Yoinks and away!

This is what I feel like whenever I leave for Amherst.

I also saw I am Legend tonight; I loved the beginning (not so much the ending), but one of the things I really like about that movie is storytelling without hitting the viewer over the head with it; instead of explaining what's happening flat out, they leave a bunch of small clues as to what happened before. Which means that some frickin' telepath in Hollywood read my mind years ago because that's how I was going to build up a character for an animated feature I hope to make eventually.

I also managed to find a way to hook up an old VCR to my computer; last night I enjoyed the old Raggedy Ann and Andy "Musical Adventure" from my youth. Did you know that Richard Williams did that? I didn't. I usually don't say "style" too often, but after watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Thief and the Cobbler, I was completely taken by surprise because the acting and the animation didn't match the styles of those other films.

Apparently Art Babbit and Eric Goldberg worked on that too.

I need to find an animator from the golden age that's still alive so I can latch onto them and sponge as much knowledge as I can from them. My attempts to at least send Ollie Johnston a thank you/fanboy letter fell through last spring. And then he died a couple weeks later. It's funny how all the people who's work I idolize die around the time I'm learning about them, or how they died shortly before I started studying their work, as if this process of learning is sucking the souls from their bodies. Should I stop before every animator drops dead?

I made this for someone on albinoblacksheep. Someone correct me if I'm wrong:

Chris Sanders?

It's 3:21 AM. I've been staring at cutouts in flash since 8:00 and I need a break.

So I shall squander it on asking this question: Where is Chris Sanders and what is he doing? Last I heard of him, he was working on an amazing project called American Dog (currently Bolt) when he was effectively axed by John Lassiter. While I agree with Lassiter's judgement that a 1 eyed cat and a radioactive bunny isn't exactly... Disney... I hate to see such a great concept and such great characters dumbed down to its current standing.

So I know where Bolt is heading, but I haven't heard about Mr. Sanders at all. I really hope he does find another studio to push his unique and ediger style.

fun fact: Flash does NOT like large image files (or 30 of them). I was crashing every 5 or so minutes because of this until I decided to just use placeholder graphics for the high res images and boy, has my life been easier.

[edit]

Wow, I'm an idiot. A quick google search turns up his site:
http://www.chrissandersart.com/

Apparently he's working for Dreamworks now. I can only hope he's got more artistic freedom over there. Am I dumb for hoping that he's going to help steer Dreamworks in a non-Disney direction?

Golly gosh darn gee willickers

So I was supposed to do a stop motion/object animation with sausages. Lots of sausages. And then it dawns on me last night, when I went to go shoot a test, that I have neither the space nor the right equipment to do what I want. The problem is that I'm trying to green-screen the sausages out so I can compile it on top of a video of a fiery grill, but:

1. I need glass. A big ol' pane of glass. Glass is very expensive, and I don't have any money
2. A lack of proper equipment. Ideally, I'd like to hook up an SLR camera to a computer on a dolly to keep track of the shots, but all I have is a point and shoot camera.
3. Did I mention the lack of money? I need lighting equipment and a green cloth to green screen (who would have known that those green bedsheets in the closet weren't the right shade of green/ don't provide enough contrast?

So now I'm completely selling out and I'm just animating this in flash with PICTURES of sausages. I can already tell right now that this isn't going to look as organic or have as much charm as a traditional frame by frame animation is.

....on the plus side, hey, I can at least eat the sausages now.

Olympics!

I'm not going to post any of my political beliefs on this blog, but I have to say that the Olympics are surprisingly entertaining. Namely, watching the womens' sporting events. I really wish I had more time to watch them

...for sketching of course! There's a lot of good action poses in them there events!

Otherwise, for those of you that constantly visit, you'll have noticed something new up top. That will hopefully go towards helping fund my college education. So, before anyone says it, yes, I've sold out (although when I first put it on, the first ads were "Pixar" "MGM" "animation" and "cartoons" so it's not looking to be THAT bad)