Edited by Joe Riley 3:00 PM

Massive Encoding 12:10 PM

Encoding videos to DVD. Lots and lots of them. This'll take a few days.

63 days 9:50 AM

To the next OtakuHELL.

YOUR ALBUM COVER

1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. Make sure you hit the new random quotations button at the bottom.

3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use photoshop or similar to put it all together (http://www.picnik.com/) works well, online.

5 - Post it with this these instructions.

I wonder what Gondry would do? 9:36 AM

It occurs to me that Sweded movies, or Sweding, is a response to Dogma 95, in a way. I wish that Michel Gondry had written a Sweded Manifesto to actually study and compare to the Dogma movement. It may not have been a conscious decision, but Sweding does have a kind of anti-Dogma 95 thing about it.

Of course the original website for the Be Kind Rewind movie is now gone, so I can only dig around for archived versions of it in hopes of finding something of substance. There is a YouTube channel, but it's not too helpful. And there's a Daily Motion contest group here but it's a la french.

I guess, barring finding something from Gondry in print, I'll have to refer to the definition. Re-making something from scratch using whatever you can get your hands on. Although, in the movie, it becomes more of a film making statement, as it ends with a new movie, and not a recreation of an existing movie using the super low budget techniques.

Hold on, I found it.

You'll Like This Film Because You're in it. The Be Kind Rewind Protocol. That's what I was looking for:

Michel Gondry’s debut book is a functional memoir of his quest to put the tools of filmmaking in the hands of as many people as possible. At New York’s Deitch Projects, in February and March of 2008, Gondry emulated the heroic example of his characters, constructing a do-it-yourself film studio in which any visitor could assemble their own film from extant plot summaries and rent the results. His aim: “I intend to prove that people can enjoy their time without being part of the commercial system and serving it…Ultimately, I am hoping to create a network of creativity and communication that is guaranteed to be free and independent from any commercial institution.” This book chronicles Gondry’s journey towards what he calls “The Be Kind Rewind Protocol”, and serves as an inspirational guide to creativity and the art of having fun.

I'm off to Amazon...

Your format is invalid 9:28 AM

Got the Movie Box out and fired it up to timeshift some Big Red Dog for Hans. The stuff is now so old that it works fine on the Averatec. But it'll never work on anything beyond XP. Hell, I'm lucky it works on XP. I've got software that only works on 95/98/NT. Obsolete. I've got hardware that only works on USB 1. I really need to break out the old zip drive and see if I can save some of that old artwork I stored up. I haven't touched the old Mac PowerPC in years.

Crap, think of the piles of floppy disks that I amassed over the years. I don't even have a 3.5 disc drive on the Averatec, now that I think about it.

Unfinished and unvarnished 6:00 AM

I have spent the weekend sick in bed. And nothing got done.

So, here's a bit of animation I had started for the X-mas show way back in December. In hindsight, I really worked way too hard for that X-Mas show. Of course, now I'm knocking myself out for the upcoming A-Kon show. I never learn...

Please stand by 12:23 PM

Sicko 1:02 PM

My ears are ringing. Really bad. It's coming on. I hope I can make it to the end of the day...

inches on the reel to reel 8:05 AM

It struck me last night as I was drawing frame after frame and I'd drawn somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 drawings that I didn't even have 30 seconds of animation. Because I really thought I'd drawn enough for 30 seconds, but I'm not thinking in frames per second but the effort of all that drawing.

Jones was right. Every drawing is only on the screen for a fraction of a second. I'm just starting to get a feel for what that fraction of a second is. The thing I've been concentrating on is the movement and acting. The squash and stretch of it. I'm not tied to a soundtrack, so I'm not counting frames. I'm not thinking how many frames make a second.

I'm working at 8fps, and I probably should be drawing at 12fps.

Eight drawings makes a second, 16 is 2 seconds, 24 is 3 seconds, and so on. 40 frames is only 5 seconds. And 80 frames is only 10 seconds. Now 8 drawings for a second doesn't seem too bad to me, but for some reason, in my mind, 80 drawings for 10 seconds is lousy. So, for 30 seconds of animation I need to have 240 drawings.

So, the question is, how long does it take to draw 240 frames? I'm not sure exactly, but I think it took me about a half hour to draw those 90 frames last night. In my de-evolved squiggle style. Is it more work then puppet animation? Oh yeah. You could say that. But I still like the results I'm getting.

And this is why I'm not animating at 24fps.

So, let's split the difference. If I'm gonna do anything more then a few seconds at a time I need to use some limited animation techniques. Including breaking down figures into puppets and animating them on different layers.

squiggling as I go 9:00 AM

The more I animate the more I look at other animation with a different eye. Looking at Bob's animation I find myself deconstructing it. What's moving, how it's moving, and sometimes how I'd do it differently.

Right now I'm very dissatisfied with puppet animation, which seems to be the standard for almost all flash animation these days. And it just doesn't feel like, well, animation. Not that I'm all that much for the Richard Williams school of realistic and shooting on ones. I'm obviously in the rubber hose school, so I'm pretty much working at odds with the mechanics of puppet style. Is it more work? Maybe.

Like this 8:22 AM

Jeez, that's disappointing. Gotta build a nicer title card then this.

That sound of old film 8:48 AM

I wonder if there's a way to generate that sound of a dirt/damaged film? I'd like some pops and hiss to overlay the tracks.

After some thought, I think that a simple title card with the stock soundtrack playing over it for 3 to 5 seconds is the best way to go with the Pill Pals PSAs. I thought about having a couple of title cards to introduce the Pill Pals. Something like "It's Hell Nurse Katie's," and on the next screen, "Magical Pill Pals!" But I think it'd work better with a simple "Tips for a Healthier Convention," card with no hint at what's to follow. It somehow seems more appropriate to just jump right in with no explanation as to who the Pill Pals are and where then came from or any connection to HELL. I'm still thinking of doing the G.I.Joe PSA style tag on the end. But I'm debating it. It could wreck the tone of the whole thing.

Jeez, like I know what I'm talking about. I don't even have a clue.

I see the title card run through the old film stock filter to get that look. And that's why I'd like a pop and hiss track to add over the Pill Pals animation. Right. I know.

It's not a perfect solution, but it 's pretty darn close. 8:13 AM

Playing around with the Neuromixer AVmixer lite last night. And It could be a video mixer solution for AnimeHELL. I have been looking for a simple video mixer that I could use for doing a live show. The problem with most video mixing software is that it's geared for doing VJ sets, where the emphasis is on the music and is treated separate from the visual element. That's great if you're playing a rave, but not so great for playing video clips with their audio tracks intact and without a pounding drum loop underneath (or over) it.

AVmixer lite is a cut down version of AVmixer Pro. Which means it doesn't have the fancy video effects and trippy filters and stuff that your typical VJ wants for his visuals to go with his phat beats. This is great news to me. I don't need that stuff and all it does is put a drag on the computer processor. So that leaves us with 2 video players and a crossfader inbetween them. And that'd be a basic simple video mixer. Holy crap! I can load up the playlists for both video players, preview the video in the monitors and see what the live feed looks like. Damn. This is exactly what I was looking for. AND IT WORKS.

There's buttons for goofing with the audio and looping or bouncing the video, too. You can slow down or speed up the clips, too. And you can trigger the clips on the keyboard, too. Not that I'd be using this stuff much at a show, it's nice that it's there. I guess.

If that weren't enough, it's free for the asking. (But there is a donate button in case you're feeling generous.) And you don't need to install it into your computer. It runs outta your RAM. So, unfortunately, it does suck up the resources to run the video clips. I'm thinking I just need to tweak the settings or re-encode the video clips to help it along. I may actually have to try using this for the next HELL. (After I practice with it and test out all the clips in my playlist. Don't want any surprises at the show.) It doesn't do exactly what I'd like, but it's close enough. I'd love to be able to superimpose some text on the screen occasionally, but I think I can live without that. If only it had a star wipe, it'd be in heaven.

So, there you go. A simple video mixer that you could use to make a video presentation at your next meeting. Or your next HELL.

The rainy season 7:09 AM

It rained all evening and late into the night. It's still sputtering away this morning. And it's good and cold.

Must keep an eye out for a Puncolle DVD. It's certain to be good HELLfodder.

Variations on a theme 7:56 AM

I used SUPER to convert the animated gifs to XVID encodes that Windows Movie Maker seems to agree with. Here's the test:

Flipbook reel from tohoscope on Vimeo.
As you can see, you can only polish these gifs so much. Too bad I can't convert them to quicktime.

more hip shakin' 6:00 AM

This is pure gold! Somebody needs to do a comic adaptation of it.

As much as I love Flipbook I think I'm gonna have to stick with Toon Boom for the future. Unlike Flipbook, I can recycle all the animation loops I make in other formats. And maybe edit them all together into a couple of films, too. Gotta work smarter...

blah 10:59 PM

I don't have a name for this 6:00 AM

Blue Ninja 6:00 AM

It lacks the punch of a good Joseph Lei/Gordon Ho Ninja title. NINJA BLUE starring Richard Harrison as Master Ninja Gordon!

Well, that didn't work 6:00 AM

But I'm used to that.

http://axsus-news.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the heads up on this one, Dave!


Hey! It's Soapy!

Side to Side 6:00 AM

Gotta learn how to animate the double bounce. I'm off to learn at the feet of Preston Blair! Ok, that's not too clear. Let's see if we can find some Ub double bounce.

Also on the animation to-do list: Stock puppets for Gavv and Jeff. Start with Heino and HG and go from there.

Won't have to worry about animation for HG's eyes, either...

Now where did I put the Dancing Heino clip?

Ja, ja, so blau, blau, blau blüht der Enzian,
Wenn beim Alpenglüh'n
Wir uns wiederseh'n.
Mit ihren ro-ro-ro-roten Lippen fing es an,
Die ich nie vergessen kann!

Wenn des Sonntags früh um viere die Sonne aufgeht
Und das Schweizer Madel auf die Alm 'naufgeht,
Bleib ich ja so gern am Wegrand steh'n, ja steh'n,
Denn das Schweizer Madel sang so schön:

Holla-dia-dia-holladi-holladi-ho,
Holla-dia-dia-holladi-holladi-ho.
Blaue Blumen dann am Wegrand steh'n, ja steh'n,
Und das Schweizer Madel sang so schön!

Of course, the animation of the eyes is one of the things that gives a character some "life." And Heino doesn't move around much. I should make a Heino DDR style game in flash. All he does is sways back and forth.

On the other hand HG tends to move around a lot. There'll be more work involved in setting up all the animation cycles for an HG puppet.

Gotta do a Soapy puppet, too. Look! No mouth or eyes! Easy lip synch!

On the bounce 6:00 AM

Remember to pick up a spool of DVD-Rs! Night Flight disc 1 needs to be cleaned. Nope, turns out it was readable in the external drive.

I'm tired and my ears are ringing. I hate that.

Odd to be talking of this when I was thinking of animation and morality last night. Somethings just can't be sustained, I guess.

Nin-Ja Attack! 6:00 AM

TCM is going through one of those periods where they're playing the same old crap over and over again. Yeah, the big theme for February was Oscar material. So they only programed Academy Award crap. Which pretty much was the crowd pleasing stuff. Movies I've already seen a couple times and I wanted to see something new. Sunday morning I watched Fourteen Hours, which was a damn good movie that I'd never seen before. The plot was about a traffic cop trying to talk Richard Basehart off the ledge of a tall hotel building. A really good movie. It was why I watch TCM, to find these great little gems. Then, of course, they filled the rest of the day's schedule with Gaslight, Rear Window, Vertigo, etc. Yeah, like I've never seen those 2 or more times.