december 30th 2006

hello friend
i've been hard at work on top secret movie stuff.
plot and timeline things.
that and some more timmy tomatos. i'll share those when they are painted.
happy new year.

december 24th 2006

here are 3 captures from scenes i shot this evening.

december 23rd 2006

the third time is a charm. i hope i don't say that too many times during the production of this.

the shots went alot easier with 2 people around. colby guided the plane and i taped.
we had to get clever around the pole holding it and the wires underneath it but i think we did well.

i made this rig that had a button and everything but the wires kept getting untaped from the battery.
so the rig went from this awesome thing, to colby wrapping a wire around her finger. classy.
it worked long enough to get what we needed out of it. i'm glad it's over.

i also made 4 more timmy tomatos last night. i have enough material to make 4 more so i'll probably do that before
tuesday. good times.

december 18th 2006

this is a picture of me after i got my ass kicked by a $15.00 air organ.
it totally wasn't a fair fight at all. the air organ is a dirty bitch.
i have an idea though, an idea to reap sweet revenge on that meanie!

december 17th 2006

dauntless trubble!

okay, when i captured the plane/car footage i took a few nights ago i realized it was really gross.
in addition to stefan saying something about clouds not moving, the color was all off and i kept getting
in the way of lights. when i went back to try to fix this issue i ended up breaking a propeller on my model.
it could not be fixed. i needed another dauntless. luckily they are only $7.00 and i found one no sweat.

previously in order to get the propeller moving i had to blow on it. there had to be an easier way.
i can't pull clouds from behind the model and be in front of the model blowing on it. i decided to motorize my
second dauntless model.

the motor above was bought at a radio shack in a mall. since it's very near christmas, the mall was packed
with people being all aggressive and angry (tis the season). i had to park very far from radio shack but that is okay
since i'm keen on walking. anyways, when i got the radio shack motor home i realized that it was way too large to
fit inside the model. the motor at the bottom was in a teeny tiny remote controlled car i originally bought to
attach to a timmy tomato so he could just zip around on the ground. the car was too big. the motor in the car though
was just right. i gutted that car and took the motor out of it.

this is a picture of how the motor fits in the inside.

i re-soldered tougher wires to the inside since i wrecked the ones already on it taking it out of the car.

now i needed a part to go from the motor to the propeller. the bent part at the bottom is part of a paint brush
which i filled with glue, and then attached a piece of wire i straightened.

this is what it looks like inside the model. i was thinking balancing it would be a nightmare but it wasn't that bad at all.

and this is the finished dauntless v.2 . the propeller is now powered by a battery which now affords me more
possibilities in regards to shots. the only trouble is the propeller moves so fast now that you can't see anything.
i'll have to work on that.

december 16th 2006

why hello there. the past few days have been pretty swell. yesterday colby and i went shopping for
her costumes. she picked out the most terrible and diverse collection of awful garments she could find.
oh you guys will like this film. oh it's funny.
above is a short scene we shot because she was here and it's a shame to waste opportunities when your pals are at your home.

this is a delightful old school typewriter i scored from my friend esther. i needed one and whammo, here it was.
i believe i scored this just by looking in the window of a typewriter shop checking out things when we all went
to dinner. she asked "do you need a typewriter?" i replied "yes" and she responded "well we have 2"
SCORE!

when colby and i were in goodwill i spied this. an air controlled organ thingy. i've wanted one since i was in high school
and it was only 15 dollars so i went for it. i plugged it in when i was there and it didn't work. i thought it would be a fun
fixer upper project and i would learn new fun things and even if i couldn't fix it, i could always play it on camera
and add the sounds later. this will be used for a little ditty i play at the end of the poem time show. your heart will melt.

this is what i found when i opened it up. when you turn it on you notice this "clangclangclang" sound.
i could tell something was loose in there but i didn't know what it was.

so the makeup of this organ is this. the inside is hollow and airtight. this white disc you see is attached to a motor
which is in working order. spins like a charm. the disc pulls air up and spits it out. that disc is cracked in the middle
and white parts had melted and been flung about the inside of this contraption. since the body is one part
working on this is ten times harder than it should be. you don't have much room to move anything.

my goal was to try to attach this disc to the motor. i didn't know how to accomplish this because i had no room to work.

so i attempted to solder 2 pieces of wire to the motor, which i would then hot glue to the disc. didn't work.

i managed to get the disc out by bending the shit out of it. i'll try to think of new ways to fix this tomorrow.

this is a picture i took of the floor in esther and keegans house. their house is beautiful and i'm hoping to catch
a few shots in there. their basement is very slick looking, and i would like to use it as a set for another massachusetts poet.

this is the handle to their bathroom sink. dude, how swank is that? quite swank.

and here's a shot of colby, timmy and i.

december 14th 2006

so i scrapped everything i did a few days ago, got myself some sky, got myself alot of clouds
and shot everything except 1 part that i'll need assistance with.

this is a model airplane. i used a piece of wire and covered over most of it with clouds.

this is the shot how it looks. picture me on the top of the picture blowing the propeller as the plane
wobbles around a tad lookin' like it's flying. good times.

this is what the floor looked like. for one shot my car narrowly escapes getting hit by a plane.
it turned out cool.

this is a giant map of manitoba which was used in a fun fashion. i hope you'll like it.

december 11th 2006

here are 2 shots i shall re-do. high definition isn't kidding man, you can see every little flaw in things.
and i think my colors are really funky.

december 11th 2006

so today i shot a few seconds of footage. judging by the blurry too-bluish quality of the snapshot above
i haven't quite mastered my new camera yet.

it was live action mixed with stop animation. halfway through masking one version of the airplane below flash crashed on me
then i destroyed my pictures by downsampling them too much. tomorrow i'll try again all excited like.

december 10th 2006

hello. today i put together some models. i began with the sbd(sp?) dauntless.
there will be a fun scene with this in it.

then i moved on to my society hill town house. through an e-bay auction i got 2 of these models.
one of them is the poem time studio so i had to make this one look different.

looking at the pieces this one isn't so bad. kibri models are really badass and have hundreds and hundreds of pieces.

cutting off the edges i knicked myself. oh welly. the razorblade wasn't too rusty.

one of the things i did to make it look different was i spraypainted the frames a different color.

i also left off the top of the house which gave it a real distinct look.here is the almost finished product.
i don't know if i took one of the finished product.

the red building in the middle is the other building. i think they look pretty different.

and this is a part of a big kibri set i bought last year that i still haven't gotten to. i opened the box. saw thousands of pieces
and remembered why i hadn't done it yet.

december 8th 2006

today i experimented with footage between flash and premiere. high def footage is double the size pixelwise of standard def.
one of my major quams about trying to edit in cartoons with people footage in standard def was the inability to get as tight as i wanted between
the subject and animation because the footage wasn't crisp enough. things are a little bit easier with high def footage.

so today i wanted to wave around a giant "F". i began by holding a piece of white foamcore as a reference. i captured the footage into premiere
and exported it as a dv-avi. then i imported it into flash.

as far as i know in flash 8 you cannot import uncompressed footage into your project. this stinks since more compression = less crispness.
i imported it at the highest settings i could figure out.

now here is my frame. i created a new layer (layer 2 see below pic) and placed the "F" on that layer.
i broke it apart and free transformed it to cover my white reference foamcore chunk.

then i added a masking layer about layer 2. in flash, a masking layer will show everything you color over that's on the layer before it
so i had to leave the area where my fingers were empty. i was pleased with how much tighter i could get with this new footage.
when your mask is done your f will look like the f below.

i had a choice here. i could either export the footage right from flash and lose alot of quality or export the masked "F"
and import it back into premiere. that's what i chose to do. in between layer 1 (the video footage) and the "F" layer i put a layer of blue.
this will be knocked out in premiere using the blue screen key.

after i imported it i did my best to match up the "F" to the footage below. i missed a setting somewhere and things were exported
at a different ratio. so yeah, this is one way you can have animated elements and human elements together.

this screenshot is from poem time 7. i used the same method for this footage except i exported right from flash.
it was a nightmare going in and masking fists out and things. i am in for a real treat with this new stuff. bye.

december 7th 2006

the thing to the left is a composition notebook.
the thing on the right is a sample of what i want the inside of the dvd to look like.
i did some writing today too.
have a nice day.

december 6th 2006

guess who came to visit? that's right, my hdr-hc3(k?).
i got it from abe's of maine and it came lickity split.
the prices are good, the salesperson was nice and all went smoothly.
if you're in the market to buy a new camera i suggest you give them a try.



and here are some toothbrushes. i am pleased to have a friend in the dental profession.

december 5th 2006

here is a video of my friend josh who is the third member of my poem gang in addition
to mike horan and jessica black. here josh tells us all about a dream he recently had.
i hope you enjoy it.

december 4th 2006

this is what i did today. i printed one label. printing this one label took at least ten minutes and three computers.
ahh label you zany label you.

december 3rd 2006

hail, hail, the gang's all here.
today i finished my husband and wife duo seen to the upper left above and also below.



i think it's cool looking at big chunks of stuff all at once. a few months ago these puppets
were just ideas, now they are hanging out in my basement all together. as the winter creeps forward
and the days are getting shorter and precious sunlight is scarce sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the glum,
but looking at all these little guys and gals gave me a feeling of accomplishment and that brightened my day.

today i also re-painted the ventriliquist dummy head i got and thought of a part for it in the film.

december 1st 2006

hello friend. how are you today. so do i ever have a funny story to tell you!
so if you've been to the beginning of last months progress you may notice that i wrote a little bit about a camera i "ordered".
today (and yesterday) i discovered FUN FACTS about the place i ordered it from.
i shall withhold the name of this company as to not unintentionally slander
a business of fair practices. i won't tell you the name because i'm a nice guy.

so here's how harold told me this joint probably rolled. i figured the first part out myself, but didn't fathom the second part.
i made a mistake and i am now wiser for it. thankfully i lost no money whatsoever. tomorrow i will call my bank (they are now closed) and get
the account sorted out so no BAD STUFF can happen.

1
so, when you order your camera from THE MYSTERY PLACE you give them all your information and a salesman calls you two days later
trying to sell you more shit. the camera i ordered was the camera below

the sony hdr-hc3 . fabulous piece of machinery. i (for a very short amount of time) had it's sibling in my hands, the hard drive model.
the quality was unreal. the picture above of the wicker was taken like...2 inches away from the basket. i love the colors i love the ease of the focus.
i'll be doing alot of things with very colorful miniatures so that's something that's very important to me. i love this camera.

so my salesperson asked me if i was familiar with cameras and i said "somewhat" and he mentioned that i would need to buy the high definition lens in order
to shoot in high definition with this camera. a little lightbulb went off in my head because i'm not mentally retarded and i smelled bullshit but i didn't imagine
what would happen next. i declined buying the special "high definition" lens and asked solely for the camera on it's own. before i hung up with the man
on the other end i was told that my order would take "2 to 4 weeks". jesus christ that's a long time. but of course that's because the cameras come from overseas.
OF COURSE! that makes sense now. i understand. i'll wait 2 to 4 weeks (duh).

so yesterday marked the one month anniversary of my placed order and no camera had been delivered, also no charge had been put on my debit card
so i wasn't totally worried. i called the people yesterday to find out what the status was for my order and the man on the other end couldn't give me
a straight answer about when it would arrive. "you know, shipments this and that, overseas (very VERY fast talking, i mean like...micro machines fast)"
i also got the impression that he was fucking with me "you're cutting out every five seconds" like maybe i would just hang up and leave them alone.

i decided that it was time for me to bite the bullet and spend a little more and buy it from someone reputable. today i called and cancelled my order.

2
2) so i'm talking to harold today about it and he says
"oh yeah, did you order it from a place in brooklyn"
"yeah"
"and when you called did they try to sell you all this extra shit for really expensive?"
"yeah"
"yeah man, those places are all in kahootz (not his exact words), they'll tell you your order is "out of stock" and shit if you don't buy any
of the fucking crazily marked-up accessories"
"so you're saying my order could have very well been "out of stock"...forever"
"yeah! go to these places instead...."

holy smokes! so a smart person would have done their research BEFORE they gave out their card information but i guess i'm not that smart.
but i can cancel it tomorrow no sweat, no extra charges have been made on my card which is very nice, since i would like to buy the camera i've been waiting
for without any more delays.

and that's my fun story about cameras. i may make an animation about it for the dvd. it was pretty funny.

so on with regular progress



so i went to see jessica black play her french horn yesterday. she will be one of the four members of my poetry gang and will
also be providing delightful music for the score with the help of a few other conservatory music pals. i am quite excited about this.
walking back to the train from the conservatory i walked by a costume shop and remembered that i needed a beard so i could play
my father in the movie. i had the wig already from last year so i needed to get a brown beard and moustache. here i am made up
as my father. i'll get him different tinted glasses probably bigger and perhaps some sideburns. i think the moustache may need
a little love to look more lifelike but the beard is spookily realistic when you're looking in the mirror you cannot tell it's false
unless you get very close up to it. it's made from real hair. i wonder if it's someones back hair. or ASS hair HA HA HA.

and i never thought it would happen this way but it did. as luck would have it, my buddy josh who is also in the film as
another member of my poetry gang had a very very old ventriliquist dummy in his home which i was allowed to take. if i was
making some spooky scary movie it would be perfect the way it is without eyeballs. i am going to refurbish this doll. it needs new everything
except for the head which i'll have to paint. i've always wondered what the mechanisms looked like inside the heads
and now i know. this may allow me to make better puppets in the future and that makes me glad.

i'm going to bed now. goodnight.