funeral

My last film, Boar Attack, was shown in a church Friday. For a funeral. A friend of a friend's Dad died this week. The lady is a dancer, and I guess when she saw the film a couple years ago (not sure where) it stuck with her.

The man's wife (dancer's mom) "loves it and is insisting that we play it in the church. Just got to get it past Father George."

No award could ever come close to this. It really makes my work feel important. What an honour.

shad pass

While my compu-tar gently renders, I thought I'd scrape off a layer of pixels and show ya what's going on. This is a shadow pass of a tree on a grill. I think it would look good embroidered on a gangsta hoodie.

bipolar

I feel like I'm giving it away a bit, but here's another still from my film. Lots of tree painting now.

I find it way easier to paint good trees if I'm around them. Fortunately the weather is warming up and there's a big chunk of forest just down the road. I laid down amongst the ferns for about an hour this evening and listened to two owls calling to each other.

Engine Trouble

I buy the cheapest beer in the liquor store - Bowen Island Lager. It's pretty good most of the time, but sometimes there's a bad batch. Right now I'm drinking a bad batch. After each sip I made noises like "caw hoa hoa gaa" and choke it down.

This is the image I am giving to you tonight.

Improvisator Dub Meets the Disciples

A lot of the shots now are getting more effects-y. Putting my mind into all these different styles of shots is a welcome challenge.

Wise words were once passed on to me from an older animator who learned in Japan: "All effects must have a birth, a lifespan, and a death."

Most people focus on the lifespan part, but don't think about how the effects appear or disappear. Just like a good anticipation for character animation, an effect is far stronger if something happens before it appears. In anime, you'll often see a few frames of sparks around someone's hand before they jizz out a powerbeam. You'll usually see a cool sputter at the end of the effect as well.

So much to learn! Lovin' it!