Between the Frames

1000 true fans

t1ckt0ck — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:11:08 +0000

Mayerson has a great post pointing to a great post by Kevin Kelly about artistic financial success on the internet. He posits that there is a happy middle ground for artists live off their creations between obscurity and super stardom. I completely agree. I think this is the natural place for an artist anyway. Direct connections with your niche of fans that truly appreciate your work. Looking at the success of Trent and Thom even with the extreme “piracy” of music these days gives hope to this direct model.

ChickenFeed

t1ckt0ck — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:02:22 +0000

Happy Leapday! So much has happened over the past 7+ months. Anyway, here’s the most recent test render of Chicken feed. Timing is off and so are the shadows. Currently working on the sound.

Back from Platform

t1ckt0ck — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 02:53:19 +0000

Well, I’m back from Platform and what a ride. I’m still working on my blow by blow post, but here are my pics to hold you over:

From Platform Fest…

Oh, and comments are broken at the moment. Sorry.

Platform

t1ckt0ck — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:28:11 +0000

Live from Portland. Man I was hoping to be able to post everyday, but this is the first chance I’ve had all week to even boot up my laptop. The screenings start at nine and the party has gotten me back to the hotel around 1-2am all week. Christ, who knew that festivals would be so exhausting. Obviously it’s been fucking brilliant! Until I can get back to may laptop here’s a quote from Bill Plympton:

“Negotiating with Disney is less Good Cop/Bad Cop and more Bad Cop/Anti-Christ.”

Alright I’m late to my next screening. Catch you all soon with TONS of stories, pictures and anecdotes.

Test Shot

t1ckt0ck — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 01:39:50 +0000

Test composition of a new short I’m working on until my staging table and studio are finished.

Mr. Handy

t1ckt0ck — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 02:30:51 +0000

This was a test of putting together SOMETHING to animate and pulling together bits and pieces all over. I fed wire into the hand to make it pose-able.

Working on a new new short

t1ckt0ck — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 21:46:51 +0000

I’m experimenting with various found objects from my closet and office.

New short

t1ckt0ck — Sun, 13 May 2007 14:19:23 +0000

So I am working on a new short. My original idea was a twist on the Jack and the Beanstalk theme. I really like the idea, but it just got more and more complex. Too many characters, too many sets for lil’ ol’ me. It’s turning into a straight fiction story which is good. I haven’t written fiction in quite some time.

So now I’m going back to the Ungeheuer well. The short will be titled “Miscommunication” and is based on the Tower of Babel myth. Thanks to Grant and Tak I have great ideas for new armature. I’m also renovating my office to make it a full blown studio. No more bending over my small two foot end table.

Corn Woman

t1ckt0ck — Sun, 06 May 2007 22:09:58 +0000

During the past week, when I wasn’t sick as a dog, I’ve been helping out Tak with his stopmotion short “The Corn Woman”. He received a grant from the Atlanta Center for Puppetry Arts. The story itself is based on a Cherokee myth. Fantastic stuff and it’s a pleasure to work with him.

Production shot

Working on the layout for my next short. Very promising, but now it’s time to get ready for the Atlanta Animation Workshop.

Moving Back to Linux

t1ckt0ck — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:22:21 +0000

Well, after a lot of thought and research I’ve decided to make the jump back to Linux. I’m sick of Windows from both an ideological and practical stand point. I’m sick of having to pirate software I can’t afford because it’s only targeted at a commercial audience. I’m sick of the boot times and bloated apps. So, yeah, I’m making the jump.

From an animation standpoint what does this mean? Well OSAlt has been a fabulous resource for finding open source alternatives to the commercial software I’ve been using. I’ve also been using Linux in VMWare to make sure the software I’m looking at works well and my current hardware will be supported. So here’s a list of what I’m planning on using after the jump.

The most important package, Stopmotion:
Currently using AnimatorDV simple+ to stream a live feed from my camcorder via firewire. Onionskinning is important to me as is frame flipping. I’ll be replacing it with with Stopmotion which supports the same features. Thanks to Stop Motion Works for the tip.

Image editing:
Currently using Photoshop. Will be moving to GIMP.

2D animation:
Currently using Moho 5.4 (now Anime Studio). Before Moho was sold to Anime Studio they supported Linux. I have both the package and the license still. so…Yay!

Sound editing:
Been using Audacity and will continue to do so.

NLE video editing:
Using After Effects. I’ll be moving to Kino. Definitely not as full featured as AE, but more than suits my needs.

Video Conversion:
I convert a lot of different media types for animation screenings. SWF to FLV to DIVX to XVID to MPEGII to VOB to MOV…… Actually the conversion software I use most under Windows like ffmpeg and VirtualDub are ported from Linux. sweet.

DVD Authoring:
Good god. Too many options to even choose from. I’ve been using DVDAuthor under Windows which is, can you guess?, ported from Linux. I’ll probably stick with it.

Burning DVDs:
Using Roxio. Moving to K3b. Works flawlessly.

Hardware:
I have a Dell Latitude D820 and all the underlying hardware is fully supported. My new Samson microphone works. My Canon Elura 100 works. My external projector works. Playing DVDs works better than under windows (so no more DVDshrink before the animation workshop). Other concerns were my Sony Ebook and IPod. Both are fully supported.

And the winning distribution??? Ubuntu! I used to be a Debian diehard, but looking at Ubuntu I’m a convert. Besides Feisty Fawn is due to be released next week.

I have a USB external drive due in the mail to back up my current data before the migration. Then it’s full speed ahead. BTW, for those interested, Amazon has an incredible deal right now. 320GB external USB 2.0 drive for 99$. That’s a friggin’ no-brainer.