Ok, this is getting silly now

Ok, a brief interlude here, because this is (I think) the third Brave related post I've put up on here, and the film's not even out yet.  I was just having a quiet doodle and suddenly found I'd drawn this:

Ok, I just have to hang on for two more weeks.  How is it right that the US premier is before the UK one, yet they held their premier in Scotland?  Makes no sense to me at all.

Why the Bible is awesome

I've had more speed-doodling challenges (so much fun to do but with technically abysmal results so I don't know why I'm sharing them with you! ;D ) which is where someone reads a story aloud and I have about 5 seconds to draw it as it happens, standing sideways, on an A-frame.  It's not easy, but it has proven one thing: the Bible is awesome fun!  Just one chapter, in this case Acts ch12, covers all your major TV soap genres...

Murder...

3D or 3Don't?

There's an interesting article in The Guardian today about the rather dissapointing sales of 3D cinema tickets in 2011.  Initially the 2009 reboot of 3D films that avoided the old red-and-blue glasses of the 1950s proved very popular, with James Cameron's Avatar being made specifically as a flagship for the technique, and no one can say that it wasn't a very pretty film (even if the plot wasn't as groundbreaking as the effects.  The jury's still out on whether it was a blue version of Pocahontas, Fern Gully or Dances With Wolves). 

For a while 3D films did well, but now their popularity seem to be declining rapidly, with more people opting for the standard 2D versions.  The author of the report on this believes that now the inital period of experimentation is over it's mainly due to the recession.  When a 3D ticket costs half-again as much as a 2D ticket it's just too big a spend, espcially if the cinema trip is a family outing.  Additionally those with contacts or glasses may find the 3D specs hard to wear, and a friend of mine who is partially blind in one eye can't see 3D at all - she has to wear the glasses just to stop seeing the picture in double!  However the theory that it's all down to the recession has a problem as it assumes that once the economy picks up the 3D ratings will return fully to their old figures.  I don't think that will be the case, in fact I think there's something else going on altogether.

Anticipation...

The more I see of this film, the happier it makes me.

When Merida rips the constricting clothes open yelling "Curse this dress!" and starts firing off arrows I want to cheer.  For her culture it may be completely out of order for her to "shoot for her own hand", but all she wants is for someone to recognise her for who she is, and to not be paired with a man she doesn't respect.  This strikes me as very sensible.

It reminds me of a scene from Studio Ghibli's Whisper of the Heart, which is about a girl who is inspired to pursue her talent for writing when she meets a boy whose passion for violin making is deciding his whole future.  Through the film they get to know each other better and early one morning the boy arrives back from studying violin making in Italy and immediately cycles over to see her.  He wants to show her the sunrise from his favourite spot on the hilltop so she hops on the back of the bike and off they go.  But on the road up the hill the boy starts to struggle.  She asks:
"Should I get off?."
"No, stay on!" he replies.  "I decided I was going to ride up this steep hill, carrying you with me."
Her face says it all.  "Who said you could decide that?!"  She jumps off the bike and starts to push from behind.  "I don't want to be just a burden for you.  If I'm going with you I'm going to help you."  He agrees, and they reach the top together, each pulling their weight.

I've use that scene to explain to people how I feel about particular issues in the past; mainly money.  It seems like a good model for a relationship; two people who both bring something different to the table but neither plays second fiddle to the other.  Each of them gets to do what they can to contribute, and they move forward together, facing the same direction, and each supporting the other so that no one person is forced to bear all the weight.  If and when I do find myself getting into a relationship, although I know there will be times when one of us needs to lean more heavily on the other, for the most part I'd expect to be allowed and supported in being fully myself and contributing to what we're doing together.  And my partner should expect exactly the same from me.

Until that time comes, I'll be shooting for my own hand.  If he wants to match me, let him.

Comics update

Habibi, by Craig Thompson, is out.  Progress reports have been coming up on his blog for an age and a half, taunting us with these gorgeous, intricate images and all the stages of the publication process.  I read his Blankets a few years ago (and had to save up for the privelage, my local library isn't big on comics) so I'm really looking forward to this.  It shall be mine.  Oh yes, it shall be mine.

Also in the news today, the animated adaption of Marjane Satrapi's comic duology Persepolis has been causing fights and court cases in Tunisia.  The comic was ground-breaking enough in the West, giving us a personal look at life during the Iranian Revolution through the eyes of a young Marjane, but closer to it's home it's even more challenging.  The animated movie was shown on television in Tunisia, and includes a scene where Marjane speaks with God, who is portrayed in the classic white-and-beardy-and-fifteen-feet-tall fashion.  For us and for her it seems like an obvious way to show the kind of relationship she has with her creator, but for most conservative Muslims showing any image of God or Mohammed is a massive no-no.  The TV broadcasting station came under attack and is currently on trial for "insulting sacred values".  Anyone care to suggest that cartoons are only relevant to kids?  No, I thought not.

We're so used to being allowed to say whatever we think or believe in Britain (and sometimes we say too much as a result) without life-threatening consequences that the idea of a country where showing a programme that contravenes one such belief results in out-and-out violence (thereby contravening other beliefs about love and peace in that same religion, one would think) is frankly very bizarre to me.  It seems almost backward, and I want to make indignant statments that begin with "How can it be, in this day and age...?", as if people now are any less impulsive and fearful than they have always been.

As a Christian I get crossed by people every other day, promoting beliefs that can directly oppose mine and sometimes be very offensive to me, but I don't get to go attack a TV station and I wouldn't expect to be able to either.  Beating someone to a pulp is no way to convince them that they were wrong, just to set them against you even more.  It's a bit like that time they put Nick Griffin on Question Time; it was right to give him the freedom to express his ideas... and equally right that he was immediately shot down by the rest of us for being a narrow-minded nationalist muppet, but no one commited arson on his office over it.  Besides, we're British, we don't attack broadcasters, instead we stoically stiffen our upper lips and join the queue to the complaints booth.

How on earth-

-did I forget about this!


After graduating, I was approached by a friend of mine who was setting up an online business and wanted a 'How To' video.  It had to explain the concept to people of the website to new visitors in under two minutes.  That website was Staywimi, a meeting place for people with rooms and beds they were willing to rent and people looking for an alternative to pricey hotel rooms, particularly with the Olympics coming up.  He asked me to make that video.


It was definitely a big learning curve for me.  I was fresh out of uni with a lot of enthusiasm but not much experience of the real working world, or the process of dealing with a client.  With both of us new to our professions and little or nothing to go on, every step of the relationship between me and Ali was a fresh experience and often a challenging one.  I found out things that old hands will think ought to be painfully obvious:

• How to write a contract, and what your terms should be
• Intellectual property
• Rules about using other people's logos in your ad. (Basically, DON'T DO IT!!!)
• Why you should ALWAYS have a fixed script before you begin animating.  We started drawing out ideas before the narrative of the script was really set, only to have other stakeholders come in later at several different points and request changes.  Even the final video you see now is not quite the video I handed over.
• Using Illustrator and Flash, two programmes that I'd dabbled in but never really had much occasion to get familiar with.  Man am I familiar with them now!
• Matching motion and scenes to the timing of a soundtrack.  To be honest I've never been told about this but have always done it instinctively.  As a musician the idea of counting beats and fitting different instruments together harmoniously seems natural and obvious.  I feel that music and pacing are key elements that can make or break an animation, but making things fit to words was a really fun thing to do.  I drew charts upon charts marking where words came in, and where the animation needed to be at that point in time, and it worked!  I still like the pacing of this when I rewatch it now.
• Deadlines.  What a realistic time is to set for particular tasks, and why it's important that you keep to those - or are honest with your client if you realise that you can't.  I was job-hunting at the time and overestimated my ability to juggle both, so the first few weeks of the project involved a lot of give and take, and my friend was very generous with me while I figured out the ropes.  Hopefully now I'm a lot more aware of timescales and how long particular jobs will take me.

Looking back on it now, over a year later, I'm still pretty proud of it.  There's a few moments where I wince and think 'Ooh, thats a bit clunky...' or 'Argh, I can't believe I didn't spot that glaringly obvious error', but I guess that's called growth.  It just means I've improved since then, and learned more about my art.  The whole experience was fantastically helpful and goes to show that the best way to learn something is to simply do it, then screw it up, kill yourself fixing it, and emerge exhausted and victorious.  Seeing it live on the website is a huge honour, and I'm grateful to Ali who gave me that chance to try something new.


When I gave them the finished video the website was still in it's beta phase, so it didn't get uploaded straight away and I simply got caught up with other things and forgot to check for it.  What a great surprise to find it today!

New Brave trailer

Ooh, I'm so looking forward to this.  I really hope it's good.

I've been busy!

Mainly making little Bible story videos for church.  They've been doing readings at the start of easch session from the book of Acts and to make them more interesting some of us have been asked to knock up some different ways of getting the story across.  My friend Amy did a few doodle-videos, shutting ourselves up with bag of Playmobil and a lot of felt tip pens for an hour or two and despite a distinct lack of useful software they seem to be going down rather well.

Acts, Chapter One:



Acts, Chapter Two:




Also have been doing a few snippets for a Bible Overview Course, basically a whistle-stop tour through the Bible, looking at the main themes, journeys and plotlines.  I was in the class last time and found it fascinating and hugely helpful - the Bible is a pretty hefty book and it can be easy to get overwhelmed and lose track of what's going on and who everyone is- but this time I'm helping provide resources.  Currently we're on Abraham and Moses, so there's a lot of maps going an and also some cut-in-halfable animals that we're using to explain the concept of sacrifices in the ancient world.

Exodus: Part 1

Exodus: Part 2

Summary of the Life of Moses (teaching aid: no sound)

And on top of that I've been doing some sketches to illustrate a talk on the story of Ruth and Naomi.  It was great to read it again, now that I'm a bit older I see things in it I didn't see before.  It's not just a sweet story for kids, it deals with issues of pain, selflessness, poverty, work, being a foreigner and stranger in a new place, and there's a bit of a romance in there too!  Someone should really make a film of this.

I love the big hair I gave her.  After seeing Alex Kingston play River Song in the most recent seasons of Doctor Who, and the trailers of the upcoming Pixar film Brave with Princess Merida's gorgeous ginger curls I am all over big hair.  In retrospect I think I could have made it even bigger!

Looking forward

I love the way the light shifts gold in September.  It's not the deep heat of midsummer, and the wind and the rain have started to set in, but the chill of October hasn't quite arrived yet.  Last Saturday morning I woke up to this (click to enlarge):

Of course there are other things coming up I'm looking forward to, such as this offering from Disney/Pixar, due out next year

If you're seeing echoes of Dreamworks' 'How To Train Your Dragon' well I am too, but mainly I'm just pleased to have a kick-ass girl in the lead role.  Admittedly she's still a princess but two out three is pretty original as far as the Disney Franchise is concerned.  The last time they did that well was with 'Mulan'.  And Merida is a red-head too!  So often those of the ginger persuasion are relegated to the best-friend or comic-relief roles (think Ron Weasley, who fulfils both).  Apparently this is Pixar's first lead female too, which would be admirable if not for the fact that Studio Ghibli has had dozens of them since the mid-eighties.  Don't believe me?  Let's recap:

Studio Ghibli
Laputa: Castle in the Sky - Sheeta (joint lead)
My Neighbour Totoro - Satsuki and Mei
Kiki's Delivery Service - Kiki, with side-characters Osono and Ursula also making the grade
Only Yesterday - Taeko
Whisper of the Heart - Shizuku
Princess Mononoke - San/Mononoke (NOT your average female love interest by any standards!)
Spirited Away - Chihiro/Sen
The Cat Returns - Haru
Howl's Moving Castle - Sophie (who is 80 years old for most of the movie)
Ponyo - Ponyo (joint lead)
Arrietty/The Borrower Arrietty - Arrietty

Now, a few of these are technically princesses (Mononoke and Ponyo) but one is a metaphorical title rather than a social status, and the other has given up her princess-hood by the end of the film (plus, she is a goldfish, which I'm pretty sure exempts her from this) but the majority of them don't think too much about getting a guy and being lady-like and girly.  Either they're off questing or they have far better things to think about (Shizuku is working at being a writer, Kiki is setting up a business, Taeko is re-evaluating her life, Mononoke is... trying to assassinate someone) and what few men there are sort of fall into their lives as a bi-product of this.  Half the time they are either rejected or overlooked to boot.  None of these films ends in a wedding.  All in all this really appeals to me since there are surely more important measures of a girl than whether or not there's a fella about.  And damn it, I want to go questing too!  That sounds like so much more fun than sitting about waiting for my true love to drop from the ceiling.

Now let's evaluate the competition.

Pixar
errr...  I think Brave is it.  Don't say Tangled because that wasn't Pixar, that was Disney Animation.  I would add Disney to this list to help bump the numbers but every female lead I can think of is a princess or becomes one by the end of the film even if she is kick-ass.  Except for Lilo and Mulan (and even she wins her man)

Anyhow, somehow The Borrower Arrietty had managed to fly under my radar so I only saw it last week.



As usual it is exquisite work, full of the intricate hand-drawn animation that Ghibli is famous for, and the quiet spaces and gentle silences that are often passed over in Western cartoons in favour of action scenes, background music and montages.  Speaking of music, I'm thoroughly in love with the soundtrack too.  It was written and performed by French singer and celtic harpist Cecile Corbel, and adds an ancient fairy-like dimension to the incidental music in the film in particular, as well as the main theme song.  You can watch it in Japanese or English, and the jury's out on which is better.  I think you keep something nice in hearing the original language, but for those who find it hard to read on screen or pick up spoken intonation better in their own native tongue I have no objections.  The actors for the Ghibli translations are usually well chosen.

This article from the Guardian sums it all up pretty well, including a pretty interesting quote from Hayao Miyazaki himself about why exactly Ghibli enjoys it's female heroines so much.

Slightly irreverant... but in the good way!

Here's a neat little video my friend Amy and I made the other week.  The idea was to make reading a Bible passage a bit more interesting for our church, so we scripted it, she laid down the voiceover (very comical to listen to) and then we drew the objects out together before I scanned and animated them.  It was just a bit of fun, but it's always good to do stuff like this.

Aspiring

I think this is beautiful



It's done using rotoscoping -tracing live film to produce very accurate animations- the same technique used for parts of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, but they've added in all these extra swoops, and the constructions lines, taking the existing movements and then breaking the laws of physics.

Projected imagination

Check out this wicked example of video mapping, used on the 600 yr old Astronomical Clock in Prague's Old Town (I've been there! but I wish I'd been able to see this)  It was a pretty amazing clock to begin with, but this animation technique takes it to a whole new level


The 600 Years from the macula on Vimeo.


Quoting from the Makula website (translated from Czech):
Video mapping using current technology available in the entertainment industry, a whole new way. The main contents are the projections to cooperate with the selected object and try to break the perception perspective of the viewer. With the projector can fold and stress any shape, line or space. Evocative play of light on the physical object creates a new dimension and changing the view of the seemingly "normal thing". Everything becomes an illusion.

Archiving Night Walks

I'm officially closing down my pre-grad blog, so this post is basically stocking up on all those knick-knacks I can't quite bear to part with.

The Tale of How:


Making Of video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRlZNIIjLU8



Little Dragon - 'Twice' music video



This silhouette based music video is ridiculously simple, yet somehow very charming.
The way the cloth moves to imitate wind, and how they make the rain fall, little details like that, are just a joy to watch, but it's the soundtrack that really makes it. A strong sense of narrative too
 
 
Tyger
 

 

 
This Is Limbo's Flickr Photostream
 
 
 
It's tree that looks like a rug!! No, wait, I mean a rug that looks like a tree. Oh bother *bangs head on desk* I meant to announce that so triumphantly and I screwed it up.
Anyway; rug, tree, you understand.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  And finally, from the incomparable XKCD:

You have to admit, he makes a fair point.

DVD pangs

The release date for 'Brendan and the Secret of Kells' is Oct 5th I think.  And as soon as it comes out IT WILL BE MINE.  Oh yes, it will be mine.
I mean look at it, the animation is just gorgeous, and it's nice to see a break from the ever-more realistic world of CGI films and the sub-standard animation that keeps sneaking into cartoons (not all cartoons, just an underprivelaged few) by the back door.



As will this:



I may harp on about this film, but with good reason.  Watching that little bit of animation where Hiccup shudders after eating the fish still makes me unreasonably happy.  It's just great character animation all the way through, and I love the story, especially the twist at the end.  Also, if you do happen to see it in 3D you will actually get something for your money, as this seems to be an effect that works best where you have long-distance shots, so something close against something far away.  Like, for example, a dragon flying through a vast expanse of sky. 
I still cannot find anything wrong with this movie that's really worth mentioning, and I have to say that I think those who do are just nit-picking.  I love it at age 22 (and believe me, I cannot stand a poorly constructed film, both animation, shooting and story-wise) so I don't see any reason for anyone else not to love it too.  It's my humble opinion that a good solid "children's film", or even "family film" should not be patronising to the parents.  Look at some of the greats: Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast', some of Pixar's latest -'Finding Nemo'. 'Wall-E' and especially 'Up', even the old 'Looney Toons' shorts from Warner Bros. had an adult appeal too.
Well I knocked 'How to Train Your Dragon' with the knuckle of scepticism and it seems pretty solid to me.