Thank God for Netflix

I get a lot of practice from the weekly exercises we get. I take that time to focus on whatever software I am using for it, be it Maya or Toon Boom, and fiddle around there for a bit and then get to work on whatever the accident is. It's a really odd way of doing things, I know, but I tend to come across things that way. That and getting absorbed into YouTube tutorials.
Something else, I don't know if you would count this a practice,
but
<_<
 >_>
I do, I've been watching A LOT of cartoons. Just Futurama, King of the Hill, and Looney Toons though. I've found that they cover the best of 2D animation that I like. Looney Toons has the wonky exaggerations, Futurama isn't completely realistic so it has fantasy touches to it with the in-world realism, and King of the Hill is the closest thing to slice-of-life that isn't in anime.

so yea, that is my way of practicing

Scar Materials

I have my materials ready

My Peek at the Universe

The movies were neat. I always find it pretty cool to see what others peoples take on experimental film is. That is the whole draw to experimental for me. It becomes less interesting when I don't know the person that did the video. There was something though, something inspired me. It wasn't the films themselves, it was something you said. "I make these movies to show people what I see. That is all that matters" or something along those lines. Right there, something clicked. I personally don't want to work with experimental. I'm willing to try it, but that is not what I want to focus in. Those words though, I feel like they apply to anything. As I said in another blog, I've always had sort of a weird way of looking at things. And of course, showing people what I see is what matters but it was really the "that's all that matters" bit. Somebody will get it. If they don't get it then they don't need to. But, that is not an excuse to just make bad films. Just an excuse to really try different things. And really understand that I am going to make bad things and that not everything is going to go perfect the first time. I really do have to make a lot of crap to get to something good. 

Though I do have a question about the first film, I'm pretty sure there was some slowing of time, but did it speed up and slow down at different times? 

What Am I Doing?

Why am I doing this? I ask myself this almost daily, and I have a new answer for it every time. Like most things, I think it boils down to my childhood. I grew up on cartoons, old and new. My dad still loves them to this day, I always enjoyed that as a kid. It was like he was just as much of a kid as I was. As I got older the cartoons started to change and for a short period they faded away. That stupid teenage period where I thought I was too cool for cartoons. It was about this time we (my family) started watching movies nearly every night. I think that is where it all began to take root. I guess in a way it is me trying to hold on to my childhood, by hoping to make somebody else's childhood. 

But

I don't think that is all. In a way I also think this is a bit of rebellion. Weird, yes, I know. My father... a very... redneck of a man, doesn't really think much of the artsy crowd. Sometimes I think this is my way of showing him... something. I don't know.

I've always had an odd way of seeing things, and when I say odd I just mean that it seems to be different from the usual way of thinking. Sometimes it isn't a very good way of thinking and it turns out dumb. Other times it is some twisted but cool way of doing things. 

Did I Tell You How I Got These Scars?

        The scar film took quite a bit of thought to get to the scar I got to, I have a good many of them. First off I had to choose what kind of scar I wanted whether I wanted to do a physical or emotional scar. I suppose I could have ran with the cancer as a scar bit, or even used a scar I got from its surgery, but, honestly that felt too easy... and not very fun really. So I sat back and poked about thinking of the various idiotic things I have done and the harm they have brought to me. The first that came to mind was the one on my very upper thigh, but I had a certain way I wanted to do that and it didn't work well with the way the assignment was assigned. This posed another challenge for me. In retrospect it was probably better this way, it led me to think of how I wanted to do things stylistically to make it a bit more interesting. So I went back to the mold and looked about. Then came my elbow scar and I remembered just how much fun I have telling that story. From that point it became a matter of just how I needed to break it down. This, honestly, has been the hardest part. Stripping away the useless bits of the story that usually get a laugh hasn't been easy. Thinking of the pacing for an animated short is much different than blabbering about to your buddies about your bike trying to kill you. It has always been about how I wrecked and what almost happened, not the irony of the bike wreck vs the skateboard. Then I have to think about how I want it to look. When I made the decision to make my dad look drastically different than me it kind of helped me decide what I wanted to try for this film. Dad looks like a Canadian from South Park so I think I will sort of take inspiration from that. Along with my love for stop motion animation I am going to try doing this with construction paper. With that in mind this is going to be set on a 2D plane, so basically a side scroller. This is going to take some serious thought if I want to do it and do it right, but that is what make this fun. 

The Wrong Scars (tentative)