2006 Year End Review 01
Okay, I'll keep this short. I don't think a review is really necessary to know this to have been agreat year, but I will go over things anyway. Chief among things I want to observe is how things shaped up since the plas made the previous year. How has my thinking changed? It may be an interesting journey. 2005 ended with me writing this:
Who could have known how much what I do, how I do it, and even what I am interested in doing would change?
The reality is, there are many things from the past that I just don't want to do anymore. The interesting thing I also see recently is that I actually have little reason to look negatively on even those previous years. Looked at as part of a whole, they played their part to build something which I can see clearly now. I have been fed this year. Fed to the point of bursting. That bursting is going to result in some astounding animation.
Make a show! With the Mirage Nomad in hand and Vue 5 at my disposal I will make a show that will look so much better than I could have even come close to looking in previous times. Moreover, this show is truly going combine my talents and interests into that which I will truly enjoy doing the most. This show will focus mainly on the Asian market, and contain a lot of Japanese dialogue. My music will be a big part of it.
This show will contain a lot of drawing. This show will use 3D as 3D. The wealth of knowledge I gained at UFO in terms of particles, hypervoxels, using dynamics to blow stuff up and high end compositing FX will be put into play to create dynamic sequences far beyond anything I could have done before. And the great thing is, these complex scenes will be calculating and rendering all the while I am drawing on my Nomad.
The key is to actually be making the movie. I recently looked at the Japanese edition of Howl's Moving Castle, which like all the Japanese Ghibli releases contains the full storyreel on one of the discs. The drawings are so rough, and Miyazaki draws so fast whole sequences could have been boarded in no time at all. Such sequences I can take into Vegas and cut to temp voices, temp music and sound FX so that I am actually working on the movie, not like mind animation which spends too much time on the finer details of a single scene with little concept of what is around it.
So just how closely was this plan followed? Well I can say that some of these things, from a technical standpoint were tried and I found that they just didn't work for me. I am not a studio, and trying to do things the studio way just holds me back. I had to find my own way of creating. In fact, I had to find a creative way to get my ideas on the screen and not hinder that creativity.
So I got this Nomad at the end of 2004 and it was supposed to change everything. In January I was fast at work trying to develop a pipeline around its use. I immediately set out to do what I wrote in 2004, storyboarding some scenes of Truth Explorers and attempting to cut them together with temp voices and music in Vegas. That didn't last very long. Although I didn't know it then, the reason is clear to me now.
When I have a story and really have something to say, it is like a fire burning and it must come out. Now even doing rough storyboards, and editing these to temp music tracks and temp voices takes considerable effort. When I do this and get it "to the screen", though it is not in the final format, I've told that story, and the fire goes out. The process of turning that rough version to final becomes drudgery to me because I have already done what was "needed" in my mind. Thus it fades away.
January was also the month in which I found and fell in love with the Sony HC-1 HDV camera. Although I never got it, it's little brother, the Sony HC-3 eventually fell into my hands as was covered in an episode of Anigen. January also saw the Disney/Pixar merger and concluded with me learning the value of RSS. I'm actually surprised. It feels like I've been doing the RSS thing for years. Maybe it just takes years off your life.
Mobile devices were really on my mind in February. After all, some exec at MIPCOM said:
The chances of an independent getting a TV show on the air are slim and none. The existence of hundreds of cable and satellite channels is deceptive -- most of those channels are controlled by a very few major companies. Videogame producers have known the hard facts of life for years. The truth is that there are three things more important in real life than "Content is king,"” and they are, "“Distribution, distribution and distribution."”
I saw the popularity of mobile video as a road for the indie. DVD was also viable, even self published like Pale Cocoon from Yasuhiro Yoshiura in Japan. The industry was changing, lay-offs were happening. All the while scientists were discovering mist shoruded lost worlds in remote parts of the globe, just asking to get eaten by something. I began creating the building blocks of next generation production.
March began with Sketchup being officially added to my toolset. I also began thinking bluetooth thoughts for communications on my tablet PC. Then I learned of the amazing Brave Story from Gonzo, Warner Entertainment and Fuji TV. Exit, the game of games for the PSP came out, though I couldn't find it at Fry's. My desk chair broke and I had to put a more lounge like chair in its place. I saw The Promise on DVD and was amazed at the possibilities digital technology brought to other film markets. Then it happened.
George Lucas all but predicted the end of the blockbuster, the summer tentpole movies that he and his buddies were a big part of bringing into existance. Movies were having such a short shelf life on DVD in retail and at the box office. Those which didn't perform instantly were booted in both cases. But other avenues were opening. I first heard of Second Life because of a group making a movie entirely in that virtual world.
Still I had my own problems. Global illumination and trees were killing my plans for next generation production.
Who could have known how much what I do, how I do it, and even what I am interested in doing would change?
The reality is, there are many things from the past that I just don't want to do anymore. The interesting thing I also see recently is that I actually have little reason to look negatively on even those previous years. Looked at as part of a whole, they played their part to build something which I can see clearly now. I have been fed this year. Fed to the point of bursting. That bursting is going to result in some astounding animation.
THE PLAN
Make a show! With the Mirage Nomad in hand and Vue 5 at my disposal I will make a show that will look so much better than I could have even come close to looking in previous times. Moreover, this show is truly going combine my talents and interests into that which I will truly enjoy doing the most. This show will focus mainly on the Asian market, and contain a lot of Japanese dialogue. My music will be a big part of it.
This show will contain a lot of drawing. This show will use 3D as 3D. The wealth of knowledge I gained at UFO in terms of particles, hypervoxels, using dynamics to blow stuff up and high end compositing FX will be put into play to create dynamic sequences far beyond anything I could have done before. And the great thing is, these complex scenes will be calculating and rendering all the while I am drawing on my Nomad.
The key is to actually be making the movie. I recently looked at the Japanese edition of Howl's Moving Castle, which like all the Japanese Ghibli releases contains the full storyreel on one of the discs. The drawings are so rough, and Miyazaki draws so fast whole sequences could have been boarded in no time at all. Such sequences I can take into Vegas and cut to temp voices, temp music and sound FX so that I am actually working on the movie, not like mind animation which spends too much time on the finer details of a single scene with little concept of what is around it.
So just how closely was this plan followed? Well I can say that some of these things, from a technical standpoint were tried and I found that they just didn't work for me. I am not a studio, and trying to do things the studio way just holds me back. I had to find my own way of creating. In fact, I had to find a creative way to get my ideas on the screen and not hinder that creativity.
So I got this Nomad at the end of 2004 and it was supposed to change everything. In January I was fast at work trying to develop a pipeline around its use. I immediately set out to do what I wrote in 2004, storyboarding some scenes of Truth Explorers and attempting to cut them together with temp voices and music in Vegas. That didn't last very long. Although I didn't know it then, the reason is clear to me now.
When I have a story and really have something to say, it is like a fire burning and it must come out. Now even doing rough storyboards, and editing these to temp music tracks and temp voices takes considerable effort. When I do this and get it "to the screen", though it is not in the final format, I've told that story, and the fire goes out. The process of turning that rough version to final becomes drudgery to me because I have already done what was "needed" in my mind. Thus it fades away.
January was also the month in which I found and fell in love with the Sony HC-1 HDV camera. Although I never got it, it's little brother, the Sony HC-3 eventually fell into my hands as was covered in an episode of Anigen. January also saw the Disney/Pixar merger and concluded with me learning the value of RSS. I'm actually surprised. It feels like I've been doing the RSS thing for years. Maybe it just takes years off your life.
Mobile devices were really on my mind in February. After all, some exec at MIPCOM said:
The chances of an independent getting a TV show on the air are slim and none. The existence of hundreds of cable and satellite channels is deceptive -- most of those channels are controlled by a very few major companies. Videogame producers have known the hard facts of life for years. The truth is that there are three things more important in real life than "Content is king,"” and they are, "“Distribution, distribution and distribution."”
I saw the popularity of mobile video as a road for the indie. DVD was also viable, even self published like Pale Cocoon from Yasuhiro Yoshiura in Japan. The industry was changing, lay-offs were happening. All the while scientists were discovering mist shoruded lost worlds in remote parts of the globe, just asking to get eaten by something. I began creating the building blocks of next generation production.
March began with Sketchup being officially added to my toolset. I also began thinking bluetooth thoughts for communications on my tablet PC. Then I learned of the amazing Brave Story from Gonzo, Warner Entertainment and Fuji TV. Exit, the game of games for the PSP came out, though I couldn't find it at Fry's. My desk chair broke and I had to put a more lounge like chair in its place. I saw The Promise on DVD and was amazed at the possibilities digital technology brought to other film markets. Then it happened.
George Lucas all but predicted the end of the blockbuster, the summer tentpole movies that he and his buddies were a big part of bringing into existance. Movies were having such a short shelf life on DVD in retail and at the box office. Those which didn't perform instantly were booted in both cases. But other avenues were opening. I first heard of Second Life because of a group making a movie entirely in that virtual world.
Still I had my own problems. Global illumination and trees were killing my plans for next generation production.
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