Old News and Updates: or ...Welcome to my Blog archive Nov 19 2005 Larry Semon on DVD I just heard from frequent Darkstrider.net contributor Larry DeHaan, who told me Grapevine Video has Larry Semon on DVD! They also have Max Linder on the same page, who was recommended by Barry Purves as essential viewing for any aspiring animator. Netflix carries Linder, so I'll go through them instead for that. *** The BOX is BACK Babeeeee!!! Well, it looks like all the concerted begging and pleading has paid off! The Box is once again open for business.... SHEER UNADULTERATED MIND-EXPANDING FRAME-BY-FRAME INSPIRATION!!! Thanks to Ethan for letting me know. Comments Nov 18 2005 Mish-in-the-box??!!! As I reported a few entries ago, Misha Klein's blog is no more. He called it Notes From the Box, and he dispensed arcane knowledge and philosophical dissertations on the nature of reality and stopmotion, and when he did it, you just knew this guy was on to something (yes, I said on to something !). Well the Box has been closed, production on his film has been shut down and Mish seemed to be effectively silenced. He now wrangles pixels on some CG production, staring numbingly into a monitor all day and drowning his sorrows with Ex-Lax and Everclear (ok, I don't know what he really drowns his sorrows with). BUT... two days ago he made an appearance in the comments section over at Tennessee's Private Dick Plog and gave forth a mighty sermon as in days of yore.... I had to wipe a tear away! It was almost as if a window had suddenly opened into the heart of the Box once again. And Tennessee, being the gallant soul he is, begged the Mishmeister to make occasional guest appearances on his blog, as well as mine and Ethan's Angry Puppet blog! I love the idea!! In fact, right here and now, I pledge a section of my site, henceforth to be called the DarkBox, where he can put forth any future proclamations and heresies he may desire. (Not as weird as it might sound... I'll just post Mish's comments in a special... dark box rather than in the blue text I usually use). I also hope to see a Private Box and an Angry Box. Misha buddy, if you see this, all you need to do is hit me up on the Comments link any time you gots sumpin' ta say, and I promise to post it post-haste. The world would be a cold and harsh place without your voice to lift our souls on high! So what'ya say meeshtro, come on... give us a sign??? *** Not now... I'm on the Frappr! Did you ever wonder if any other stopmo-types might live near you, perhaps laboring away in obscurity in some dank basement or garage, turning the sweat of their brow and the labor of their hands into frame-by-frame stopmo goodness? We tend to be an elusive breed, keeping to dark areas and doing our secretive work behind shuttered windows, and I'd wager to say most of us aren't really social butterflies. Well Google has heard your plea and answered it with Frappr! It's kind of a scary thought in a way, but just about every inch of this planet has been probed by satellites, including your house.... and now it's all available on the web for anyone to see. You can select from a drawn map with street names labeled, a pure satellite view, or a hybrid with both superimposed (my personal favorite) and you can zoom in until you can quite literally see your own rooftop! The link I posted above takes you directly to our very own custom Stopmotion animation map, and anyone who chooses to can add themselves to it quickly and easily (and free of charge). I did it... it just took a few minutes. It was wild zooming in and seeing all the familiar landmarks near my house, and then getting in real close and actually seeing my house! Kind of strange though... my location won't show up exactly right... they actually show me living on the playground of Emge school, where I spent a good portion of my wasted youth. I heard they won't show your exact location for security reasons, and really I'm glad... I don't think I need any stopmo-stalkers dropping in! I get enough noob questions just on the stopmotion board! It was the brainchild of 3DG (whoever that may be) and he's the one who created the group for us. If you're community-minded go ahead and add yourself... you don't have to be an animator yourself, just someone who thrives on it like we all do. Comments Nov 17 2005 My 1st crude composite! Once again I'm pushing ahead into unexplored territory (well, unexplored by me that is). Anyone with any FX experience looking at this is doubtless cringing, and I know it's rough (yes, Shelley, it really IS rough, so no backtalk on this one, OK? ), but I wanted to post my in-progress work. Just doing this (using entirely Stupendous Software in iMovie) has already taught me a good deal that I'll be using in my actual movie, which has a similar scene... for instance, originally the movements of Silver-Screen Buster and Audience Buster echoed each other too closely. Here... see for yourself: But, as I've mentioned before, whenever I re-do something it's a mixed blessing. I fixed the timing echo and the contrast problem, but I do like the deep saturated blues in the "bad" clip better, and foreground Buster seems a lot more "solid". Put it all down as a learning experience... hopefully next time I can do better. Man, I can't rave enough about Stupendous Software! I'm still learning all the tricks hidden away in there, and everything is so incredibly simple! I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you're a Mac-head using iMovie, consider it a Poor-Man's After Effects. And simplicity is perfect for me... I've never been a meticulous person (which many stop-motionists actually are, to an alarming degree) so I'm beginning to realize the sort of rough, cartoonish look of Buster is perfect for me. I used the simplest compositing technique I know of for this... the Frontlight/Backlight method described by my StopMoShorts brother Nick Hilligoss. Actually, my technique was even simpler... since my puppet in the foreground was just a silhouette, I only needed Backlight! If you're interested, here's the Stupendous Software Tutorial on compositing. It really don't get much simpler. I'm actually a bit behind my StopMoShorts bros when it comes to this kind of effects stuff. Jason and Eric have both done beautiful and pristine blue-screen or green-screen composites, and of course Nick has been doing them (and all manner of other effects) for many years. We're not exactly sure what kind of tricks Lionel might have up his sleeve (no telling what he might have learned during his run as an animator on Gumby in the 80's, or since) - but he's reported that he's blowing the dust off his equipment and getting back into practice! But my style is very basic, I'm really more concerned with the puppets and their little world, the tactile reality and the flight of pure imagination that they can inspire. I do plan to occasionally delve into a few simple effects like this one, and that's why I'm exploring them (such as the wire-rig removal technique I did a while ago for Buster's big Jump Shot). I plan to use these early films to lay the ground work, to get the mistakes out of the way as it were. Comments Sorry, I like it as it is. - Shelley ...You're too easy Hey looks cool! I'm always surprised about how BIG a puppet apears if you see it on the screen on a screen?!?!? ; ) - Jurgen Kling Hey, I like your Backlight-Backlight method! So, this test is another hint about what's in your mysterious film project? - Nick Hilligoss Thanks Nick. Heh... yeah, I pretty much got the concept from your StopMoShorts tutorial. As to my mysterious project... I ain't talkin'! click the pic to begin loading my mega-bonus video page and finish reading this while it loads Nov 15 2005 The Silence of the Munchkins Welcome to what promises to be my biggest and bestest blog entry yet! The grinning mug above belongs to little-known silent comic Larry Semon, about whom I knew absolutely nothing two days ago. But now, after a little web research, I know quite a bit about not only Semon and his films, but silent films in general, silent comedies in particular, and..... Laurel and Hardy???!!! Let me explain... When I discovered that the newly released 3-disc collector's edition of The Wizard of Oz included several early silent versions of the film, I Netflixed it (just the disc with the silents on it) thinking it could prove a rare opportunity to watch the development of a cinematic idea through an early period of cinema. And indeed it proved to be just that! From the 1910 Baum-produced one-reeler through 1933's cartoon (which is the first film treatment to present Kansas in b&w and Oz in Technicolor) you can witness the growth and changes in silent film techniques... well, to an extent anyway. The real highlight is 1925's film directed and produced by Larry Semon, who also stars as the Scarecrow (yes folks, the scarecrow is the star of this version). He's a silent film comic little-known today (except in certain european countries where he remains famous, much like Jerry Lewis did in France) but in his day he was more loved (and better-paid) than Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd! Of course, at that time, Keaton wasn't yet understood as the genius we know him as today, he was considered just a slapstick comic who made some very bizarre, almost surreal films, while the less talented Semon was a company man, cranking out films that made 'em laugh (generally by repeating a very familiar pattern of gags) and didn't challenge the audience's expectations. It was in his films that both Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel got their start, and in fact there was a short-lived duo of Semon and Laurel. One of the selling points of this silent gem today is the casting (rather poor IMO) of Hardy as the Tin Woodsman. In fact it would be easy to imagine Laurel in the role of the Scarecrow... Semon does bear a striking resemblance, and their style is somewhat similar. Ok, right about now, if you have broadband and you clicked on the Scarecrow's portrait above, your extra-special mega-bonus video analysis clip page should be done loading. That's the real meat and potatoes of today's blog entry... go marvel at it... but if you're one of the world's unhappy dialup users (in heaven's name WHY??!!) you have some more time to kill, so you might want to look over this excellent page about Larry Semon. Personally I find it fascinating... not only does it discuss his career, but also has some great info on silent films and particularly silent comedies that I hadn't heard before. Ok... back? Even you dial-uppers should be able to go watch the video clips by now! So what are you doing wasting time here? Comments Shelley Noble- Holy Humping Cows, Darkster, what a simply fantastic presentation!! I loved your analysis and each of the clips. Hang on! In the 1925 Tornado clip I was shocked by the realism of the way the landscape being destroyed looked. It seemed to me EXACTLY like the nuclear bomb test footage from the 50's, the way the shacks and trees slightly hesitate forward and then burst backward with great violence before tumbling into obliteration. You've got me wondering a.) how did filmmakers in the 20's render such a scene of vast destruction so accurately as if already having the test footage to study frame by frame? and/or b.) is it possible the 20's filmmakers were hired later to animate the 50's test footage? (The big bomb not really existing is such a nice thought in a way, although I guess we'd be spreken ze Deutsche right about now, eh?) And thanks for posting everything because I loved the donkey in the "bad" clip! Remember too that the cards were up so long because people back then were slower readers. I'm not joking. Things such as attention spans have dramatically shortened since MTV went air-born. FYI I was initially distracted by TV ads and old movie sound coming through with these clips. Then it worked as comedic counterpoint. I ended up remedying it though by lowering my output but thought you should check whether at some point during your recording or posting process a little red light somewhere goes on? Huh??!! TV ads and old movie sound??! Wow, you know what... I had no idea that I had accidentally captured sound while getting these clips! I always have headphones hooked up to the computer, and I wasn't wearing them for this, so I had no clue there was any sound at all. But sure enough, after scratching me head from reading your comment, I put 'em on and sure enough... TV ads and old movie sound! Seems I still had the sound cords running to the VCR from my last capture project, and it was getting infomercials and a bit of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (yet another film with incredibly strong ties to Jane Eyre, that I think I must discuss soon). Wow, no wonder the file size on these clips was so much bigger than I expected! And I don't think I can re-do them without sound unless I go back to the drawing board and start re-capturing/editing/compressing. Screw all that! This was already a huge ordeal. Heh... in fact, it should have been done a day sooner, but when I was just about done with it my computer froze up, and do you know I hadn't saved a thing? I just had the clips themselves, and all my writing was lost! Heartbreaking... I had to sleep on it and try to reconstruct it all the next day. You'd have loved to see how frequently and obsessively I saved! Ok, about the tornado scenes.... the answer is actually quite simple, as it usually is for early filmmaking (unlike today's industry). They used giant fans, like airplane motors with huge props attached. But I love your theory about the bomb being fake! Sometimes I wonder if all the "great moments in history" weren't faked (the way the moon landing and the holocaust supposedly were, according to some peeps) and really we're just mindless consumerist drones patched into our entertainment systems supplying current ala The Matrix. Funny though how all that hurricane blowing just suddenly stops for the shot where the shack lifts off! I believe the actual destruction scene was done with a miniature set and cardboard buildings... looks very realistic though, especially the trees bending over. Heheh... wow, they utterly and completely destroyed the farm in this one... I guess there's no coming back to Auntie Em eh? And I was struck listening to the incidental sounds by the extreme diversity between entertainment "then" and now. Hour-long commercials on almost every channel... how much farther will it plummet? Thanks for going through all the time and trouble to do this for us--TWICE!! You sir, rock. - Shelley Nov 10 2005 Biting the bad bullet... and some good news It was with much regret that I finally deleted my link to Misha Klein's Bad Bullets blog today. That was one I always loved to check on my daily rounds, along with Tennessee Norton's, Ethan Marak's and Mike Bates' blogs. I've also been diggin' on Marc Spess and my fellow StopMoShorts cohort Lionel's respective blogs. Misha took his down recently for reasons of his own and left a gaping exit wound in the stopmo blogosphere. In my last entry (which has developed an amazingly long chain of comments) I posted an email sent to me by Michael Haverty of the Center for Puppetry Arts in Alanta regarding their annual Xperimental Puppetry Theater program. I asked him a few questions that weren't covered in his initial email, and he gave me permission to post his responses here... just in case any of my readers are interested in submitting a film. Here's what he wrote: There are no entry fees. The Center generally retains rights to show or develop XPT pieces for one year after the production, after that it reverts to you, the creator. However you can usually obtain permission to show your film somewhere else or distribute it by simply asking The Center's Producer. In the past, simply stating that it was shown in XPT is all we require. I will CC this to the Producer just in case the circumstances are different for film entries. I hope to see an entry from you, and thanks for spreading the word. Michael Haverty XPT Coordinator I've added a link for the Center (www.puppet.org) under Puppets. Who was that masked Animator? At long last Richard Svensson has got himself a website. This guy is amazing... a Swedish stopmotionist who makes these fantastic puppets using simple methods and materials. Click on the image above to be whisked to The Lone Animator and witness his insane visions. He's got lots of great pics showing how he makes his stuff. And if you get on his good side, he might introduce you to the Swedish Bikini Team. Comments Nov 08 2005 Little bit o' Buster It's pretty crappy... not much life to it and he jerks all over the place, but I decided to post it anyway, and next time I'll have an improved one. It's been a while since I animated anything, and I was surprised at how rusty I got! I also forgot everything, like the importance of hotglue to secure props down... dig those dancing trash cans! And I'm always hesitant to squelch all the color out and reduce one of these things to sepia or monochrome, but it's amazing when I do to see how great it looks. I notice it makes shadows and light much more important... they almost become abstract elements. And the added camera shake (much smoother than any accidental camera shake) and film grain and flecks of dirt etc all have the effect of reducung the jitter of my animation and drawing attention away from it. My lighting has improved dramatically I think. I'm now using a pretty standard 3-point approach, with my main light being a par46 that I actually diffused with a paper towel (the diffusion filters I have just weren't doing the job) and an ordinary swingarm desklamp for rim lighting, with a paper CD envelope held up by a pair of hemostats acting as a reflector to fill in the otherwise too-dark shadows. It's pretty tough to reach in and animate with the camera and my makeshift reflector jammed in so close, but I managed it. I think I'll switch positions for the desklamp and the reflector next time, to open up the field a little. Center for Puppetry Arts - call for entries Hello! I work for the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, GA - we have put out a call for short puppet films for our XPT show, now in its 25th year. I was hoping you might post this on your site, or at least pass it around your community. Here's the specs: Call for Short Puppet Films The Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, GA. is calling for the submission of short puppet films to be presented at the Xperimental Puppetry Theater program, May 18 - 21, 2006. The films may be up to five minutes in length, and may be conceived in any style of puppet cinema, i.e: animation, stop-motion, shadow, live puppetry, etc. Films chosen will also be placed in the Center's Puppetry Film Archive and Library. You may submit more than one film. DVD is preferred, VHS accepted. Deadline is February 9th. Include contact information and mail to : Michael Haverty, XPT Coordinator Center for Puppetry Arts 1404 Spring St. Atlanta, GA 30309 If you wish your submission to be returned, please include an SASE. Questions? Visit www.puppet.org or email: michaelhaverty@hotmail.com Comments Just call the animation, "I tip my hat to the earthquake" I know you are not totally happy with that bit of animation, and yes you do have dancing trashcans. But there is something about it that is just so damm appealing. Maybe it's the character design, I don't know, but I love watching it. More Buster, more Buster! - Mark Fullerton Great work. Buster looks alive to me. Thank God I don't suffer your high animation standards if you think this looks crappy! I think it's exciting art. - Shelley Thanks! Yes it's true, I am cursed with high standards, but then that's what drives me to try to do better. Don't misunderstand... I do like it, but I didn't really understand the move going in, and as a result it's unsure... it seems lost between two different gestures to me. I wanted it snappier, faster going in and coming out, and a bit more of a hold, and I feel like he moved the hat too far. Also I'm distracted by the extra movement of his body and right arm when attention should be focused on the gesture itself. In spite of all this though, I must say I'm tickled pick every time I watch it! How bizarre that I'm now doing such a cartoonish comedy thing, so different from the Ahab stuff I started out with! But it's a lot more fun. Here's my second try: In some ways I like it better... this is more like what I was trying to do originally, but some things look better in the first one. That always seems to happen when you re-do a shot. Trash cans are secured down now, but there was some trash settling. And I don't like the lighting as much (I switched my rim light to the other side so I could move the reflector out of my way). Many thanks to Ace Paper Tac.... without it the hat wouldn't have stayed put at all... on his head or in his hand! I've come to like the slightly jerky animation for Buster... it really works with the silent movie effect and the rough toylike design. But... I also find that I have to do everything in my power to combat jerkiness... the little bit that I can't help is enough. The same applies with the roughness in the sculpting and the clothes - I have to really try to get everything perfect, and I end up with some (hopefully) charming imperfections. - Mike I finally got it. Buster is Buster Keaton. I've been watching quite of bit of his stuff lately and want to animate some stuff like that. I can see it working real well with stop-motion and you can do it silent and not need to worry about lipsync. I can see the resemblance in your puppet, especially in the eyes. Nice job. - Derry Bryson Thanks Derry. You're so right about not needing to mess with lip sync... that's one of the perks of animating this kind of stuff. I didn't even realize how perfect Buster was as a stopmo subject when I sculpted him, but I found out he used to be called "The Great Stoneface" because he never changed his expression. How cool is that??!! Perfect for my style of solid head puppets. I think there's a very interesting parallel between silent films and stop motion.... flickery movement and changing exposure levels, difficulty in getting lip sync (or impossibility for silent films). It's weird how similar they can look, so to me it seems like a perfect match. Well, looking at both of my takes, I think overall I like the first one better... it has more energy. The improvements in the second one really weren't worth the loss of vitality. I think I'll be doing some very short Buster films and trying to get each shot in one take. I have a bigger more ambitious project slated, but Buster will be my warmup. -Mike Ψ