cross bloggination

http://www.punknews.org/article/21997

The final details are moving along with "The Slackers: A Documentary"- hopefully some solid news by the beginning of next week.

What went wrong?

Robot Rights.

Destruction by Definition

Voted my favoritest pose I drew today. Even though the feet are kinda screwy along with the right hand . . . and that weird shoulder blade mound. . . I enjoy the butt crack being shown though, I think it makes up for it all.

16 shots to go. My fingers have blisters on them. But not from drawing, because I started practicing bass again.

The Third Slackers Movie

First there was Richard Linklater's "Slacker", then that oddly awesome "Slackers" with Older Pete from from Adventures of Pete & Pete, and finally the seminal ska band of New York has their own name to add to the list with my newly completed documentary aptly named: "The Slackers: A Documentary".


The culmination of nearly three years of work, this feature length documentary trails the history of the band from their small two tone-esque beginnings to their present reign as one of the most respected American ska bands.

I can't tell you how many nights I've worked on this piece; shooting shows, hauling a golf bag full of makes shift light stands and tripods, sitting alone in the dark editing, testing colors and levels and hating the world. But finally the deals are in the works right now to make it available to the masses at your next local Slackers show.


More news to come.



Robot rights.

Sing On! Lionhearts!

Ok, the events of today just made this short, dare I say, fucking epic.

Here's all I'm gonna say, I had worked my way down to 17 shots left, and then I recalculated with a new page of storyboards for those ambigious +/- 3 shots, and now we have 25 shots left to do. So that 3 turned into 8 I guess. Or more. Ah well, here we go.

Watch out.


Robot Rights.

14 Days Later

Like every project I undertake, it always takes forever longer than I originally thought to finish.

On January 8th I had 42 shots left to animate. It's January 22nd and I have 20 shots to go. I was hoping to be at least done with the animating by now, but now that I know the post-college-no-girlfriend amount of animation I can churn out on average each night, I can see that I had quite unrealistic goals.

I am indeed no Jack Bauer.

But it is all moot since any sane American (or Australian) knows that the liberal left wing Jew run media doesn't pay much attention to a slow and steady progress report on an animated short, they only care about those first frazzled 100 hours of animation. So let us look back at what I did in those first 100 hours:

-Animated some stuff.

-IMed people way too much while I was supposed to be animating stuff.

-Updated this blog.

-Made several prank calls to the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 for which I'm sure to pay dearly.

-Raised the national minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.24.

-Passed a bill broadening the range of stem cell research to encompass even the radical "Stir Fry Cell" experiments in which fetal stem cells are used as a secret ingredient on an upcoming episode of Top Chef.

-And finally, I watched Clerks 2 on loop for several days, and then watched seasons 6 & 4 of The Simpsons (both with and without audio commentary), season 2 of Futurama (again with and without the commentary), season 2 of Curb Your Enthusiasm, several discs of season 2 of Kids in The Hall, the first full fledged season of Aeon Flux, a couple Garth Merenghi's Darkplace episodes, and listened to several This American Life episodes.


Ok, that was stupid and this has taken way too long to update. I'm outta here.


Robot Rights.

Bunnyslaughter is my new hardcore band.

The second wave of recordings have been recorded! The illustrious New Adults, Adam & Zach, lent their vocal talents to a microphone in an apartment in Queens last night. And Queens saw that it was good. And Queens said, let there be audio editing.

Over the next week I'll be sifting through tons of takes, and probably recording a couple more. But it should be good. Some of the takes gave me the hiccups from laughing. I almost barfed.

I hope it comes together. It's really weird recording dialogue all separate like that. Like one person at a time. That's why I foresee some re-recording. Plus I'm anal like that.

This is gonna be a goofy one, a bit different from the goofiness of "She She She She's A Bombshell". Anyways, in the mean time, check out this pencil test. It's a rough animation of a guy getting hit with a giant hammer and his helmet spinning in the aftermath. It still needs some in betweens and the beard should lag more behind the hit motion. So basically it kinda sucks.


Matthew Lillard's away message is "I'll be right baaaack".

Robot Rights.

Sugar High, you know, from Empire Records

So it's Saturday night, and the current "shots left" count for the new animated short is 29 (+/- 3) out of 47.

Today I cracked open my new Pro Tools LE and microphone to record some voice over action. Luckily the heat is rarely on in my apartment, so it was relatively quiet. That is aside from the Fast & Furious III: Astoria Drift drag racing that takes place on my street.

My work flow is definitely out of order. If you're going to independently make a hand drawn animated short, or a "drawie" as we call it in the business, then you should really follow steps similar to these:

1. Buy Richard Williams "Animation Survival Kit" to make sure you have some back up help.
2. Skim through the cool drawings, then put it down and write a script.
3. Storyboard the script.
4. Look at "Animation Survival Kit" again, be surprised at how heavy the hardback version is and how it knocks over all your other books like dominoes when you try to stack it on a shelf.
5. Record and mix a rough audio track.
6. Make an animatic (a video of your storyboards cut to the rough audio).
7. Send your friends an mpeg of the animatic, and when they don't get it tell them they "don't know shit about structure" and sign off IM immediately.
8. Animate.
9. Pencil test your animation.
10. Fix and clean up your drawings.
11. Steal Adobe Photoshop and After Affects.
12. Scan & Color your drawings.
13. Sequence and composite the drawings in Adobe After Effects or some program and sync them up with your sound.
14. Get a final audio trizzack.
15. Wonder why you've gained so much weight.
16. Output your shots and cut them together to make the final product.

Obviously, I barely know what I'm doing, but usually you record the audio before you animate so the drawings fit the acting. Der.

Since Matt and myself wrote the short and are also doing some of the voices there haven't been too many problems. Though the past few days of looking over the script and recording have added almost a page to the script.

No problema because I cut corners by using replaceable jaws for lip syncing. But more on that later.

Until then, here's a couple drawings. Also, my mom noted I spelled phoenix incorrectly in the last post. I apologize to all of the mythological fire birds and Arizona for my ignorance.

Knowing is half the battle.

Robot Rights.

Come see the violence inherent in the system!

So last night, for the very first time, I drew a pheonix. Not saying anymore than that.

I'm working my way down the list of shots to animate for the new short. Only 35 left. Of course I'll probably end up adding 2 or 3 more shots before this is all done. Until then here's a note I received in the mail the other day. All the way from the John Stossel "Gimme A Break" compound in Scranton, PA. Apparently he's upset, and doesn't have any paper.


I'm concerned. Not for my own well being, but for John's.

Peace.

Robot Rights.

Blacked out text is the new blacked out text.

I'm censoring this post in the ever so trendy fascist dictatorship style because I know so many people are waiting with baited breath and rocket powered fishing rods to see what the new animated short is all about.

"IIUM/KUS" (the new short) is sort of an experiment to see how fast I can make an animated short. The previous and only other animated short I've ever made, "She She She She's A Bombshell", took roughly a year to produce from start to finish- script to sound design etc. And roughly a year equaling 7 minutes and 38 seconds of animation is clearly no way to live my life. So what's different on this short?

First off, it's very unorganized. Take one of the storyboards por ejemplo:


Note the meticulous attention to illegibility, the almost Machiavellian lack of detail in the characters bodies, and what could those red circles mean? I don't know, I forgot already. Yeah, there's no animatic. So what if I've started animating before even recording the audio? What's it to you?

Difference number two: I'm not the only animator. This new short was written by Mr. Matt Burnett and myself, so he's drawing some stuff too.

Difference number three: I'm off the meth. I can't tell you how many times I sold my light box senior year of college. I can't because there's still some pending civil suits.

Will this short look good at all? Will we be able to finish it within the relative span of a month. I do not know, but like I said it's an experiment. There's 42 shots to go, can it be done?

I'd say this is totally some Jack Bauer shit, but I don't watch 24.

Stay tuned.

Robot rights.

FRESH FOR '07 YOU SUCKAS!!!

Sup nerds. This is where I'm gonna update shit on what I'm doing. So check it, Stossel.

We got a new animated short in the works, a belated holiday themed one if you will, code named: IIUM/KUS. What could that mean? Only myself and our Lord and savior Gerald Ford know. And since Mr. Ford just died for our sins, your only clues are these rough drawings:




Expect to see it up on YouTube in a couple weeks. Oh it will be linked all across the blogosphere. That is if anyone I know besides Darrell starts a blog. ( I swear Darrell, if you don't link it I'm gonna jump on the next ferry to Japan, stuff some wasabi down your larynx and then apologize for not taking off my shoes. )

And speaking of Darrell, Humidifier vs Dehumidifier shall be destroying your ear drums with some new tunes later this year. Free and illegitimate as always.

More to come on my various projects and certain ska documentaries and such.

I love technology.

Robot Rights.