I was not very happy with the way that octopus video turned out. It is kind of fuzzy. It is jumpy (that part is my fault, I was not patient enough to get the right frames and tried to duplicate, which I know rarely works well in stop mo). So I started looking online for Pinnacle studio tutorials. With the newer version, you can shoot stop mo directly to computer, and it has fewer requirements than Dragonframe. They are having a sale, so instead of $120 to upgrade, it is only $69.95. I have been struggling long and hard, and right now, the point of everything I am doing is to figure out the best way to use the equipment I've got. I can still use version 18 if 20 does not work with my laptop. So I decided to go for it. I may regret it, but it isn't as bad as the $300 oopsy with Dragonframe. Which according to thier tech specs SHOULD work with this laptop and does NOT. Won't even open. BTW, thier support is CRAP. I do not reccomend Dragonframe, even if it turns out to work great after I have the money to upgrade my laptop.

Pinnacle upgrade is downloading right now. I guestimate I will know if I have chosen wisely or chosen poorly in about 30 minutes. Fortunately for me, all I will be out is $70 and my frustration. No melty faces or whatever. My plan is to do a little playing around tonight, and if I can get it to recognize my camera, shoot and whatnot, I will do some actual shooting tomorrow and Periscope it. See if I can get a better video. If not, I will be disappointed.

The other thing I have been thinking over is the 72 hour Horror Film challenge by Eugene Film Society. This year it is going on Oct. 22-24. I mean, it was a frustrating blast last year. And if I can get this to shoot better, I may be able to get a better video than last year. But do I want to deal with it? I have other things I want to work on. BUT.....it would also be a great way to test the new setup, see what I can do with it. I have committed to a DnD game on the Saturday. With how much time was wasted last year with the computer shutting down and losing 3 hours of work, I may be able to do it. I have to decide.....I already committed to the game, and they are counting on me, so if I do it I would have to budget 5 hours out of that to go do that. THough that is tentative, and we have no final go ahead on the game. I suppose I can put my hat in the ring, then decide to drop out if I want.

Argh. Why can't I just be normal and not obsessed with this stop motion crap? I mean I love it. I LOVE IT. I dream about it. I literally cry when something goes wrong, I want to do it well so badly. When it goes right, it goes so right. I wish I had more of a natural aptitude for this, and it wasn't so hard for me to get a good finished product. Sigh.

So in a fit of complete insanity, last weekend I decided to enter a 72 hour horror film challenge put on by the Eugene Film Society. In stop mo. In 72 hours. I really should have my head examined. It was hard, easy, fun, frustrating, impossible, and one of the best things I have done. The resulting film is ok, considering what it is. I see all the flaws that could have been fixed if I had more time and fewer hiccups. But anyway, I decided to write about my experience here, to get it out there, to maybe perform some post mortems, and to help me decide where to go next.

The competition was announced several weeks beforehand, but I did not make the decision to do it until a week before. Considering we were not supposed to do anything for it beforehand, I guess that was best. I tend to overthink things. I opted to sign up for the screenwriting workshop that happened the Saturday before. It really didn't help much as far as writing tips, but it did get me into thinking about what makes a good horror film, and what elements would be feasable in stop mo in such a short amount of time. I knew I was not going to have any time for fixing or adding in post, so I needed to decide what would work easiest on camera as shooting happens. I wrote out 3 loose premises that I could base my movie on, and thought about which elements would be needed for each. I did do some set building beforehand, cause that was not specified in the rules. And well technically I built my puppet beforehand too, as I used Wade.

I also figured out I needed to do some surgery on Wade. He had several joints that were broken that needed to be reglued. Here is Wade waiting for surgery. I had to reglue his arm into the shoulder joint. He is made with square tubing in the torso, with matching but slightly smaller square tubing glued to the arm at the shoulder so that it is removeable. The glue in his shoulder totally broke so his arm wouldn't stay in place. turns out I should have also fixed his leg joints, but that happened later.

That is pretty much all I did beforehand. Thursday night October 22 was the kick off party. I am not good at parties, and had no one to go with me, so I was kind of dreading this part. But they made it manditory in order to get the required line of dialog and the required prop and the rest of the guidelines. I had no need for actors, most people there were there for thier own moves, and no one waanted to do voiceovers. Every actor who attended was looknig for on screen time. And when I requested help with Foley, no one knew what I was talking about. Now actors I can kind of understand, even though some of them claimed to be film students, because that is not an actor's job. But the filmmakers....most of them didn't know what I was talking about either. Foley....one of the most important pieces of any film, especially horror, and no one knew what I was talking about. In case you don't know, Foley is the souunds that are added in post to make it sound realistic. Foot steps, snow crunching, fabric swooshing....all that is Foley. In live action it is generally added because the mics usually only pick up the actor's voices, and in order for it to sound real it needs to be added afterwards. It is also used to add emphasis. If all of a sudden you hear water dripping really loudly, generally that is your Foley artist's work. It is good in live action, but essential in stop motion where there is no ambient sound recorded as you film. I did not find anyone to help me with Foley. I did however find someone to record a voiceover for me. He also did on camera work. Cause not being an idiot he knew he could do both. :)


I really wish they hadn't made that party mandatory. It was very pointless for me to be there. It was at Level Up Arcade, which is a traditional quarter sink arcade with a bar. It was too small for the volume of people...we could hardly move or hear each other over the din of other people talking and video games being played and music playing. I found a couch in the corner, and chatted with anyone else who wandered over there. I read my Facebook. I sang along loudly with Creep when it came on. When it finally came time for the "reveal", people who were customers of the arcade and not with the party continued to play video games, and the crowd was so large I ended up at the back. I heard NOTHING that went on. We stood there for a good 20 minutes listening to the incoherant wah-wah of the peeople talking at the front before they finally just gave us the thumbs drives that had everything they were saying in a documment and was the required recepticle for submission. Needless to say I was glad to get out of there and start working. I was more than slightly annoyed though that they wasted so much of my time.

After that I went back to my tree problem. I still couldn't get the foam to stick to the tree armatures. I decided to stop wasting time, and run down to Eugene Toy and Hobby. They have a huge model train section, with experts. Surely someone there could help me. I ran to the bus stop, where I learned I had missed the bus by 5 minutes, so I ran-walked the 1.5 miles there. By the time I got there I waas red faced, sweaty, and not all that coherant. I am sure they all thought I was crazy. Fortunately this is not the first time I have had a wierd request for them, so they took it with grace. The guy behind the train counter handed me some ultra strong super glue, explained how to use it, all the time looking at me like I was a moron for not being able to do this on my own. I am sure that as soon as I was out the door they were laughing at me. Ah well...that is what this is all about right? Entertainment?

I got to the bus station to find the next one was not for another 30 minutes. Don't let anyone tell you differently...Eugene bus system sucks. On Saturday the ones to my house generally run once an hour. So I ended up grabbing a juice and doughnut from the Kiva and run-walking back home. At least it wasn't a wasted trip.

Once I finally got everything set up, I started shooting. I have a bluetooth keyboard for my iPad which allows me to remote trigger. What you can't see in this picture is that the screenof my iPad is cracked, which s why I haven't done much shooting lately. One of the cracks is right down the side, right where the frame puts presure on it. I worried I would totally kill my iPad using it. However at thhe moment I don't have an alternative camera, so it would have to do. I managed to not break it completely, so I am hoping by not having the iPad resting directly on the frame it helped.

In the middle of shooting I ran into more Wade issues. This guy would not stay together. His legs kept falling off. The glue had brokenn from his pelvis, so the legs kept falling out of the square tubes. I tried moving the ruler up a bit, but that didn't help. I finally took the legs off, which actually made it easier for him to stay attached to the cliff edge.

But I got them all pulled over, and spent hours pulling them into Pinnacle, setting the frame length for each pic, trying to watch it and adjust accordingly. However, Pinnacle and my PC did not want to cooperate. My computer overheated several times. I ended up having to compile each segment sepaerately then add them together. The frame rate I set was 24 FPS, but it would only let me export it in 29.9, which made it loook way different. I spent many frustrated hours trying to fix it. Then at one point it would not let me add pictures into my timeline. Turned out Microsoftt had decided to run updates, even though I completely turned off updating while I was working. I could not get that setting to stay off. I finally had to do some rebooting.

But after all that, I finally got it done. I finished at 6pm, which didn't leave me much time to get it in. The bus wouldn't get me there on time, so I tried getting a cab. I called 4 cab companies....all of them were at least 45 minutes out. I finally texted my frined who drove me over there. I got it in by 6:30, well within the time alloted. Whew. That was long, hard, and completely insane. 

If you want to watch it, you can see it here: GARGOUILLE.

Another month has gone by. I suppose it is time to update this.

I have been working on audio, but I have a limited amount of time I can work on it, and I don't yet have anything I am willing to post. I will probably work some more on it tonight.

One of my favorite geek bands, Debs & Errol, were in the running for the CBC Searchlight. Errol wanted to do something with the #Votegeek hashtag, and called for fans to send him pictures of themselves with it. So I dusted off Wade and ran around town taking pictures. I also decided to take this as an excuse to actually build him a set. He needed furniture, big time. Everything I have is simply Liliputian compared to him. Here is one of the pics I took at Dutch Brothers. They are so awesome there.

Anyway...

So, anyway, I took a few days a built Wade a sofa and an end table and a coffee table. I sewed a cushion and crocheted a blanket to go on the back of the sofa. I painted a background. So now that I had all these things, of course I had to play around with them. The resulting videos are not great, but the set looks awesome. Needs more detail, like pictures, a window, a book shelf, etc.  Otherwise I am happy with it. Here is the mess I call a video...

So, there ya go. This month hasn't been completely uneventful. As I play with Wade and what he can do I hope to have more test videos to post.

Wow. I didn't realize I waited so long to post. Sometimes time just slips away from you.

I did play with keyboard triggering with the iPad. It worked great....sort of. I will have to admit I am happy with how much easier it was to keep the damn picture from jumping around. The quality is, once again, a bit shite. I used a ton of light. I made it focus as much as I could. but it again was too grainy, and after uploading it to You Tube it just got mushier. This frustrates the hell outta me. I really need to figure out why this is happening.

Well, for what it is worth, here are the results. The first part was done in Osnap, the second in iSttopMotion.

I also didn't pay attention to movement that much. Because the legs don't move independently of each other it is hard to get a smooth looking walk from this guy. Or any of the small guys I use. The iPad is a little tilted too. I need to shore up the sides inside the holder. I find it interesting that in the first video the sofa looks a lot closer than it does in the second one. I did not move the camera, nor did I change any of the settings. which would be moot anyway, as each application does it's own thing anyway and gives me little to no control. But the main thing with this video was to get the triggering to work, and it worked. One day I will get all elements to work all at the same time.

I know I have been promising this for a while, but external factors have motivated me to push forward with recording, and I hope to get a few things up by the end of the day today. We shall see. The person in the room next to me works nights, so I need to be quiet until at least 3pm. But as soundcloud worked so well, I might as well get that done and some sound samples up.

lá sona ú Pádraig! (Happy St Patrick's Day)

Oh, sigh. Ok...

Well, FAWM is over. Did I make my goal? Nope. I have lyrics written for a bunch, but no music. I am so used to placing my own lyrics in existing songs I have issues thinking of my own melody. If you go through several of your favorite songs, you may notice that the lyrics scan to more than one of the melodies. My issue is I hear an already existing melody that the words can scan to. And there usually are a few choices. But it was a good experiment. I enjoyed it, and learned a bunch. Still working on getting a few demos recorded to post here. Once I get them done I will put them here.

So yesterday I was dealing with migrainy goodness. That meant doing anything was out. When I got to the point where the pain was alleviated but the rest of the symptoms were still lingering (except light sensitivity), I sat and read a new book I got. this book is all about using the iPad for stop motion animation. I learned something I should have picked up on by now. I can trigger the iPad camera from my blue tooth keyboard. Duh! Of course! If I do it in Osnap, I use the volume button. If I do it in iStop Motion I use the play button at the top of the keyboard. It works. So today my plan is to play around with it, and see if it helps the smoothness any. I also am having issues with the stabilization of the iPad. I made the frame to place in on that screws on top of my tripod. It wobbles. Noy a ton, but enough to be an issue. Part of the tripod broke, so I decided I would just glue down the parts I want to be less wobbly. The point was to make something that I could remove from the tripod, but as it is broken in ways that will not support a camera, I would have to purchase a new one eventually anyway.

So I glued all the parts down that needed to be, and as soon as it all dries I will see what I can produce. The goal is to have a short video done by the end of the day. We shall see what I can accomplish.

Ah, I love a good Eddie Izzard refferance early in the morning. Er, in the mid afternoon. :P

I have dropped the ball with blogging again. Quelle suprise. It has been a busy month, with a lot of changes coming down the pipe, both good and bad. Job change is happening. I am happy about that. More income will mean more money to put into videos. I may actually get to buy a new camera that will actually work instead of trying to continually use my iPad. I did an experiment the other day with my new Tardis toy. It was pretty bad. Very, very grainy to begin with, then got worse when I uploaded it.

Pretty damn bad. A good camera will alleviate this. I would hope. I am looking into investing in an actual stop mo software, such as Stop Motion Pro or Dragon Motion. I need to look into whether I need a separate video editor outside of the specialized stop motion software. I would hope not. but you never know.

The podcast is coming along nicely. the first one should drop around March 5th. That will give me time to finish the branding and website for it. Maybe get it listed places. Working hard on making that a reality.

Sorry for the drive by posting. Will write more later.

So time has marched forward, and so has my progress....a little anyway. I now have my storyline for the steampunk video all lined out. I have my characters developed. I have designed the world in which they will live. I am kind of excited about it. This is going to be fun, once I get past the hard parts.

I decided I want the exterior of the houses to all be stone, with stone garden walls, etc. I envision this place to be like one the planned garden cities in England of the late 19th and early 20th century. If I am going to do this I need to find a good way to replicate a lot of walls. I do not sculpt well. I am not going to rely on someone with sculpting skills to have time available for this. So I took a trip to the Eugene Toy & Hobby to see waht they had. I found these retaining wall sections for model train sets. They will work wonderfully. I just can't afford to buy all I need. They were $11 for a set of 3.  I have liquid latex. I have lots and lots of cheap plaster. I thought hey, why not make my own molds of these wall sections and then I can make all I need cheaply.

Latex mold making is not as easy as they make it look. they didn't turn out very well. I got sick from all the latex fumes. And the ones that did work didn't actually produce a working model. Even though the molds really did not shrink (I can fit the original in without stretching it), the casting is a good inch smaller than the original. I need to figure out why. I also had a hard time getting that first layer to dry properly. The side touching the original wall piece never dried properly no matter how long I left it before I did the second layer. The thing is, when you do a second layer, you can't wait too long or the layers don't adhere to each other properly. Then there were the issues with making the mother molds. Latex is thin and does not hold it's shape. This is ideal for peeling it off the original...not so for holding the casting material in the right shape. So you make a mother mold out of plaster. After the last layer has dried you cover it in plaster. Let it sit until set and voila you have a good solid base for the latex mold that will still allow for you to peel the latex off the casting without breaking it. my issue...the plaster kept crumbling. I followed the directions on how to mix it. I let it sit for hours. the ambient room temp was 70. The stupid things just kept crumbling. I finally got a few that will work, though I really need to figure out how to solve the mysterious shrinking casting issue.

Here be the picture evidence. The yellow one on the left is the first one that worked. the one at the top is the second one, though you can tell it stuck to the original and destroyed some of the detail. The one in the middle is the original, and to the right is the casting. Sad, sad, sad.

I guess I am failing in whole new ways. That is ok. I am learning, and each one gets better. I just don't have a lot of time. I wanted to get the video done in time to submit it to the Pacific Northwest Animation festival as well, but that is not going to happen. The deadline for that is Dec 31. It is already the 11th. I will be lucky if I can get the sets built by then.
    I also had a brilliant idea to use those poseable wooden artists manquins as the armatures for the puppets. I figured out how to get the hands to work, I just got to figure out how to build up the head and face. The advantage is there are more natural articulation points, and they are already built up to natural human proportions. I will still work on learning how to make my own, but to try to facilitate this video that is what I am trying.

Because I don't have a lot of good clamping tools for delicate cutting, I used a Dremmel with the sanding wheel to grind the hands down to where they are more normal shape. The dots are the places I will be gluing twisted florist wire. I will then wrap them all in paper sports tape and paint them. Then I need to decide how I am going to anchor them. Do I want to continue the magnet method, or do I want to drill holes and destroy my set table to try screw anchors? I am leaning toward the magnets. Less permanent damage. And I don't have to go buy sturdier foam for the base. I don't think I could get that locally. Disadvantage of living in a small town.

    And that is as far as I have gotten. The molds alone took 3 days. This is a long slow process. I am impatient. I want to be animating. However, this time I want better puppets and sets. I want this one to be really cool.

    I am also looking into renting office space. As long as I keep it under $300 and utilities included I may be able to do it. I would be sacrificing saving any money for deposits for my own place to live, but it would be easier for everyone else to help out if I had a place other than just a bedroom for us to work. It feels weird, and frankly no one really wants to do that, as much as they want to work on this. Sigh. It always comes down to money, doesn't it. Well, if I can get to a place where my animations look more professional maybe I can get a few commissions, maybe start at least having it pay for itself. that would make it tons easier.

Anyway, if you are reading this and have an inkling of why my molds are giving me grief, feel free to either comment or email me. I was planning on having people over to help make castings, but I have to have enough molds for more than just one person to use.

For a while now I have been promising an update on my animation puppet building, so here it is. It is photo heavy. I apologize, but that is the best way to show you what is going on.

I have been experimenting with how to build puppets so I can improve my animations. As fun and cute they are as is, I am limited on what I can do by the materials I am using. Previously I talked about my first puppet. I wasn't happy with the hands, so I also rebuilt the hands with a different technique.

I was not really happy with the eyes, nor was I happy with the way the hair turned out. I used the same body, and rebuilt the head to do some experimenting. I found some googly eye tacks at the local Hiron's drug store. Here is how the new head looked with the googly eyes:

Looks kind of silly, but a bit cute. Didn't turn out too badly. Next problem to solve was hair. I had a heck of a time figuring that out. Here is the hilarious first try:

That did not work for me. Also had issues getting more than just the top of the head covered. So I headed to the local Joann Fabrics to find fuzzy fabric. I found a couple of types. My first attempt was aweful. I couldn't get it to sit right, so I decided to cut a piece for the crown, then strips to fill the rest out. Here is just the corwn and the rest of it:

That worked much, much better. Interesting swirling going on because of the way the fur was attached to the base.

Next project was to build up the chest and cloth him. I built the chest up with cushion foam. Then I cut and sewed felt for a shirt. It was harder than I thought, though I shouldn't have been surprised, given how much I suck at sewing. I then cut the bottom off the legs of a pair of jeans and sewed them into tubes for pants. Pics:

Just getting the clothes on made the whole thing fall apart, so next I gotta figure out how to keep that from happening. I love this guy. I think it is going to work fine.

Next project I need to work on is the video for the steampunk film festival. I think that if I can get a good enough animation I may be able to also submit it to the Northwest Film Festival.