The First Post: Magical History Tour
Well, kids, welcome to my new Blog. I decided to go with this one rather than MySpace or LiveJournal because I want this to be accessible to just about anybody, and I hate fitting into the "molds" supplied by those "other guys." Via Blogger, I can design on my own terms and publish everything directly to the mrboy.com server. (Kinky, eh?)
This lovely new blog is dedicated to the insane amount of new crap that will be filling up my tiny brain over the next few years as I begin a cavalcade of higher education, culminating with my forthcoming enrollment into Animation Mentor.
There's a lot to sum up in this first post, so this'll be lengthy (hey... at least there's pretty pictures.) Few people know the whole history of why this decision makes sense. So, I give you the complete, unadulterated history of me and movies.
First off, I must talk about what's been going on in the past six months or so. As most of you know (unless, of course, if you don't know me... but I digress,) for many years I've been doing just about everything in live-action film, from directing to editing, music to sound mixing, camera to lighting, PA to fluffer, et cetera ad nauseum, in addition to some dabblings in the world of computer animation that were never really all that successful.
Few people know that animation was actually my first pursuit. Throughout the 80's, I made what I called "comic books" that were, in actuality, more like pencil tests than real comic-bookery. (I have never read an actual comic book, so most of my childhood I didn't really know what they looked like.) Unfortunately, in the late 80's and early 90's I came to the sad (however misinformed) conclusion that I couldn't draw worth a damn. So I turned instead to live-action.
In 1990, while browsing through Radio Shack, I came across a VHS videotape they were playing on several monitors called The Mind's Eye. It was a 40-minute video containing experimental computer animation; mostly repetitive, mechanical images set to an awful electronic soundtrack. While they looked cool, most of them had no semblance of story. However, one segment entitled Breaking the Ice, a tender story about a bird on top of a frozen lake who falls in love with a fish below the ice, made a lasting impression on me, and caused me to think that, if I could animate on a computer, I could completely work around that inability to draw. (That short may not look like much now, but five years before Toy Story, it was amazing.) I spent the next several years searching high-and-low for any and all CG software I could find. And with the 1995 release of Toy Story, that search became an obsession, where I spent every last cent of my life savings on 3D software and a computer powerful enough to run it. However, none of the software I could afford would allow for even the simplest character animation.
It wasn't until 1996, when I entered into a telecommunications program my Junior year of high school, that I got my first exposure to Lightwave (albeit version 4.0 running on an old Commodore Amiga computer.) I bought an introductory version in 1997, upgraded to the full package in 1998, and immediately started learning all I could about bones, inverse kinematics, and all the other technical aspects of animation. However, I consistently hit the same snags over and over again, for years, and since I paid for the package in full (at the time it was about $2,000), I couldn't afford formal training in the software (this was before the prevalence of online message boards.) Failure after failure caused me to concentrate more of my time to live-action work, but every few months I'd come back to Lightwave and try again, trying that find out if all the years of shelling out thousands of dollars to this "hobby" were really worth it.
Finally, in 2005, I had a breakthrough. I finally figured out the mistakes that were causing my character animation failures, and after nine years, I finally had some successful animation tests, some of which are illustrated in the video below. After that, strengthening this knowledge became priority. I slowly came to the realization that live-action filmmaking really doesn't make me truly happy. Those animation tests, crude as they may be, were my first real taste of the extraordinary. See Animation Tests.
A number of years ago a good friend of mine let me borrow her copy of Drawing On The Right Side of the Brain, a book that was touted as being THE end-all-be-all solution for people who believe they can't draw. Luckily, she never asked for it back, so I still had it with me when I moved to Cali. Last November, I finally started reading it. What follows is a summary of how things have progressed thusfar with the book, and with a "Right Brain Drawing" class that I'm taking thru Glendale Community College. Let me sum up by saying, I'm pleased. ;-)
The book pretty much concentrates on first teaching the physiology of the brain and how each hemisphere works, followed by simple exercises designed to turn off or discourage the dominant, logical Left hemisphere so that the creative Right hemisphere can take over and open up the universe to all that is beautiful. One of the early lessons has you copy a simple drawing upside-down (example at left.) Turning an image upside-down makes it harder for the left-brain to identify, and thus turns it off and allows the right-brain to interpret what you are physically seeing and translate that through pencil to paper. At first this may seem silly, or even stupid, but when you actually do the exercise, you find out just how well this works. As illustrated below on this uncredited drawing from 16th century Germany. On the left is the original as it appears in the book, and on the right is the copy I drew by translating what I saw in the upside-down image. Click on the image to open a larger version.
Keep in mind that I did NOT trace this. It has not be altered via Photoshop or doctored in any way. It was entirely done by glancing back and forth from source to blank paper, attempting to judge shapes and distances entirely by eye. What's more, YOU can do this too! Even if you can't draw worth a damn (like me,) this book can give you the tools and the knowledge to do it, if you have the dedication to see it through. Needless to say, further reading and more lessons, including some of the unique teaching tools that the book uses, led to such things as these. Again, click on the images for larger versions:
That's my hand. Obviously I needed to trim my nails that day.
Ah, my shoe. We all remember seeing these hanging in the hallways in Junior High.
Another comparison image copied from the book - this one done right-side-up. (Once you get it, you got it.)
This one only some will recognize. This is actually my kitchen. Since I don't have a proper camera, I did this instead. It took about a week. No rulers or straight-edge devices (or persons) were used. You can see by the light fixture above the sink that the trouble with circles still persists, though it's becoming less of a problem. You can also see that I slowly got better at drawing straight lines (the upper cupboards were drawn early in the process, the lower cupboards and oven later.)
That's about where I stopped the book for a while, and took up a 6-week intensive Right Brain Drawing class offered by Glendale Community College. The results from the ongoing sessions to be presented next week. So, until then, I leave you with this visual thought:
This lovely new blog is dedicated to the insane amount of new crap that will be filling up my tiny brain over the next few years as I begin a cavalcade of higher education, culminating with my forthcoming enrollment into Animation Mentor.
There's a lot to sum up in this first post, so this'll be lengthy (hey... at least there's pretty pictures.) Few people know the whole history of why this decision makes sense. So, I give you the complete, unadulterated history of me and movies.
A Brief History Of Time
First off, I must talk about what's been going on in the past six months or so. As most of you know (unless, of course, if you don't know me... but I digress,) for many years I've been doing just about everything in live-action film, from directing to editing, music to sound mixing, camera to lighting, PA to fluffer, et cetera ad nauseum, in addition to some dabblings in the world of computer animation that were never really all that successful.
Few people know that animation was actually my first pursuit. Throughout the 80's, I made what I called "comic books" that were, in actuality, more like pencil tests than real comic-bookery. (I have never read an actual comic book, so most of my childhood I didn't really know what they looked like.) Unfortunately, in the late 80's and early 90's I came to the sad (however misinformed) conclusion that I couldn't draw worth a damn. So I turned instead to live-action.In 1990, while browsing through Radio Shack, I came across a VHS videotape they were playing on several monitors called The Mind's Eye. It was a 40-minute video containing experimental computer animation; mostly repetitive, mechanical images set to an awful electronic soundtrack. While they looked cool, most of them had no semblance of story. However, one segment entitled Breaking the Ice, a tender story about a bird on top of a frozen lake who falls in love with a fish below the ice, made a lasting impression on me, and caused me to think that, if I could animate on a computer, I could completely work around that inability to draw. (That short may not look like much now, but five years before Toy Story, it was amazing.) I spent the next several years searching high-and-low for any and all CG software I could find. And with the 1995 release of Toy Story, that search became an obsession, where I spent every last cent of my life savings on 3D software and a computer powerful enough to run it. However, none of the software I could afford would allow for even the simplest character animation.
It wasn't until 1996, when I entered into a telecommunications program my Junior year of high school, that I got my first exposure to Lightwave (albeit version 4.0 running on an old Commodore Amiga computer.) I bought an introductory version in 1997, upgraded to the full package in 1998, and immediately started learning all I could about bones, inverse kinematics, and all the other technical aspects of animation. However, I consistently hit the same snags over and over again, for years, and since I paid for the package in full (at the time it was about $2,000), I couldn't afford formal training in the software (this was before the prevalence of online message boards.) Failure after failure caused me to concentrate more of my time to live-action work, but every few months I'd come back to Lightwave and try again, trying that find out if all the years of shelling out thousands of dollars to this "hobby" were really worth it.
Finally, in 2005, I had a breakthrough. I finally figured out the mistakes that were causing my character animation failures, and after nine years, I finally had some successful animation tests, some of which are illustrated in the video below. After that, strengthening this knowledge became priority. I slowly came to the realization that live-action filmmaking really doesn't make me truly happy. Those animation tests, crude as they may be, were my first real taste of the extraordinary. See Animation Tests.
Drawing Straws, or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Pencil
Prior to submitting my enrollment application to Animation Mentor, I decided that I should attempt to conquer that other Holy Grail that had evaded me since childhood: drawing. Most people who can't draw say "I can't even draw a straight line." My problem was the opposite. I can draw straight lines 'till the cows turn cocoa. My problem is with every other shape, most specifically, circles. It seems that every "How To Draw" book, manual, class, etc. always says "Start with a circle." And that's where I've faltered for years. I cannot draw a circle. My circles always turn into these obtuse orbs of terror; lumpy, lopsided loops with no discernible "round" shape. For the longest time, this fact has prevented me from useful progress in the art world. I'm not saying I want to be a Great Artist. That's for people who enjoy starving. I just want to be able to draw my own storyboards and have them look recognizable to humans.A number of years ago a good friend of mine let me borrow her copy of Drawing On The Right Side of the Brain, a book that was touted as being THE end-all-be-all solution for people who believe they can't draw. Luckily, she never asked for it back, so I still had it with me when I moved to Cali. Last November, I finally started reading it. What follows is a summary of how things have progressed thusfar with the book, and with a "Right Brain Drawing" class that I'm taking thru Glendale Community College. Let me sum up by saying, I'm pleased. ;-)
The book pretty much concentrates on first teaching the physiology of the brain and how each hemisphere works, followed by simple exercises designed to turn off or discourage the dominant, logical Left hemisphere so that the creative Right hemisphere can take over and open up the universe to all that is beautiful. One of the early lessons has you copy a simple drawing upside-down (example at left.) Turning an image upside-down makes it harder for the left-brain to identify, and thus turns it off and allows the right-brain to interpret what you are physically seeing and translate that through pencil to paper. At first this may seem silly, or even stupid, but when you actually do the exercise, you find out just how well this works. As illustrated below on this uncredited drawing from 16th century Germany. On the left is the original as it appears in the book, and on the right is the copy I drew by translating what I saw in the upside-down image. Click on the image to open a larger version.
Keep in mind that I did NOT trace this. It has not be altered via Photoshop or doctored in any way. It was entirely done by glancing back and forth from source to blank paper, attempting to judge shapes and distances entirely by eye. What's more, YOU can do this too! Even if you can't draw worth a damn (like me,) this book can give you the tools and the knowledge to do it, if you have the dedication to see it through. Needless to say, further reading and more lessons, including some of the unique teaching tools that the book uses, led to such things as these. Again, click on the images for larger versions:
That's my hand. Obviously I needed to trim my nails that day.
Ah, my shoe. We all remember seeing these hanging in the hallways in Junior High.
Another comparison image copied from the book - this one done right-side-up. (Once you get it, you got it.)
This one only some will recognize. This is actually my kitchen. Since I don't have a proper camera, I did this instead. It took about a week. No rulers or straight-edge devices (or persons) were used. You can see by the light fixture above the sink that the trouble with circles still persists, though it's becoming less of a problem. You can also see that I slowly got better at drawing straight lines (the upper cupboards were drawn early in the process, the lower cupboards and oven later.)That's about where I stopped the book for a while, and took up a 6-week intensive Right Brain Drawing class offered by Glendale Community College. The results from the ongoing sessions to be presented next week. So, until then, I leave you with this visual thought:
posted by Rich at
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