On Neglect
Sorry blog, I don’t mean to not pay attention to you. I’ve just been fairly busy. Allow me to catch you up on everything.
The Spring semester is quickly coming to a close. It’s surprising how fast three months can go when you’re counting the weeks. And what a number of weeks it has been. This will be my final semester taking a full five classes. The Summer semester will bring me three classes closer to graduation, leaving m only a class and a third for the Fall semester. Due to a technicality, I am having to take a single, solitary lab class during the Fall.
See, somewhere along the way, I was supposed to take a lab class with one of my three sciences. Apparently I neglected to do just that, and having to take that remaining class is my punishment. I was hoping to power through the rest of my degree during the Summer, but it looks like I will be slogging through those Fall months taking that one lab class.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. See, I am at the point in my degree plan where I am supposed to take the capstone project. The way this all panned out will give me ample time to really create something great. I see all these students doing their capstone projects simply as classes they would ordinarily take. To me that is not something that should not be allowed. This is something that should be the accumulation of four years of practicing the arts, of knowledge, and of expertise. Too many students play it safe, just wanting to get it over with. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
You should want to create something outstanding, something really memorable. I see a lot of talent in the ATEC program, but not a whole lot to show for it, at the undergrad level anyway. I’ve certianly seen some spectacular stuff from the graduate students, and it always inspires me. So I have to make a few decisions, especially now that I have set the bar for myself. I have a couple of ideas about what to take on for my final, final project and I have not settled on one idea over the other yet. Luckily one thing I do have is time, and great professors to work with on this one.
But stay tuned, I am going to have a semester wrap up post with some neat content to post here rather soon.
On Animation
At some point I am going to have to answer the question of why I chose the career path I did. I may not have one of these careers that I speak of right now, but I am certainly on track. Sooner or later I am going to end up performing some job, for some company, based on some skill that I learned or practiced while I was in college. (at least I hope it works out that way!) But the path that led me here wasn’t always clear, nor were the choices that led me here always the easiest to make.
I have been enamored with animation for as long as I can remember. I suppose I can trace this love back to a conversation I had with my dad a long, long time ago. If my memory serves me right, I was sitting in front of the TV watching an episode of Tiny Toons. This particular episode featured Gogo Dodo, along with the usual bunch of characters, in the surreal Wackyland. For whatever reason, what I saw made me think a little more critically about what I was actually watching. I asked my dad about the cartoon, and he said something to the effect of, “Well, anything can happen in cartoons.” I took this to mean that anything will happen in cartoons, and not necessarily that anything can happen. But of course, I had no idea how these cartoons were actually made, only that they were entirely distinct from anything that had real live people in it.
Since then I have always wanted to take my shot at creating a world where anything can happen. A world where you don’t have to play by the rules, where ideas like gravity, proportion, time, life and even death are immaterial. A cartoon is limited only by your imagination. Indeed there have been some fantastic animations to come along, which are usually a treat to watch.
But traditional hand drawn 2D animation wasn’t the only thing that caught my attention. When I was a kid we had this tape called Dinosaurs and Other Strange Creatures that featured a puppet owl talking about dinosaurs. Every few minutes the show would break into what was some of the cheesiest (read: worst) stop action animated clay dinosaurs doing whatever it was the owl was just talking about. Even as a young child I recognized that this thing I was watching was abysmal, and that even I could do better.
I used to watch Gumby when I was very young as well. I found this particular show to be more interesting than the usual 2D stuff because it always seemed like the worlds were just a little more surreal than anything that was drawn. It could be because the sets were made from real life props, toys that you or I might have actually played with as a child. Imagining that there really were clay people that could do all the things that Gumby and friends did was great fodder for a young mind. But I never read too much into Gumby, for me it was what it was, a really neat show that was different from all the rest. That being said, it’s stuck in the back of my mind all these years as a unique, quirky and sometimes creepy show that could.
Since then I have always wanted to take my shot at creating some amazing stop motion animation. My desire to try something like this was furthered, and probably solidified, a few years later when Wallace and Gromit arrived. I remember watching the VHS tape of A Grand Day Out and thinking that it was probably the most splendid thing I had ever seen. It was interesting, funny, and most of all it was imaginative. The next two shorts, The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave were equally as compelling to me. I was left in awe, wondering how exactly something like this comes to life, as it was clearly more than crudely sculpted dinosaurs taking fingernail sized gashes out of each other. The mix of practical, in the sense that they were not drawn, environments and characters doing very cartoony things was something I felt was worthy of my attention.
Toy Story appeared on the scene in 1995, and nothing has been the same since. I was almost nine when the movie came out, which is the perfect age to instill in a kid a sense of wonder like no other. Drawing on paper was one thing, as was moving puppets around, but this was something completely different. Without this one turning into a post by itself, I will leave it at this. Fifteen years later, almost graduating from an arts & technology program in college, I still have no clue how some of this, now dated, computer animation was accomplished.
I was in high school when I ended up buying the DVD of Nightmare Before Christmas. Up to this point, I don’t think I had seen the whole film, and certainly not in one sitting. You can laugh at me all you want, but I will tell you there was a time when I would watch the movie everyday. Not for some want to be part of a certain subculture mind you, I would watch the movie for its animation. I found myself paying attention to parts of the screen that you obviously weren’t supposed to be paying attention to, trying to pick out any imperfections in the stop motion. Of course the main action was always a sight to behold. I was constantly trying to wrap my head around the mechanics of a particular shot, trying to figure out how they did it. Compared to most of the stop action I had previously seen, this stuff was pretty slick.
It was also around this time that I ended up seeing Akira for the first time. In a world of Disney feature films, Nickelodeon cartoons, and Power Rangers this film stood alone. Sure Toonami had brought along with it a few choice animes, but while the stories in them were generally solid, the animation sometimes suffered. I was used to this style, since it was just an artifact of how animation was/is produced in Japan, so I was totally unprepared for the amazingly complex animation that Akira offered. This film really deserves the respect it gets.
Of course, I can’t go too far ahead after mentioning Toonami without talking about the content it brought to the mainstream. In 1998 Toonami began airing three animes: Dragonball Z, Robotech and Sailor Moon. It was the first time I was exposed to this type of animation and storytelling and I, like millions of twelve year olds around the country, was completely swept up in the hype. Anime generally sacrifices frames per second for detail, while Western style animation is usually just the opposite. The differences in animation were interesting unto themselves, but the thing that made these shows so compelling is something that just didn’t happen in our usual mass consumed animation: serialization. I was so used to watching a TV show where the beginning of the show is the beginning and the end is the end, there is little or no back story that you need to know to understand what’s going on. To miss an episode of one of these animes was to potentially miss an important part of the story. Even though the story has little to do with the animation, it was different because it showed that using animation to tell a story that was longer than twenty minutes was a completely viable, and at times an elegant solution. I still follow the goings on of Robotech to this day, though Harmony Gold needs to clean up their act after the Shadow Chronicles pile of average. It stands as a shining example of how 2.5D is not the future of animation (as much as they’d like to have you believe it is!).
More recently Robot Chicken showed the world that stop motion for television is not dead. The Corpse Bride and Coraline, two of the more popular stop motion films of the past few years, are evidence that there still is a market for this kind of thing. As long as Tim Burton and Henry Selick want to go on trying to prove who is more misunderstood dark hot topic deep weird adjective, we will continue to get some pretty neat films, and that’s perfectly fine with me.
Perhaps someday I will get to work on something along these lines. Halfway between completely 2D animation and live action, stop motion continues to impress and confound me. Anyone want to collaborate on a project?
Here are some honorable animation mentions:
Six Years
I have often fielded questions along the lines of “How did you end up here?” or “Why are you here?” when I tell people I grew up in New Jersey. I tend to give people the long answer since, unfortunately, the shortest and most truthful answer is also the most painful. The short answer is that six years ago my father passed away.
Almost every major circumstance in my life since then has been as a result of the fallout of that event. I was a junior in high school when he died, but his condition had begun its slow decline over a year prior. I don’t exactly recall when he first began showing symptoms, but there are a few things that I do vividly recall. After seeing our family doctor about a cough he couldn’t seem to rid himself of, he decided against the doctor’s advice of having his gall bladder removed, instead opting to get a second opinion. The second opinion ended up being the same, and Dad did get the surgery to remove his badly infected gall bladder. Apparently the surgeon who removed the organ said it was one of the worst he had ever seen. Despite this though, the surgery was successful and it seemed like Dad would be back to normal.
It was one Sunday afternoon not long after that, as we were all sitting around the dinner table, when my parents said they had something to tell us kids. Dad sat there and told us that they, the doctors, had found some cancer while they were removing his gall bladder. I don’t remember if much more than that fact was really spoken of, but either way, I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. I don’t know if any of us kids did, or if either of my parents really knew what this meant for our family. It must have been early 2003 at this point if not slightly earlier, and Dad had just started a new job at a different school. He had taken the position because my brother was currently in college, I would be in that position before long, and the extra money was what we needed. It was extremely difficult to watch him as he struggled with the stress of a new job and an increased work load, while his physical body was failing him.
The infection he had that consumed his gall bladder was blamed for the cancer that now infested his liver. It is unclear though if immediate action on my Dad’s part would have spared him of his condition, I don’t think even if he had gotten the surgery as soon as it was recommended, it would have made any difference. He had been doing his coughing thing for a while at that point, and there is no telling how long any infection he had was actually there for. In any event, the cancer he had was inoperable. From what I understand, portions of the liver in a human can be removed, with little or no ill side effects. Unfortunately the cancer that Dad had was centered right on the duct that connected his liver to the rest of his digestive system. They simply couldn’t remove the cancer without removing the liver’s functionality. While you can live without a gall bladder, you can’t live without a liver.
After some time, Dad began spending more and more days at home, unable to make it to work, let alone any function that took place outside of the house, and eventually his bedroom. Once in a while he would make it to work, where he ended up staying late to catch up on all the work he would miss, or make it to church where everyone would be worrying about how he was doing. He would be in and out of the hospital, and in and out of the chemotherapy suite. We all watched as he went from the man we were used to, to a frail, gaunt and tired figure. His hair turned gray, and fell out. His fingernails fell out. He was bed ridden, having to feed himself intravenously. It was horrible.
I remember Thanksgiving in 2003. Traditionally we would all head to Dad’s parent’s home where we would all enjoy what always proved to be one of the best meals of the year. This year however, we decided to go out to have our Thanksgiving dinner. I believe we had made reservations at some slightly upper class restaurant. The food was fine, the experience just about the same. We returned to my grandparent’s apartment that night, where at some point I decided to take a nap in a chair that was in the living room. I remember being awake enough to hear a conversation that took place between my dad and his parents. He was crying, telling them how much it hurt, and that he just wants it to go away.
One of the last memories I have of him when he was still at home, lucid, and able to somewhat care for himself was Christmas 2003. We spent that Christmas with the usual family that year. I remember sitting next to him, and him asking me to help open his gifts since his fingernails were so far gone that he simply could not tear the taped up paper. Probably the last time he would ever open any gift.
January 2004. This month saw the most rapid decline in Dad’s health yet. The cancer was spreading to other organs in his body, including his stomach. He was being eaten from the inside out. At some point, early in the month, Dad was placed into the hospital. He would never see his home again. Since he wasn’t at home, I have no way of telling how he was from day to day, but it was clear that when we made the trips to the hospital, that each time his condition had worsened. The last time I remember being able to talk to him and him being able to respond was late in the month that January. My Mom had taken my sisters and I to the hospital that night. On the car ride over, she explained to us that the medicine they had him on was making him very weak, so he isn’t going to look like the person we remember. When we arrived at his room, he wasn’t in his bed. It was clear he was using the bathroom, so I stepped out in the hall. I returned to the room just as Dad was returning to his bed. In my mind I knew that who I was looking at was my Dad, but he indeed looked nothing like how I remembered him. He was pale, extremely thin, and could not stand up straight. Mom asked us kids to go out into the hall for a minute. I suspect to give Dad a little dignity while Mom helped him into bed.
That night was the last time I got to speak with my father. I was so happy at that point because I had just gotten my full fledged license. I remarked this to him, and all he could do was say congratulations, and wearily lift up his hand to shake mine. I don’t recall most of what else transpired that night. I think Dad was fading in and out of consciousness, and we routinely had to rouse him from what was either the drugs, or his own body shutting down. I don’t remember saying goodbye, although I’m sure I did.
A few days later, Mom gathered the three kids who were still at the house together, my brother was at college at this point. It was a Sunday morning. She sat us down and told us that it was Dad’s time to go, that God was calling him home. I lost it.
On Monday, February 3rd, 2004 Mom came and picked all us kids up from our various schools and drove us to the hospice that Dad was placed into. I remember walking up the unassuming building. I remember walking through the halls. I remember the Chaplin who was employed by the hospice giving us a little talk before we were allowed to enter the room where Dad was. Most of all I remember the room. For whatever reason, this room, just like all the other rooms in the building, is seared into my memory. There was the bed, a couch, a window, and a dresser that had a little water fountain on it. Dad, or what was left of him at that point, was laying in the bed, covered by some sheets as if he was simply sleeping. It was painfully obvious he wasn’t just sleeping though. He was having trouble breathing and he not lucid or conscious. I remember my Mom making my youngest sister tell Dad about the new dog we had gotten. She struggled for words in the face of what was before her. I couldn’t bear to watch any of it. I pretended to be interested in the little fountain on the dresser while I fought back tears. I didn’t, or couldn’t, approach the bed that held my father that day. I left without saying anything to him.
Tuesday February 4th, 2004. Once again Mom picked us up from school and we made the same drive to the same building, and walked to the same room as the day before. On this day there were a few family friends there, mostly from our church. There was a separate room that most of us stayed in while each individual took their turn to say their final farewells to my Dad. I remember Mom asked me if I wanted to have the room to myself for a few minutes, and I said I did. I remember standing over his bed, sobbing, telling him everything that I thought was important. I couldn’t bring myself to hold his hand. Something about touching him in the state he was in, would probably have made it all too real.
After a few minutes of being alone in the room, Mom came back in and consoled me. Some time passed, and when it was time to go, everyone gathered in the room where we sang a hymn or two, and said some prayers. I remember leaving that day, the last time I would see my father alive. We got home and wanting to get away from it all, I went and sat in my room. I don’t remember how long we were home before we got the phone call. Mom came into my room and delivered the news that Dad had died.
The funeral happened fairly quickly after that. At the viewing I remember seeing Dad’s old friends, some of whom I had never met talk about the man he was before I was born. I remember extended family whom I rarely, if ever, saw. I remember friends of Dad’s, who I knew, who were just as broken up about this as anyone else. I remember the whole basketball team that Dad used to coach come through and pay their respects. A few of my high school teachers even showed up. But what I remember most about this was the body of my father. The most disturbing part of all of it was that as he laid there in his casket, he lied motionless. The man who we all remember as being so very active, lied breathless. It was surreal to see him, with his embalmed body and pinched features, remain utterly still. The fact that his chest wasn’t moving, the fact that he wasn’t breathing, it was just… My Mom, my sisters, my brother and I got to say our last goodbyes in private before they closed the casket.
I was one of the pallbearers of my father’s casket along with my brother, my Mom’s two brothers, my Dad’s brother and my uncle. It was a short walk from the funeral building to the hearse, but it was a long ride to the cemetery. It was very cold the day Dad was buried, there was snow on the ground, which was typical of a February day, and the wind was blowing. The people in attendance at the burial were huddled in tight, I was standing behind my two grandparents, my Dad’s Mom and Dad. I can’t even begin to imagine what they were thinking at that time. The ceremony took place, led by our church’s former pastor, and afterwards we adjourned ourselves to the church where we held the repast.
Indeed life for each of us changed irrecoverably from that day on. Moving to the South was something that my Mother had always wanted to do. Now it was something that it seemed we had to do. New Jersey is an expensive place to live, and if we were having the slightest amount of difficulties when Dad was alive, it would be near impossible to do without his help. I told Mom that I just wanted to graduate high school, then I would move wherever. Turns out, this is exactly what happened. I graduated in June of 2005, we moved the next month. We’ve all had to bury our lives that were, and trade them for new lives that we lived down here. It’s been quite an experience.
But there was always one thing that had bothered me, Dad had never gotten a gravestone. When I returned to New Jersey last December/January for the first time since I left, he still lied in an unmarked grave, nearly five years on. I tried to set the wheels in motion to get this taken care of, and now I am happy to be able to say that Dad finally has the proper burial site he deserves. It was also on February 4th, 2004 that I decided to let my hair grow out. I generally tell people that I grew out my hair because I had never had long hair before, and that I wanted a change of pace. I grew out my hair as a sign of mourning for my father. Now that he is at rest, with a headstone to mark his final resting place, there is no more need for me to own my long hair. It is but a symbol of a tragic event in my life, one that I have come to terms with, and have thoughtfully learned from.
Dad, I wish you were still here. I wish you were still around to teach me to play guitar. I wish I could still share jokes with you, or go tubing in the snow with you. I wish I could show you all I’ve accomplished. I wonder if you would be proud of me today, Dad. I miss you.
In loving memory.
Time Marches On
A month ago I was just finishing up the Fall semester, and here I am about to start another. So I’ll just get down to it and post my schedule for the next few months.
I have to say, it’s been a refreshing break. The breaks in between the Spring and Summer semesters and Summer and Fall semesters is only a week or so, so it was really nice to be able to take a month away from school and do other things for a while. I spent some of that time working, some of that time traveling, and the rest of the time recreating to the best of my abilities. But all good things must come to an end. That isn’t to say they can’t be replaced by other good things, just different good things. I’m looking forward to my new classes, but not looking forward to how the parking at school is going to be again.
Bring it on.
Goodbye 2009
This year seemed to go by so quickly.
With the advent of a new calendar year upon us, I welcome it with open arms. Out with the old and in with the new. I’m pretty excited about the coming year, mostly because it means at least one thing for me: graduating college. It will be interesting to see what the phrase graduating college implies for me, and I can’t wait to find out.
New year, new opportunities, new people, new experiences. Here’s to hoping we are all prosperous in the coming year!
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
2D Traditional Animation
I’m sure volumes have been written on the waning of the use of hand drawn animation in many big and small budget titles, which is exactly why I’m not going to talk about that. Suffice it to say that 2D animation took a back seat for many years letting the 3D artists take control of the animation front. I haven’t done any 3D animation since my senior year of high school, and up until this past Fall semester I had not ever done any 2D animation. I was chomping at the bit to try my hand at the pencil and paper variety of animation.
Now that the semester is over and done with (thankfully!), I have everything compiled and ready to show. So here is a semesters worth of work in two and a half minutes:
(link)
(link)
The first video contains projects that were meant to demonstrate to us the various principals that are inherent to animation. Not just 2D animation mind you, but 3D as well. Whatever medium you use to create animation, your viewer’s eyes will still be able to pick up on things that make your animation look less life-like. Your job as an animator is to fool your audience into thinking what they are watching is real, or at least entirely believable.
So all the assignments we did up to the final were very literal, concrete ideas. I decided I had to do something that was on the other end of the spectrum for my final. We had to create an animation that was at least 15 seconds long, and that was our only criteria. I had a rough idea what I wanted to do, but I also let the animation go where it might along the way. I would have liked to make it twice as long as it is, but time constraints and all that. Maybe I’ll do an animation for my capstone project.
Great class, great professor. I really want to do more of this stuff.
Adding Insult To Larceny
Wednesday December 2nd, 2009 10:30PM
I arrive back home after a long day at school and park my car, just like any other day. Nothing, it seems, was out of the ordinary. I turn in for the night, just like any other night. This, of course, was not like any other night. But not by any of my own devices, what made this particular night extraordinary, was a couple of roving larcenists.
Around 8AM the next day, I was woken up and directed to the front door, apparently there was a “situation”. I look outside and see my car parked where I left it, except the trunk was open. I wasn’t quite sure what to think about it immediately. I just thought, well that’s odd. So I put on some shoes and went outside to take a look. Here’s what I found:
Oh, right, someone broke into my car. Obviously they had broken then back window, unlocked the back door, then the front door from there, and went to town. Well, to the extent they could in my car. I don’t keep a whole lot in my car in terms of anything. So they rummaged through my glove box, center console, and the trunk. The only thing they took was a radar detector, worth around $60 – $80, but I didn’t pay for it, so I really have no idea. After looking over the car, I put everything back where it belonged, took some pictures, and plotted my next move.
Turns out, my next move came to me. About an hour later, the Plano police knocks on my door, and I greet the officer. Walking towards the car, I tell him what I know, which was very little. He, on the other hand, knew quite a bit. There were two people (incidentally both were UTD students) targeting cars with the University of Texas at Dallas parking passes displayed in their cars. The night they came through my street there was one person on foot and one in a car. They were apparently checking to see what cars had the UTD parking tags in their cars. If they did, they would break into these cars. They had been doing this for at least a few days prior to this particular night, and fortunately for the rest of us, it was their last night.
Their little crime streak ended when someone heard them breaking into their car, and chased the thieves down (in his underwear apparently). The person in the car obviously was able to drive away, but the one on foot was caught by the man whose car they were breaking into. From there I’m sure some other people noticed the commotion, the police were necessarily called, and the thief on foot was hauled off. The police officer I was talking to said it wasn’t difficult to track down the accomplice in the car, probably because there is no honor among thieves, and the guy who was caught wasted no time divulging what he knew.
So after hearing the story, I described to the officer what was stolen, which was received by a chuckle, which was probably warranted given the item that was stolen. After he finished writing down everything in his little notepad, he got back in his cruiser and left the scene. I got myself back inside since it was pretty cold outside that morning.
My car has really taken a beating in the past few months.
Going Going Going
Gone. Well, not quite. This is an interesting time for me, I’ve been at my new job for just about a month, and there is just about a month of school left in this semester. And let me tell you something, if I didn’t know the definition of busy before, I certainly do now. Having something to do, somewhere to be, seven days a week, now that’s something. in the past month have had to restructure my whole schedule in order to get everything that I need to get done, done. On the bright side, though, I can eat meat again.
The end of the semester is coming, and fast. I, for one, am particularly looking forward to the break after this semester is over and done with. The workload for me this semester has been above average, and it’s looking to be the same story come the Spring semester. This comes as a direct result of me taking my major electives. But if I can make it through one more semester of break-neck, heavy duty work, then it’ll (hopefully) be down hill from there. Assuming everything goes according to plan, after the Spring semester I’ll only have four classes left on my degree. I can’t wait.
I have a few neat projects that are either completed, or nearing completion, that I’ve been working on this semester. I am going to catch up on my posting of all these various materials after the semester ends, when I can finally take a breather. But be on the lookout for those, coming soon.
Also, this coming Monday registration opens up for me, so I should have a final schedule for the Spring semester to share after Monday. And I think I’ll just leave this post at that. I feel like I’ve said the word semester far too many times in this post alone. Until next time:
