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Welcome to Spring...and 5 inches of SNOW!

3/21/2012

Here in Eugene, OR it is the second day of spring. And also here in Eugene, OR there is Snow. Piles and piles of it. Everywhere. We don't get this much snow in the wintertime, much less the spring. My inner photog wants to go out and get shots of the snow. My old creaky body wants to stay inside where it is warm. It isn't cold cold out there, so the snow is a bit slushy.

Well, I guess for now I will snuggle with my tea in front of my space heater and debate it a while, letting the nostalgia of winters past remind me why I moved out of snow country. And try to remove the dread of walking to work knowing people are driving who probably shouldn't be.

And if you are caught in the snow like me, take a minute to head over to watch my video over at the Douglas Adams Video Contest. Great distraction for cabin fever. And it has the added bonus of getting me views and votes. :)

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Plug N Stuff

3/13/2012

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So....it has been a few days, so I thought I would post the link to the Douglas Adams Tribute Video Contest again. I mainly write this blog for me, to keep my shit together. But I know a few people wander by here from time to time, whether on purpose or by mistake. Voting ends April 15th. :)

On another note, I am feeling decidedly uncreative today. I am tired and feeling a tad listless. I still haven't heard back from anybody about voicing my dialog. It is back to cold, windy and rainy.

Suppose I will try to kick myself out of these doldrums with a Yes, And...

So, today's is:

The brilliant sock inspector took pictures near an abandoned toy store for the FBI.

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Draft 1 completed.....procrastination notwithstanding

3/10/2012

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I finally stopped playing around and just sat down and wrote. It is amazing how fast it goes when you stop procrastinating and just do it. There are 6 short scenes, 8 pages of dialog, so approximately 7-8 minutes of video.

I didn't name the characters, just put in a placeholders for the names. I did put some action in, but not much. My plan now is to break down each scene into what I would like to actually see in the scenes. Then I will decide approximately how long I want each scene to be, and maybe get some better descriptions written down for the voice actors. And, well, name the characters.

Then I get to look for voice actors. The way it is written now I will need 3 girls and 1 guy or 2 girls and 2 guys.

I am kind of excited. It is coming together. This is fun, when I actually stop getting in my own way. The last scene is based on a comment I made on a The Bloggess blog post. She was talking about taxidermied squirrels. She mentioned a squirrel phone cover. My comment was about using that to scare off bad dates. And now that concept will be personified in stop motion form. I have no idea how I will make it happen, but I will. I am excited about the challenge.

I also have looked around at other video contests. I am considering finding one to work towards. I don't know. Maybe I should wait and see how the Douglas Adams contest goes. I think if I start doing video contests on a regular basis I need to learn how to make my own puppets. I can't just keep submitting the same toys to a bunch of different contests. Maybe I will take a little time out today to play with that concept. I have armature wire. I don't have a history of being good at sculpting though. Frankly, I am shit at it. But I can build them up with foam and figure out something else for the heads. Maybe I will make one for each and just paper mouths with different positions to approximate dialog. I don't know.

SIGH (but a happy one)

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Where I spend way too much time procrastinating on the interwebs.

3/9/2012

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So I was taking a break from scriptwriting and I found this little beauty:

AAA! I SO need this, or something similar. It also comes with an arm to hold a camera instead of an iPhone. $700. Ouch. But if I replaced the bottom pad with a metal one for anchoring and the iPhone arm for one that holds an actual camera it would TOTALLY help my animation efforts. I bet I could make something similar that would work. If I had money, tools, materials, etc. I throw my envy in this direction. One of my biggest problems is getting the damn camera to sit still. Of course, buying a camera that would allow me to trigger it remotely would also be tremendously helpful. Might as well throw that in as long as we are dreaming.

On another note, there are an alarmingly low number of podcasts out there talking about stop motion. By "alarmingly low" I mean none that I can find that have posted anything after December 2010. I have been looking for something like that to listen to while I am writing. No such luck. Lots of anime podcasts, several animation fan podcasts, a few animation mechanics/business podcasts, but none dedicated to stop motion. And most of those don't have any episodes where they are actually talking about stop motion. I realize this obsession of mine is a very narrow niche, but it can't be that narrow. I mean, there are many very popular stop mo movies out there. Shaun the Sheep's Facebook page has over a million followers. It is a difficult medium to work in, but there people out there doing it. Frankenweenie is about to come out, which is another Tim Burton stop mo. (Yes, I am excited.) I suppose I am not really bitching about it, just making a sad panda observation.

Ok, back to writing. I hope to have scripts finished by Monday and start blocking them out.

OH...and in case you haven't had a chance to, go see my latest video at the Douglas Adams Tribute video contest. You can vote for it by number of bookmarks under the video.

Now I am really back to writing. Until I get distracted again. :)

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I am going to crawl into a hole and cry now.

3/7/2012

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Last night I, for the first time in YEARS, spill Pepsi all over my laptop. Just on the keyboard, and I turned it upside down immediately. Apparently it was not enough. The computer part seems to be working fine. It is the keyboard. I painstakingly removed every key, cleaned the little pop up mechanisms for each one. It took hours and hours. I took it apart, as far as I can, cause Alienware apparently needs special tools to get too far into the break down process. I cleaned out what I could reach. Now when I try to turn it on, it beeps at me really loud, then when I get to the log in screen it fills the little box with dots and then tells me my password is incorrect. The keys are sticking. Inside, where I can't get to them. And I don't have the money to take it to a Dell guy. The warranty expired last month, OF COURSE.

Fortunately for me I took some of my money when I had 2 part time jobs and replaced the hard drive in the HP laptop that sploded last year, necessitating my acquiring the Alienware. (The school would give me a loan for a $1000 laptop, but not one for a $80 hdd). It is a crappy HP, though. Low RAM, poor graphics card, slow processor. And in spite of thinking it was just my hdd that was the problem, apparently there are others because it is massively unstable. It also has power issues. If I unplug it when it doesn't want to be unplugged it refuses to recognize the power is reconnected until it is good and ready to. Which could be a few seconds, could be a few days. Also has the typical HP overheating problem. Right now it is propped up on a few books. Cause I am not going to buy a cooling pad. If I had that kind of money my Alienware would be in the shop.

At least I have something for now. I also have a crappy Cricket android phone, so is nothing else I will have that microscopic screen and keyboard to use.

Still sucks. Still makes me want to cry. And scream. And throw a major temper tantrum.

And, since I am still in the contest, here is another linky link to the Douglas Adams Video Thingy. Might as well get something good out of this.

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Oh! Oh! Oh! Really???

1/11/2012

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I am so glad I am on Twitter. I learned about a video animation contest. Involving DOUGLAS ADAMS. One of my FAVORITE authors of all time. And it specifies animation. So I fell face first in the Eddie Izzard contest. I only had a week to do it though. This one has a deadline of April 15th. But this sounds awesome. And the list of judges?? STEPHEN FUCKIN FRY!! *Deep breath* It was tweeted by Neil Gaiman. I think my head is going to explode.

OK...so other video shoved to the back of the line. This is going to happen. This will be fun. I am freaked out and excited and everything all at once. I can do this. I hope. Heh heh.

Step 1: Downloading the audio and listening to it.
Step 2: Brainstorm

Wish me luck.

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Welcome to Spring...and 5 inches of SNOW!

Plug N Stuff

Draft 1 completed.....procrastination notwithstanding

Where I spend way too much time procrastinating on the interwebs.

I am going to crawl into a hole and cry now.

Oh! Oh! Oh! Really???

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