“I live in my dreams — that’s what you sense. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. That’s the difference.” -Hermann Hesse, Demian
(I just finished reading Hesse’s “Demian” last week — adding it to my list of favorite books of all time. It was pretty amazing.)
I’ve got my little ‘production studio’ set up in a little alcove in my lovely wood paneled bedroom. My equipment included an iMac running Dragonframe (for stop-motion capture) & Garageband, an 18 x 24 inch light box, a Canon EOS 60D, a 42″ rostrum with an 18″ x 24″ base, and my ukulele.. I shot the entire animation in one take — I did all the scene transitions directly on the light box and didn’t have to edit anything together except for the fade in and fade out to credits added in post production. I ended up shooting 24 fps which means that for every second of animation, I moved the element 24 times capturing each movement with my camera in 24 shots. I think I ended up with about 760 shots total. And it actually ran a little faster than I had desired so I slowed it down a bit in post-production. I had hoped to dive into Adobe After Effects & Premiere for editing and it was just way beyond me for the amount of time I wanted to spend in post-production, so I brought the raw video into iMovie which is fairly straight forward and simple and put the final touches there.
As far as sound, I came up with this little chord pattern the morning I made it and actually recorded the music before the animation as I wanted the animation to follow a beat similar to a heartbeat which I tried to emulate in the tempo of the recording. As I mentioned in a previous post, for recording the ukulele, my software driver for my little mixing board was out of date so that was out of the question.. and I hit up radio shack for some adapters to try to plug my microphone into an iMic (basically a small amplifier with phantom power to power the mic) to run it into my computer for recording, but I got an awful buzz and almost no recording volume, presumably from the iMic not giving enough juice to the microphone.. so I ended up recording a test run straight through the computer mic and processing it with some effects in Garageband so that it wouldn’t sound so awful. Too lazy (and tired.. it was like 13 hours into the process) to re-record a final version, I just used the test run in the final video.. And I just ordered the Apogee MiC USB microphone for Macs after reading lots of good reviews and against the advice of some sound friends who whole-heartedly believe in mixers. But I’m not trying to record a platinum record, so the simpler the better, as long as it sounds decent.
The elements were all hand cut (except for my hand which was live obviously..). The bird gained movement by having a hinged head (you can’t see it in the pic but the head can move up and down) and various wing and feet positions. For each shot, I’d rotate them out to give it movement.
As far as the overall idea, I woke up in the middle of the night a few days before making it after having a dream about something, and this image of a bird flying out of a breaking heart popped into my head.. and I grabbed my iPhone and started jotting down words and the poem came to be in this final version within about two hours, and then I fell back asleep..
All in all, it was short and sweet and really exciting to make. Can’t wait to dig my heels into the next one..
I designed & cut this for their website & other promo items. I’ll post links shortly.
At my mom’s dinner party last night, I inherited a box of records left behind by one of her friends that moved to Canada a few years ago. (This made me feel like it was MY birthday). Some notables included The Beatles’ Abbey Road and Revolver, Ian & Sylvia, lots of Arlo Guthrie & Pete Seeger, Julian Bream, and Flute Music of the Andes.. After everybody left and I got things back to some order, I was going back through the records and noticed the Ian & Sylvia record felt extra thick, as if there were two records in it.. and I pulled out one of my all-time favorite albums: The Byrds – Sweetheart of the Rodeo. I love it when stuff like that happens.
I’m throwing a dinner party tonight for my mom’s birthday (which is tomorrow) and I just finished putting the final touches on the ‘birthday cake’ — an apple almond cheesecake. I’ve made a lot of cheesecakes in my day (..bakery life) and I’m willing to bet it all that this is the tastiest one yet (recipe from Bon Apetit). I want to dive in it. And we all know (or at least I do) how much I love concentric circles – even in the form of apple slices.
To follow my what has become yearly tradition of forcing myself to do an animation for Valentine’s Day.. I’ll probably go back in and rework some things in this since Rome wasn’t built in a day (but this was) and I didn’t have the hang of the things I needed, but I think it came out alright anyway.. sleep. Happy Valentine’s Day…
I’m finally putting my new animation & motion software into use as I work on a short, simple Valentine’s Day animation. Of course, there’s always a glitch.. My software driver for the sound mixer (that brings the sound from the microphone to the computer) is a little old and discontinued (although it works perfectly well on my brother’s computer), does not work with my operating software on my new computer, so sound quality won’t be where I want it since I’m recording through the computer mic, but oh well.. I think it’ll turn out alright anyway. Here’s my previous valentine’s day themed animations from the previous two years. (I always feel like I’ve drank 5 pots of coffee when I’m making animations.. that’s how I know I like it so much — I get all excited.. hopefully I can make more time to make lots more.)
Working on a main image for a band website.