A touch of Corrie-ography

A Tangled Tale Website

2012-02-13T10:56:00.000-08:00

We've officially launched a brand-spanking new website for "A Tangled Tale"! Designer Chelsea Kent helped me make the site reflect the texture and themes of the film in the design. She's awesome. Hire her for your next project. And in the meantime head to www.atangledtalefilm.com for production updates, behind the scenes and images. I'll be doing more posting there than here while I continue work on the film, so be sure to keep tabs on the blog as well. And, of course there's always

and

2011 Studio Recap

2011-12-17T10:00:00.000-08:00

December is flying by and before the Christmas rush starts, I thought I would try to remember all the interesting projects that came through my studio in 2011.

The year started off with a snowstorm and my little white sand Christmas animation was posted on Cartoon Brew and Motionographer! The attention encouraged me to submit the film to several festivals this year. Including the Aspen Shortsfest. Being a neighbor to this wonderful festival, I not only was able to attend, but I also make their festival trailer, featuring a very Smart Bear!

Getting back into sand animation inspired me to start working on my own work as well this year. I pulled an underwater love-story off the back burner and began animating in earnest. After a successful kickstarter campaign this fall, A Tangled Tale is under full production and will hopefully be swimming around the festival circuit by late summer!

I had the joy of being in the wedding of a dear friend this fall. We've shared many adventures in the snow and sun together, during our time at Tahoe. I wanted to give her and her new husband a special gift, so I animated a wedding invitation to one of their favorite songs. It was fun trying to capture the story of their adventurous courtship in a simple narrative!

And finally, what would the Christmas season be like without another animated Christmas card? This year I offered to donate my services to Women of Vision - an organization that advocates for women and girls internationally. I liked how the final piece turned out so much, I decided to send it as my own Christmas card. If you are looking for a worthy charity to give to during the holidays, I highly recommend you see what these women are doing to create a brighter and healthier future for impoverished women around the globe.

And so, as the New Year springs upon us, please take a moment to give thanks, call someone you love, and eat a Christmas cookie for me!

Warm Wishes,
Corrie Francis Parks

Advent Animation

2011-12-16T09:18:00.000-08:00

'Tis the season for animated holiday greetings! I've been collecting them and am creating an animated advent calendar, highlighting one holiday-themed short a day until Christmas. To keep up with the fun, follow #adventanimation on twitter or just check out my FB wall.

Day 14 - Impossible Present by Royale

P.S. I got a late start on this, so you'll only find spots from Dec 14th on! Next year will be better!

Reflections on a Kickstarter adventure

2011-11-14T13:33:00.001-08:00

When I first started playing around with sand animation this year, and found an underwater romance rising to the surface, I had no idea that it would lead to a major crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. As the film developed, I knew I wanted it to be more than a low-budget studio exercise. It would be my first professional film and potentially a groundbreaking addition to the sand animation cannon. I knew it needed a finishing fund worthy of these goals. But I also knew I would never be able to convince one production company to give me even half the amount I needed to meet my budget. Sure, I could have cut corners, begged friends of friends for favors, cracked open my piggy back and prayed no rainy days would come. That’s how independent films are made, right? Call me an idealist, but I believe in a better world where artists pay their rent on time because someone pays them a living wage.

Fast forward a few months, 149 wonderful people and 11,811 of their dollars later. “A Tangled Tale” is now swimming in a comfortable budget and my piggy bank is safe. I've had a couple filmmakers contact me already, saying my success has encouraged them to consider Kickstarter for their upcoming films. So, I thought I would share a few observations in hopes of fueling that flame.

Pre-Production

Preparing for a crowdfunding campaign is a big deal! More than half of all Kickstarter projects fail to hit their goal (and consequently don't get any money) so I really had no idea how this would turn out. Basically you are pitching your project to the internet. You have to take into account short attention spans and trigger-happy ‘like” button clicking. I think the idea behind backing these creative projects is that people want to become a part of something outside themselves. If you can engage a viewer long enough to show them their role in your creative process, chances are they will be willing to part with some of their hard-earned cash. There are a ton of resources on the web for putting together a good pitch (start with Nathaniel Hansen’s Ultimate Crowdfunding To-Do List). I looked at a lot of other Kickstarter projects, both successful and unsuccessful, read several articles, talked to one person I knew who had successfully crowdfunded her film and pretty much took all their advice.

A a short and efficient pitch video is essential.

The trickiest part for me was deciding how much to go for. With Kickstarter’s all-or-nothing model, you don’t want to aim too high and not reach your goal because then you end up with nothing. However, once you hit your goal, the momentum of the campaign declines a lot (less guilt on the part of the people who haven’t ponied up yet) so setting the goal too low may mean you end up with a bare-bones budget. Some projects do exceed their goals by astronomical figures, but they are rarely films. Music albums, gadgets and games can to go into the thousand percentiles because they are basically discounted pre-sales for a potentially awesome product and usually very affordable (Kickstarter is a fun place to go Christmas shopping). Films on the other hand, don’t have much to offer other than a DVD, so getting creative with the rewards is important!

Here’s how I determined my funding goal: I started with my ideal budget for the film which was $13,000. This included a large contingency for sound design, an expanded marketing and printing budget, and some allocation for film festival travel. I figured from my personal sphere of influence I could get around 100 backers. Kickstarter states their average pledge is $70, so obviously that didn’t match up. I re-crunched the numbers, cutting out non-essentials, assuming I could get a few good deals, factored in the cost of rewards and fees and came up with a workable budget of $8000. It would be tight, but I could finish the film and get it on the festival circuit and figure things out from there. It would need more backers or a higher average pledge to make it, but if Kickstarter worked the way it’s supposed to, there would be backers outside my immediate circle to make up the difference.

Production

Managing the project was another big adventure. Like many artists, I’m not much of a self-promoter, so I had to find ways to keep sharing the project over and over without losing my authenticity. I also wanted to share something meaningful with my potential backers. This meant creating new content by writing project updates, offering special rewards at landmark moments, making some new rewards when the funding flat-lined. I had 450 people on my email list, and after every email, I saw a jump in the pledges. I asked people to share the project with 2 of their friends in a personal email or phone call. 35% of my backers are people i don’t know, but I’m pretty sure many are a result of those emails and phone calls. Many of my backers have known me for years and probably would have pledged whether or not they got anything in return. Still, most people will pause before they hand out $100, but if they know they will get 2 DVDs and something to hang on their wall for it, suddenly it’s a bargain for doing something they want to do anyway.

We hit our $8,000 goal with 3 weeks left in the campaign and sure enough the pledges flat-lined. Even offering new rewards and email reminders didn’t seem to have an effect. But things ramped up again with a week to go. Some people (including me) work better with a looming deadline and in the last 24 hours we added over $1000 to the budget. Of course there were a few people emailing me after the project closed lamenting how they had missed the deadline. I told them to just send me a check!

Post-Production

I've been AMAZED at the groundswell of support for this film and am so grateful. The best part is that all the money will be cycled back into the economy to musicians, sound designers, environmentally-friendly printers - all small-scale operations that need the work. I hate asking artists to work for free, for the "love of a project". I get asked that a lot and I have a hard time saying "No" when I need to, so the ability to pay people for their work makes me SO happy!

And the best of the best part is that now that I have 149 people supporting me with their hard-earned money, I had better make a damned good film, and follow through on the rewards I promised! There is no financial accountability within the Kickstarter model. I could easily take that $11,811, buy a first class ticket to South America and spend the rest of the year on the beach. But accountability is more than just expecting a return on an investment. It’s a relationship. I think it's a testament to the nature of crowdfunding that more than half of my backers gave less than $50. It doesn't matter if they gave $1 or $1000, they all wanted to be involved in “A Tangled Tale” and that is what motivates me to make sure this is an incredible film. So thanks, Kickstarter, for making the world a better place, one project at a time!

If you missed the kickstarter boat, you can still support the film via PayPal. Find out more at www.ATangledTaleFilm.com

World (Sand) Animation Day

2011-10-24T16:33:00.001-07:00

That’s right, October 28th is World Animation Day! Time to celebrate the art of animation in all its variations. If you are in the Denver area. ASIFA-Colorado is putting on some great events. But the one I want to highlight (since shameless self-promotion is all the rage) is ME!

I am the featured speaker for Friday’s events and I’ll be giving a LIVE demonstration of sand animation. I will also show some sand animation films, talk about our recently successful Kickstarter campaign for A Tangled Tale, and, I’ll have demonstration station set up so you can try making your own sand animation. This is an unprecedented chance to try this very unusual technique, so be sure to mark your calendars and Celebrate Animation with the World!

When: Friday, Oct. 28 @ 7pm
Where: the Bolt Factory, 209 Kalamath, Unit 7
(round back)

$5 general admission
$3 for ASIFA members

New Goal of $12K!

2011-10-18T08:41:00.000-07:00

Exciting Update: We hit our minimum budget goal for A Tangled Tale in less than a month! Now we've stretched our goal to $12,000 by November 7th. See below to find out how we'll use the extra money!

Our original goal of $8,000 was the bare minimum we needed for post-production. If we reach $12,000 before Nov. 7th, I'll have the great joy of expanding our budget in the following directions:

Music Madness: I've been talking to one of my favorite musicians about the score for the film and I'm thrilled he will be composing for us. We're still working out the contract so extra dollars will just sweeten the deal.
Sounding Off: Sound is at least 50% of the cinema experience. Some would argue more! Getting a sweet surround sound mix involves a lot of people - sound designers, mixers, recording technician and foley artists.
Going Green: we want our marketing materials and backer rewards to be environmentally friendly, but green printing adds to the budget. Extra funding will help us keep our commitment to being green.
Festival Frenzy: The average festival entry fee is around $35, and most filmmakers submit to at least 100 festivals! Once a film is in, there's shipping prints, marketing materials and travelling, which all add up. But getting a short film on a big screen near you is our goal, and the more we can put in our festival budget the better chance we have of getting "A Tangle Tale" on the next Oscar list!
Production Deadlines: Why stop at $12K? If we double our goal, I will be able to take a month off from freelance work and focus entirely on getting the film done ahead of schedule. That means you get your rewards sooner and the party starts early!

These are all working artists and technicians that make the cinema experience and they deserve to earn a living. Consider yourself a patron of the arts by pledging your support! Thank you again, for getting us past the "bare minimum" goal. We are very excited to see what we can do with a larger budget. 150%, here we come!

Sand Painting

2011-10-11T20:03:00.001-07:00

A a special incentive for backing A Tangled Tale on Kickstarter.com I've created 2 sand paintings, done in the hand-tinted style of the film. The first is the Maroon Bells, near my home in Aspen, CO.

"Bell Shower"

"Tallac Tack"

There will be 25 signed limited-edition 8x10 prints of each of these painting available to backers only and only while they last! All it takes is a pledge of $75.

Additionally, backers at the $1,000 level have the opportunity to commission a single-edition sand painting (i.e. you chose the size and subject and will have the only print in the world!).

Again, (can I say it enough?) thank you so much for your support! I have no doubt we can make and even exceed that $8,000 mark well before Nov. 7th. All it takes is a little push, a little share-the-luv. So email, blog, tweet and tumble these new works of art in support of the film!

Kickstarting- A Tangled Tale

2011-10-01T19:55:00.000-07:00

3...2...1...LAUNCH!

Post-production is expensive so we are reaching out to our social networks! Check out A Tangled Tale on Kickstarter.com

Ottawa, fair Ottawa!

2011-09-30T22:55:00.000-07:00

I've just returned from the Ottawa International Animation Festival. Read my review of the films and festival gossip on the ASIFA-Colorado blog.

MOPS Reach More Moms Grant

2011-08-09T09:45:00.000-07:00

With the wealth of information on the web, more small companies are looking for a way to engage their target audiences. Telling a simple story with animation taps into the power of our visual and emotional memories. Done right is can be immensely more effective than scrolling through pages of text and links on a website!

Mother's of Preschoolers (aka MOPS) is a non-profit group based out of Denver. In order to get the word out about a new grant opportunity for their members, they opted for a short and sweet story rather than a big write up. And they hired me to do it!Tell me, do you get the picture?

Animation Station at Art in the Park!

2011-07-08T10:20:00.001-07:00

Saturday, July 9th was hoppin' in Basalt! Saturdays LIVE in Basalt is a summer street festival that happens every second Saturday in our little town on the Frying Pan. There is live music and local food stalls, runners finishing the Aspen Marathon, and Art in the Park, featuring an outdoor Animation Station! This month, we made another community animation project, similar to last December's Yulefest. Check out the results of our efforts over the course of the day!

More info...

"Snow" at the NZMFF

2011-06-18T15:09:00.000-07:00

This year, Thom and I are staying in sunny Colorado to enjoy our first ever summer together (in 3 years of togetherness!) But to keep the kiwi connection, I'm sending a sweet little short film to our friends at the New Zealand Mountain Film Festival. You can see "Snow" on opening night of the festival, July 1st at 7pm in Wanaka! If you are nearby, don't miss it!

Summer Animation at the Wyly

2011-05-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce that this summer I will be teaching 3 animation classes at the Wyly Center for the Arts in Basalt. Now you have a chance to bring objects and drawings to life. We will try out different types of animation to create a series of short films you can share with your friends and family. Classes are for all age groups so please tell anyone you think might be interested! It's coming up in less than a month, so don't wait to register!

Here are the dates and links:

June 6-10, 10am -12:30 Elementary
June 6-10, 1:30 – 4pm Middle School
June 11 -12, 10am – 4pm Weekend Animation Workshop (for high school and the young at heart)

Registration is now open and space is very limited so sign up early and bring a friend. I look forward to animating with you!

WRENCH

2011-05-16T09:43:00.001-07:00

This week I’ll be heading to Amsterdam as the WRENCH project makes its debut. Featuring eight original compositions inspired by the photographs of Edward Burtynsky, the performance will be “a tightly versed integration of sound and projected image”.

I found my way into this project through Sueng-Ah Oh, a composer I met at the MacDowell Colony. We only crossed paths for a few days, but it was enough to spark interest in each other’s work and 2 years later, we find our talents mutually beneficial! I have been creating the visual accompaniment to Seung-Ah’s piece Figures in Time. It has been thrilling to have access to Mr. Burtynsky’s Quarry Series photographs as the raw materials for my animation. I am impressed by the rigid geometric forms and linear divisions embedded in the massive rock forms. The deception of scale turns machinery and people into mere specks of texture in a photograph. My approach to the project has been to accentuate these elements through movement as a reminder of the human footprint which become part of the raw artistry of a landscape. Burtynsky’s photographs resonate with my belief that a pristine environment is not nearly so compelling as one that has symbiosis with humanity.

The premier of our work, along with the other compositions will be performed by Hexnut on May 22 in Amsterdam’s prestigious Muziekgebouw. I have been working with a recording of the composition, but since the actually performance will be live, we are both very curious (and nervous) about whether the synchronization will actually work. Hexnut plans to take the performance on tour throughout the Netherlands and Europe in the coming year.

“Narrow Gauge” @ Create Denver Week

2011-05-06T09:33:00.001-07:00

I can’t think of a better venue for showing off new media works than on a giant LED screen in the middle of a major US city. This Friday, May 13 at 8:30pm the Mile High City is hosting “Frame of Mind: Curation of Visual Art Pioneers”. The show is free, outside at the corner of 14th and Champa, so if you are in town, come on by. For the show, Thom and I created “Narrow Gauge”, a short animation inspired by the derelict tracks of the Rio Grande RR near our house. I guess that makes us visual art pioneers!

In addition to the showcase, there will also be a 3D digital mapping project. If it is anything like this piece, which was shown in Amsterdam last year, prepare to be blown away. All this hoopla is part of Create Denver Week, which looks like a pretty great event in general. There are over 30 workshops for artists on Saturday along with gallery receptions, exhibitions etc. Kudos to Denver for supporting the arts!

A Tangled Tail - the trailer

2011-04-13T15:29:00.000-07:00

Now that the festival buzz is over, it's time to settle back into work. Some of you may be wondering what I've been doing with that sweet sand animation set-up I constructed a few months ago. I have put it to good work! Below is a trailer for my newest film, which I hope to finish by the end of the year.

If you are blown away by the music, you should be. My friend Sean McClowry has graciously allowed me to use his "Concerto for Double Bass - 2nd Movement" for the trailer. Listen to more of his excellent compositions on his website, http://seanmcclowry.com/

I'll be working on this film over the summer, and researching the subject on the Frying Pan and Roaring Fork rivers with my new fly rod! I can actually step out our back door and throw my line in the river. Of course, that doesn't guarantee I'll be bringing home dinner.

Aspen ShortsFest, Day 2,3,4,5

2011-04-10T14:38:00.000-07:00

How many films can you watch in 5 days? At Aspen ShortsFest, you can watch all 82! I think this festival is just about perfect in it's size and format. There are 2 screenings each evening, each presenting a "well-balanced meal" of films of various genres, subjects and tones. You leave the theatre feeling satisfied but not overwhelmed. Neither are you faced with that dilemma that often happens at larger festivals with multiple screening venues, of having to choose which films NOT to see. Here you can actually see them all.

So, after several days of a well-balanced film diet, and just before the awards ceremony, we give you our favorite picks. I've tried to provide links to websites and trailers where available so click the picture for more info on each film.

Raju Max Zähle, Germany/India
Jan and Sarah are overjoyed to adopt an orphaned boy from Kolkata. When he vanishes, they begin a frantic search and hit upon some unsettling truths in the process.

Falling Adriano Cirulli, UK/Italy
A poetic study of human interaction, expressed through movement and sound.

Time Freak Andrew Bowler, USA
Chronology goes comically awry for a wacky inventor trying to change his life through his time machine.

West of the Moon Brent Bonacorso, USA, 10 min
Perhaps one of my favorite of the entire festival, this recounting of a dream becomes a visual feast of paradoxes.

The Little Boy and the Beast Johannes Weiland and Uwe Heidschötter, Germany
A gracious and witty picture of parents at their most difficult moments. Beautiful story and delightful animation.

dik Christopher Stollery, Australia
A child’s drawing is the inadvertent catalyst for this spirited domestic comedy about sexuality and secrets.

And last, but certainly not least, I must give a mention to Animal Beatbox, by Damon Gameau of Australia There is nothing technically special about this animated oddity. In fact it looks as though it was made by a guy, his mother and his girlfriend in 3 days. In fact it was. But when you watch it, you'll see why it was the unofficial hit of the festival. I warn you, the beat will be stuck in your head for days.

Special thanks to all the filmmakers and festival staff and volunteers who made Shortsfest such a great success!

Aspen ShortsFest, Day 1

2011-04-06T10:42:00.001-07:00

Aspen ShortsFest started off with a bang last night at the Wheeler Opera House. Thom and I love watching movies in the Wheeler. We sit right up in front in the cushy red seats and enjoy the show.

The first thing that came up on the screen, in all its HD glory, was that smart little Aspen bear! Wow! It looked great on the big screen, which reminded me why film festivals will never go out of style, even when everything is up on YouTube. I can't wait to see how "Snow" looks up there Friday night!

If the first 2 programs are anything to go by, this is going to be an amazing 5 days of shorts. Thom and I stayed for both programs and even with our high standards, we couldn't find one film to complain about. In fact some of them were so good they are absolutely worth mentioning. If you have a chance to see these films at a festival, you should:

Swimming Pool - Alexandra Hetmerova, Czech Republic,
It's a quiet evening at the city pool, and two strangers looking for peace instead find each other in this charming aquatic tale.

The Wind Is Blowing on My Street - Saba Riazi, Iran
The wind blows, the gate closes, and a young woman in Tehran finds herself stranded on the street without her headscarf.

North Atlantic - Bernardo Nascimento, UK/Portugal
Hugo, a young air traffic controller in the Azores, has only one pilot on his radar tonight. Their conversation is one he won't soon forget. http://www.northatlanticshortfilm.com/

Stanley Pickle -Victoria Mather, UK
Stanley's life runs like clockwork, until an encounter with a mysterious girl awakens something deep inside. http://stanleypicklemovie.com/

After the show, several of the filmmakers came up on stage and spoke about their films and answered questions from the audience. Afterwards, we headed over to the Library (a cozy little bar) at the Hotel Jerome for a nightcap and more conversation with other filmmakers and guests. This will be going on every night at different local venues, so if you come out for the screenings, be sure ask where the party is and bring your stub for discounts on the bar tab. I have to say, from a filmmaker's perspective, ShortsFest is certainly one of the best run festivals that I've been to, and the Aspen community is certainly coming out for it!

Smart Bears come to Aspen

2011-03-23T10:27:00.000-07:00

The Aspen ShortsFest is just around the corner! To support the festival with a little local love, I made them an animated promo. The aim was to encapsulate everything about the festival in 30-second. Not an easy task when you have 83 films from 24 countries, all genres and all ages represented, all presented in the most beautiful place in the world, Aspen, CO! Tell me, do you think we got it all?

Concept, animation and sound design by CFParks.

A few fun facts about the upcoming festival:

23 of the 83 films are animated!
According to IndieWIRE, ShortsFest is a Top 50 Festival. And it's Oscar-qualifying, which means if a film wins a prize it goes up for Oscar consideration.
There are 143 bear drawings in this animated promo.
The mountains in the background are our beautiful Maroon Bells. I am looking forward to exploring up there when the snow finally melts. Until then, time to watch films!

Snow at the Aspen ShortsFest

2011-03-14T12:42:00.000-07:00

Remember that little sand Christmas card I sent out in December. Well, it's been picked up by a Top 50 film festival in my own backyard, the Aspen ShortsFest! Come watch it on the big screen in the Wheeler Theater in Aspen, CO. Get your tickets people: Friday, April 8, 2011 at 5:30pm

Meditations on a 40 day fast

2011-03-09T10:20:00.000-08:00

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, to which the headaches and indigestion of last night's Fat Tuesday indulgences will attest. As our local parish priest, Bruce McNab commented this past Sunday, Lent is not just a time where you stop drinking hot cocoa. It is a time where we intentionally move closer to God. Lent is a time to give something up, take something on, and draw closer to God through prayer. We remove the things that distract us, add the things that enhance our spiritual growth and our relationships with others, and engage deliberately in the “loving gaze” that is prayer.

I've grown up in the Protestant tradition, with a sporadic practice of giving up things for Lent, always thinking I was trying to identify with Jesus' suffering on the cross by suffering through six weeks without candy and desserts. It only took a few years of adulthood before I recognized the pathetic nature of this approach and Lent eventually became something I didn't really practice. A few years ago, however, I was challenged to give up sweets for Lent, mostly because I had developed a very strong sweet tooth that was giving my dentist a headache. Early in the Lenten season, I was spending a weekend with a Catholic friend. He was very pointedly avoiding the M&Ms and coffee in our conference room on Saturday, but come Sunday, I was shocked to see him munching and drinking away like any old heathen. Upon further questioning, he gently instructed me that Lent is a 40 day fast, (that being a recurring number tied up with Biblical redemption) and that there are actually 52 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. Thus each Sunday during the Lenten period was not a fasting day. My friend has a PhD in Molecular Biology but I was still skeptical about the math so I actually went and counted the days on a calendar. Lo and behold, he was right!

Turns out that, outside the Tradition of Ludicrous Self-Denial, Lent is a period of anticipation and celebration! Each Sunday is meant to be a mini-Easter, where we break our fast and look forward to the big celebration on Easter morning. I cannot begin to describe how freeing this was for me. Instead of dragging my feet through the weeks preceding Easter, I would eagerly look forward to Sundays when I could enjoy a small something sweet and think about God's love and the wonderful story of the empty tomb. It turns out that the discipline of fasting should, paradoxically, be a freeing exercise.

As this Lenten season begins, I humbly offer out to the world a film I made many years ago. It is a film about freedom through sacrifice. May the next six weeks bring freedom from whatever has been confining you this year.

Construction Zone

2011-03-03T10:45:00.000-08:00

I caught some sort of handyman bug last month and the studio became a bonafide construction site! I love the idea of building things, but I have to admit that up until a few weeks ago, I didn't even own a screwdriver. I've been meaning to make myself a larger workspace for the sand animation and while wandering through WalMart I saw this glass computer desk. That was the catalyst. At 40"x 24" it's the perfect size, pretty darn stable and the glass is thick and sturdy. I had originally thought I could use the keyboard tray to slide reference drawings under the glass, but I decided I needed to frost the glass to diffuse the light properly so I ended up taking it off. The $100 was well worth not having to figure out how to build a table and put a huge sheet of glass on top. Once I got the table set up, I had to figure out how to get the light below and the camera above, so off to the local hardware store I went with my concept sketch and no idea where to start. The lady at the front counter sent me upstairs to consult with Max (aka MacGyver). He took one look at my sketch and got this twinkle of glee in his eye and off we went on a whirlwind around the hardware store collecting items.

	For the camera stand, I needed something that the camera could hang off above the table, but the support couldn't extend under the glass and into the camera's view. We tried electric conduit tube first, but it was too flimsy and the camera would wobble. We decided to go with 3 pieces of 1/2" galvanized steel tube (in the plumbing section).
	You can pretty much make any sort of shape with the connector pieces. It was definitely a preschool sort of exercise.
	This is called a flange, in case you didn't know.
	I got some scrap 2x4s from the lumberyard for the base of the stand and reinforced them with steel corners.
	And finally, for the camera mount, we got a piece of wood and bolted another steel corner on the edge. For my last camera stand, my dad had cut off the head of a 1/4” bolt and added nuts and a wingnut to screw into the thread on the bottom of the camera. Works great!
The light box was pretty simple. I bought a lamp kit from the hardware store and a circular light bulb. At some point I might replace this with something stronger, but it works great for now. Then I used white foam core to make a reflective box underneath the table.
	I taped some architectural drafting paper to the underside of the glass to provide some diffusion.
	Then draped another sheet of paper over the bulb to create more diffusion inside the box.

Putting it all together (hooray for power drills!) This is what it finally looked like once it was all attached. I used 2 C-clamps to secure the wooden frame to the table top so I wouldn’t risk knocking it out of alignment.

And here it is all lit up and in use! Thanks to Max and Spencer who didn’t roll their eyes every time I walked in the door at Valley Lumber (and it was more than a few visits!) I made sure to bring them a big pile of chocolate ship cookies!

You can expect some new sandy work soon!

Working, working

2011-01-31T17:21:00.000-08:00

A little experiment in progress from the sand studio. Just letting the sand take me where it will as I try to make things a little more colorful. What do you think?

Promoting Good Animation - January

2011-01-16T13:05:00.000-08:00

A gloomy wintry day means making a cup of tea and a list of short films I've been meaning to watch. These are a bit longer than the usual minute attention span for a convenient distraction from work. But if you have some time and attention to spare, they are worth watching.

From the excellent Tiny Inventions studio, a mixed media mosh pit of a forensic tale.

Rotoscope done as it should be done, and the dry-wit poetry of Billy Collins as a bonus.

Something on the stranger side, but beautiful drawings and unusual editing and sound design make this piece riveting.

And just for kicks and giggles, if OK-Go can animate on toast, there's nothing you can't animate on. How about t-shirts?

A White Sand Christmas

2010-12-22T14:59:00.000-08:00

It seems like the whole world is getting snowed on this Christmas season. A few days ago, Aspen welcomed winter with 13 inches of fresh snow on the slopes and more to come. This short sand animation is the first work made entirely in my new studio. With all the recent snow bogging down holiday travel plans and turning the skiers into powderhounds, it seemed appropriate to use sand to create an animated snowstorm and bring a little sunshine to the Christmas weekend. I hope wherever you are, you are spending the holidays with warmth in your heart if not in your hands!

Merry Christmas!

To Women (and Men) of Vision

2010-12-20T10:22:00.000-08:00

Joy and Peace to all those special people in our lives! I send you this recent project as an animated Christmas greeting and as that you pass it along to the women and men who inspire you!

This was a delightful project. Women of Vision is a volunteer ministry of World Vision, a Christian relief and development organization, which equips women to serve impoverished and oppressed women and children worldwide. WoV seeks to educate and inspire women to action in an effort to alleviate the injustice and inequities that exist for women and their families.

My inspiration was the Women of Vison logo.

The design seemed to dance, even before it was animated. We wanted to convey the feelings of Joy, Laughter and Unity as women around the globe join together to bring peace and relieve to the oppressed.

The music was composed specifically for the piece by Salvador Santana. You may recognize that last name, but this young musician is making his own way in the world. Listen to more of his work and find out where he and his band are playing next on his website.

A Room of One's Own

2010-12-15T10:53:00.000-08:00

A few days after moving to Basalt, CO I happened to walk past a sign in the window of a small business complex just off the town center. It said "Office space for rent - one or two rooms, call Mike..." Mike, turns out, is a cabinet designer who's lived in Basalt for 35 years and happened to be downsizing just a bit. The perks of sub-letting from a cabinet guy is the room is full of gorgeous wood - floor runners, a huge wall-mounted desk, beautiful shutters, and the thing that sold me on the place, the door. That and the 5 minute walk along the river that is now my daily commute.

Within a week, I was moving in and I have to say, I have never had so much space exclusively my own! 170 sq ft is not even that much as far as studio space goes, but just sitting in a corner of the room and looking at all the empty space even after all my equipment was set up felt like my mind was about to expand out of my head and attempt to fill at the little corners of creativity. Virginia Woolf had an insight which I am beginning to understand on a new level.

I've worked from home for years, wherever home might happen to be (Tahoe, Spain, New Zealand - there have been a lot). The comfort of staying in my pajamas until 3pm and the convenience of taking a break to hang up the laundry shouldn't be discounted, BUT getting up, getting dressed and locking the front door behind me has a whole new set of benefits.

Since I'm paying for the space, I'm motivated to be efficient and make good use of it. It is also an investment in myself and my work. I believe I can make work worthy of the money I spend to create it. And I believe that there are clients and investors out there that will recognize the value of that work and help me (eventually) turn a profit.

I'm surrounded by other people working. Well, only two other people, but having a working 'energy' present instead of fighting with the home 'energy' of cooking, cleaning, relaxing, sleeping shows up in my productivity.

Home is now home and ideally when I'm there, I can drop that ever-present nagging in the back of my mind that I should always being doing one more thing. It's something many of us self-employed people struggle with. I expect it will be an adjustment to not think of something I need to do after dinner and jumping up and doing it. But I am looking forward to spending more time with my wonderful husband, reading books, watching movies, sharing our home with friends, knowing that my studio awaits me in the morning.

So, expect great things from the new creative bubble!

Basalt Blizzard

2010-12-05T13:02:00.001-08:00

A very merry Yuletide from the Roaring Fork Community! This weekend was the annual YuleFest, an art and food fair benefitting Basalt High School, here in our new home. To join in the fun, I set up an Animation Station – a booth where anyone could stop by and spend a few minutes creating stopmotion. It was a great hit. Over the course of the day, about 50 people contributed to one continuous film and we ended up with over 2 minutes of animation! It was a fantastic way to pull people out of shopping mode and allow them to contribute to a project bigger than any one person. Now that’s true Yuletide spirit!

Our wintery theme was the Basalt Blizzard. The process was simple: visitors could either create their own snowflake to add to the blizzard or use one of the ones I had made.

Most of the adults were a little intimidated by the crafts and opted to use the provided materials, but the kids loved cutting and decorating their own snowflakes!

Once the snowflakes were ready, we moved them over to the animation station and made them dance! I captured the frames on my computer so everyone could see their handiwork immediately. A few people were a little skeptical about their ability, but once they started moving the snowflakes around under the camera and saw how easy animation can be, I had no trouble convincing them to continue. In fact I think some of the adults were having more fun animating than the kids! Though the snowflakes were the stars of the show, I had a few other holiday props to add to the animation: m&m’s candy canes, Hershey’s kisses, ribbons and bows. Of course, by the end of the day all the kisses and m&m’s had mysteriously disappeared! I certainly saw some creative flashes of brilliance in the process. I hope to find some venues to host some animation workshops in the near future. There certainly were some promising students in the crowd.

All the donations from the project went directly to the Basalt H.S. Leadership fund which sponsors clubs and activities at the school. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and I hope to see you again!

Yule Fest 2010 -The Animation Station

2010-12-03T13:02:00.000-08:00

There's a blizzard brewing in Basalt!

Come to the Yule Fest on Saturday, Dec. 4 between 9am-5pm at Basalt High School and help us make an animated film. I'll be hosting the Animation Station where you can try your hand at stopmotion and be a part of a community holiday greeting. Participation is free but donations towards the leadership fund are gratefully accepted! Here's a taste of the fun we'll be having:

There will be tons of art, food, music and other fun at the YuleFest and proceeds go to support the school's clubs and activities!

Sunset Animation

2010-10-18T12:26:00.000-07:00

Last week, on our fun little trip around the South Island of New Zealand, we found a peaceful campground with access to a beautiful sunset. We ate our pasta on the porch of the Lake Kaniere yacht club and Thom started taking timelapse of the sunset. Then I had to jump in and ruin it all!

10/10/10 Animating away the climate crisis

2010-10-06T16:30:00.001-07:00

In a few days, people in 187 countries will gather at 6,391 individual events to make the world a better place. 10/10/10 has been designated a Global Work Party towards climate solutions. The event is spearheaded by the growing 350.org movement. Read this to find out why 350 is the most important number on the planet.

Thom and I got a head start on our own little project – some plein air (i.e. out in the fresh air) animation right in our backyard. Here is the result of a pleasant afternoon on the banks of the mighty Clutha River, which flows from Lake Wanaka and holds the largest catchment in New Zealand. We decided to bring the sea to the mountains, by using shells we collected on our trip to Port Chalmers and combining them with natural elements we found on the river bank at spring flood. As the sea rises to the river, so the river will bring our material back to the sea. It took 3 hours to create the 450 photographs which make the animation!

A challenge to all musicians and sound artists out there: Join the party on 10/10/10 by recording a soundtrack for this little film! Send us your 54 second sound clip and we’ll match it to the video and repost. More details here...

New work in the reel world!

2010-09-27T23:52:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I updated my commercial reel and I've had several fun projects this year. See if you can count how many types of animation there are! Post your count in the comments below or tweet it to me @corriefrancis and I'll choose one of the correct answers for an extra special prize!

Shelly

2010-09-13T01:57:00.000-07:00

A beach full of shells is an inspiring place, even on a gray and rainy afternoon. Nothing like a bit of plein air animation to spice up a romantic walk. Mr. Parks double as tripod and remote trigger for me. The whole thing took about 7 minutes to film. If it was a brilliant, warm sunny day, this piece might have been a bit longer.

Upcoming Photography Lecture!

2010-08-05T13:53:00.001-07:00

If you are in Wanaka, take note! I’ll be presenting some of my work to the Wanaka Photography Club this Monday, August 9 at 7:30pm. My background as an animator has a huge influence on my photography. I strive to create images that keep your mind in motion. I’ll be explaining some of the in-camera and post-processing techniques I use to create these images. Browse through some of my recent work on my website. If your curiosity is piqued, come by St. John’s rooms on Link Way at 7:30 pm this Monday!

Promoting Good Animation: Accumulonimbus

2010-08-04T15:21:00.000-07:00

Accumulonimbus from andy kennedy on Vimeo.

It's great when you see an animated film that could not have been done in any other medium than the one chosen. This is pretty awesome use of clay, bringing together the sculpting craft of an Aardman or Vinton with rhythm and repetition of the masters of abstraction. Watch it big if you can and revel in the details! Thanks to Tiny Inventions for tweeting this so I could find it!

Promoting Good Animation! New work from BLU

2010-07-07T13:09:00.000-07:00

Hard to go wrong with BLU. This time he's gone more 3 dimensional, swallowing anything lying around on the streets into the animation. My favorite part is the trash can hermit crab.

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Notes from the Animation Workshop at NZMFF

2010-07-04T12:00:00.000-07:00

Animation is creating movement frame by frame. The thing that makes animation easy these days is you can take any sequence of frames (drawings, photographs etc) recorded with a digital camera or frame capture program and import it into just about any editing program (iMovie, Windows MovieMaker, Adobe Premier, Final Cut) and cut it into your live action footage.

To shoot your own animation, you'll need a basic animation set-up. This can be as simple as a digital camera on a tripod pointed at a flat surface with two lights on either side. You can get fancier from there by building your own camera stand, using special lighting techniques, frame capture programs and more. You will want to make sure your camera doesn't wiggle when you take frames so be sure to use a remote or cable.

So now that you're set-up, let's make some animation!

If you are artistically inclined, you can animate up a storm on paper. I won't start on the principles of hand-drawn animation here. There are dozens of sites on the web and books in the bookstore that will teach you the principles of character animation. Good drawing skills don't make up for poor character and story development. You can move an audience to tears with a stick figure, but a fancy, moving drawing that doesn't have heart and life behind it will only get you brief admiration.

Once you have your stack of drawings, all you need to do is put each one under the camera and click, click, click. Then either download the frames from your camera or animation program and import it into your editing program and you are good to go. Here's a great example of hand drawn animation in the introduction to The Fine Line.

Paper Shredders from Rocky Mountain Sherpas on Vimeo.

But not everyone is the next Glen Keane. Never fear, for the drawing impaired there are other forms of animation. Stopmotion is taking an inanimate object and giving it life through animation. You can use anything from paper cut outs, household objects, lollies, or anything you can get your hands on including people!

Now comes the part where you want to be at the workshop. I will demonstrate some animation basics of stopmotion, including how to control the speed and fluidity of your animation, using replacement animation, cycles and morphing.

The best way to learn about animation (apart from doing it yourself) is to watch other animation and figure out how it's done. Watch some of this great stopmotion animation by Pes and see if you can pick out some of the techniques we talked about in the workshop.

Between drawing and stopmotion, you pretty much have all forms of animation covered. These principles extend into all techniques, claymation, puppet animation, even 3-d animation. It just takes a little experimenting to find the technique that's right for your production!

Where to from here?

Want to learn more about animation?

Here's a list of books to get you started.

Animation Arena has a lot of articles about creating good animation.

Animation Tips and Tricks is a blog for aspiring animators.

Curious about more styles of animation? Here are some of my favorites on Youtube.

Thanks for coming and making the workshop a success! Happy animating!

Animation Secrets revealed at NZMFF

2010-07-01T00:35:00.000-07:00

I am the world's biggest fan of creative use of animation and thrilled to see it permeating every film, documentary, music video and commercial that rolls out into the mainstream theses days. Thank you digital media for making it easy (well, easier) to animate!

This Sunday, I'll be hosting a workshop at the New Zealand Mountain Film Festival in Wanaka. If you happen to be in town, come to the Lake Wanaka Centre at 10am on Sunday morning. If not, or if you come and don't want to take notes, check back on the blog. I'll be posting an outline and some links after the workshop. Don't think you can skip the workshop though. I'll do some live demonstrations and show some handy tricks that I can't post in the blog!

By way of introduction, check out the festival's 2007 winner of the Best Film on Mountain Culture and Environment, "Conversing with Aotearoa/New Zealand". What does animation bring to a film production anyway? Why should we even bother with it?

Watch more free documentaries

From there we'll talk about how to animate drawings, paper cut outs, inanimate objects, or anything you can get your hands on including people! Just for fun, here's an awesome music video by Oren Lavie and Yurval and Merav Nathan.

Looking forward to seeing you at the festival!

A response to the Producers' Dilemma

2010-06-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

Today's blog post from Animondays got me thinking. David Levy points out that times are a-changin' not only for animators, but for the people at the top - the producers. There are flocks of unemployed producers out there, having been let go from the networks and big studios during economic earthquakes. Now they have to redefine their role in a changing industry.

When I graduated from college in 2001, every animator wanted to be directed by someone else's vision (i.e. Disney, ILM all the big names) Now every college grad (whether in the arts or business) wants to be self-directed. These days, there are independent studios popping up like mushrooms after a rainstorm. Most of them are doing excellent creative work thanks to cheap technology and fast, global communications, but very few realizing their fullest potential through lack of resources. I fall right into that category.

I would LOVE to have a producer for my upcoming short film, or even an agent for the one-of-a-kind freelance animation I produce. But as Levy points out, being a one-woman business with the lowest overhead possible, I can't afford to put one on salary. But then, isn't it part of a producer's job to find the money to fund their own salary? I'm sure a producer can't animate as well as I can, but I bet she would be more efficient at all the other film logistics that I've hacked away at over the years simply because I've had to. I wonder how many more films I could have made if I could have all that time back. I can, and do, determine budgets, contracts, work schedules, festival submissions, deliveries etc. But I don't do all those things as well as I animate and I probably spend at least 50% of my working time taking care of business tasks! If I could double the number of jobs I take and (theoretically) double my income, then it all comes out in the wash as even. Except I would have more work and experience on my demo reel and a producer would have a job. But to actually jump-start that sort of relationship takes an initial investment on the part of both me and the producer.

I hear a lot of talk about introducing business and marketing classes into art curriculum to make our art students more well-rounded. Where I am now in my professional life, I wish I had had some of that training. But I also wonder if trying to make our creative people into business people as well defeats the purpose. There seem to be plenty of creative ideas out there in the cloud, many of them being made regardless of budget and audience limitations. We don't need more animator-producers, with half-baked ideas that never get beyond a few thousand views on Youtube. We need a way for the people with the producing skills to effectively team up with the creative executors so that neither party starves in the process and the world is edified by good art.

Once this economy upturns, will all these free-floating producers get reabsorbed into the big studio system, or has the structure of commercial animation fragmented for good into a self-directed, industry on both counts? If it has, (and I hope it has), then hopefully there will be a natural selection where the visionary, brilliant artists and the savvy, entrepreneurial producers will find themselves the last ones standing in a symbiotic relationship.

World of Color Opens Today!

2010-06-11T14:00:00.001-07:00

This is a great promo video that give you all you need to know about the show in a nutshell. About a minute into the video you'll see me demonstrating the sand animation, which appears at the beginning of the Aladdin sequence. My 17 seconds of fame! Another cool artist who contributed to the project is a paper sculptor, Megan Brain. Read more about my role in the show below.

A World of Color, with a bit of sand animation too!

2010-06-08T11:00:00.000-07:00

June 11th, a new evening spectacular will premier at Disney's California Adventure Park. World of Color is a light, water and music extravaganza, staged on a pool the size of a football feild. If you have ever seen the Belaggio Fountains of Las Vegas, extrapolate that out 300 times and you might come close to what Disney is aiming for here. The fountains are choreographed to music recorded by the London Philharmonic and animation being projected onto the largest mist screen in the world. That's where I come in. I collaborated with the imagineers to create some sand animation during the Aladdin segment of the 25 minute show. It's a very short segment, so don't blink, but I think the idea of projecting sand animation on a water screen is just sorta neat.

Sand animation is usually done on a light table and comes out black and white, but obviously for the World of Color, brilliant colors were a priority. After a lot of experimentation, I've come up with some new ways to use sand and color. You'll have to go see the show to see the work I did for Disney, but the film which inspired Steve Davidson to give me a call was my sand animation film Tracks. Working on the show was an awesome experience. I had free reign to pour my creativity into taking the timeless orchestral score from "A Whole New World" and create unique images based on one of my favorite Disney films of all time. To find out more about sand animation and see some more examples, read my recent blog entry on Sand Art vs Sand Animation.

Thom and I were lucky enough to get a behind-the-scenes tour a few weeks ago. 30 days before opening night, the crew of engineers, sound gurus, fire and water experts and laser players were working from dusk til dawn. They weren't projecting animation the night we were there, so we didn't get to see the full glory of the world's largest water projection screen (50 x 380ft!), but they ran through the entire fountain show twice with music at full blast. Thom and I are hard to impress, but there were several moments during the show when we both pulled a Keanu Reeves matrix-esque "Woah." LED lights under each fountain bring a full spectrum of choreographed color to the pool. Lasers interacting with the mist create some amazing patterns. Not to mention flame throwers. Only 6 of the 24 were going that night and it was still a hot blast in your face. Talk about a multi-sensory experience!

A few interesting facts we learned:

The best (standing) seat in the house is on the top of the first set of curves steps on the pavillion. You will feel the heat of the flamethrowers and the cool kiss of the mist, but not get drenched by it. And you will be able to see over most of the people standing in front of you.

The platforms, which hold the 1,200 fountains, are designed to float so they can be on the surface for maintenance. They take in water to submerged for the show. the control room is a submerged, water-tight container which is activated remotely from the tech room across the studio backlot.

There's a hot tub in the backlot. This was installed for the scuba engineers who would spend hours submerged in 50 degree water while installing the equipment. They would stay under until their core temp dropped too low and then take a turn in the hot tub before getting back to work.

Since this is a laser show, there were and will be airplane spotters whenever the show is playing. If an airplane looks like it is going to cross over the extended sky space of the show, the technicians knock out a few lasers until it has past. Don't worry, there will be so much else going on, you probably won't notice a few missing ones.

One of the coolest laser effects, during the "Little Mermaid" sequence, actually started out as an accident. The water guys were testing on one side of the pool and the laser guys were doing their thing on the other side and someone happened to look up and notice the eerie wave-like bands of color rolling through the mist. It was so astonishing, they gave it a prime spot in the show.

The fountains can blast up to 200ft. On a windy night that means the water gets blow all the way to the bridge. Raincoats, anyone?

To read a very thorough description of what the show is like, check out the Disneyland Examiner. The best pictures of the development of the show are on the Facebook Fan site for World of Color.

A Whale Tale

2010-06-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

Last season at Cardrona, I made a fun little kid's video based on the books by Amy Sheehan. Check it out!

You can read the story books online and find out more about the fantastic kids programs at Cardrona on their website.

Promoting Good Animation!

2010-05-24T21:08:00.000-07:00

I must admit, I'm not caught up on this year's hot tv series. While my husband and in-laws are watching the final episode of "24", I am catching up on the latest online coolness in animation. Here are some highlights from my evening of streaming:

Paperthin Music Video from Hettie Griffiths

The most interesting use of rotoscope technique I've seen in a while. A really beautiful and innovative piece with many layers (figuratively and literally).

Another unusual piece by Hettie Griffiths is Cardif Viral

SCINTILLATION from Xavier Chassaing. This one, I can't quite figure out: But it is pretty cool to watch!

"Nude" a music video by Dancing Diablo. Some unusual paint-on-glass techniques combined with stopmotion. Note how smooth and slow the magnifying glasses move. That's not easy to do!

Want to see even more? You can see my whole list of favorites from the evening on Twitter!

"Conversing" is up on snagfilms.com

2010-05-16T09:34:00.000-07:00

Watch more free documentaries

Now you can watch "Conversing with Aotearoa/New Zealand" on snagfilms. There are several other short films from USC as well, so have fun browsing!

2010-05-11T17:28:00.000-07:00

The rumors are true! On May 1, 2010 at 11:42am I officially became Mrs. Corrie Francis Parks! Thom and I have been yelping our honeymoon down the coast of California and we've found some great places (and a few stinkers). Check out our reviews and have yourself your own romantic getaway. See you when we get back!

2010-04-24T18:26:00.000-07:00

I just received a note from some people I worked with while I was in Africa in 2002. Their son Jon was 6 at the time and I taught him how to make animated flipbooks. Apparently, the animation bug bit him hard. I personally think the timing and creative use of the frame in this piece (done a few years ago when he was 12) makes this an exciting and stimulating few minutes of animation. Alas, I can't take much credit for his brilliance, but at least I started him down the road!

2010-04-14T13:47:00.000-07:00

At long last, "Conversing with Aotearoa/New Zealand" is officially out on dvd. And not only do you get a copy of this great documentary on the kiwi wilderness experience, you get 12 other films from around the world as well!

Click here to buy your copy today!

Three Things

2010-03-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

This morning, I read these three poems by Czeslaw Milosz. Pondering on an age old theme.
Faith
Faith is in you whenever you look
At a dewdrop or a floating leaf
And know that they are because they have to be.
Even if you close your eyes and dream up things
The world will remain as it has always been
And the leaf will be carried by the waters of the river.

You have faith also when you hurt your foot
Against a sharp rock and you know
That rocks are here to hurt our feet.
See the long shadow that is cast by the tree?
We and the flowers throw shadows on the earth.
What has no shadow has no strength to live.

Hope
Hope is with you when you believe
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.

You cannot enter. But you're sure it's there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.

Some people say we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
These are the ones who have no hope.
They think that the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hands of thieves.

Love
Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills-
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn't always understand.

FAST Conference Talk: Animation in the Media

2010-03-14T07:57:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I presented a short talk titled Using Animation to Address Difficult and Complex Subject Matter at the Fulbright Academy of Science and Technology's annual conference. The theme this year was sustainability and the particular panel I was on dealt with using media as a collaborative tool for promoting and communicating the science, technology and business sides of sustainability. Below is a slightly expanded version of the talk with links to the films I highlighted. Many of the films below grapple with social justice issues very effectively. And the same principles translate very well into environmental issues as well.

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Anyone who has sat down in front of the TV, movie theater or internet recently cannot fail to notice the prevalence of animation. Animation is coming into its own; there is hardly a TV commercial that doesn’t incorporate some sort of animation. Digital technology had made animation easier and inexpensive to create – anyone with a digital camera and a basic move making program on their computer cans move things around and take some pictures (or frames as we call them) and string them together into animation.

Because of this, filmmakers and especially documentary filmmakers are realizing just how important it is to include the visual feast that is animation into their productions, or create entire productions with animation. This goes beyond the typical scientific and informational visualization (animated graphs, medical and chemical illustrations, textbook images that move) with which we are all familiar and are very straightforward in their presentation of information. Below are several animated films that use the technique to drive home a theme or message that would be very difficult to do with live action.

Creating an emotional atmosphere

His Mother’s Voice
by Dennis Tupicoff

This film uses a radio interview of a mother recounting the loss of her son and animates two very haunting takes. The first is high contrast, bold, colorful images and a reenactment as the mother tells the story. The second take, set to the same soundtrack, does not reenact the story but simple moves throughout the house, the yard – wholly in the present. The animation is rendered with light pencil lines very little color. The sense of drama in the first take juxtaposed with the quiet grief of the second fully encompasses the many facets of this death.

Illustrating an emotional or mental state
Ryan
by Chris Landreth

An interview with Ryan Larkin, a promising young animator who destroyed his career through alcohol and drug abuse To visualize the effect of heroin eating away at a creative mind, Landreth creates a character whose face is disintegrating as he speaks, and yet there are sparks of brilliance still hanging by a thread. If you were to look at Ryan in live action, he would seem a sloppy, drug addict who can barely put together a sentence. But in visualizing him this way, the dignity of who is was in the past comes through the shell of the man he is now.

Using Humor to capture an audiece
The Meatrix

Leo, Chickity and Moopheous discover the true reality behind what we eat. Free range studios and Grace Studios ride the wave of the popular Matrix films to convey the unethical and unhealthy aspect f the commercial meat industry. A clever spoof, a well written script and a highly accessible web distribution plan created a buzz around this film reaching an audience far more extensive than the typical festival goers.

Animating the past
Persepolis
by Marjane Satrapi

An autobiographical coming-of-age story of a precocious and outspoken young Iranian girl that begins during the Islamic Revolution. The memory of the past is brought to life with character and humor and the comic book graphics not only provide a visual feast, but are able to put us in the experience of the child as she becomes a woman.

Dealing with graphic subject matter

Waltz with Bashir
by Ari Folman

After a conversation with an old friend, Ari Folman realizes that he can’t remember his experiences on an Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early eighties. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images …

Again, dealing with memory, but trying to present the graphic horror of war without turning the audience away. Graphic images are more palatable (and more emotional) when they are drawn rather than live action. At the end of the film there is about 3 minutes of newsreel footage that shows the carnage of the Lebanon massacre and honestly it turns your stomach. It brings the audience into reality right at the end for an overwhelming impact.

Dealing with shy subjects and overcoming audience stereotypes
Survivors
by Sheila Sofian

With powerfully understated empathy, Sofian combines voice-over interviews with battered women, and a counselor who works with "recovering" male batterers, with elegant animation to explore the experience of domestic violence from all sides.

Many of the women in this film did not want to be videotaped because they feared for their safety. However, they were willing to have their voice recorded. Unless you are a trained actor, it is impossible to ignore a camera in you face, but a microphone and a conversation can bypass that shyness and subjects are more likely to open up quickly. Additionally, having only the voice as information about a person allows the audience to put themselves in the subject’s place. When we are looking at video of another person, immediately we are judging them on their appearance. With no image to feed our stereotypes, we are forces to listen to the word spoken.

These are just a few examples of animation used in documentary and memoir. Animation is quickly developing into a distinct visual dialect and filmmakers will do well to verse themselves gain some level of fluency in this powerful medium.

Promoting Good Animation: Bored to Death Intro

2010-03-06T16:45:00.000-08:00

A particularly creative intro for a tv series directed by Tom Barham of Curious Pictures. I highly recommend watching it in HD (click here), as the type and expressions of the characters don't show up very well on smaller YouTube. Here's a link to a short interview with Tom Barham.

What makes a good title sequence? In addition to presenting the relevant information (i.e. above the line credits) it should visually tell the story of the film/show it is introducing (without giving too much away, of course!) I haven't seen Bored to Death, but from what I've read of the series and the way Barham approached this intro, it seems he was spot on!

Patricia Zohn on Walt Disney Animators Culture: vanityfair.com

2010-03-02T22:09:00.000-08:00

The women behind the magic. This is a great article on the ink and paint girls at the fledgling Walt Disney studios. $16 a week, sometimes working weekends and overtime to finish the job. At an average of 8 to 10 cels an hour, 100 girls could only, in theory, turn out less than one minute of screen time by the end of the day. Where would Snow White be without them?

Patricia Zohn on Walt Disney Animators Culture: vanityfair.com

Witness

2010-03-02T09:15:00.000-08:00

a poem I read this morning by DENISE LEVERTOV. This is from the anthology A Book of Luminous Things by Czeslaw Milosz

WITNESS
Sometimes the mountain
is hidden from me in veils
of cloud, sometimes
I am hidden from the mountain
in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,
when I forget or refuse to go
down to the shore or a few yards
up the road, on a clear day,
to reconfirm
that witnessing presence.

Context Matters

2010-02-25T23:45:00.000-08:00

Being a resident of a small mountain town, I end up cramming my trips to the city full of art museums and city culture. My recent trip to Washington DC was no different. In a day and a half, I managed to get a glimpse into Julia Child's kitchen, donated to the Smithsonian Museum of American History in 2004 by the delightful 6'2" giant of gourmet accessibility herself along with a new taste for ancient Korean pottery at the Freer, not to mention the overview of Josef Albers' lifetime of color studies on display at the Hirshhorn and the collections of Chester Dale Impressionist to Modernist and contemporary treasures from Robert and Jane Meyerhoff at the National Gallery of Art.

But most remarkable and provoking to me was a corner of the NGA's East Wing (I love the East Wing!) called the Tower. A spiral stair leading up to this single, square room with high skylights diffusing natural light throughout the space is one of my favorite places to find treasures. Currently, hanging on the walls are 9 large paintings by Mark Rothko, commissioned in 1964 for a non-denominational chapel in Houston, TX, a place of contemplation. The paintings are black, and shades of black - a color Rothko felt affinity towards at this late stage of his life for reasons still debated. Being surrounded by ther 6-foot black canvases covered with Rothko's shadowy, enigmatic brushwork in this small space brought on a variety of feelings. The paintings were paired with a recording of music by Morton Feldman a friend of Rothko's who composed Rothko Chapel specifically for the chapel after the artist's death in 1970. The exhibit incited a somber air of contemplation, a momento mori, which, even as it was created, was swallowed by the museum around me; an older couple reading aloud bits of the interpretations, a group of school kids filtering down the stairs, a security guard pacing the perimeter of the room. I felt drawn to sit and let the blackness swallow me from all angles as Feldman's music struggled submerged beneath the museum ambiance like a small child in a pool who has lost his grip on his inflatable raft and flounders after it with his face barely above the surface. I sat there for probably about 3 minutes, wanting to let the tones of blackness come out of the paintings and swallow me into a shadowy world, wanting to put my hands out in that cloud of darkness, take hesitant steps like a blind woman hoping for my hands to come into contact with something solid, wanting a light to pierce the darkness as the choral notes swelled briefly and in that moment catch a glimpse of the dazzling back of God retreating into the cloud. For 3 minutes, these things passed through my mind, along with the steady steps of the security guard, the voices of new visitors ascending the stairs, the train I had to catch to the airport, before I felt and obeyed the urge to move. As I descended the tower, I wondered how much longer I would have stayed had I been in that chapel in Texas, contemplating the things of the Spirit with these dark mysteries surrounding me and the echoes of thousands of other contemplations from all the chapel's past visitors resonating with the suspended notes of Feldman's composition.

More about the exhibit here

Ebert's 10 best Animated Films of 2009

2010-02-17T21:57:00.000-08:00

10 years ago who would have thought that there would even be 10 animated feature produced in 1 year. Roger Ebert's list of the year's 10-best animated films, give you a taste of how the industry had changed. Several of these films showcase animation by independent filmmakers - notably Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues and Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir - defying the public conception of animation as Disney or Pixar - though both studios have made the list!

Alas, I have only seen 3 of the 10 thus far. Movie night, anyone?

Sand Art or Sand Animation?

2010-01-31T15:39:00.000-08:00

Sand animation has almost become a household word ever since Kseniya Simonova's winning performance hit the million view mark on Youtube. It is a riveting performance, set to epic music, telling a culturally charged story through the progressive live transformation of sand on a light table. I think a great part of the appeal is watching this beautiful, stoic young woman passionately throwing sand on the surface by the handful and making grand sweeping gestures that transform abstract shapes into something remarkably recognizable. We are watching an artist at work, and get a glimpse into the mystery of something we could never conceive of doing ourselves.

But is it sand animation? I suppose if we take the root definition of animation as "breathing life into something" we could argue that Simonova is bringing the sand to some semi-lifelike state of being through her careful movements. There is, certainly some spark of life in a Vermeer painting or a Michelangelo sculpture, so why not a sand painting? But epic music and sweeping gestures aside, when I look at those drawings my first thought is, "Wow, that would be really cool if it started moving!" Animation is the frame-by-frame infusion of life into anything (drawings, clay, objects and, yes, even sand) resulting in something seemingly independent of its creator. Simonova's creations are never detached from her. They are dependent on her presence for their transformative life, whereas a true sand animation can life and act effectively without the audience having any awareness of the animator. So, as an animator, and specifically one who has worked in sand, I take issue with the term animation being applied to Simonova's (and other less famous sand artists') admirable but static performance art.

So, to set the record straight, I offer up a few sand animations which effectively use the medium of sand to create vibrant, memorable films.

Of all sand animators, Caroline Leaf is probably the most well-known. Her 1974 adaptation of the Inuit legend "The Owl Who Married a Goose" might be the definitive black and white sand animation. Leaf's seamless switching between of positive and negative space and fluid transformations emphasize the strengths of sand as an animation medium.

Another classic that you will be hard pressed to find is Bitzbutz by Gil Alkabetz of Israel. Actually, I think he may have used salt instead of sand, but it's the same concept. Good luck trying to get a copy of this one. Thank goodness for youtube, which lets us all enjoy these films!

And finally, and most humbly, I offer up Tracks, a sand animation by yours truly. While most sand animation is black and white, I introduced color into the background by using collages made from theater gels which kept the brightness of the pure light behind the silhoueteted sand while adding the vibrancy of color.

Postmodern At Bedtime | The New Republic

2010-01-31T08:23:00.000-08:00

A post-internet generation of children books are emerging with David Wiesner's The Three Pigs at the forefront. Here children construct their own mental narratives, reading with non-linear participating in co-creation. It creates a surprising mental journey, but has something essential been lost in the process?

Postmodern At Bedtime | The New Republic

What do you think?

A Sandy Evening

2010-01-06T18:58:00.000-08:00

More from the sandbox. When I made "Tracks" I was shooting everything on 16mm and there wasn't much room for play. Now I am trying find some new ways to work with sand using modern technology. I want to keep the look of sand animation, but make the process faster and push the potential further with color and compositing.

The DEP

2010-01-02T22:55:00.000-08:00

Possibly the most influential mentor I've had, at least in my formative years as an animator, was David Ehrlich. David is an independent animator, and artist and a creative collaborator who cross-pollinates with scientists, sociologists, mathematicians and pretty much anyone he comes in contact with at Dartmouth College and beyond. I met him my freshman year and he directed me into independent and experimental work over the next four years. This last fall was his final quarter at Dartmouth before he retires into a new era of teaching and creating in China!

I am not the only one who has been influenced, as is evidenced by the overwhelming response of Dartmouth alumni to collaborate on the David Ehrlich Project. Some of David's past students have gone on to work in the film and animation industry. others haven't pick up a drawing pencil since they last pulled an all-nighter to pass his class. Nevertheless, 18 of us put together an exquisite corpse of animation in honor of David. I started off the film with the volcano and the little orange umbrella. The full list of credits can be found here.

The Sand Tree

2010-01-01T22:18:00.000-08:00

A new year and a new technique. I've dug out my buckets of sand (straight from my old haunts in Playa del Rey) and are pushing them around on the light table with brushes, feather and fingers. Here are the results of an afternoon in the sandbox.

Merry Christmas from the Big Blue Lake!

2009-12-24T17:19:00.000-08:00

I'm back in Tahoe for the winter animating away. Enjoy this holiday card, share it with your friends and look for more to come in the new year!

The New Zealand Project

2009-06-05T17:16:00.000-07:00

My boyfriend and I have headed to New Zealand for the Southern winter. Here's a link to our travel blog.

Semana Santa or How many Spaniards does it take to move a KIA?

2009-04-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

The week preceding Easter is high times in Spain. Known as the Semana Santa or Holy Week, every pueblo has its own series of daily processions with fluctuation levels of strange traditions that could only be inherited over centuries of cultural layering. Several of us at FV sought out a cross section of events for our cultural edification. The big day was Viernes Santo – Good Friday. 4 of us ladies rented a roomy KIA and took off up the coast for adventures.

The first stop was Vera, a small, industrial town about 20 minutes from Mojacar. We parked on a side street and began wandering through the streets in search of the church. After asking directions, we crossed a plaza, turned a corner and were confronted by a crowd of people dressed to the nines in black suits. Feeling very touristy in our beachy colors and sandals, we squeezed
in the back of the crowd and got a view of the church entrance. Coming out the door was a life-sized figure of Maria Dolorosa, her silver face and ashen expression the very definition of misery. Under her gold brocaded velvet gown we could see several pairs of suited legs – men bearing her heavy weight through the crowd. She made her way through the narrow streets, stopping every now and then for a rest and then backed into another church around the corner. Then the not-so-somber crowd dispersed to the bars for a café or cervesa before the next icon was scheduled to appear.

We didn’t want to wait around, so hopped back into our KIA and winded our way up the rugged coast. Being the only person who had driven in Spain before, I was the designated driver. It was a beautiful spring day, green and floral. We paused in a turn off to poke around some ruins and enjoy the view. Piling back in, I backed down a narrow road to turn around. Suddenly, the rear of the car dropped and lurched and we heard sandy scraping on the bottom. Upon further inspection, it appeared I had backed into a rather large ditch, full of prickly bushes. One rear wheel was completely floating in mid air, while the other was spinning in sandy gravel digging the middle underside of the car firmly into the dirt. Both front tires were still on the road, but pretty much useless without power from the rear. We were officially stuck.
A few hundred meters down the road were some cars and picnickers fishing from the beach. Shelley and Jane went off to recruit some help and came back with two reluctant 20-something Spaniards. We enlisted their muscles as I gunned the engine, but the result was only to spray one of them with dirt from the spinning front tire. We discussed calling a tow truck as a white VW van drove up from the beach. The rail thin, hippie-ish man in his 60’s stepped out with his barking dogs and scratched his head at the conundrum.

At this point, Jane had taken things into her own capable hands and was standing by the main road waving down any SUV type vehicle she saw. First a Land Rover with an elderly couple pulled off, then another vehicle passed us, turned around and pulled off. Here we had hit the jackpot. Out stepped a formidable woman and 3 burly men in their 30s. We now numbered 12 able bodies and decided to give it one more go. Not even turning the car on, we but it in neutral and everyone together pushed. It moved! Once again, uno, dos, tres! And the wheels began to roll. Once under its own inertia, we easily pushed it out of the ditch and back onto the road! Everyone cheered and we expressed our profound thanks in broken Spanish and broad smiles.

Viernes Santo: Part 2
On our way again, we enjoyed the scenic route to Cartagena, map-making center of the world. At 2 pm everyone was out walking around in holiday style, a promenade to see and be seen. We enjoyed paella y postre at a cafeteria on the main square with our amiable waiter, Oscar, serving our every whim with a smile. After lunch we admired boats in the marina and tasted sweets and meats at the artisan market but by 4pm the entire town had emptied out. It was time to move on.

Our last stop was Murcia, a small interior city which reputed to have some of the best processions within the area. We parked by the river as the first drops of rain began to fall and ducked our way to the main cathedral for refuge from the deluge. The rain lightened after about 30 minutes and we asked a few people about processions, getting various answers and indications of the direction we are supposed to go. We had a schedule and a map, but over the course of the evening, both items turned out to be somewhat useless. However, making our way in the general direction of someone’s indication we came around a corner and were confronted with bar crowded by men in black dresses with white lace trimmings and the traditional Spanish footwear. Women in black lace, children in velvet robes mingled with the jovial crowd. These clearly were the people to ask. Turns out we were behind one of the churches and the procession was scheduled to start at either 6:30, 7:00 or 7:15 depending who you asked. So, we went to the front and staked out some plastic chairs along the route for a good view as strangely dressed people continued to stream by, some talking on cell phones, others smoking a cigarette, all holding various walking sticks, lanterns, posts. Many had billows of fabric hanging over their cinched belt like a pillowy layer of fat. Later we discovered these rolls of fabric were stuffed with candies, toys even hard boiled eggs and sweet breads which they handed out to children and the occasional lucky adult in the crowds (we tried our luck at getting some but were mostly ignored).

It had been drizzling off and on for the last 30 minutes and now, at 7:15 it started raining harder. Our neighbor on the sidelines explained to me that if the rain didn’t stop by 7:30 they would probably call the procession off. A few minutes later there was a sky-breaking peal of thunder, the ambient daylight faded as though someone had leaned on the celestial light switch and it began to pour! Everyone raced for the shelter of shop doorway, overhangs and strangers with paraguas. The downpour lightened to steady rain in 5 minutes and soon the municipal men were stacking the chairs and the crowds dashing off to the local bars. We followed, disappointed that the costumes and props we had seen were left to our imaginations. Evening fell as we sipped hot drinks in a café and we thought about heading home.

But around 8:30, as we were getting ready to leave, we noticed a great crown over by the church and music bouncing off the buildings. Hurrying over, we saw a float coming out of the cathedral doors! Not sure if this was the same procession finally starting or a new one at the scheduled time, we really didn’t care. At least we could see something!

I cannot describe the strangeness of the procession. It went on for an hour. Hooded men in black handed out sweets from the bowels of their robes to small children who were well on their way to a strong sugar buzz. Huge floats carried by 30 or more men kept coming out of the church and proceeding along the streets. The floats consisted of a rectangular wooden base, gilded and decorated with roses, candles, lights and who knows what else. On top of everything was a statue of Jesus or Mary, or a crucifixion scene. They were obviously incredibly heavy. The men would walk about 30 feet and the leader would knock his walking stick against the icon with a loud CRACK and they would stop, resting their loads on wooden crutches. Then, at another crack, they would start again. Watching them turn a corner was amazing.

To see more pictures of the procession, visit this link.

April Shower

2009-04-08T03:28:00.000-07:00

I left the biblioteca and was amazed to discover that in the hour since I had sat in the warm sun on the plaza, dark clouds had gathered all around Almería. I started down the hill, wondering if I would make the 2km back before the clouds caught up with me.

A few drops splattered on the pavement and thunder rumbled. I was about halfway – not far enough and I ducked into a little gift store. After collecting a few items, and looking over the entire stock twice as the thunder grew louder and the rain began to pour I final purchased the 3,30 worth of trinkets I had gathered and stood in the entrance way. The shop owner pointed out that they had a nice stock of paraguas for only 3 Euro which I dutifully examined with great attention for another 5 minutes hoping the downpour would lessen. A cheap paragua was probably not going to keep me entirely dry for the remaining 2k to the Fundacion. So I dashed across the street to a bar and ordered a café con leche and am lingering with the few other stranded occupants, watching high def music videos punctuated by thunder still stubbornly overhead. Still the rain pours down. Really pours! Thank goodness for laptops!

Fundación Valparaíso

2009-04-07T03:18:00.000-07:00

This, my first international residency, is a strange mixture of familiar and foreign. I am in Andalucia, the southern-most section of Spain, on the Medditerranean coast in a small town called Mojácar. The town had draped itself over a steep hilltop like a puddle of melting whipped cream. Behind it rise grand, mysterious mountains that have been clinging to the fog for the last few days, only allowing sonambulent glimpses of their peaks and mounds. Orange groves around the hills are doubled over with fruit and flowers, the scent of blossoms of all sorts intoxicate the air. Wildflowers abound – bursting from the ground in spurts and sprays of yellow, purple and pink, with smaller scatterings of blue and white. The sea is a long walk away, and at present with the early April chill, I prefer to look at it from the top of a hill rather than walk along its shores, but that may change with the seasonal transition.

There are 3 ladies who come everyday to cook lunch and dinner for us and clean up after our messy breakfast forays to the kitchen. We are treated to authentic Spanish cuisine in giant earthen casseroles– tortilla, calamaris en su tinta (which only four brave souls dared to try), bread that comes steaming out of the oven right at dinnertime as we sip the red table wine and nibble tapas.

The first evening was spent with the usual questions – family, children, work, and what other residencies have we all been to. The writers do get around and there was some overlap and some tips thrown into the conversation. Now, as the first of 4 weeks slides by, we come to the hard business of actually getting to know one another. The heavy drapery of our artistic reclusiveness pushed aside by our curiosity and the awareness that this is the extent of our social world for the next 4 weeks. Bits of the past life dropped casually into conversation and left clattering loudly on the table like a lost marble that no one jumps to claim. I am the youngest here by a good 15 years, which makes my upcoming 30th birthday suddenly seem rather trifling. Everyone, (with the exception of, Hagit, the Israeli playwright) is on their second marriage, or recently divorced. Life takes on a new perspective, depending on the company.

I was in Andalucia last fall for 6 weeks and while I was ostensibly here to be highly productive on several projects that were sorely neglected at home, I found myself pulled out of focus by a need to thoroughly explore the landscape and culture surrounding me. Reflecting back on that time has led me to the realization that my artistic productivity is based on external and internal exploration. Because landscape is so much a part of my work, I must internalize it before I can infuse it with the internal meanings and concepts bouncing around in my head. One friend, a master of metaphor, described my need to set out anchors in a place, familiar landmarks from previous explorations which make that particular external place a safe place in which to explore internally. Now, here once again in Andalucia, I am no longer dazzled by the white towns on the hillsides, no longer entangled within the narrow web of old men and women winding through the streets to the plaza mayor. I am no longer surprised by the crumbling, roofless houses tucked away in the hills or the little dogs yapping at the edge of the drives as I walk past. I know I should order a vino tinto or a café con leche. There are still things to discover to be sure, but the anchors hold firm and my mind is free to begin its own exploration.

You can see more photos of the first week on Facebook

A Nice Day for a Ride

2009-02-20T07:26:00.000-08:00

When I took my first motorcycle ride up the Pacific Coast Hwy and through the Santa Monica Mountains, snuggly situated behind my friend Dave, he explained to me the reason riding is so addicting. When you take a drive in a car, you move along the road enclosed in your protective box, safe from experiencing the speed and environment of your journey. On a bike, the elements become immediate – the warmth of the sun tempered by the air moving over my skin; the smells of the bush, the farmland, the exhaust of the truck loaded with bananas groaning its way up the hill in front; the bugs bouncing off my sunglasses and the cat calls of the local men as two Americanas on a moto whiz by. All these are immediate, visceral and turn a Thursday afternoon drive into an adventure.

With a blue-sky and pleasantly warm day, Erica and I escaped the city limits on her zippy little moto and headed up into the mountains. Our first stop was a short trail through the jungle, which wound behind a rickety house with a pleasant woman doing her laundry, past a few wild fruit trees that tempted us with their laden branches. The oranges were sour and the lemons were sweet! We followed a river to a series of cascades below the Monasterio Cisterciense Santa Maria del Evangelio. At the base of the falls we chatted with a woman from Honduras who was with a small group of service workers touring the monastery. The padre leading the group greeted us and chatted with Erica about her work with Vida para los Niños and eventually they found someone they both knew and were immediate friends He soon was affectionately dubbed “Parrot” by my sister, after a lengthy explanation that his name was Laro not loro (like the green bird that repeats everything you say). Erica promised to attend church at the monastery soon so she could try his pan con chocolate. The monks are famous for their baking and before we left we managed to purchase un pan baguette and un pan de campo. As it was well into the afternoon and our stomachs were rumbly, the pan baguette didn’t even last the walk back to our bike. Good bread is hard to find in the DR. Erica will be back.

We continued on our journey, enjoying the beautiful day and the winding road by the river. Eventually we began climbing and climbing and climbing and just before the crest of the winding curves the bike rebelled and puttered out. Two kids watched our repeated attempts to start it. Reluctantly, saving us much embarrassment, it did rev up and we made it to the top, a long downhill and rows of green mountains ahead of us receding in the distance. We continued through several small communities and finally reached our destination, a small town nicely situated on the banks of a river. Then we turned around and rode home. Really, the destination was the journey and the ride back, in the cooling air with the sun on our backs was just as pleasant.

The Best Job In the World

2009-02-18T16:31:00.000-08:00

The Ultimate Blogging Job!

The music is called "Puddles" and was composed and performed by my friend Matt Wood.

Estepa Steps

2008-11-07T13:43:00.000-08:00

On this week's agenda was a field trip with Don and José Maria from the video production crew. Our goal was to gather shots of the towns in the area for the new intro, which I had been one of my tasks here. So we packed up the cameras and after a few false starts due to inclement weather, we finally were on our way Thursday afternoon.

Our first stop was Aguadulce, just a few kms down the highway. We drove through the streets of this tiny town looking for the centro urbano - the cernter of town where there was likely to be some sort of landmark to photograph. Eventually, we found a tiny plaza mayor with an ayunamiénto (town hall) and a pretty fountain. That's it. We asked some locals - no nothing else in town. And they didn't even know why it was called Aguadulce! At least they could have made something up!

Next stop - Estepa. If I was moving to this area, I would live in Estepa. It is huddled part way up two rocky hills that promise some great sunset views. And below, spread out to the north is a buena vista de campania. There is a crubling torre on a hill with a lovely park, and a nice bustle of people climbing steep, narrow streets. But really, the reason I want to live there is that every year, from October to January, the town is permeated with the sweet, smell of browning sugar and cinnamon. Polvorones y Mantecados are the traditional dulces of Estepa and they are so famous they are shipped all over the world. Several factories are scattered throughout the town and there is a sweets shop on every corner. Don't ask what they put in these crumbly treats. (Really, you don't want to know!) But I tried one in the museo and well... just had to buy a whole bag!

After a lengthy lunch in the upper floor of El Morocho, watching businessmen wheel and deal as we waited and waited for our food, we quickly headed to Herrera. Again, on plaza, and one fountain. Not much else.

El Rubio was a bit more promising, but there was a funeral at the church so we couldn't really stop and take pictures. I tried to find out who this Blonde Guy was that had such a quaint little town named after him, but to no avail. I guess there are lots of blondes roaming around getting things named afer them.

The final stop was La Antiquela, José Maria's hometown. The light was fading fast, so we snapped some pictures and headed back to Osuna just in time to catch the dusk on the cathedral.

It was a long day! But well worth it. The intro is done and with only a few more weeks left, I have many things on my list of hope-to-finish!

M á s fotos de España

y

Osuna

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plains

2008-10-13T12:41:00.000-07:00

The temperamental nature of autumn is truly evidenced in Andalusia. We have had rain showers followed by near summer days of warm southern sun and then rain showers again for the past few weeks. I am still finding my rhythm within the Spanish schedule and artist’s temperament. For one more week before the clocks turn back, the town is enjoying the evening paseo before the sun sets at 7:45. The fact that it is still dark at 8am makes lingering in bed quite appealing after my late nights, but the time change might help me to shift back to a slightly more average schedule.

For the first time in months I have a kitchen to play in again and I am indeed playing. My first weekend, I attempted the famed tortilla espana, not to be confused with the tortilla mexicana – which seem to have no influence here whatsoever. A tortilla, in Spain is more like an Italian frittata or an open omelet. Anything can go in one, but usually potatoes and onions are the classic version. I tried my hand, managing to flip the thing (there is a secret!) without sending the contents all over the stove. Aaron, the son of my hosts, who grew up in Spain and was back home for a weekend from Sevilla, gave my resulting tortilla a B- It tasted great but looked a little on the thin side. Next time I will have to fill the whole pan (they have special tortilla pans here!) to the top and see what happens.Osuna is in the heart of farm country. The olive harvest is beginning. Trucks of green olives for canning are carted from the groves each day. Soon the black ones will be hauled to the presses just down the road to make the delicious local brand of oils Santa Theresa 1881 that I find in the stores all over here. I think the reason my tortilla tasted so good to me what because I could taste the subtle flavors of oil holding all the tastes together.

Osuna is not on the tourist highways of Spain. It is industrial farm country, the gritty back-country that feeds much of Europe. Walking around town there were times when I would turn a corner and feel I was in Mexico. Buildings crumble behind fences made from old bedsprings and chicken wire. Stray dogs dig through piles of trash as they roam the streets. The occasional look on the face of an elder person I pass on an evening walk hints that this is not the happy pastoral peasant life that is so often painted in our minds when we think of the Old World. But neither is it a worn and weary existence. The town hums to its own rhythm. At 2pm the streets liven up from a quiet morning and children stop for dulce on their way home from school. By 3pm, silence has settled over the town as people eat, rest, and pause in the middle of the day to recollect themselves. Around 430pm things begin to stir again, reaching a crescendo of soccer matches, street games, paseos and housewives dashing out for pan caliente before everything shuts down after sunset. On a Friday night, the main drag, Calle Alfonso XII, plays host to the local youth popping wheelies on motorcycles and enjoying the 85cent tapas at El Ejido and other bars around town.

Next week we start talking about the TV program, which I am here to improve, or at least add an outside perspective and creative breath of fresh air. Luckily Don will be translating for me, so there is another opportunity for improvement. Nothing like hearing the words you wanted to say in Spanish immediately after saying them in English! I have mostly been learning through osmosis, with a little bit of daily study with the dictionary. Already, I have noticed an improvement. I can actually put together whole phrases when I walk into a shop, rather than just blurting out the occasional word. Hopefully by the time I leave I will be speaking in sentences!

osuna espana

2008-10-10T04:57:00.001-07:00

After a very busy summer, I have the great fortune to be transported to a place of rest and inspiration. Some friends have kindly let me stay in their empty house in the small town of Osuna, one of the white towns of Andalucía, in the south of Spain. My purpose for being here is to shake the dust of daily life off my soul and excavate the new animated short that is underneath. As I step out of my social and professional worlds into this town of cobbeled streets, siestas and aceitunas, I find the autumn overcast and language barrier provide the right environment for creative work.

Yesterday evening, my first in Osuna, I took a stroll up to the plaza mayor to check out the scene. At 7:30pm the town square is bustling with children, old men on park benches, old ladies strolling. The sounds of sport spilling from the local bars and the bass from the university student's cars are drowned out by a saturation of swallows in the trees. They perch there, like an overabundance of ripe fruit chattering and squabbling away. Truely the social hour before la cena. As dusk falls, people begin to head to their casas for the evening and I wander down quiet streets to my own place of rest.

Yonder, Yonder, Yonder

2008-08-02T16:48:00.000-07:00

There seems to have been a lot going on for me this summer. I have been moving in multiple directions, if that is possible for a 3 dimensional being. Opportunities have come pounding at my door leaving me in 'analysis paralysis', to borrow a friend's well-coined term, wondering where this grand vision will lead me and if I have the strength of mind and heart to follow it.

The other morning, I came across a poem that pin-pointed exactly how I felt - poetry does that so well! Indeed, I had been asking myself Hopkin's own question: how, with all these blessings, can I feel "so haggard at the heart, so care-coiled, care-killed, so fagged, so fashed, so cogged, so cumbered" by my grander vision. What beauty do I hold in my hands that must be freely forfeit to a fonder care?

The entire poem, for the poetically minded, is here.

Sugar Pine Point State Park

2008-07-26T21:24:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since the last post, but not an unproductive time! Amongst other things, I recently spent a day at Sugar Pine Point introducing the masses to the wonders of plein air animation. It was part of the Living History Day at the park, an annual event that introduces visitors to the unique history of the lakeside mansions and Tahoe basin. As a local artist, I was invited to share my talents with the visitors. Click on the pine cone to see the results of our 6 hours of collaboration.

Poetics

2008-05-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

A month of bloggimating actually served its purpose of getting me started on the new film. I'm storyboarding at the moment, so no new animation to post for a while. In between times, however, I am moving down a new tangent, a poetical one. So many of the images in my head are birthed from poetry and now I am occasionally scribbling them down as they come. Here is one worth sharing.

Evening

The sky puts on the darkening blue coat
held for it by a row of ancient trees;
you watch: and the lands grow distant in your sight,
one journeying to heaven, one that falls;

and leave you, not at home in either one,
not quite so still and dark as the darkened houses,
not calling to eternity with the passion
of what becomes a star each night, and rises;

and leave you (inexpressibly to unravel)
your life, with its immensity and fear,
so that, now bounded, now immeasurable,
it is alternatively stone in you and star.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

2008-04-17T11:32:00.000-07:00

Someone recently pointed out to me that I seem to be obsessed with birds. They seem to find their way into most of my animations at some point. There are lots of birds around Tahoe and they are all crazy-in-love at the moment! I was finishing up some yardwork yesterday and heard this lovely voice from the tip top of the pine tree in our yard. It was a large starling and looked ready to impress the first lady that flew by. At first his warbling just sounded like beautiful tones all mixed up, but as I started listening more carefully, I began to pick things out. Starlings imitate other birds, and I heard him talking to the blackbirds, then the seagulls followed by ducks, a goose and a hawk cry (both of which sounded like they were off in the distance). I was impressed… but then he REALLY busted out the repertoire! He yipped like the coyotes across the meadow (you can often hear them at night around here and sometimes even see them during the day) and croaked like the frogs in the marsh, and I swear I heard a little girl’s delighted scream (the kind we make when we go down a really steep hill on a sled). It was astounding – a Tahoe Keys Concert from a one-bird band.

I get paid to do this?

2008-04-15T15:01:00.000-07:00

I've actually gotten a bit of work recently, so the fun experiments have slowed down a bit, but the creative animation continues. This is for a local group of filmmakers, artists, musicians and creative people who have there little "Pet Projekts". Click on the picture to see the latest.

Pencil tests

2008-03-31T17:39:00.001-07:00

When I start a new film, it often begins with a strong image in my mind. I may not even have a story or a full picture of characters developed, but I can see in my mind's eye a particular scene that will end up in the film. These end up being the cornerstones of the plot and I build around them. The particular challenge is that usually these images are so strong and well-developed they become intimidating! I am never sure if I will be able to do them justice with pencil and paper. This particular scene has been bouncing around for a while. Amazingly, I think I managed to get pretty close! It's been a while since I've done straight-up classical character animation, so I'm pretty excited I'm not as rusty as I thought.

Opera in the barn

2008-03-29T17:55:00.000-07:00

Today I went down to the Washoe valley and the historic Davis Ranch. There is a big, dilapidated barn resting underneath an even bigger dilapidated cottonwood tree. One or the other or both will likely not last another season and the Tahoe Art League was invited to photograph and sketch on the site for the benefit of posterity. I did take some pictures of the exterior of the barn, but inspiration struck as I wandered inside. The light seeping through the decaying siding became my palette. My obsession with slow shutter speeds continues. I stopped down to 1 second exposures and started moving the camera around to see what would happened. I was pretty eager to get home and see the results. Some of the still images are fascinating, mysteriously musical.

As for the animation, my technique needs a little refinement, I think, but throw a few Amici vocals under the abstract images and we have a MacLaren-esque bit of animation.

The bird returns

2008-03-27T10:40:00.000-07:00

I wanted to see what this would look like with a bit of color. I started with tempera and then switched to watercolor. Can you tell where I switched?

I would like...

2008-03-20T22:20:00.000-07:00

Once you set your mind on a task, suddenly the world conspires to distract you from it. Two weeks seems to be more manageable for posting, but perhaps the results are worth the wait...

Lament

Everything is far

and long gone by.
I think that the star
glittering above me
has been dead for a million years.
I think there were tears
in the car I heard pass
and something terrible was said.
A clock has stopped striking in the house
across the road...
When did it start?...
I would like to step out of my heart
and go walking beneath the enormous sky.
I would like to pray.
And surely of all the stars that perished
long ago,
one still exists.
I think I know
which one it is --
which one, at the end of its beam in the sky,
stand like a white city...

~Rainer Maria Rilke

Bloggimation

2008-03-05T16:43:00.000-08:00

This is the first of a series of weekly bloggimation. My intention for these little weekly animations is to overcome the inertia that is commonly associated with Blank Canvas Syndrome - that ineffable fear of making the first mark on a new project. Yes, I am percolating ideas for my next film. Sorry, still keeping things hidden behind the curtain, but I will disclose that it is a narrative short and I will need to brush up on my drawing and painting skills. Hence the above 10 seconds.

I am occasionally blessed with bald eagle sightings on the beach near my house. I haven't seen the eagle for a few months now, blame crazy snowstorms, my lack of outdoor activity while being sick, or just not crossing paths.

There's about 100 drawings in this sequence and I'm in the process of adding some paint, but, well, that's gonna take a while! Look for it next week (hopefully).

Swinging Back Home

2007-12-06T10:47:00.001-08:00

8 weeks have finally counted themselves down and at last I am on my way back to the Western winter. Just in time too, as my final day at MacDowell was filled with a flurry of snow. Enough to haul out the x-c skis and 'sledges' (as our resident Brit called them) for a final fling in the white stuff. For me, the snow storm was the exclamation mark of my full season inside my private art world. I leave with new direction and focus for the work ahead. For no artist can stay isolated from the world forever or art will lose its purpose. It must be pushed out and set lose in the daily life to truly begin to live.

As my dear friend Robert explains:

I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree~
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Indeed, one would do worse. Farewell MacDowell, until we meet again!

Snow!

2007-11-20T17:32:00.000-08:00

Early this morning I watched the first few whispers of snow fall outside my window. Soon they had multiplied into a soft, misty flow of small flakes that balanced on bare branches and curled up in cups of shriveling brown leaves.

These days the first snow never seems to last. In fact, rain is forecast for the next few days and the muted, monochromatic world will become sticky with mud over Thanksgiving. But for now, perfection holds its breath.

Shared Isolation

2007-11-14T09:51:00.000-08:00

Colony life is enigmatic. I came across a section of Wallace Stevens' poem, Auroras of Autumn, which hints at the effects of colliding creativity in a contained environment. As artists, our mode of thinking resonates together and the more time we spend, the more eccentric we become, tuning ourselves to each other’s energy. Smoke and explosions tread on the heels of quiet contemplation. What will happen to us, when we leave this place? We seemed to exist quite happily before here, so surely we shall be able to do so upon return, but perhaps restructured into slightly different people.

And of each other thought – in the idiom
Of the work, in the idiom of an innocent earth,
Not of the enigma of the guilty dream.

We were as Danes in Denmark all day long
And knew each other well, hale-hearted landsmen,
For whom the outlandish was another day

Of the week, queerer than Sunday. We thought alike
An that made brothers of us in a home
In which we fed on being brothers, fed

And fattened as on decorous honeycomb.
This drama that we live – We lay sticky with sleep.
This sense of the activity of fate-

The rendezvous, when she came alone,
By her coming became a freedom of the two,
An isolation which only the two could share.

Shall we be found hanging in the trees next spring?
Of what disaster in this the imminence:
Bare limbs, bare trees and a wind as sharp as salt?

The stars are putting on their glittering belts.
They throw around their shoulders cloaks that flash
Like a great shadow’s last embellishment.

It may come tomorrow in the simplest word,
Almost as part of innocence, almost,
Almost as the tenderest and the truest part.

Auroras of Autumn, IX

It’s all downhill from here

2007-11-12T17:55:00.000-08:00

“Since time was created, had a beginning and will have an end, it is a creature with whom we can have understandings and misunderstandings.” – Madeline, L’Engle

Time is not an old man with a long beard and sleepy eyes. It is a creature: volatile, temperamental, full of energy, bursting into sprints and then curling up next to the fire and ignoring all attempts to prod it forward. The coming and going of various people in the past few weeks has motivated the time-creature to stretch itself up from the cozy fire and venture outside of a sniff of the late fall air. And now, with only 3 weeks left before I return to real life, Time has suddenly decided to bound forward, dragging me behind. I have so many creative adventures I want to try, people I would like to get to know better that I fear negotiations must begin.

In the meantime, I'm still working.

p.s. See the results of this endeavor.

Ghosts in the Night

2007-11-01T19:19:00.001-07:00

Halloween and the Colony Hall was full of ghostly movement. I was struck with inspiration in the midst of the festivities and did some ghostly photography. The bar was quite active as well as you can see in this little timelapse.

New Work

2007-10-26T17:34:00.000-07:00

The leaves have shifted from reds and oranges to the late season brown and gold palette. Most trees are now bare, their spindly branches casting spidery patterns on the forest floor.

I have managed to be very productive and last night gave a short presentation of old and new works. Everyone seemed enthralled by the plein air experiments I have been doing. Last Monday, on a brilliant warm afternoon I spent 4 hours moving red leaves around a wall. Leaves and rocks are not the best of friends, I discovered, so it was a somewhat frustrating experience. But the results were better than I expected. I combined it with some other footage I’ve collected over the past 2 weeks to make what could be the first draft of a visual poem. We shall see if this leads anywhere. It’s starting to get cold these days, so my warm studio with it’s large window looking over the disrobed forest is becoming more appealing. It's very cozy.

Here's a link to the new work. Let me know what you think!

Getting Around

2007-10-18T18:06:00.001-07:00

A typical mode of transport for Colony residents. I've christened mine the Grean Bean.

I've added more artwork inspired by recent walks in the wood to my website. See them here.

2007-10-17T07:08:00.001-07:00

It’s been a week and I’m feeling very settled and productive in my studio tucked into the woods. My time has been divided among several projects so far, but today I pulled out my rusty stop-motion skills and decided to do some old-fashioned animation, just for fun. I was rather pleased with the result and with the fact that the only computer involvement was occasionally hitting a key to capture a frame. It reminded me how much I like the tactile aspects of animation. I might pursue this a little further in the coming days.

On Monday, five of us decided to take a day off and add our numbers to the summit of ‘the most climbed mountain in the world” Mt. Monadnock. Please don’t ask me how to pronounce that! Mt. Fuji might debate the record, but we certainly saw enough people to convince us this was a popular hike. Luckily, the 200 7^th graders were heading down by the time we made it to the summit so we had the panoramic view of the Green Mountains, White Mountains and off in the far distance, the Boston skyline, in relative peace.

Morning Visitors

2007-10-13T17:01:00.000-07:00

I had a few visitors this morning outside my window.

Culinary Inspiration

2007-10-10T17:01:00.001-07:00

My new home: Mixter Studio

Can I just rave about the food here for a moment? A picnic basket with my lunch is delivered to my doorstep every day. It usually includes a thermos of the soup of the day, some sort of delicious sandwich and some fruit or cookies.

I’m at the beginning of the delivery loop so today my spinach-feta calzone was still warm when I took my first bite. I requested the cook not pack me any cookies at lunchtime since the pumpkin cheesecake at lunch and the apple cobbler at dinner yesterday clued me into their secret plan to fatten me up before they throw me back into the real world in December. But I might break down eventually. I love food, both making it and eating it. But I don’t think I will miss being in the kitchen too much if things continue in this vein. There is this philosophy that an artist must suffer to produce great works and the ‘starving artist’ holds a badge of honor. Clearly MacDowell thinks this theory is crazy. Good food will inspire the artist to good works.

I hear the dinner bell ringing…

CLOSED for a season

2007-10-10T16:27:00.000-07:00

My first full day at MacDowell started at 7:40am (pacific time) when I woke up to the sound of soft rain on leaves. I spent the day collecting thoughts and getting myself oriented in my new creative environment. This included a walk to town to pick up a few supplies and poke around the quintessential New England town of Peterborough: red brick, white columns, well-tended gardens and small shops. I stopped at the library to pick up a volume of Frost, since I firmly believe in finding thematic threads for the distinct segments of life. I skimmed through a number of familiar poems searching for the one that would rightly capture my feelings towards the next two months, until I read one of my favorite opening lines:

Back out of all this now too much for us,
Back in a time made simple by the loss
Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off
Like a graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,

The poem is “Directive” and that’s what this place is about. Escape, however briefly, from the complexity of life, so that one can find the direction to head in.

And if you’re lost enough to find yourself
By now, pull in your ladder road behind you
And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me.
Then make yourself at home.

The place gives me the feeling of being away from peering eyes that dissect and assess my work. No one is watching me, no one has any expectations of me, they simply want to feed me and make sure I have enough space to spread my creative wings in any direction. Which leaves me free to take risks, make mistakes, waste time with experiments. Making myself at home didn’t take long. Yesterday I walked around the grounds with my camera and was already inspired to try something new, just for fun. Already I feel the compass orienting.

Here are your waters and your watering place.
Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

Auf Weidersehen to Tahoe

2007-10-03T12:19:00.000-07:00

We had our first snow on Sept. 20th. The treetops above 6400ft were dusted white and Mt. Tallac wrapped itself into misty clouds. Warm sun melted everything quickly, but four days later we woke up to an inch in our front yard. The aspens are turning and the evenings are darker and everyone is pulling out their woolie caps. But I'll be heading east for 2 months to catch some real turning of the seasons.

I'll be at the MacDowell Colony for the fall, which seems to be a wonderful little corner of the world where everyone just wants you to be the artist you've always wanted to be. They make it pretty easy - give you your own studio off in the New Hampshire woods with no email or phone connections; they surround you with other inspiring artists at meal times, they even bring your lunch to your studio in a picnic basket! Sounds too good to be true. I guess I'll find out soon enough! Right now the last few bits of equipment and warm clothes are going into the suitcase. More from the deep woods soon!