. And the more liberals insist on basing their philosophies in reality, the less people are going to support them.
Ah, it feels good to write meandering, pointless text now that school is out. Cohesion is overrated.
Saturday, December 18, 2004
I want some skilled DJ to mix Cisco Kid by War with the World 2 map music from Mario 3.
A week ago was my brother Kevin's birthday. Yesterday was Beethoven's birthday. Tomorrow is Aaron's birthday. The day after is Megan's birthday. Too many damn Sagittarians! Too bad the sun is actually in Ophiuchus right now, which isn't even a fucking zodiacal sign.
Well, finals week is over. I'm pretty exhausted.
But all around I feel good. For the first time ever, I seem to have managed to take school seriously for an entire semester. I did well on all three of my exams and actually turned in all assignments. Not just that but this: I finally have a plan. I'm going to go to Kirkwood for one more semester, and then I'm going to enroll at the U of I and actually finish a degree in Music (Education, most likely; but I'm still really considering Composition). This plan is consistent with my pattern of "two semesters, then transfer to a different college and repeat." Pathetically, I'm on my third college right now, and am something like 1/3 to 1/2 of my way to a degree. Meanwhile, I have a lot of friends who are graduating in the spring. Obviously, some serious focus is in order.
Right now I'm floating in one of those rare bubbles where your semi-long term prospects look pretty good, and so do your short-term prospects. In a week it's going to be Christmas, which is good. Then a few days later I'm flying to New York to have fun, fun, fun. However, my very short-term prospects are somewhat unsavory. Tomorrow I'm planning on cleaning the hell out of my apartment, and it's going to be tedious. Also, I'm a little bit worried about my semi-short term prospects, i.e., what I'm going to do from the beginning of next semester to summer. Where am I going to work? I don't think I'm going to be able to keep my job when the semester starts. Will my newfound academic zest wane with the usual February ennui to which I am prone? Of course, in the back of my mind I'm usually somewhat worried about my very-very-long-term prospects: politics is always so full of horrifying possibilities, especially in this country at (ugh) this particular juncture in history.
But no matter, my very-very-short-term prospects are very good indeed: to go to bed and sleep off a hellish week and to forget all of that stuff they made me learn this semester. Kidding! I value my education a great deal. Yes. Yes.
Well, finals week is over. I'm pretty exhausted.
But all around I feel good. For the first time ever, I seem to have managed to take school seriously for an entire semester. I did well on all three of my exams and actually turned in all assignments. Not just that but this: I finally have a plan. I'm going to go to Kirkwood for one more semester, and then I'm going to enroll at the U of I and actually finish a degree in Music (Education, most likely; but I'm still really considering Composition). This plan is consistent with my pattern of "two semesters, then transfer to a different college and repeat." Pathetically, I'm on my third college right now, and am something like 1/3 to 1/2 of my way to a degree. Meanwhile, I have a lot of friends who are graduating in the spring. Obviously, some serious focus is in order.
Right now I'm floating in one of those rare bubbles where your semi-long term prospects look pretty good, and so do your short-term prospects. In a week it's going to be Christmas, which is good. Then a few days later I'm flying to New York to have fun, fun, fun. However, my very short-term prospects are somewhat unsavory. Tomorrow I'm planning on cleaning the hell out of my apartment, and it's going to be tedious. Also, I'm a little bit worried about my semi-short term prospects, i.e., what I'm going to do from the beginning of next semester to summer. Where am I going to work? I don't think I'm going to be able to keep my job when the semester starts. Will my newfound academic zest wane with the usual February ennui to which I am prone? Of course, in the back of my mind I'm usually somewhat worried about my very-very-long-term prospects: politics is always so full of horrifying possibilities, especially in this country at (ugh) this particular juncture in history.
But no matter, my very-very-short-term prospects are very good indeed: to go to bed and sleep off a hellish week and to forget all of that stuff they made me learn this semester. Kidding! I value my education a great deal. Yes. Yes.
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
What does DSL even stand for? No matter, it's in my computer now, and it's in there to stay. It's pretty nice to be hooked up to the world again.
So I'm on the home stretch of finals week right now; in the next 48 hours I have to write one paper and take two tests. Today I had a Psychology exam which I aced... it was California and I was John Kerry. Tomorrow's exam in Religion in the United States is going to be more like Pennsylvania, and unfortunately the history final on Thursday is, I fear, going to be more like Wyoming or at the very least Colorado.
I already said that, almost verbatim, to Danny today; but I don't think it's immoral to plagiarize yourself in a web log that nobody is going to read anyway.
So I was just at Village Inn, taking a break from the busywork with some friends, and we were having a discussion about the movie Love Actually, which Megan liked but I rather did not. I argued that it was a stupid story (not even really a story) that depicted a large sample of relationships in an unrealistically idealized way. Now, I'm pretty vehement when it comes to bad movies, and it sort of slipped out that as a pretty much let's face it, ugly person I have cultivated a rather cynical opinion about romance as something that is only relevant to beautiful people. When I said that, though, there was that sound of the needle being ripped off of the record and the discussion just stopped cold.
It was kind of a monstrous thing to say, I guess, considering that everyone else at the table is in a semi-serious relationship of some kind. But it's seriously what I think.
Maybe I'll write more about that sometime. It's been on my mind a lot though lately. But why am I writing all this instead of writing my huge paper?
So I'm on the home stretch of finals week right now; in the next 48 hours I have to write one paper and take two tests. Today I had a Psychology exam which I aced... it was California and I was John Kerry. Tomorrow's exam in Religion in the United States is going to be more like Pennsylvania, and unfortunately the history final on Thursday is, I fear, going to be more like Wyoming or at the very least Colorado.
I already said that, almost verbatim, to Danny today; but I don't think it's immoral to plagiarize yourself in a web log that nobody is going to read anyway.
So I was just at Village Inn, taking a break from the busywork with some friends, and we were having a discussion about the movie Love Actually, which Megan liked but I rather did not. I argued that it was a stupid story (not even really a story) that depicted a large sample of relationships in an unrealistically idealized way. Now, I'm pretty vehement when it comes to bad movies, and it sort of slipped out that as a pretty much let's face it, ugly person I have cultivated a rather cynical opinion about romance as something that is only relevant to beautiful people. When I said that, though, there was that sound of the needle being ripped off of the record and the discussion just stopped cold.
It was kind of a monstrous thing to say, I guess, considering that everyone else at the table is in a semi-serious relationship of some kind. But it's seriously what I think.
Maybe I'll write more about that sometime. It's been on my mind a lot though lately. But why am I writing all this instead of writing my huge paper?
Friday, December 10, 2004
This seems to go in cycles of a few months of heavy blogging, then several months of light-to-no blogging. Most things in my life seems to exhibit these sinusoidal properties. Maybe biorhythms aren't such hokey. Well, actually, no, they definitely are.
Anyway, there's a reason I've been so incredibly obscure lately: I pulled the plug on my internet connection at home. For two months I've been averaging about 10 minutes a day of internet use at the computer labs of UI and Kirkwood. Why would I take such an action? Well, my income had gone down significantly (I lost a job; well, I quit really, see above post.) and my new apartment has slightly higher rent; and so I was falling behind on stuff, and then in October I figured I'd start experimenting with a self-righteous Luddite "transcendentalist" lifestyle.
So, let's see, what has happened to me since August that is worth writing about? Hmm, well, very very little. Yeah, I've pretty much been working a lot and going to school and very occasionally getting drunk but just generally sitting around watching my young life pass before my eyes.
That sounds really depressing, and it is. Maybe I need more friends.
On the creative front I've gotten a few things done. One of them is a piece I composed for clarinet and piano, at the behest of Chris. I don't know if he likes it. Although he has been pretty busy at school, he tells me, his reaction to this piece so far has been pretty much what I imagine someone's reaction would be if you wrote a piece for them and he didn't like it: he said he likes it a lot, and hasn't said much more about it. But I know he's been busy so I'm not going to be demanding.
I've also written and performed some more theatre pieces at No Shame; one was a political satire I was particularly proud of, the climax of which is my friend Megan hitting me really, really hard in the head with a toaster. Unfortunately, I'm thinking maybe the gag missed its comedic mark a little bit (physical humor is prone to that, as I've learned) because people in the audience were really concerned that she was actually hurting me with the toaster... I had told her beforehand that the harder she hit me the funnier it would be; but I think now that I was mistaken and there was a magic number that she surpassed. What a pity.
So yeah, other than this stuff it's been one HUGE boring semester for me. I think I can make next semester better. You'll find out if I do or not, because I'm going to start blogging again. That's pretty laughable, because I always say that and then the next post is like five months later.
But see, I'm getting an internet connection on Tuesday. Yeah. DSL. It's going to be good to be hooked up again. Also, I'm going to New York City in a couple weeks to usher in the new year. That's going to rock.
So there's excitement in my future for sure.
Anyway, there's a reason I've been so incredibly obscure lately: I pulled the plug on my internet connection at home. For two months I've been averaging about 10 minutes a day of internet use at the computer labs of UI and Kirkwood. Why would I take such an action? Well, my income had gone down significantly (I lost a job; well, I quit really, see above post.) and my new apartment has slightly higher rent; and so I was falling behind on stuff, and then in October I figured I'd start experimenting with a self-righteous Luddite "transcendentalist" lifestyle.
So, let's see, what has happened to me since August that is worth writing about? Hmm, well, very very little. Yeah, I've pretty much been working a lot and going to school and very occasionally getting drunk but just generally sitting around watching my young life pass before my eyes.
That sounds really depressing, and it is. Maybe I need more friends.
On the creative front I've gotten a few things done. One of them is a piece I composed for clarinet and piano, at the behest of Chris. I don't know if he likes it. Although he has been pretty busy at school, he tells me, his reaction to this piece so far has been pretty much what I imagine someone's reaction would be if you wrote a piece for them and he didn't like it: he said he likes it a lot, and hasn't said much more about it. But I know he's been busy so I'm not going to be demanding.
I've also written and performed some more theatre pieces at No Shame; one was a political satire I was particularly proud of, the climax of which is my friend Megan hitting me really, really hard in the head with a toaster. Unfortunately, I'm thinking maybe the gag missed its comedic mark a little bit (physical humor is prone to that, as I've learned) because people in the audience were really concerned that she was actually hurting me with the toaster... I had told her beforehand that the harder she hit me the funnier it would be; but I think now that I was mistaken and there was a magic number that she surpassed. What a pity.
So yeah, other than this stuff it's been one HUGE boring semester for me. I think I can make next semester better. You'll find out if I do or not, because I'm going to start blogging again. That's pretty laughable, because I always say that and then the next post is like five months later.
But see, I'm getting an internet connection on Tuesday. Yeah. DSL. It's going to be good to be hooked up again. Also, I'm going to New York City in a couple weeks to usher in the new year. That's going to rock.
So there's excitement in my future for sure.
