YEAR IN REVIEW 08

November mostly saw me doing the many revisions called for on the manga project. About the only important thing to come out of that month was my revelation about a new way of creating my anime:

Here is what I will do for my next film. As always I will create a detailed "step outline" to plot the whole thing out. I will not, however, board the whole thing before beginning. I will approach it step by step, allowing for some boarding, some modeling, some animating and seeing some final content before moving forward. I will allow the project to be open to growth as I create it. This combined with what I wrote earlier about the boards being done in a Mirage project, at the final resolution, beginning an ever evolving compositing process of getting to the final scene, will make for a project that can obtain the rest of the benefits of filmmaking being brought into the realm of manga.

I also did the second round of music research, and thanks to Frank Klepacki, I found the music library I am using today. Disney shut down yet another studio. ADV announce a new special edition Robotech DVD boxed set, and I did a lot of research into the DVD market. I think you know why.

That brings us to December, where I am almost finished with the cleanup on the manga, but the idea to add a new chapter has surfaced, creating the need for 17 new page, likely to be done next year. I returned to working in Lightwave, even creating a new skeleton. I also came into all the equipment necessary for the next few projects. It is all set up and working even now.

______________________________________________

So that wraps up the year in review. I guess the past year wasn't nearly as bad as I expected, and I really did do some work on this new project of mine. More work than I remembered I guess. Jumping around from project to project can have its disadvantages too. That doesn't by any means imply that I think 2003 was a year worth repeating. No. 2004 must far outshine this year. Greater dreams and films, right? Greater dreams and films...

YEAR IN REVIEW 07

All was well when September began. I was getting up early and working hard on a new Japanese web page. Even though Wonderful Days was failing at the box office in Korea, all was well with me and TOKYOPOP. The manga was "done", or was it?

It wasn't long when the first round of requests for corrections came. No problem though. Just a few sound FX needed to be cleaned up and "Otherwise, everyone is very happy with the result and we can see the product looking really good."

So I did those corrections and all the while was really working and studying for this new anime project. I am actually surprised since I wasn't remembering having done so much on it. I even went back to basics on my drawing skills and had the idea to totally change this site.

I finally saw Wonderful Days on DVD in September, and I had my whole indie anime project outlined. That's right I do call it anime. I'm not worried about a few fanatics who have a fit over words.

I actually began storyboarding this indie project. Disney closed down yet another studio. Q's blog went down. My manga was still "done". Mirage came with a particle system that changed the way I work and I really took a step back and looked at what I was doing. I even did a type of review back then. I read over all the posts from my very first Studio ArtFX web page. Finally I changed the website to the form you see it in now:

There is still a great deal of work to be done on this page. If I don't at any point sit down and really do it, I am going to at least designate one day per week in which to work through completing one of the missing pages. It may not be the quickest route, but it will get done amid all the other things I have going on.

Yeah... that happened... October was even worse:

There has been a major delay with the manga project. Apparently it will not be meeting it's ship date. The publishers are not happy with the quality of the book.

I entered the Newtek VT[3] and actually got a copy of my Anime: Concept to Reality DVD. Square announce Final Fantasy VII:
Advent Children and too many chefs started stirring the manga pot.

Later that month my DVD actually came out in stores! I also had my first star sighting. On the whole, a month better left to the dogs.

YEAR IN REVIEW 06

July began like this:

Well, I am back from my first day at Anime Expo. I participated in the Tokyopop industry insider panel where they announced their new line of original manga. Along with World of Hartz, they announced "@large" by Ahmed Hoke, and "Shutterbox" by Tavikat. The winners of their first "Rising Stars of Manga" contest were there as well.

Tokyopop had a cool booth. Now I haven't been to an Anime Expo in many years so to me this was huge! Every major company was there and many smaller internet dealers as well. It was packed. Cosplayers everywhere! I should have taken pictures!

Besides that I cranked on the finals for my manga, shot for the first time with a Canon XL1-S DV camera, saw Sinbad put an end to 2D animation at Dreamworks and watched the cool Whasango trailers. Somewhere in all this I wrote:

In other news, I think the time is fast approaching for my next personal indie animation project. I do have a couple of other projects to wrap up, but I can see it on the horizon. It won't be long now...

That was six months ago.

August saw Finding Nemo become the most successful animated film ever, and I was fortunate enough to behold the Innocence: Ghost in the Shell trailer. I also came up with a new way of working:

For the first time, I am experimenting with a technique which I only mentioned a few times before in this blog. The idea of doing storyboards at video resolution, timed and ready to drop in the editor.

The plan is that the storyboard becomes the beginning of a layered composite. Since it is properly timed and already edited, more final elements simply get dropped in as they are completed and I can watch the overall show build piece by piece.

The manga was "done" except for minor spelling and punctuation corrections. (funny huh?) I actually started working on this alleged original indie anime project:

Just a little bit a day on your dream project can make all the difference. Even just one hour! I am starting to see my ideas come together.

Bauhaus Software officially announced Mirage, my favorite paint, animation and FX software, and for some reason I spent many hours searching out the blogs of others. Around this time, the evil known as SPAM began to flood my box. It is much worse today than it was then.

So I had to do some new voice over work for the Anime: Concept to Reality DVD. I pulled out my old mixer but came up with a way to record directly to the computer instead of using DAT. I still do this today.

Now see this is starting to seem like a productive month! I did some live action matte work, and I actually did some initial drawings on this alleged indie anime project. I wrote a new schedule and did the music research which led me after the incredibly expensive GigaStudio and Vienna Symphonic Library path. I thank God I was shown a better way!

The month ended with the SPAM getting worse.

YEAR IN REVIEW 05

June began with me being able to actually study the storyboard of one of my favorite manga artists, Masashi Kishimoto, of Naruto fame. I also found the interesting Digital Amazons site. About this time I even dared to talk to a couple of studios about working on one of two of the year's biggest films.

I got the Animatrix DVD, and shortly after finding out there would be a New Fist of the North Star anime made in Japan, I got a new system, the Vaio on which I am typing right now. Ever notice that it has the same case design as Lain's NAVI?

The Hulk hit it big the same weekend Blogger broke down, and TOKYOPOP officially announced the coming of my manga. Of course in that same time I wrote:

There is other big news on the horizon as I am also working a couple of other potentially major projects. Of course, there is my next original indie anime film to consider as well.

Where is this project?

YEAR IN REVIEW 04

April began with my "No Fooling Sale". I even returned to Vegas to gather more stock of Shadowskin and Chaos on DVD. Even so, about the most interesting thing I did that month was to watch Zhang Yimou's Hero, starring Jet Li and Donnie Yen among others. What an incredible film. I bought many other Hong Kong DVDs that day. I scarcely remember them.

Even though I may have wasted that month, the indie world was helped by the coming of the JVC 720P HD camera at consumer prices! That alone made the month worthwhile I guess.

In May, J4A was completed and the Hartz manga moved forward. I had even done the cover art. With the time normally spent on J4A available I would have expected great things from May. Instead, on May 13th, my main computer, at the time called "The Beast", died the death. I was creating manga on my old 500Mhz Vaio:

Well I guess I better hope this old heap will really perform now as the deadline for my manga is rushing up on me rather quickly. It would appear that the book will have to be done by the end of June. I am halfway through the storyboard phase of the book, but have not completed a single final spread. Time to get busy!

While the animation industry spiraled downhill, ADV Films announced a live-action Evangelion film to produced with WETA digital. Somehow I got that entire manga boarded on that old Vaio. It should come as no surprise since Shadowskin and Chaos were made on that machine. You don't really need to have the latest greatest machine to get work done if you have just a little motivation.

Finally, at the end of that month:

I just saw a strange light in the sky...

YEAR IN REVIEW 03

February began with me having found the Wonderful Days trailer. I hadn't seen anything that cool in ages. Later the first episode of The Animatrix was released on the internet. Just think of all the inspiring stuff I had to view!

I was about halfway through production on J4A, so it wasn't like I was totally wasting time. Still, watching DVD extra features led me to write:

This makes me ask myself, "How much more could I be doing?"

"Am I making the best use of my time?"

Around this time, my 500Mhz Vaio began to die the death. I also started reading the U.S. version of Shonen Jump, including my favorite manga Naruto, and found some extra Chaos DVDs to start selling from my store, which was down due to a lack of stock since the previous year.

March began with great inspiration as I received my region 2 boxset of Millennium Actress. Being a fan of Perfect Blue, I was more than happy to see this. I waited for a very long time too:

I finally watched Millennium Actress last night and naturally I was amazed. The film is more than deserving of the man awards and accolades it has received. I can only hope that the day will come when I create a work of art anywhere near that level!

This time period also found me struggling with an upgrade to my Lightwave 3D software and uncovering some new anime series such as Wolf's Rain and Witch Hunter Robin. Although I completed all the 3D models for J4A, on the whole it was a slow month until:

More importantly, though, Spirited Away won the oscar and I started the actual "name" or storyboard process for my World of Hartz manga. I made a special push to really wrap up J4A as well. Still, I knew I wasn't doing enough with that month. This led me to write:

"Chaos" was 29 days of nights and weekends, while working a day job, to complete the visual aspects of the film. For me, doing a larger project is just a matter of multiplication. Still, even among those who believe, exists people who look at it as something to get money, or break into Hollywood. They say, "Imagine what you could do with a team and a real budget." I imagine I would be making something I didn't care about. I say, "Imagine what I could do if I just did a bigger project." The whole point of "Chaos" was that you don't need funding from some studio. You don't even need a team if you so desire. This needs to be made more clear in a bigger and better way.

I think it is time for more "Chaos".

Words I should have taken more seriously perhaps?

YEAR IN REVIEW 02

The year began with J4A episode 5 in production and me delving into manga, reading such books as Chobits, GTO and Mars. I had just seen Makoto Shinkai's Cloud trailer for the first time and also watched Macross Zero.

Production on J4A continued into episode 6 and I studied anime series such as Chobits and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. I was amazed at just how advanced anime TV series had become in visual quality. Somewhere around this time, I decided that DVD was surely the best market for the indie creator. I had no idea how right I was there.

The first month of the year ended with the place I once called home, Westwood Studios Las Vegas, closing their doors. This gave me new insights on the industry at large:

What is this industry turning into? It seems that studios these days do not want artists, but "operators", bodies to fill chairs and press the right buttons to churn out the graphics they want to see. Creativity is no longer a valued commodity. This is why the indie artist must pave their own path. Create their own worlds and express themselves to the best of their own ability. Only then will we see product which rises above what many studios are putting out these days.

If I hadn't made a concrete decision never too return to working at studios before this, the decision was made then. I still stand by that decision to this day. I will never, under any circumstances, return to working in that environment.

Looking at that last post, I can tell you of a certainty that next year will see the creation of my first one-man feature Occult Salvation. It may not get finished next year. It will be a true feature at the best possible quality, thus taking time to do right, but it will get past a simple trailer!

YEAR IN REVIEW 01

I guess I will do this in stages, but let me start from the beginning. Exactly one year ago. ONE YEAR AGO I wrote in a blog:

Next year will also see the creation of "World of Hearts", my next film, which I will finalize story on shortly.

It will have many facets to it, including, quite possibly, an original manga-style comic to go with it. This show will also feature a kickin' soundtrack which I hope will make some waves out there!

Well as you all can see, this film never got made. Outside of the trailer from which these images come, there was nothing done on it. I will say that these production assets have far from gone to waste, but it looks like this review is not getting off to a good start!

I also wrote:

Next year will be a big year in the entertainment industry I think. I think we will see anime and manga hit all-time highs in market penetration. We will see more of it on TV and in major retail outlets. People will be talking about it. If an anime won an Oscar...

Prophetic?

YEAR IN REVIEW

I almost dread even doing it, lest I find that I squandered this year entirely, but I guess if I already expect as much I shouldn't be surprised right? Since I have this blog, there's nothing stopping me now from running through the archives, starting in January 2003, and really seeing just what I have accomplished this year.

I can imagine that with few exceptions I will not like what I see. Peradventure I find that I have, in fact, truly wasted many great opportunities, what would I do differently next year? Well, I'll save the answer until after the review. :)

Arrangement

If you're putting together your digital orchestra, using software like I will be using, and you want realism, you need to know how a real orchestra is arranged. You, of course, need to know what's in a real orchestra, but you also need to know where they are placed to create that true symphonic sound.

You can see from the image here that certain sections will need to panned more to the left or to the right based on where they would actually be seated. This is important to creating the correct sound in your final recording. It is also important to gauge how many pieces are in an orchestra, because you will not be using a separate voice for each instrument. You can, for example, use a string section or brass section rather than using a number of individual violins or trumpets.

Still with a chart like this you would be well on the path to create more realistic compositions that your audience will believe were played by a real orchestra when they are engrossed in your movie.

Recollections Part V

I remember back in the day, and I mean wayyy back as in 1991 or so, me and my brother Vince pitched our money in together and paid about $900 for a brand spanking new Roland SC-55 Sound Canvas. I entered, for the first time in my life, into the world of sound modules. This thing had maybe 1 or 2 Megabytes total for all its samples. Man, we thought the horns and strings on that thing sounded so real.

Well, I recently heard some of the songs I made from back then and I can tell you we were deceived. At least our excitement over the product got the better of us. Be thankful you will never have to listen to just how bad those songs were.

What I find interesting is that today I have the Edirol HQ-OR orchestral sound library which sounds very very good to me. Now it may sound like a toy ten years from now I don't know, but right now I love it. I will say that listening to the MP3 samples on their site don't do it justice. Hearing it uncompressed and playing in realtime is another experience altogether. The thing is, this sound library cost me $279. It came bundled with Cakewalk Music Creator 2003 for free. Cakewalk comes bundled with an all software version of the Sound Canvas... for free.

It's been exactly three months since I redid this page, and it really hasn't changed.

Finally

Everything may have arrived back on the 19th, but only now do I get it all set up. This mixer is only a quarter of the size of the one I used on Chaos and Shadowskin. Still, it delivers the same crisp and clean quality and low noise design. It is made by the same company for that matter. For what I was doing, I really didn't need 16 channels. For that matter, I don't even need 8, but I do need the space. I am very happy for this little guy.

Of course, doing music all digital has made the need for a larger mixer vanish. Thanks to the Edirol HQ-OR software synth, I no longer have to go through the process of using an external sound module, recording to DAT and then transferring to the computer. Now I do it right in Cakewalk and "mix down" to a wave file. Crisp, clean and all internal. Speaking of Cakewalk.

I noted on the Edirol page that they said the software included Cakewalk Music Creator 2002. I though, ok, they throw in a simple outdated program to give people something to work with. Well, it turns out that it came with the latest 2003 version of the software, and it just happened to be exactly what I was looking for!

You see, I used to swear by Cakewalk 3.1 back in the day (and I do mean wayyy back). I may have switched to Cakewalk Pro Audio at one point, but reverted back because I didn't like the new interface and was only interested in MIDI. What was this "audio" stuff? Soundfonts? Huh? So I used that old version for a very long time. After years of being away from it, however, I heard about Sonar. It wasn't until version 2.2 of Sonar that I decided to even check out their webpage and see what it was about. Man, I looked at those images of the interface and went, "HUH?!"

What happened to Cakewalk?! I was hoping for the next or latest greatest version of the program I knew and loved. I didn't mind the whole "audio" thing now because my MIDI days were over. To make matters worse, now they had ten different tools out there. Which one was the one I needed?! Well it turns out Music Creator 2003 seems to be the same old program I used to love, under all the flash of the new and cool interface. All the tools are there and even in the same place.

I am a very happy content creator. I guess now it's time to actually do something with this stuff huh?

Star Sighting II

You may remember my first post about seeing Delroy Lindo at a health food store on Crenshaw. Well today we spotted trip hop wizard Tricky, seen in such films as The Fifth Element at a barber shop. No one seemed to pay much attention to him. There was some other dude from a well known black sit com there too, but I never heard of him.

I forgot. We also noted Peter Jackson at some expensive camera and lighting equipment shop, but that's hardly news right?

Everything Has Arrived!

You know what this means? I am back to being fully production ready. Everything that was or that went into the production of Chaos or anything which I have done can now be done again. Of course, much has been updated to the all digital realm, especially on the audio side, but everything is, again, possible.

You Got to be Kidding Me!

Apparently, this is not CG. This is real! Are we really at that point today? Has the world of science fiction begun to spring up around us?!

If you don't want one of these things yet, you have to watch this movie!

They're Doing It!

In an article in Animation Magazine, they talk to Kid Notorious lead animator Alex Meza about using flash:

In addition to the ability to re-use animation, Meza says Flash also allows them to significantly streamline their pipeline. He notes, "In traditional animation, you have your animator block out everything. Then you have your clean-up artists, timers and everyone else. What Flash allows us to do is combine a lot of these key roles under one individual. I can easily block it in, clean it up, check my timing and everything, then immediately show the director."

I remember years ago when so much animation was running overseas I advocated this very thing. I said the key was to keep costs down which meant smaller crews. I even suggested going paperless! Hordes of traditional animators rallied against me yelling and screaming saying it couldn't be done!

Now I'm mad.

That same magazine mentions that Pinewood Studios, U.K.-based production outfit Digi-Guys is ramping up for a busy production slate with the purchase of a 55-seat site-license of Bauhaus' Mirage!

I'm telling you this software is going to make major waves in the industry.

Sony Stylin'

Also, as you may remember from my music research post, I have made a decision on sound. I just ordered the Edirol HQ Orchestral Software Synthesizer. I chose this one over the Garritan product mainly due to the example files sounding a bit more geared toward soundtrack scoring. Those that I played the same samples for led me in that direction with their opinions as well. I will likely be posting some music exercises in the near future.

As with any skeleton, there must be a reason why I made it right? Expect to see a new set of characters soon.

Typing my name into Google, I found this review of my new DVD!

I made a new skeleton.

Chief among the differences between this one and those of the past is the addition of a complete hand skeleton. Also you may notice that I am trying some interesting things with joints. It may look weird, but one must keep in mind that my goal is always to not necessarily make joints look anatomically accurate, but look like I would draw it in the final figure.

Part of the reason for some of the things I am doing here is because upgrades in Lightwave 3D since the time of Chaos make this possible. Sure, much of this would have been possible via weight maps even back then, but I tend to avoid them in cartoon work except for intentionally hard objects like armor. The bones work so much better than in the past that this type of thing is now easy.

Stunts are another area of mainstream film where it becomes quickly obvious why the large crews are needed. I am, of course, talking about the really big films. Having a good coordinator can make or break the project, and guarantee safety. This coordinator will bring with him an entire team of specialists who cover a wide range of disciplines from fighting to car stunts, all needed for the big action films.

When you think about putting together a complex stunt sequence, even the grip department becomes so essential to the use of time and money. They may lay out and smooth over dolly track so that the camera can line perfectly with what the stunt coordinator and his team have set up. As an indie director, how much of your day would be lost if you had to manage all this yourself?

Now I suppose in today's world, some of the most complex stunt sequences can be done very realistically in CGI. I think something is lost though. It is like the difference between a huge action sequence in a James Bond film vs. that of The Matrix. Knowing that they are out there really doing it in Bond films adds a level of excitement that is just not there in CG sequence. No matter how cool it is, or how good the CG looks, it just loses a notch compared to the knowledge of knowing they really did it.

Imagine if Jackie Chan started using CG doubles like in Blade II.

Bryan Singer once said that a movie is not like a book or a painting in that it requires hundreds of people to make it happen. Considering the movie he just did, I can see that. Can you imagine? In X2, they built a "White House" interior set that was very accurate to the real thing. Someone spent two months making, by hand, the duplicate of the presidential desk. This says nothing of the rest of the set. Can you see why so many people are needed to make his vision come to life?

As a director you want to focus on the story your telling and your vision. This means you want to show up and the set be there and be right! Would you want to manage all of that yourself? This is why directors can be seen to work with the same crew over and over. They get with people they trust and won't make a film without them. You get a good producer and you know he will bring you what you need so you only need to worry about the story and the vision, not what kind of wood to use on a particular structure because people need to stand on it.

I suppose the indie could simply resign to the decision that their movie simply will not take place in the White House, or maybe do it all in CGI, but you can see why the need for so many hands arises so quickly on such a production.

For what I do it is different. What I do makes creating a film exactly like a book or exactly like a painting!

I am soon to make an end of cleaning up this manga. That is to say after to the next few pages needing major work, it will be a small matter of quick and light touch ups from then on. I will finish it quickly allowing me to move on to the new page. I will be adding one more chapter to the book possibly expanding it to 180 pages. The release date has been pushed to May of 2004.

I will begin my feature project by first doing a sort of "proof of concept" trailer. Everything is new to me after all. I have this new method of working. I am using Mirage which has changed things considerably as to how I work. I am working at HD resolution. It will basically be a new process. I will be doing the same for the next TV level projects I do.

I prefer to always work in square pixels. When working in DV, the resolution is 720x480 pixels on a 4:3 aspect screen. This means the pixels are horizontally stretched. This makes painting difficult. All popular high def resolutions are already square. On TV though, some intermediate working resolution is necessary. This can be 640x480 or higher for those concerned about too few pixel. Color is also an issue.

I will make my film using the full color range available to me. On TV though, I must stay NTSC legal. This was done as post process in the past. I am not sure I want to keep doing it that way of the future. The reason for this, though, was that the post process was very involved. With Mirage, though, there is an FX stack allowing me to basically put all those processes in one batch.

Hmmm.. Maybe I will not abandon the post process.

This High End 3D thread has yet more news of the downfall of Disney, and the continuing demise of 2D in America.

Personally I think it pathetic that someone could look at Jin-Roh and call it "limited animation". Now The Flinstones? That was limited animation. In fact, it was that technique that the term was coined to describe. To consider Jin-Roh to be even remotely related in technique is just asinine.

I think people who feel this way need a bit of experience with foreign film. Live action films I mean. I have seen in Asian films from many countries those slow thoughtful scenes and moments that appear very "still" even in the live action film. Often the actors are by no means over the top, but very subdued and often speak with no gesture and little body motion. This translated to animation would only come across as seen in films like Jin-Roh and Ghost in the Shell. Unless of course people prefer the character stand there and jitter like a Ralph Bakshi movie.

The simple fact is that people have preconceived notions of what animation should be. Many say Ghost in the Shell and Jin-Roh should be live action. These are they which think all animation must be Pixar or The Simpsons. Basically they like comedy, cartoony antics, talking mice or what have you. This is all fine, but why limit the medium? This could go on and on so I will quit here...

Plans are in the works. Schedules are being made. New ideas are merging with the old.

Having finished another recent gig, I will be devoting more time to the polish pass on the World of Hartz manga. I will also be adding a few new pages into the mix. More on that later.

As mentioned in my "Way of Manga" post, I will be diving much deeper into ways of a more immediately gratifying production pipeline. Expect to see images soon.