Works in Progress Consumable Vance Reeser treats.
Help fund my book!
Some of you may have already received an email about this, but for those of you who didn’t, Im raising money over the next 25 days in an effort to have some breathing room while I make my (7 year in the making) children’s book, Ed the Invincible.
If you want to help, follow this link and check it out!
May 12th, 2008 / 0 Comments / Category: Blog / Tags: book / Trackback
’skine art
I recently discovered a cool new site called ’skine art. If youre a moleskine user and artist, they take submissions. Its lots of fun and has grown quite a community already. Check it out!
May 4th, 2008 / 0 Comments / Category: Blog / Trackback
Sketchbook #1 Full Preview
This sketchbook is sorta old news at this point, but I just found this great way to share it thanks to issuu, a cool new pdf viewer thingy. So, take a look and see what you could be holding in your hands if you buy the printed version.
May 3rd, 2008 / 0 Comments / Category: Blog / Tags: ad / Trackback
The Jump to Widescreen
When I started making short films that were meant for TV (and web – namely, Bear Hunt and Deep Six), I stuck with the non-widescreen standard NTSC dimensions- mainly because I didnt know what I was doing and whether my computer at the time could handle anything bigger. My last film, Foot (aka Project X), was also done in this format, and I ended up really regretting it. I was kicking myself while working on many of the shots because I could feel in my bones how much better they’d be in a wide format.
I still dont claim to understand a whole lot about HD and the size differences between TVs and computer LCDs and pixel aspect ratios and the technical yadda yadda. Honestly its not that interesting to me anyway. But what I would like to talk about is my first foray into drawing sorta-HD widescreen storyboards and the stuff Ive learned in the process.
I started storyboarding my radiohead video in this little storyboard moleskine my friend Casey bought me, which has little non-widescreen TV-dimensioned rectangles you can draw in. I hesitated though, because I knew I wanted to do it widescreen from the get go. So I decided to go super fast and rough in the moleskine first, use those for the initial timing to the song, then do digital, full-size boards on the ‘puter afterwards. Anyway, heres a side-by-side comparison of 3 of the wide and non-wide versions, and my thoughts on how they translated to the big juicy widescreen. Of course, they’ve been sized down considerably to fit in my blog’s design, but you can still see the differences I think.
This one may show the most drastic difference out of all of them. Wow, look at how much more breathing room there is! The interesting thing about these is that the same amount of “story” is told in both of the drawings, but the widescreen feels open and unconstrained. Its kind of like widescreen emulates what it feels like to look through your own eyes, and the non-wide is more like viewing a world through a small window. Im glad I moved the fisherman down so you can see more of his head. For some reason that makes the scene feel more interesting. The expanse of frozen lake out in front of him looks more vast and barren with the “camera” pulled back a little. Even if I had pulled the camera back in the top drawing, you still wouldn’t get the same sense of empty landscape around him I dont think.
Honestly, in this case I think the top drawing might be a little stronger design-wise, but it doesnt evoke a quiet, lonely morning waking up outdoors like the wide shot does. I want this shot to give an almost bird’s eye perspective because it follows right after he wakes up from a nightmare and checks his hand and sees a weird pulsing darkness in his hand’s veins. So this a chance for him to stretch out all that stuff, and I want the viewer to feel like they can sort of stretch out and look at things from a fresh perspective too. I love a good refreshing stretch and I try to work them into my animation whenever I can, heh. Its good to give these moments of “rest” I think, even if theres an intensity to the story. Contrast is good.
The story at this point is nearing the end, and our hero has grown weary of walking (for who knows how long). In the top drawing, it was easier to make the trees look like they’re closing down on him as he loses his balance, so I may need to rework the wide version to better convey that. Higher snow drifts would help too I think. I like that you see his feet and legs better in drawing 2 – and that he looks closer to the camera. I should have drawn more foreground trees around him I think.
In Summary
This has been a fun process for me. I wasnt sure how much of a difference widescreen would make, but its been a real eye-opener. These are my first clumsy steps and thoughts and Im looking forward to working in this new format. Its like fresh air.
Ive been watching alot of Twin Peaks lately, an old TV show from the early 90s co-written and directed by David Lynch. It looks fantastic for an older show – they really did a great job restoring it for DVD. Its been fun to watch this show while Im thinking so heavily about composition. A lot of times characters are right next to each other in the middle of the frame, so much so that its almost comical. Im guessing thats because different TVs would cut different amounts of the edges off, but Im not sure. I guess I will have to wait for the Bonus Features disc and hope Lynch talks about the limits of working with TV back then. I know he wasnt a fan in general. (Im amazed that show EVER got on TV at all – its sheer surreal genius!)
April 28th, 2008 / 3 Comments / Category: Blog / Trackback
A little housecleaning
Two quick updates regarding this site’s maintenance:
- I fixed the RSS feed. You will want to delete the old one from your RSS reader and replace it with this: NEW RSS
- I fixed comments too I think – they were very slow or downright unresponsive. Give them a test and let me know if theyre working for ya. (they are for me now…)
Thanks.
April 24th, 2008 / 7 Comments / Category: Blog / Trackback
Radio_head Re_ckoner Video
My submission to the contest! Vote for it here.
April 23rd, 2008 / 3 Comments / Category: My Films / Trackback
Ink Painting 2 Wallpaper
Heres a new wallpaper I made from a recent ink painting. I’m considering it for a possible print too. Enjoy!
Sizes: 1900×1200 | 1680×1050 | 1440×900 | 1280×1024 | 1280×800 | 1024×768 and iPhone
April 21st, 2008 / 0 Comments / Category: Blog / Tags: wallpaper / Trackback
New Demo Reel Up
Check it out over at my portfolio: Demo Reel 2008
April 15th, 2008 / 5 Comments / Category: Blog / Trackback
Reckoner Storyboards
One of my current projects is an entry to this Aniboom contest. You get to choose any song off of Radiohead’s latest album In Rainbows and create a storyboarded music video concept for it. You can read the details on the site if you want, but basically it boils down to the most popular concepts getting narrowed down until Radiohead themselves picks a winner. There are small payouts along the way for the semi-finalists and a grand prize of $10,000. Pretty cool.
Im thinking if mine doesn’t win I’ll still do something with it on my own and make my own sound design and work with a different musician etc. I think my concept is versatile enough to exist apart from the song Ive chosen. (Song’s called Reckoner. You can listen to it on Aniboom’s contest page- linked above.)
My concept is sort of a spiritual successor to the Vapor comics I made a while ago. This time around the world is frozen and dying and one lone man is traveling with a homemade backpack that allows him to grow healthy veggies inside of it. He seems intent on reaching his destination, but stops along the way to mourn for the lost and struggles to hold on to hope.
Heres a couple screenshots of what Im doing:
Those pop-ups are in the final dimensions of the film, and it is the biggest format Ive worked with so far. Its almost HD, but not really. (more like 480p) Its at least widescreen. HD still scares the crap out of me, so Im easing into it, heh. I love the canvas widescreen gives me, and Im really enjoying creating something in that space. Ill post again about this when I have finished storyboards ready!
April 12th, 2008 / 0 Comments / Category: Blog / Trackback