Objects At Rest

explorations in audio and moving imagery

Category: General

  • Animation Show in Atlanta

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    Last night (and still playing today) is “The Animation Show” curated by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt. I met up with Karl and also saw Brett at the event. Ward was there as well and I wouldn’t be surprised if he posts some info about the event in the near future on his blog or Flickr pages. Mike Judge himself was also present for a short Q&A after the show which was quite a bonus.

    This is the third installment in the Animation Show series and I think it is the best to date. The previous two are now available on DVD for purchase or via Netflix. Memorable animations for me were Rabbit, Everything Will Be OK, Versus, and Collision. Rabbit, my personal favorite from the show, is available for viewing from Atom Films. Rabbit was created by Run Wrake. There is something about the sound and music design (not to mention the whole visual design) of Rabbit that I find alluring.

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    The projection and sound system at the Carter Center, where the event took place, was incredible. I don’t know if they used some kind of hi-def digital projection or something else but they should try to use that for the Atlanta Film Festival’s animation program. Karl confirmed that the projection was hi-def and they take it with them to the cities where it the show is screened which shows how much they care about quality…and it showed. The screen wasn’t huge but it was sharper and had more punch and contrast than what I’ve usually seen at the few film festivals I’ve attended.

  • Business Cards: The MOO Solution

    I needed to get some business cards to hand out at various times and decided to try the Flickr / Moo option. I have a Flickr site and read the specifications for sizing photos as Moo cards and made 10 card designs in Photoshop. I got the Moo 100 card pack for approximately $20 and it took about 10 days to arrive from the UK. The cards come in a little plastic holder which is nice. Click the photo below to see a larger version for more detail.

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    The cards turned out well and the paper is heavier than regular photo paper. They feel solid like a typical business card and have a matte/satin photo on one side and my name, email, and web site link on the back. I think the price and the ability to custom design up to 100 different types of cards is worthwhile.

    The one thing I would do differently next time is to adjust the photos to make the images and text contrast more. For example, I used grey instead of pure white for the text on the photo and the grey at that size is a little difficult to read. However, they turned out great and should work just fine for my current purposes.

  • Sword of Damocles Now Showing

    My short film “The Sword of Damocles” is now showing along with several other stop motion films at the StopMoShorts.com web site.

    Here is a sketch of the character designs that I used when building my puppets.

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    I plan to post more info about the making of my film later.

  • Animation Communities: Atlanta and Beyond

    I recently attended a meeting of animators in the Atlanta area in a get together called “The Atlanta Animation Workshop“. As I recall there were more than 20 people in attendance and various works in progress, student works, and other animations were being screened. Members and guests come from all schools of animation so CGI, 2-D, and stopmo are all present. There seemed to be a lot of interest from the participants in forming a more active community of animation talent in the area. I won’t be able to make the January meeting but plan to attend the one in February.

    The workshop is hosted by Karl Sigler who is an animator in Atlanta. His site, Between the Frames, is a production blog with photos and info for his stop motion films.

    Speaking of production blogs, Justin Rasch now has a blog called Stop MOTION Mission. I have links to these production blogs (and other animation sites) in my list on the side of this page. That list keeps growing too…I may have to think about how to better organize them in the future.

  • That’s A Wrap – 24 Days, 4 Puppets, and 3 Sets Equals a 6 Minute Short

    My second stopmotion film, “The Sword of Damocles”, is now complete. The date on my three page draft outline for Damocles reads November 25, 2006. I posted my intention of doing the Damocles project for StopMoShorts on November 28th (see previous post). It is now midnight December 19th and I have finished encoding the QuickTime file for submission to the StopMoShorts site. [Although, I am having a bit of a problem uploading it to StopMoShorts tonight which kind of concerns me.]

    It was quite an exercise and I learned a lot of little things that should help me with other projects including Vitruvius. I also, think I got a little carried away as the film ended up being just over 6 minutes long. I plan to post more info about the production of the film after the holidays and new year’s activities. I also plan to revisit the footage to render a DVD resolution and HD resolution version for future use.