ZephyrStar Motion Works

Website!

2012-01-29T12:41:00.000-08:00

I always had ZephyrStar.com registered and sitting around, eventually I'll move my blog there, but for now, have a new banner!

It's kinda lame, but it was fun to make.

Next!

2012-01-26T14:30:00.000-08:00

I have two fifteen minute breaks and a half hour for lunch at work every day. In that hour of time, I can write a couple of well thought out pages. I also have a little Asus eeepc laptop, which has insane battery life. I encrypted it's hard drives, and I carry my "docs" folder with me everywhere on it, and on an encrypted thumb drive. Now that the Akazawa script is officially done, I have 5 hours a week of time I can use to work on my next project. So, here's a very tentative roadmap of the next two projects I am working on:

Feature Anime Film "Pixelated Epic" (working title)
A samurai film that takes place in an 8 bit video game on acid. Expect stunning visuals and motion graphics on an epic 8 bit scale. One man kills entire armies of goons for great justice. There is science involved. Lots of it. Shit will get destroyed. This will be my "mindless action movie."

Feature Anime Film "Space Epic" (working title)
A sci-fi space battleship epic. A look at the philosophy of "live and let live" on a universal scale. A very character driven movie, and FULL of pseudoscience and technical details for those of you who love that in a sci-fi story. Full of conspiracy theories and revelations. The main character and secondary characters are strong females! No romance in this one. Not even yuri. :/

I have about 3 more feature anime ideas and probably 2 or 3 live action ideas that are fleshed out, but not in script format yet. After those there are around 30 other ideas, of varying length and type. I will be extremely happy if I get all of these done before I die. ;___;

That being said, after Akazawa is done, I want to take less time working on each film. The first film is always the hardest. I would very much like to spend no more than 5 years on each film. Some might take way less time. Anyway, back to it. :D

Cheating to Win

2012-01-22T20:40:00.000-08:00

Obviously, when taking on such a huge project as single handedly making a feature length film, you have to take every shortcut you can. I just discovered an amazing method that will speed a lot of stuff up.

I was at home this weekend at my parent's place, in the heart of the Appalachian mountains. I am using many of the visuals and textures of the area as a reference for Akazawa. After all, Akazawa is what you might call a "fusion film." An anime-inspired animation, that takes place in Japan, created by a guy who has never been to Japan, with Russian elements, and American elements, for a Western audience (and I hope an Eastern audience as well).

Much of the Appalachian plant life and outdoor imagery is very similar to some of the mountains of Japan. While the Appalachian chain is much older, the similarities between the plant life and valleys surrounded by mountains and hills are striking. I will find it interesting to see if anyone picks up on this as well.

Anyway, back to my main point: a new shortcut in the creation of my visuals.

Akazawa takes place in a valley, surrounded by mountainous terrain, covered in woods. Much of low lying Akazawa is farmland, with the town itself in the center of the valley along a river. Across from the town is the lowest part of the valley, which is covered by swamp.

Swampy landscape needs lots of haggard trees, grasses, and plant life. In November when the story takes place, this would be mostly brown and gray, dead, but with traces of color from the various deciduous plants that don't loose their leaves. Just like some of the plants back home.

I spent about 4 hours on Sunday picking plant stalks, holding them up against the blue sky, and shooting photos of them. Later, I can take these into photoshop, create an alpha channel with them, and also hand texture the color map by painting over the photo-realistic section of the photo. I want the textures to look real, but very painterly. This way, I'll have the real silhouette of the plant, and the real colors, but I should be able to build several hundred "cards" in 3D, or simple poly shapes with a plant texture mapped onto them. I will easily and quickly be able to build landscapes that are covered with diverse types of dead and haggard plant life, which should give this film one hell of a spooky atmosphere.

Will post some tests later, too tired to even think about it tonight.

Finally Done, Just Begun

2012-01-18T16:03:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I finished the dialogue.

Weighing in at 86 pages, the voice talent script for Akazawa is complete. I am insanely excited about the dialogue. I think I managed to make something that was a good thing into a great thing. Sunday night I pulled out all the old revisions of this script, and lined them all up, numbering them from oldest to newest.

The left most folder is full of random sketches, ideas, and the original groundwork for Akazawa. Some of it goes back to 1998. "Script" number 1 dates from around that time, and started out as just a notepad file. Reading through that now, it bears almost no resemblance to the finished script at all. Script number 12 is my animator's workbook. It's the script + notes + storyboards + thumbnails. It is the 99% completed version I've carried around with me everywhere for a little over a year. It's simply amazing how something goes from being just a couple of rough ideas to a final, finished, polished product. I can absolutely say that I love this script now, and have no issues with it. Two years well spent. The script for my next film will be done MUCH FASTER.

That being said, I'm behind. I look at the work of some of the other independent one-man directors out there and am simply astounded by their work ethic and the speed at which they create. It lights a fire in me the way nothing else in the world can. I want to join them.

After I finish the current remix project I am involved in, which should be done this spring, I will have nothing but tunnel vision for Akazawa until it is finished. I hope to have the full animatic done by this summer, and record my voice talent this fall, and then have the first completed shots out the door by the end of the year. Possibly sooner if I can. After that will be a couple of years of solid production to finish out my first film. I bit off way more than I could chew with this project and the production values it has, but I INTEND TO CHEW.

Anyway, let's go edit some pony videos :>

Holidays 2/2

2012-01-06T14:20:00.000-08:00

Just a short post. Had a freaking blast in Atlanta, good people, good times, good food, good weather.

Only bad thing? Sinus infection. On the plus side, I've been working fairly constantly at night on the Akazawa dialogue. The final VO script is 99% done. All I have left to do is decide if I'm going to cut one particular scene or rewrite it, and print it out. After that I'll act it out and record it on my recorder for use in the alpha animatic.As it stands right now, the script is 90 pages long. That should be roughly 90 minutes of finished film. Yikes :O

After that, I have a total of 7 short "outtakes" or omake. Each of these is about a minute long, and only one of them contains a line of dialogue. I won't need much from the voice actors on these at all, except maybe some laughs and sounds. Once the VO work is done, I'll add anything funny that happened during recording as an outtake.

Have not had a chance to check through my audio files that I previously recorded, maybe sometime this weekend if I feel okay. Got a lot of cleaning and upkeep to do since I've been gone. I'm really glad the holidays are over though, work is pretty slow and all the big stuff is out of the way. This is certainly the time of year to get work done on a project like this.

Happy 2012!

Holidays 1/2

2011-12-28T09:00:00.000-08:00

Christmas was great. Spent a lot of time with the family. My dad recently had bypass surgery, and was home in time for the holidays. Fortunately, his surgery was "best case scenario." The blockage was identified early, and he did not have a heart attack or event prior to when they found it. He was feeling pretty good with the exception of being sore still and having trouble sleeping some nights. Overall I'm very thankful, it could have been so much worse.

Each day over break, I would get up fairly early (10am is early for me), well rested and ready to go. Usually the rest of the family were catching up on TV shows, doing some minor chores, or still asleep (my younger brother), so I was able to get in a few good hours of script editing each morning. At this point I'm maybe halfway through, not much to go. Need to get my audio gear, and build my booth. Then comes the daunting task of finding voice talent, and recording what I need.

At home I was able to record 74 audio tracks for sound effects work, totaling about an hour's worth of material. Have yet to cut it down, might do that tonight. Got a few really nice ambient tracks. My dad has this crappy little Mexican .22 pistol that he got from my grandfather, which has certainly seen some abuse. It's a 1911 style Trejo, all metal construction, and haggard though it may be, damn does it sound awesome. I spent about a half hour playing with it, running it through every possible operation I could think of, other than actually shooting it. I got things like: cocking the hammer, ejecting and inserting the magazine, racking the slide, decocking the gun, etc. in full 96 khz 24 bit excellence. These sound effects will be used for the main character's .45 1911 pistol. I should only have to pitch shift them to make them a little deeper and meatier for their final use, and then actually go shoot a .45 to get the gunshot sound.

I'm really having a blast with audio. I know it would be faster to just hunt around for a sound effects library, or find free sounds, or whatever, but doing it this way ensures a completely original sound mix. I'm also building my own sound effects database, so for all future projects, I'll have a plethora of stuff to work with that I've recorded myself.

Next weekend, off to Atlanta for New Years!

Storyboarding & Audio Notes

2011-12-22T09:41:00.000-08:00

Spent most of last night storyboarding. I'm trying to find the fine line between what is enough detail, and what is too much detail. After all, as long as the stick figure is in the right pose and is in the right position, the rest is in my head.

Copied over and edited a bunch of audio clips from my recorder, got some brilliant stuff. Going back to my home town for Christmas again, and I'm planning on doing at least a day's worth of recording over the break. I have a bunch of specific places I want to go, mainly because I remember these places from my childhood and the sounds are quite distinct. A good example would be the old steam radiators in the church. Perfect fit for the aging library building records room in Akazawa.

Merry Christmas everybody, see you next year.

Interesting...

2011-12-19T15:29:00.000-08:00

When I originally began work on Akazawa, the working title was "akaishirai" which is a bastardized combination of the word akai (red, bloody) and shirai (thread, string). And I was leaning towards "bloody" and "string"...string as in guts or pieces of meat. It was my intention at that time to use Akaishirai as a place name, though I also had only given place names a cursory glance.

Further into the development, I did some research on place names, their meanings, and general Japanese naming conventions. I came up with aka (red) and sawa (swamp). For the purpose of being a little different, and because you can also use zawa for swamp, I changed the name of the town that the story takes place in to Akazawa. A quick google search turned up no results. A map search of Japan also turned up no results. So unless there was some tiny crossroads somewhere called Akazawa, I felt I had a pretty unique identifier for the film.

While reading through this winter's anime season previews, I came across the horror anime "Another," which I am very much looking forward to. While I have an atmosphere and feeling I want to set with Akazawa that is pretty much nailed down, it helps to see how studios tell horror stories.

And then I noticed one of the characters in "Another" is named Izumi Akazawa.

And she has twintails like Kozue.

Wat.

Dialogue

2011-12-19T07:03:00.000-08:00

I am currently re-writing a lot of dialogue. I finished the last rewrite of this script about this time last year, and at that point I was 99% satisfied with how it turned out. Amazing what a year of perspective will do.

Reading back over the script in detail, a lot of my dialogue is very one-sided, and I have some pretty blatant information dumps. I have been re-writing the dialogue to make it more conversational, and to make the secondary character seem like less of an idiot. I wanted to portray a bold and intelligent female lead (Kozue), but in doing so, the male secondary character (Tsuneo) comes off in places as a dimwit who is just along for the ride. I'm changing that a bit. Kozue still maintains her character, but is a bit more receptive to Tsuneo. Tsuneo on the other hand, now behaves as someone thrown into his situation would. Immediately a problem solver, trying to formulate theories on what is going on. This plays nicely with Kozue offering the information she already knows, and Tsuneo filling in the blanks.

This also makes for a bigger impact when we realize as the audience that she's being deceptive on certain things.

One thing I think regarding dialogue is that you can never call it completely "done." Not until it's recorded, and maybe even re-recorded. Maybe not even until picture lock. Dialogue seems to be one of those things that just takes a lot of revision. And going over it one more time might be the difference in it being decent and being excellent. At this point though, I think once this rewrite is done, I'll be ready to record.

The Disappearance of ZS

2011-12-06T14:32:00.000-08:00

I'm an INFJ personality type, if you trust that kinda thing. I used to think that I was just really weird or different from everyone else. Then I realized, hey, I am!

One of the things I have to have is "me time." Any day I can't have two or three hours that are my own, uninterrupted, I go a little nuts. It's how I unwind. It could be playing a video game, working on the film, reading a book, taking a walk, or just plain doing nothing. I have to have it.

This means during times when a lot of other stuff is going on, like holidays, or when things get busy at work, I tend to make myself scarce. This is often mistaken by others as me being unsociable or irritated with them, or being reclusive, or any number of those things. Often it's also mistaken for depression. I find myself having to remind everyone that I'm fine, that I'm not suffering through a hardship or anything of the sort, I just need my unwinding time. Unfortunately this means I disappear for weeks on occasion, but the good news to that is, I get a lot of stuff done usually. These are the times I'm most motivated, and crank out my best work.

Right now seems to be the peak of one of those times, as work is insane and I still haven't gotten all my Christmas shopping done. On top of that my friends are getting married, people are coming into town, so I'm trying to get my place cleaned to handle that. I also am going out of town for New Years, so I have to get ready for that.

I'm also getting Akazawa dialogue edited at a mean pace.

See you next year? :)

One down, One to go.

2011-11-27T19:03:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving was awesome. Just 4 days with the family, no outings, no pressure, just chilling and eating. Felt good to get out and get some exercise as well. I managed to get some audio samples as well, including graveyard ambiance, a buzzing transformer, a generator, some spooky trickling water, some steaming pipes, and some leaves blowing in the wind, among others. Now I just have a list a mile long before Christmas, and I'll be distraction-free for a good long while.

Obligations and Distractions

2011-11-09T15:02:00.000-08:00

What the frick, life. Why you gotta throw fun things at me to take me away from my film? This weekend I'm going to a renaissance fair with some friends. Never actually been to one, should be awesome.

A random freelance client of mine from a few years back asked if I would do some things for her. She asked in a "do this and please tell me what I owe you" stance. I bumped up the price and said sure! Extra money for recording booth materials is always nice. On the interesting and unusual side, she also asked if I would do a 60 second spot. I've never actually done one for pay, so I told her $150 would do it, and now I'm waiting on a script. I'll be able to use the M10 recorder for this, but I'm going to have to clean out the closet and treat it with blankets and pillows and other sound absorbing goodness. Really looking forward to seeing what I can produce.

Started digital storyboarding for the film. Sketching out the scenes and placements and everything with my tablet, and then going for timing in my NLE. I'm going to try this as an exercise to sweep all the "final" dialogue work into the edit, so that I can test out what things sound like and the pacing of it all. I have to say, this is finally the meat and potatoes of production. When I have a few really nicely done segments, it will be time to audition voice people for the two main roles. This is going to be EXCELLENT.

Quick Audio Notes

2011-10-31T18:03:00.000-07:00

Started playing with some post-processing. I have to say DAMN this recorder is quiet. It has very, very low self noise. Even in my untreated, echo-y room with computer fans blazing under the desk and the washing machine going in the next room, I was still able to get a passable recording. Playing the recording back over my low quality crap computer speakers, it sounded very decent.

Only when plugging up the studio monitors could I hear all the flaws in the recording. I'm also quite pleased at Audition's ability to remove that noise with very low distortion. This just reinforces the fact that I will need to have a treated room and/or a booth in order to get the cleanest audio possible. Only light noise removal will be needed to eliminate the almost non-existent hiss. That and the audio booth won't be in the same room as the computer or the dryer.

Continuing my edits on the VA script, also writing a "sound script" as I go, noting a list of all the sound effects I might want to consider for each scene. I hope to do a good bit of outdoor recording in December/January, when everything is a bit more quiet. I also have plans to hit up a local college and the university I attended, and visit all of its old buildings to get some great audio ambiance and sound effects. Old steam radiators make such a distinct sound.

Script Updates and Recording

2011-10-24T18:35:00.000-07:00

Keeping the production going, I've learned a good bit from the book on dialogue that I bought, "Writing Dialogue for Scripts" by Rib Davis. I have to say that for the most part I think I'm pretty happy with what I have going on, though there are a few things that could use some polish. I still have a few areas where the dialogue is very ping-pongy, instead of being conversational, where it should be much more conversational. I also have a couple of places that are information dumps. That's okay I think, as the film does have one place where a bunch of documents and a journal is found, but I think I'm going to try and confine the dump to just that as the plot device of a journal makes more sense. I actually sortof tweaked around one of the ending twists as well, which I think will provide a much more dramatic and "ohhhhh fuuuuuuu" kind of moment of realization for the viewer.

I've also been making good use of the Sony M10 recorder. I found a neat way that I can mount it on my camera tripod (ghetto mic stand) and angle it down to point at my throat, which gets a full, rich sound, and avoids plosives. Not that any of that matters too much for the alpha animatic. Pressuring myself to read the script and actually record it has brought out some very good editing. Dialogue sounds one way on paper when you're thinking it, another way when you're reading it out loud, and it's VERY different when you actually take recorded clips and try and edit them down for playback. Stuff comes out that you never would have noticed when you're listening to your own spoken word through your editing hardware. Things that read a bit forced end up being fine, things that read naturally end up sounding forced. Ultimately I might get a friend or two to read some of the things I'm stumbling over and record those themselves to see how they sound on the actual timeline.

So far I'm very pleased with how this is working out, now I just have to keep momentum high. I can't wait to begin actually assembling some storyboarding, to get pictures to audio. Then it will feel like a proper movie is actually coming together!

I also started getting a framework together for a "sound script," or a shot by shot breakdown of what sounds we will need to be hearing. I have a bunch of locations picked out already that I want to use, some local and some a few hours away. I'm going to take a weekend in late November to try and go back to the town I went to university in and visit their campus to get a plethora of sounds I know I'm going to need to use. Around Thanksgiving break, the place should be like a ghost town. Fitting, really.

Quick Update

2011-10-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

Working on an MEP segment for Radical_Yue, need to have beta by Friday.
Putting together random funny ideas for Ponies 2 while at work/listening to musics.
Ordered a dialogue editing book, should find it useful for my final VA script cut.
Chat with a friend last night, we both think our other mutual friend would make a good MC for the film.
Tonight, clean up some apt. junk for about an hour, then commence to Chroma Blitz.
Glorious weather, fun times ahead.

Oktoberfeeeeest!

2011-10-12T19:08:00.000-07:00

Oktoberfest was a blast. We went to a small town with a German heritage, ate some German food, and drank lots of Weihenstephaner Festbier! It was really good, lighter than their heffeweiss I usually enjoy, but still had the wonderful clove-y taste. We spent our down time in a really nice A frame cabin on top of a mountain, and did a whole lot of nothing for 5 days. Getting a break from work and everything else is really nice.

I did, however, manage to get some work done on Akazawa. For my current script, for every actual page of script, there's a half page or so of my own notes to myself. I began working on the VA version of the script, which will not have most of these notes, and only the normal place and mood indicators for each scene as well as the dialogue. I should be able to get a pretty good handle on just how long this film will be once I refine the script down to the recording version. Then I'll be able to get a really good idea of how long the film will be after I actually record and edit the dialogue audio for an alpha animatic.

Tomorrow I'll get my apartment back in order, get some food made for lunches and dinners this week, and then jump right into the rewrite. I know I've been promising at least some kind of photography in the past, so maybe I'll take a bit to snap some pics of my setup and my new "quiet alcove."

(Edit: I should also probably update the link art for my forum sigs that point to this blog!)

Status Update & Another Vacation!?

2011-10-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

So, in taking a look at one of my previous posts, I have determined that I was on track for the month of September. I ordered my gear and books, I read through one of the books, I've done some playing around with the gear and the audio files it creates.

For the month of October, I had planned:
-Thumbnails
-VA Script rewrite

However, I think I'm at the point of switching up the thumbnails for the VA script. As I have been learning how to do some voice techniques and stuff, I also want to start playing around a little with cleaning and compressing vocals, so that I understand the process and can get better VA work from the start. If I am going to do that for pacing and timing and to get the dialogue how I want it for the VA script, it just makes sense to do the storyboarding and the alpha animatic as I go. That way, the animatic matches the VA script, so when I record the actual voice talent, I should already have a place for it to go, giving me a beta animatic. After that, final audio tweaks to the dialogue track + the addition of ambiance and SFX, and I have production animatic 1.0!

Then, several years of actual production.

These are very, very exciting times. Full scale recording of the alpha animatic and VA script re-write commences when I return from my upcoming vacation, going to the North Georgia mountains to a small town called Blue Ridge to stay in a cabin for a week and drink beer at the local Oktoberfest. Good. Freakin' Times.

AWA 2011

2011-10-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

Holy. Carp.

That was the most fun I've had at a con in a really long time. Our panels did incredibly well, we had almost as many people in one of them as we did for the Iron Editor. How is that possible! The Indie Anime panel went off without a hitch, I actually had a decent crowd for that one as well, and due to the awesome nature of the things that were shown, people were coming up after the panel and during asking "oh my god, what was that, I need a name."

I ended up not showing any work from Akazawa. I think it's just too early, and even if I had thrown together a trailer, it would be from very hastily drawn thumbnail sketches, that would have had to have been scanned out of my script book. I don't really want to do that yet. Next year however, I should be fairly deep into the process of doing the digital storyboarding, and those will take considerably longer to do and will look considerably better. I can just about see doing an AMV using those storyboards perhaps.

On the topic of AMVs, I suffered from the same syndrome I normally do, being at AWA and not having any ponies in the race. (Well, did have a collab in the race with Fall_Child42, and we did win for that!) Times like these remind me of the 10 or so unfinished AMV projects that I have laying around that need to get done. Next year is a "Non-Master's" contest year, so I'm going to get an early start on finishing some of those. It'd be nice to have videos in the contests next year.

The other half of me MUST work on Akazawa. I was talking with a good friend of mine at AWA about the voice acting parts. She is very interested in voicing the main character in the film. This is probably the best thing I could have hoped for. We'll see how it pans out, but for now I'm really excited that she is interested in the part.

The ponies fandom continues to amaze me in it's growth. I saw so many pony cosplays at AWA that were very well done (someone from our group did Fluttershy and she was adorable). It's great to see American animation have this affect on fans of all ages and genders. I really want to break down the bias that cartoons are just for little kids, and that little kids are the only ones who like cartoons. I think that's why I originally was drawn to anime so much when I discovered it. I think that's why I chose to make my first film an anime (well, not really an anime by the strict definition).

If an anime is not really an anime, but looks like an anime, and people don't realize it's not an anime, is it still an anime? o____O

Fluttershy was Such a Jerk

2011-09-24T08:37:00.000-07:00

And it was ADORABLE. Sad to see Discord go, he was an awesome bad guy.

Getting ready for AWA this weekend. I hate coming back to a messy home, so I'm going to give it a fall cleaning. I'll be back on Akazawa with full force when I return. Been doing some nightly thumbnails on the big script, but I feel like a rewrite will be coming up soon. I will get the recorder all set up in a nice quiet place, and read all the dialogue to see how it sounds. This will let me make final tweaks and get the actual voice acting script together. From there, I'll be buying Adobe Production 5.5, and the animatic will commence post-haste. It's going to really feel good when I have a solid representation of the film down and watchable. Can't wait to get back into things with the tablet.

The Time Off

2011-09-21T14:49:00.000-07:00

Every second you're not spending working on your project, you should be doing something meaningful with your time. That doesn't mean that you should not rest, relax, and do something fun, but even these activities should fit around the schedule of your project. I've noted in past posts about how I'm working on storyboards, and how I made a nice little area for myself to work in where it's quiet and there's no distraction. My biggest distraction is my own computer. Sometimes while in rest mode, I will end up wasting hours just browsing the net or such. Doing this occasionally is good, but you need to do your work first. That's the reason for my little alcove. Sit down, have a drink, relax, and work. Away from the vidya (oh god Diablo 3 is going to eat some time), and friends (I'd love to skype more often, but I simply can't get stuff done when I'm having fun talking with people!), and shows (fall anime season looks nice, need to catch up on Doctor Who).

There's a time and place for everything, and everything in it's time. Put your work first, and then fill in with the fun stuff. After all, you wouldn't be doing or making or animating whatever it is unless you found that to be a hell of a lot of fun, right?

AWA in 2 weeks, I have Czechvar & Weihenstephaner, and will make some effing donut vodka. Good freakin' times.

EL PSY CONGROO

2011-09-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

Steins;Gate was freaking awesome. Can't wait for the movie.Looking forward to the fall season, although I am going to try and limit the number of shows I watch so I can spend more time on Akazawa. Got a used treadmill for $75, I figure any time I'm watching anime, I will be walking. Keeping the blood flowing and staying healthy is good for your sleep, energy level, and ultimately your creativity.

AWA is coming up, I have 3 panels I am on (and an indie anime panel I'm hosting) which I have to get ready for.

Title of Block: Indie Anime 2011 - From AMV to DVD

Come and join ZephyrStar for a look at the original works of independent animators working in the anime style today. We'll take a look at some conventional AMVs that make great use of original 2D and 3D animation, and then we will be discussing indies who have created their own films. Lastly, see some concept art for "Akazawa," the first feature length anime film from ZephyrStar Motion Works.

Gotta try and figure out what I want to show, thinking the best way to do it would be to throw together a trailer. Unfortunately I don't really have much I want to show publicly yet, so it may just be some sketches and stuff, or show the Reverie girl instead.

I CAN HEAR FOREVER

2011-09-08T17:42:00.000-07:00

Initial tests are better than expected. This thing is absolutely fantastic. I've also read the first few chapters of "Producing Great Sound for Film and Video," which has shed a lot of light on the physics of sound and how to properly insulate your recording/editing area. When I say this picks up everything, it really picks up everything. The computer fans, the AC unit (inside and the neighbor's outside!), jets flying over the apartment, the neighbor walking upstairs, the rustle of my jeans, everything. This thing will be really fantastic at capturing ambient or hard to record sound effects. Makes me think that my hunch was right about the Rode NT1-A as a vocal mic and using it with a micport pro with my laptop, which is uber quiet. More to come!

Growing Momentum

2011-09-07T14:45:00.000-07:00

Well, Masters didn't quite pan out. I did a lot of work in a really short amount of time, but all the ways I look at it I still don't think it would have happened, and I didn't want to sloppily throw it together at the last moment. What I did get out of it was a finished, fully rigged character model and some props, so next Masters is mine. Two years to work on it on and off is plenty.

But now back to the most important thing, Akazawa. I'm finally credit-card debt free, so what do I do? I go and charge $500 worth of audio gear. But this is a necessary evil as it is something I've needed to jump into for quite a while now. Here's what I ordered:

• Producing Great Sound for Film and Video by Jay Rose
• Audio Post Production for Film and Video by Jay Rose
• Sony PCM-M10 portable stereo recorder
• Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones

This should get me started on some basic audio recording and editing techniques. I may even be able to start grabbing some random sound effects and cataloging things I'll eventually need. The plan first and foremost however, is to use this recorder to record a "junk" run of the Akazawa script. I'm basically going to edit the current iteration of the script to a final, voice over ready version, and take the opportunity to read all the lines myself for pacing, flow, and those kinds of things. Hearing it in your head or on paper is much different than what it actually sounds like. From there I will create the "junk" recording. I will be able to use the junk recording to start creating the animatic. While I'm fiddling with the script and junk audio, I will also be finishing out the thumbnails on my "workbook" script. These are very simplistic storyboards that I will later pull from to put together the animatic of the entire film. This should keep me busy until the spring. Here's what the schedule looks like so far:

• September
-Gear and books come in
-Test audio, playing with some editing
-Thumbnails
-Anime Weekend Atlanta

• October
-Thumbnails

-VO Script rewrite

• November
-Thumbnails
-VO Script should be done

• December
-Holidays
-Thumbnails
-Begin recording "junk" audio cut

• January
-Holidays
-"junk" audio cut

• February
-Shot breakdown list
-Begin work on animatic.

Picking It Back Up

2011-08-27T21:13:00.000-07:00

Well, my AWA Master's entry is not getting done in time. Granted I probably could get it done by then, but it would lack about half the stuff I want to put into it. On the plus side, Reverie girl model is done and rigged, so that's a large chunk of work down. I'm going to be getting back to Akazawa with a vengeance. I feel like I've really neglected it, even with all the things that have been happening in my life lately. Tomorrow is "cleaning day" and then I'll jump back on storyboards. It feels good to not be distracted from the film by a bonus AMV project.

Hype is a Full Time Job

2011-08-19T06:13:00.000-07:00

I made a very important decision earlier on for Akazawa, prior to completing the script. That decision was to wait until the movie was completely finished, 100% done, to begin hyping it and drawing attention to it.

Many might argue in favor of showing the world your work while you are working on it, drum up an audience so that when you release your finished product, there's already a fanbase waiting to buy your work. The problem is, this takes time to do. A LOT of time. It's a full time job in fact, managing blogs, social networking, forums, all those different outlets for your work, all that wasted energy that should be devoted to just getting your project DONE. Nothing can happen unless the work is DONE.

And there's another negative to constantly showing off your work, psychological instant gratification. The more you show off a work in progress, the less likely you are to finish it. Think about it. In such a long term project as making an indie film, we're talking years of labor. Our lazy self wants to just call it quits, say "well, you gave it a decent shot." Showing off little tests and renders and scraps gratifies this part of ourselves. Not only that, but people will constantly tell you "nice start, nice render, but what you're doing is impossible."

I KNOW it's not impossible. It's quite possible. It's insanely possible.

People will tell you that it's not possible, because their lazy selves prevent them from doing it. Even people who are "successful and working in the field" do this to themselves, because after all, they made it, they're "working in the field." But that's just group think, that's just the accepted norm.

The most important thing that the book "The War of Art" taught me is to work within my territory, not to work within a hierarchy. What does this mean? Working in a hierarchy means you do it based on other people. You make a film because people say you should make a film, or society says "this is what a film maker is supposed to do and expected to do" or because you want people to know "you're a film maker." If you do this, you will fail. And I must define failure, because failure is not rising to your potential. You have those great ideas deep inside? Those ones that constantly nag you? Can you ignore them enough to just live a life of texturing someone else's models? Of just animating some other guy's characters? Of calling it good enough and saying "I'm a film maker?" Congrats, you just failed.

The opposite of working within a hierarchy is working within your territory. Your territory is that thing or place where you feel most comfortable, where you are a bad ass. This is known as "finding your calling." It's that thing you know you have to do, even if it's futile, even if society says it's impossible. But society doesn't know who you are, so ignore them. Get to it. Start your work.

The litmus test for this is: "If the world ended tomorrow and you were the only person left alive on the Earth, what would you do?" If you would still create your work, then congrats, you're not a failure, you're working in your territory.

I often hear people say "if I was a millionaire, I would never work again / sit around all day / lay on the beach"

If I won the lottery, or became a millionaire? All I would do is create indie animation movies.

The War of Art

2011-08-10T14:39:00.000-07:00

I've recently been reading a really fantastic book that my aunt sent me entitled "The War of Art." Basically this book puts into words a lot of things I have been thinking about the projects I have been working on for the last couple of years. It also has clued me in quite a bit to things I've been doing "wrong." I would highly recommend this book to anyone trying to devote themselves to a creative passion.

The War of Art on Amazon

Wasted Saturday... Or Not?

2011-08-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I had every intention to spend the majority of Saturday working on the character model for my 3D AMV. Instead I ended up installing Diablo 2 and playing all the way through Act 1. When I checked what time it was, it was 7:30 pm. I got up at 10 am. Sometimes you just have to be lazy as hell. Today is Sunday, and I've got a pretty good lineup to stick to. At least I got the lazy bug out of me, so maybe now I can do what I need to do to get the ball rolling.

-coffee & breakfast
-take a 1 hour walk/run
-shower
-wash clothes/clean up the kitchen
-get food ready for next week's lunches
-work on character model

On the plus side, I ended up watching a couple of movies yesterday too, both of which were okay but kinda boring, so I started sketching thumbnails for Akazawa. Got a couple of pages done. Post AWA, I'm going to be setting up a quiet area (it already is somewhat done) that I can use to work on the actual storyboards. What I have found very true is, you turn out the best work that is the closest to what you want to see when you take your time and focus. Yesterday's storyboards are a bit sloppy, but they'll work as they don't compromise the mood of the film. And also at this point they're less storyboard and more thumbnail. I will be revising & re-drawing a lot of this stuff when I do the animatic.

In other Akazawa news, I've spent several lunch breaks and breaks at work looking into microphone gear again. I'm trying to decide what would be the best all-in-one solution without spending too much money. So far I've narrowed it down to one of these 3 options:

#1 - Zoom H4n recorder.
This thing is a "pocket recorder" that runs off batteries. It has a stereo microphone setup built into it, and can capture 24bit/96khz recordings. It also has 2 XLR inputs, and on lower bandwith, can capture 4 separate channels simultaneously. The recorder can also be interfaced to a computer as a USB capture device! A kit with this at the core of it would run about $500.

#2 - Marshall MXL USB .009 Microphone
This thing is an all-in-one condenser microphone with USB interface. It also has onboard controls for gain, mix, and headphone volume. It is also capable of 24/96. I would be able to interface this mic with my eee pc, or preferably buy a new dual core eee pc to use as a recording platform. This option would be a bit more expensive, probably about $800 with the consideration of a new eee.

#3 - MicPort Pro + Rode NT1-A
This would probably be the most expensive setup, running $380 for just the mic gear, and then additional for a new eeepc to interface with. This would also probably provide one of the biggest strengths, as a stereo mic setup would be easy to do with two of these. Then again, that would be the most expensive option.

At this point, I am very much leaning towards the Zoom H4n recorder. It is the cheapest investment with probably the greatest possible return. Getting stereo audio from the device itself at 24/96 directly to an SD card is the best possible workflow for ambient audio and foley sound effects. If it turns out I can't use this thing for vocals, then it would still be a great tool for capturing all the additional recording work that would need to be done on the film, but is not as critical as the vocals.

Sometime after AWA I am going to purchase one of these options, and get started with the Akazawa animatic. I plan on recording the entire dialogue of the film myself, as a sort of placeholder and timing thing. By doing this I can also get really familiar with recording on the device, editing dialogue, and getting the best possible results out of the hardware.

Also on my list of things to do after that point, a recording on how to take and give constructive criticism, and the narcissistic tendencies of today's society. Mostly this will be a piece about dealing with criticism, and how to effectively use it in your productions without letting it bother you.

Stay tuned.

Thumbnails

2011-07-25T10:51:00.001-07:00

I drew 4 thumbnails yesterday. Yay.

That Nagging Feeling

2011-07-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

I have not done a lick of work on Akazawa since moving back in March. Before then I was rolling right along with thumbnailing (lots of little rough sketches) the script, and was going to record some crappy test vocals to just get the flow of the thing down. Life has been hectic but also a lot of fun lately, and I'm grateful for that.

I think about Akazawa every single day. It's maddening, trying to get settled in and sort out life issues, when all you want to do is create stuff. Everything seems to get in the way. The biggest road block is always one's self, because truly, that's the only thing stopping you. Part of me says stop doing everything that is not Akazawa, and another part of me says "but you need to have some fun."

Well, I've had some fun, so it's time to get back to it. Currently I am working on a video for AWA Masters, the only contest I ever really wanted to win. Even then, the video I'm doing has more relevance than a contest could give it. Despite the outcome of the contest, I will have created a short 3D AMV, and put some theories I have about the production on Akazawa to the test.

Post AWA, I will be working on Akazawa with a vengeance. That nagging feeling that just keeps building can't be ignored for long.

AWA Post #2

2011-06-30T14:57:00.000-07:00

Alright, panels secured. Time for video.

I have about 4 unfinished video projects in varying degrees of completion, all of which I've been putting off because I want to work on Akazawa most of the time. AWA has always been the AMV convention, and still one of the most awesome experiences for a creator, so I can't help it, I'm entering Master's this year. I've had the idea for a 98% 3DCG anime music video for the past few years, and always have been putting it off telling myself it will take a lot of time to make it good, I don't want to rush it, etc.

I realized I have to get over this type of thinking. If I continue to think this way there's no way I'll ever get Akazawa done. I have 2 months until the Master's deadline, and I've broken it down into a schedule. The concept is perfect, so I'm going to storyboard it with quickly drawn sketches over about the next week or so to iron out any flow issues, and then basically just make the video.

HEAVEN OR HELL, LET'S ROCK

Anime Weekend Atlanta

2011-06-14T15:28:00.000-07:00

Alright, AWA post #1. Looks like I will again this year have a panel, "Indie Anime: from AMV to DVD." In the past, I've shown a lot of really cool indie work out there, starting with original animation in AMVs, going to independent film like M.Strange's film "We are the Strange." I will actually be showing M.Strange's work at the panel, as well as promo material for his up and coming film "Heart String Marionette." HSM should be released by then, so it's quite possible I will cut together a trailer/music video to show off his work.

A small update on Akazawa, I have included in the program description for my panel "a small demo video of concept art from Akazawa" ...so now I am forcing myself to show a bit of my work. I have a feeling nobody will get it at this stage of the game, especially considering it's so rough and most of the drawings will be as well. Perhaps I can make it super artsy or something. Eeeeeeh...I know it's kindof breaking the rules of not showing to get instant gratification, but having a tiny cult following would not be a bad thing either. Those are the kinds of peeps who stick with you through thick and thin on your project all the way to release, and then sing it to the world. Or something.

.

Setting up the Studio

2011-06-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

So I finally spent a weekend cleaning up the new place. Since I moved here I think I've spent....one weekend in something like 3 months actually home and resting. I can't say that I'm sorry that I live close enough to friends and family to be able to go see them on the weekends, but at the same time, Akazawa is starting to bug me again. I think about it constantly, at work, during my time off, while I'm out having fun. My goal has been to get the apartment fully unpacked and cleaned up and into "maintenance" mode, so that I don't have all this cleaning to do. Today I re-arranged my office, got my bulletin boards set up, got my desk tables set up, got the mad science operative, and got everything sorted out. That's one room down, two more to go.

I also bought a new camera. It's nothing special, a Canon Elph 300, but it can shoot 1080 video and it's microphone is not half bad for up close recording. I can easily see being able to use it to record things such as a podcast. It does take really nice pictures, so I will be posting a panorama shot of the new workspace. For now though, I'm going to relax and enjoy the evening now that I spent the whole day cleaning up. Pics forthcoming soon!

I am making a pony video.

2011-05-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a longer than anticipated break to work with some friends on a video remix collab. It has ponies. You can expect some more serious work soon enough, I am chewing through my credit card debt at this rate. Editing software soon. Prior to that, I have set up a nice little distraction free alcove in which to mow through my script and work on the thumbnails. I know I promised some pictures, but I also lost my camera during the move, which really sucks. On the upswing, something I hope to get soon is an HD video camera (now that they are really affordable for a decent one) and begin documenting the process of creating this film. My ultimate goal is to release the film in a 2 disc set, with as much extra material as possible packed in. I want to do the making-of in a documentary style, but with sections explaining what I did the whole way through.

I have a hate/hate relationship with blu-ray, I was appalled when I saw the licensing fees involved for someone wanting to release something and print their own discs. With standard DVDs, all you really need do is create an image and have a glass master made, then you can have as many high quality discs as you want made from that cheaply. I think I estimated that for a first time blu-ray release, I'd have to pay like $5k. And that does not include the actual MANUFACTURE of any discs. That's just licensing and shit. THEN you have to pay something like .40$ per disc royalty for usage of the blu-ray LOGO ON YOUR PACKAGE. THEN, you finally get around to paying the cost of actual manufacturing.

Fortunately there seem to be methods coming out of packaging HD content on a DVD9, so that most players will think the disc is a blu-ray disc. This will prove quite interesting. But I guess I need a film first, well, two films really if you count the documentary. Maybe by that time blu-ray will be old and busted. One can hope.

Not Dead Yet

2011-05-04T14:11:00.000-07:00

I've been loving my situation lately. Everything but work, but seeing an additional boost on each pay stub is certainly helping with that. The plan is to pay off the credit card debt I racked up in the last two years, and then purchase my editing software suite. Once I have that I should be able to really get rolling on the animatic. The last few months have been really hectic trying to adjust, but one fantastic thing is that I now have friends local, and my family within 4 hours, and everybody wants to do stuff. I'll be glad however, when I get back to the point where I can spend all my after-work time during the week working on Akazawa and possibly a weekend here and there. More to come, as I will be re-arranging my workspace in my new apartment in the next week or two. I should probably post some pics. Look out for those!

In other news I am a sad pony. MLP:FIM is going to finish up soon, and I'm really hoping that the show has done good enough to continue on for a second season. I really hope that the powers that be don't jerk the carpet out from under Lauren Faust and that she's allowed to continue what she's doing.

Moving Shock

2011-03-29T14:41:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am in Raleigh North Carolina. I couldn't be happier with my location. Now to figure out what to do about certain other aspects of my life, mainly those that are getting in the way of Akazawa. My new job is boring and sterile and the micromanagement is downright draconian. The upside to that is that it does not drain me creatively like the last job, though I'm sure it will be full of frustrations. It may end up being a blessing in disguise however, seeing that coming home pissed off and full of action is probably the best thing I could ask for creatively. Either way it will be interesting to see how it goes. Haven't updated in awhile, and I want to get back into the swing of it, so here are just some things to muse over.

The Battle of Los Angeles - I was very disappointed. I was expecting so much more. This could have been so much more. Shit can't hold a candle to District 9. I could write a big elaborate rant about it, but I've had an alien invasion story in my head for a really long time, so you'll just have to wait till I write it or make it.

Sucker Punch - This came outta nowhere, hadn't even heard of it until the week I saw it. Somewhat disappointed. GOING INTO SPOILERS NOW, SKIP PLS KTHX. I found the first layer of abstraction to be really unnecessary. The part where everybody is in a gangster/whore house. I can understand that our MC's mind would go to a very dark place during the horrid things that would happen to her, and needed to come up to a lighter setting when she's just hangin' around being a mental patient, but it all came off as a disjointed mess. The ending pissed me off especially, since the MC was not the one who escaped, but instead sacrificed herself to save her friend. I still think I would have told the story from the point of view of the friend if that was going to be how the story ended. I also think once I established the fact that she was a mental patient, I would have stayed in her dream world. After all, that's how she perceives the world, and the point of making a movie about her is to show us that. So maybe during the times where she isn't fighting demons and battling dragons, real people appear to her as blurry silhouettes. And every time that orderly comes to do his rape thing, the silhouette turns into god knows what kind of monstrosity, and then she draws her weapons. And then, after a long and twisted journey through a desolate and stunning wasteland, she actually escapes the institution with the help of her friends and the items she's collected (Here's where you bring in the idea of angels. Real people are still blurry silhouettes, some are demons to her, some are angels). Then maybe as a last shot of the movie, she's standing there, in all her glory, weapons in hand, and we transpose reality over her dream world. And she's standing there, her clothes ripped, her feet muddy, in the rain, wielding a kitchen knife with blood on it and a lighter, while the institution burns to the ground behind her. Fuck yeah. But what do I know? OKAY LIKE, SPOILERS DONE MMK LOL

Aaaand that's probably it? Oh yeah, PONIES. Seriously. Shit.

PONIES. So a friend of mine tells me and some other pals one night "dudes, you should watch the new My Little Pony." Most normal 30 year old men would probably immediately question said friend's sexuality, and then maybe their own, but we're not normal. Being an animator (and my other pal is a schoolteacher), we are both intrigued. We check out a few episodes and just damn. Lauren Faust has a real winner here. She's managed to create something that doesn't suffer from the mindlessness of most other children's (and especially little girls') cartoons and shows. Faust has made genuinely likable characters (which shine much brighter because of the voice talent behind them), and puts them in heartwarming lessons in life which manage not to pander too much. Watching this stuff makes me happy for the future of animation. It just proves that there are still gems out there if you know where to look. Also, Derpy Hooves. Amazing.

Moving and Moving

2011-03-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

So I have to move all my stuff in a few short days. Fortunately I have some friends and family helping who will make that process go a lot easier. I have been glued to the TV and internet for the last few days however, watching the horrific events in Japan. I have a couple of friends there, and they are safe, but my heart goes out to you all. Please consider making a donation to the relief efforts that are underway. The Red Cross has a very easy method where you can text REDCROSS to 90999, and donate $10 that way. Please consider it. It's unfortunate that my film is not further along so that I could have a sale and donate the proceeds to the effort.

Aww Yeah.

2011-03-04T21:36:00.000-08:00

Found a job. It's not much, but it's in the town I want to live in, and it's more money than I currently make. I'll take it. As soon as I get moved again, I'll get my studio set up and continue work on the film. I also anticipate another job change, but that can wait a little while, as I need to get used to the area. Can't wait, it's exciting.

Optimism

2011-02-24T14:37:00.000-08:00

I have always been an optimist. I think in order to be a dreamer you just about have to be. You have to realize that because you are alive, anything is possible, you can do anything, and no matter how bad things get, they can always and will get better. Things are looking up for me currently in the area of finding a job, and I expect it won't be too much longer until I can move my attention back to Akazawa. \m/

A Little Update

2011-02-08T09:59:00.000-08:00

So I've been working towards a job in game design. I've had the skills since school, but I only recently considered actually getting into the industry. A friend let me know of some vacancies in their company, and I'm going for one. Probably the most exciting thing about the company is that it was formed by victims of corporate layoffs, and seems to have a very relaxed but productive environment. It's the opposite of what I am subject to now.

I'm wondering how this will affect my work on Akazawa should I get this job. I love working in 3D, but this would mean that I would be doing it 12+ hours a day most days. That doesn't bother me at all, that's the kind of commitment I know I'll have to have in order to make this film. Where I start to wonder is if:

A) I become super fast and efficent at modeling and texturing environments
B) I lose a lot of my energy during the workday

I know A is a given, I think it will be helpful to the project. B is the unknown. I'm going to have to figure out ways of keeping my energy levels tip top and efficient. I'll probably do some work on my daily diet, possibly breaking down my large meals into smaller meals to keep metabolism up, and right after work getting in my exercise. I'm getting ahead of myself though, as I don't even know if I have an interview at this point. I just spent about 48 hours over 4 days cranking some work out, and I still have at least that much more to go before I can apply with any confidence.

In order to break up that work and stay productive, I spent about an hour each of those days thumbnailing more of the Akazawa script. Feels good to look at it again, and I can't wait to figure out this job situation so I can dive back into it at full speed.

On a tangent, I hate this "economy." People talk about "the economy coming back" but I'm sorry, I have news for you, it isn't. Growing up, I was taught that money is hard earned and that it is just a tool. It's a means to an end, not the end itself. Watching so many narcissistic people all around me buy bigger and better houses and cars and useless junk just to scream "I'M BETTER THAN YOU" made me sick. All the while, the greediest and most narcissistic sent our manufacturing overseas to make even more profits. And now it's time to pay the piper.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in the American Dream, but that dream has been blown out of porportion and turned into a nation of gluttionous, medicated, entitled posers, who all wanted to live like rock stars without doing any of the work to get there. I really do hope people learn from this. I certainly have. The bubble is gone, popped, not going to inflate again. The only inflation we'll be seeing is when you have to pay $20 for a gallon of milk, and that's coming too. We have to go back to the old American Dream, the one my grandparents knew, the one where we made do and it was ENOUGH. We used what we had. We didn't buy what we didn't need. Instead of buying a brand new whatever, we fixed the old one and kept it running for another year.

We need ingenuity. I vow to be ingenious in my everyday actions. I will make do. Will you?

And when the young adults of today step up to be our next business leaders and entrepreneurs, will they heed this lesson? Will they keep production in the country? Or will they sell out to greed? Who under God's blue sky needs a million dollar a year salary? When is enough enough?

Spirits.... good?

2011-01-20T16:04:00.000-08:00

So far the layoff is not really bugging me that much. Dunno, I'm pretty laid back about this stuff. The only thing that sucks is the insecurity of not having an income and benefits. I do however, have a few things going on, so perhaps the transition won't be so bad. One of the prospects is a college instructor, which means I would get 3 months off during the summer. That's pretty sweet production time right there. Pretty sweet indeed. But for now, my days are filled with revamping my portfolio website and getting my resume all in order. Hopefully just as soon as I land something, I can continue the storyboarding post haste.

EEEEEEEEE6666666666666

2011-01-13T11:37:00.000-08:00

That's Russian for FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU.

I'm now without a job, so I'm going to have to put the film on hold while I secure a new one. I just need a way to buy food and pay bills, otherwise I'd say fuck it and just keep making the movie. My hopes are high, got a 3 day weekend coming up to knock out some new portfolio stuff and start submitting to places.

Some Pics

2011-01-06T14:39:00.000-08:00

This is what the script looks like right now. Between each sheet of actual script are two blank pieces of paper. These are for rough storyboards. After I finish doing this, I'll be doing the final storyboarding digitally. My workflow will allow me to: look at rough > draw digital version or make changes > digital version taken into video editor > timing and rudimentary animation > animatic. This will be a blueprint for the entire film.

Below is my current workspace. I'm entertaining the thought of getting a 40" Samsung LEDLCD TV to use as my primary monitor. The two monitors in the photo are a little old, and only display 6bpp color.

Well, that's it for now. Working right along with the character designs in vector, Kozue is starting to look nice.

Holidays

2010-12-29T14:13:00.000-08:00

Holidays were good times, got to see the family, almost got stuck in the bigass snow storm, etc. Had a nice relaxing trip and got to sleep in. For a week.

Alright, now that that's over...

Motivation is good. Just grabbed Suzumiya Haruihi no Shoushitsu, and was super impressed with it. More than makes up for Endless Eight (which I actually rather enjoyed.) Also finally got around to watching all the special features from M.Strange's "We Are The Strange." Also re-watched Jeff Lew's "Killer Bean Forever." Inspiring stuff. I've managed to crank out a bit of storyboarding with my new script and stuff, and I'm debating on posting some photos and maybe some artwork. Maybe. I'm still really rolling with the whole philosophy of not showing things until they're finished (while peer review is very important, and I do have a few very close friends who are experts in their fields telling me when my stuff sucks). Showing your stuff to the world before it's done gets you the praise and gratification on the front end, which in the long run hurts your production efforts greatly. Projects take longer than if you keep it all under wraps, only getting close peer review, and just building up the pressure to the end. So far it's working well.

Something else I'm doing is something I've not really done before, but it's working wonders. I'm kindof a mediocre artist when it comes to drawing things by hand. I used to be very minute and technical with my artwork, until I took figure drawing classes and learned to loosen up. Now I'm generally more loose with things, so when it comes down to getting something "perfect," such as character reference sheets and modeling aides, I have a hard time simply doing those by hand, even digitally. So what I've been doing is getting my sketches to a point where I think they're 90% there, then I vector them by hand. Doing all the linework in a vector program allows for miniscule changes to things! I can tweak the hell out of every little detail, and get a wonderfully clean line every time! I think this is the biggest reason I decided to work with 3D instead of traditional drawing for the production on Akazawa. 3D allows me to get the hard part right once, then that character will always maintain that shape. Sans rigging, phonemes, expressions, etc. But it makes for a good solid basis for all the animation I can do as I don't constantly have to reproduce the character and have the drawings be consistent. So, once I get these vector character sheets down, expect maybe a *little* preview.

Headed to Atlanta this weekend for the new year to hang out with some friends, should be pretty epic times. After that, I'll be back hardcore on the character vectors. I will be so damn happy when I have these nailed down. They're really starting to feel like living, breathing people to me.

Keeping Things Moving

2010-12-04T12:00:00.000-08:00

One of the hardest things to do when working on a huge indie project like this is to keep moving. Ideally you do something on the film every single day, otherwise the thing never gets done. This becomes hard when you work a day job, holidays are coming up, life gets in the way. It makes you frustrated that you'll be "wasting" a week on the project or more. The other side of that coin is that you have to take the time out to rest and relax, and exercise. Without these things, it's very easy to just lose steam all together. Over the next three weeks I have a lot going on, but I will try very hard to keep rolling with my alpha story boarding. I got some great reference photos on the last trip I was on, and plan to get that many more when I leave again in a week. Those should help me enormously to visualize the university town that my story takes place in, as well as the place of work for one of the characters. It may still be awhile before I post anything of note, but expect me to keep a lot of this stuff tightly under wraps until the very end. Probably some tidbits here and there.

An Interesting Result

2010-11-30T15:20:00.001-08:00

Recently I posted a thread on a well known imageboard. The thread was about how I was going to singlehandedly make an indie anime. Of course, I was met with the usual opposition, but to my surprise, many of the posters were very supportive and thought that what I was doing was the most epic thing they'd heard. I've listened to people say "it's impossible" from day one. When it was only a glimmering spark in the back of my head, before I had finished school and before I started to really take a look at just what it would take to create an indie anime, all by myself. The cool thing is, the more I say "this is going to happen," the more resistance I meet. "Industry pros" and "students working towards the industry" and "professors" and "trust me my cousin works at Pixar" all want to tell you how you'll fail because they simply cannot think for themselves and fathom the reality of what it is we all hold in our hands. Anyway, this is not really a rant or anything, I was just surprised to see a generally positive outcome to the thread. Those are starting to stack up and prove that there are people who will support and hopefully buy the film. For anybody wanting to do this themselves, on the extreme off chance that anyone actually reads this thing, BELIEVE IN THE ME THAT BELIEVES IN YOU.

Storyboarding

2010-11-29T17:22:00.000-08:00

Started some preliminary storyboarding. Separating out the pages of my script with blank pages inbetween to sketch out whatever comes to mind. Will be nailing down the character designs post haste, have most of the "bad guy entities" done already, my human characters will take a bit of work. Pretty soon I'm gonna record all the vocals on my shitty mic, myself doing all characters, and create an alpha animatic for timing/framing and all that.

Had a pretty great vacation. Took my camera home, took around 300 photos of the college in the town where I grew up. Some really spectacular references there, but I'll need quite a bit more. Going back home on vacation in another two weeks, after I go check out the Trans-Siberian Orchestra with a pal. Will take the camera again, need shots of the haggard woods, the haggard weeds, the haggard fields, and this greenhouse I once worked at back in high school. I have a few events that take place in a greenhouse, should make for solid gold reference materials. (Plus a tribute to humble beginnings...)

Yeah.

Script Finished

2010-11-17T16:26:00.000-08:00

So, at long last I have finished my script for Akazawa. It totals 102 pages, but that includes all my personal notes. I estimate the finished dialogue to be between 60-70 minutes. I have started working on some rough concept art, trying to get back in the swing of drawing. This is just a quick post before I'm away for the holidays, but I expect to have some decent character designs done fairly soon. More to come.

Script Madness

2010-09-02T09:35:00.000-07:00

Ok. So what should have taken me a week or two more on the script has turned into a couple of months. I am going to post at length over the next few days describing some progress (and make an effort to keep this thing more updated). I also want to make a roadmap graphic that will illustrate where I am on the project and how long I expect all this to take :O

Script

2010-07-17T13:25:00.000-07:00

Script coming along...

Updates.

2010-07-08T16:13:00.000-07:00

Akaishirai is now officially "Akazawa." This is still not the permanent title of the film, but will be the name of the town in which it takes place. Akazawa. "Red Swamp." Nice ring to it. I'm about 90% done with the script dialogue, feeling really good about it right now. I think I'll only have to go through a few more minor drafts before I'm happy enough with it to move forward on concept art and storyboarding. Pending a new job and moving, I hope to pick up that part of it relatively soon, and be drawing every day. The real fun will begin when I have that taken care of and can begin my animatic. All things on course, I expect to have the voice tracks recorded and good to go by the end of the year. More updates soon as I really need to motivate myself on this thing.

Akaishirai Update

2009-12-03T19:29:00.000-08:00

Currently working on the script for Akaishirai. I've decided that I need to throw my caution to the wind and just do the thing. Now that I've jumped in, it's actually working out quite well, and things are starting to come together nicely. Saw a new Mike Inel animation I'd not seen before, got my face owned off. That guy should make a feature length movie :O

Also have listened to the wisdom of M.Strange a bit lately, and he also is all about that jump in and just do it attitude. His vids on YT are motivational. When I have a bit more work to show, I'm most definitely going to start a YT video blog and mirror it here. Looking forward to the weekend, Christmas shopping for the family, building my dad a new i7 computer (which I get to hang on to and fine tune till March when he comes to visit) :Q

A New Start...

2009-10-29T15:29:00.000-07:00

I am officially re-re-starting work on my indie feature film, which now has the working title "Akaishirai. " This will probably change. I have begun setting daily tasks, and am currently working on the script. It's coming together quite nicely.