2020: The Year In Animation

I made a short animated film about how relentlessly bad the year 2020 is/was. It's been literal shit! Therefore the animation features the song "Literal Shit" by the band Apache Tomcat; go check them out on Free Music Archive, they are cool. 

I grew up in the sixties and Saturday morning cartoons had a profound impact on me. Sometimes I think my personality was shaped by Chuck Jones and Mel Blanc. Most definitely there are traces of influence in my own little indie films in terms of timing and character takes (though greatly simplified in execution). When I started making this film, I was really just thinking of animating a series of shots of me trying to "destroy the 2020". It was only halfway through that I realized I was also including pratfalls (because they're funny). Like Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, 2020 has been a series of desperate shots and humiliating pratfalls. It served the story to go with it, so I leaned in.

The song (which I found first and animated to on a timeline) is only about 30 seconds long, and the shots are super tight. I LOVE that fast-paced animation. I added the extra "downtime" at the end, which builds some tension before releasing back into the fury of the music. Actually the film will loop endlessly if you let it. I really hope 2020 does not loop endlessly. *sob*

2021 better be better.

Seriously, 2020 has been a world-wide disaster and a year fraught with personal terribleness. There's a raging pandemic! People are divided! The planet is on fire! Friends and family are suffering and dying. I animated this while simultaneously dealing with mononucleosis, full surgery to remove pre-cancer in my boob, and a gall bladder situation - and I consider myself lucky. Because it could have been way worse.

What do you consider yourself lucky for this year?

ps. wear a mask please.

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Save as.

WARNING: Animator speak.

Two nights ago I had an animation disaster: while working in Flash CS5 on a commissioned film, the file suddenly corrupted. It refused to revert so I forced close and reopened it. When I checked it there was a ton of missing body parts and elements, every symbol had doubled its number of layers and extended one layer for twice as many frames. FREAKY.

Poor Nonna lost her knickers.

To make matters worse, the doubling was causing the file to choke making it super difficult to do anything. I’m talking "click… (wait 5 seconds) …object selected". And then it would freeze, "file not responding". Ugh.

I thought I was going to puke.

WTF?

To those of you who said “don’t you back up?” Of course I fucking back up, ffs. I’m not an idiot, geez. Mostly. I save every few seconds, and there's a raid automagically backing everything up in case one of my drives dies. But I hadn't actually saved as in a while...the earlier version from a few days before proved less than useful because I just work so dang fast yawl. Goddammit

To the three animators who reached out to me privately to offer assistance with the winrar extension fix, thank-you so much. Kiyoshi, Antonio, Jason, it really meant a lot to me that you speak the same language as me. That fix didn’t work in this particular case though.

So I did what I always do in times of great need: I texted The Huz (blissfully away camping in the Tadoussac) and I cried. He cooly reminded me that I could always decompile the latest swf render. Which I had backed up into my approvals folder. HURRAH for not being completely stupid!

If you work in Flash you probably already know about Sothink Decompiler. It basically takes your swf render and backwards-engineers it to give you a “functional” Flash file. And by “functional” I mean scrambled beyond recognition. I used it and all the symbol names in the library have been obliterated and replaced by ‘shapes’ in a million layers on the main timeline. What was once named “donkey” is now exploded into shapes 253, 254, and 255. And there are hundreds and hundreds of shapes! 

But fear not. I am brave.

Delving into my corrupted Flash file I began deleting the doubled layers. I started with the cycles that were re-used in multiple characters, like the dancing legs, running legs and so on. When the file began behaving a little better, I systematically checked for missing body parts, sourced the correct shape in the decompiled Flash file, and copy pasted it into the correct symbol in the corrupted file.

Relief.

I just finished all that and restored my file completely. It took two days. The moral of the story is to 'save as' every couple of hours. Save as, motherfuckers! It could save your ass. Hee haw.

Comments are here.

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Montreal gets an International Animation Festival.

In 1983 I was infected by the animation bug. I got a job inbetweening on a tv show, worked like a dog, drank like a fish and attended every screening and I could. Decades flew by.

I'll be honest with you: I lost my taste for animation festivals a couple of years ago while attending the Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF). Let's just say I was unable to stomach continuing to fork out for the ticket, the travel and the hotel for the privilege of viewing films selected by a single person, whose taste and demeanor differed so vastly from my own. I did miss the camaraderie of seeing old friends, but we only ended up complaining the whole time about the terrible films and the "selection committee of one", so it was just a downward spiral of facepalm.

Animator facepalm.

I went rogue; the cash I'd normally throw at animation festivals was redirected to blogging conferences - a whole 'nother world. I had way too much fun, and though I never quite fit in on account of being "an animator who blogs with drawings", I did manage to carve out a tiny niche for myself. And made a few rock solid friendships along the way.

Still...I'm kinda starved for animation. And not the kind you can see on the innerwebz.

I don't know how we missed it, but neither myself, nor my animation friends here in Montreal knew about Le MIAFF: The Montreal International Animation Film Festival until it was a week away. Just by chance I flipped the car radio from NPR to the CBC and heard an interview with the festival director, Laurie Gordon. And I'm like wtf, an animation festival in my hometown?

I missed the deadline to submit any of my recent films, but there's always next year. I'm still not sure who else (of my circle) is going to Le MIAFF, but I'll be there and I'm especially looking forward to the He(art) screening, with Don Hertzfeldt's multiple-award-winning World of Tomorrow.



Le MIAFF starts tomorrow, April 16 - 19, 2015, at downtown Concordia.  If you see me, please come say hi.

Comments are here.

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Animating Siri.

I was holding off on installing iOS6 on my iPad but finally caved cuz I need it to check the development progress of my Pickle Weasel app. No sooner had I done so when a voice emerged from behind the glass asking if I needed help with anything. It was Siri - the intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator.

It wasn't long before the 12 year old boy had commandeered the iPad and began to explore the entity.

He was leaning towards deep and philosophical questions about life.

Naturally, Siri responded with information.

I thought the boy was being a little rude to Siri and began to reprimand him. I worried that her feelings were getting hurt...as if she was real.

But she stayed cool and even gave back some cheek.

I can't help but attach emotional reactions to such things.

Maybe it's because I'm an animator, but when I heard Siri's voice, I thought I detected subtle nuances of feelings. Eagerness, sarcasm, and even sadness. I was compelled to draw her, to give her a face - and once drawn...well, then she is alive. For what is an "animator" if not someone who breathes life into drawings?

I may explore Siri's personality a bit more. Meanwhile, what do you think about artificial intelligence?

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I Draw YOU - Maddy.

I get a lot of compliments on my boots. People ask me where I got them, and I tell them the truth:

"I did a drawing of myself riding a Unicorn wearing nothing but these boots. Me, not the Unicorn." True story, right?

So that led to a contest wherein the entrants had to let me know how they'd like to be drawn wearing their dream boots from Country Outfitter. And Maddy won. Which was kinda cool cuz it was her 17th birthday and also she'd just got her license. Triple congrats!!!

Per her wishes, she's wearing Corral Tan Mesquite Laser Harness Boots, in her long knitted sweater and some knitted mittens, and holding a Macbook. She wins this drawing on one of my Zazzle mugs and a $150 gift card from Country Outfitter.

Maddy is a budding animator experimenting with stop motion 'pixelation' - she's made a clever short film called "Magician Maddy and her Favorite Socks". If any of you doubt that you can make your own films, look no further for inspiration, cuz this gal is actually doing it.

Now Maddy, whenever people admire your boots, you can tell them one heck of a long and complicated story.

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