Marc Taro photocollage

Marc Taro. Feng Zhu uses a pretty similar technique, not quiete as bluntly. Could be a useful technique.

The Wizard

so awesome, wish they would make a whole show like this

Miyazaki at Berkeley

That lecture that I took notes on, just found it recorded

Game making

This goes right up there with "hey let's make a movie with a virtual studio across the internet" but since I just found the link I may as well put it down here for when I get those megalomaniac impulses.

Unreal Engine used to make gears of war etc free developer's kit. Here

apparently a pretty easy engine to use and mod and have pretty reasonable royalties: US$0 on the first US$50,000 in revenue, and US$2,500 on the next US$10,000 in revenue)

walk thru setting up a easy game
official help
vid tuts


time time time
never enough of it

Robert Altman on Rashomon

when you ask someone about the movie afterwards everyone will have a different story of what had happened, which is why it's art

I love extreme weather because it gives the audience another level of sensation that the audience can react to

Francis Ford Coppola

how he brought the godfather out of book onto screen


Hitchcock was a master to making sure the audience is equipped with the knowledge they need so that they can enjoy the scene

South Park in 5 minutes

crazy, an entire episode in a week. Doesn't seem sustainable, but they've been doing it forever

Harp

last music post I think. I took a blues harmonica class recently. The guy recommended these youtube folks as great free learning resources.

Jason Ricci

Adam Gussow

Dave Barett

but there's tons of stuff out there also, like this girl who's quick little video sped me on my way

Effects pedals

sorry, another divergence. I've built two cigar box guitars which are fun, and now my attention's been caught by the idea of DIY guitar effects pedals.

Build Your Own Clonehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

General Guitar Gadgets

free stomp boxes

and an intro to electronics cuz I have a lot to learn

tracking cheap pedals on ebay to deconstruct and improve

of course I need to find time to actually play the guitar before bother spending time on making gadgets for it

Cry Baby: The Pedal That Rocks The World from Jimmy Dunlop on Vimeo.

2 Animation Tricks from me

I have two new tricks (for me) to help myself animate.

1. write down what my next move is for when I get back to the computer. It can take a long time to get what's going on in a scene uploaded to my brain's ram, so at the end of a session when my brain is humming and keeping track of all the spinning plates making a note of which plates needs a respin next for when I get back seems to be helping me get faster to the doing part of animation.

2. having the steps of my workflow labeled helps me troubleshoot (if I'm having lots of problems may need to step back a step, if I'm not sure what to do next it's time to move to the next level) and stay on target. Newest addition for me is splitting up rough blocking into ruff block poses and ruff block timing.

my stages (often blur together):
prep:
listen to audio on repeat, try to tease out the true meaning and emotions,
think about the point of the scene (try and put the scene in a totally different context then source audio that still fits the emotions) thumbnail ideas
vid ref a lot 20 minutes at least, then cut together a short vid with the most interesting parts
layout build the scene and props, put characters in their spots, set camera

rough blocking: getting the meat of the scene down
block goldens the essential story telling poses of the scene, the ones that would be drawn if it were a comic strip instead (ignore timing, focus on flow between poses) key whole body
block timing shuffle the golden poses around until the timing works, copied pairs

blocking 1st pass: contacts and extremes, all the poses that describe the bounds of the movement key whole body

blocking 2nd pass: breakdowns, all the poses that describes the kind of movement, eases and arcs and stuff key whole body

polishing the two parts go together, whatever it takes to make it look right
partials blocking: frame by framing through on each body part and putting keys to smooth out arcs and eases (just keying parts, no longer whole body keys)
curve polishing: smooth curves, make sure there's no weirdness, then just go down heirarchy making sure it looks right (setting keys or tweaking curves)(I try not to tweak tangents anymore, if the curve overshoots I lock it with a key so that a global tangent change won't kill it)

review: on loop, walk across room and watch it big, shrink it tiny, flip it horizontally ,watch it over and over and make notes of everything needing fixing

fix it: fix all the things on the list

repeat last two steps until done

Live Action with Cartoon Mouths

Remember talking about stopmo puppets with liveaction eyes tracked in?

Here's the opposite, live action with a cartoon mouth tracked in, I think I like it more. (I don't really know Scroobius, thug rap is so ubiquitous it's hard to trust that it's not a spoof, especially with the English accent, but it's pretty cool he's http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifso positive. Liked this one by him more.)



(Reminds me a bit of the gobelins kids )

Gawper

Gawper from A Large Evil Corporation on Vimeo.

fun by a large Evil Corporation (all CG I think)

makes me think of Screen Novelties who are awesome and actually Stopmo and puppets

Balcony

I get the feeling I'll come looking for this later so

Cutting an action sequence

In the Cut, Part I: Shots in the Dark (Knight) from Jim Emerson on Vimeo.

In the cut by Jim Emerson. Dude knows his stuff and presents it clearly and simply. I'll have to watch more of it.

Now I'm confused, has the same logo as the chaos cinema guy, but different guy?

Few short films

lovin the look

Enid from Leanne Towers on Vimeo.

these two are by Mechanical Apple which is really Ari Gibson

not so into the song, but the visuals are cool

Nick Bruno - How he studies animation

So I guess the lost boyz of Blue Sky have a blog going. (like spline doctors, or speaking of animation)

Big 'ol long post by Nick Bruno about how he studies animation, don't want to lose it before I get a chance to read it so I'll stick it here.

Here's his questions, obviously new questions occured while he was going through this shot (unless he made the whole thing up on the spot, not just some of it. ) But this list seems a decent place to start asking questions from.

Pick a shot that resonates with you

Context:
1. brief description of the scene
2. if not stand alone, what's the context?
3. Why did you pick this shot?
4. Initial thoughts on why you responded to this shot?
5. What is the shot saying? (that she is in pain but needs to put that aside for now and find a way out)
6. What does that mean? (that there are more important things at stake then just her personal well being)
7. How does the moment feel?
8. Why do you think it feels that way?
9. How would I have screwed up that shot?
10.Is there anything else you respond to in this shot?

Mechanics of Performance:
1. What is the storytelling pose of the shot? (image)
2. Why? What does that pose communicate to audience?
3. Why is that the most important thing?
4. What are the beats? (Goals, & thought processes through the shot)
5. How is the thinking sold?
6. Quick description of the character. How did the animator convey that?
7. Can you personally relate to the characters experience in this shot?
8. Disect the poses:
8a. Body poses
8b. Facial poses
8c. Hand poses
9. What is the texture to the timing? Do different body parts have different speeds?
10. Quality of spacing texture, soft vs sharp? Do different body parts space differently consistently?
11. How does rhythm of dialogue/score affect animation? (eg. Hit beats, move lyrically)
12. What patterns of movement do you see?
13. Where are there reversals?
14. Does the animator do more then just getting the story point over?
15. What is motivating the movement?
16. Silhouette? Shapes in front of shapes?
17. Where is the viewers eye? Any choreography between elements? How is the eye lead?
18. Any twinning? How was it handled?
19. How were contacts handled?
20. How was keep alive handled?
21. Any subtle cues from the audie incorporated or ignored?
22. How is the point delivered without sound ?
23. What animated details where added?
24. Is the character an animal? How did the animator keep us reminded of that?
25. Was there anything bad in the shot?

Principles of animation
Just frame by frame through it looking for every example of every principle you can find.






Pretty cool get your energy back up post by Stewart Shaw

Comedians Talking

haven't watched it yet, but seems worth a listen


Talking Funny by FabioMBarros

head trip

green and blue are same color, (check it in photoshop) just trippin with your head, amazing how much surrounding colors affect perception.

* found on gizmodo

Reel'y inspring reels

ran across a channel collecting awesome reels like the one above.

similarly there's Reelbarrow

go get depressed ;)
(then get angry and come back swinging)

South Park creators story advice

So you have your funny scenes, your story beats, and if the words "and then" belong between those beats you're f*#ed; basically you've got something pretty boring. What belongs between them is therefore or but. "This happened but this happened so this happened but this happened. " Causation between each beat makes it a story, not just a bunch of stuff happening.

Plug the New World

stop mo by the folks behind Domo


*found on brew