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10-4-24 1:45 PM
hello there. i am currently EATING YOUR MONEY from the stupid optical campaign. just kidding, we haven't gotten it yet. THEN i will EAT IT. that was another joke. haha. we have fun around here.

ok for reals tho, i'm slowly etching out this first scene for this thing swimming in my head. i think it will require an optical printer to get the first scene right because the entire thing is supposed to be inverted. calling multiple film labs to see if they have one that's still kicking and so far i have been lectured once about how "those things are old news". so yeah. maybe i will just buy a microscope and etch my drawings into the negative a la mcLaren. antsy to get this little monster into production. here are some doodles from the animation desk. click em to embiggen em:

9-28-24 11:01 AM
hello one whole month later! i have some very great news to share regarding the studio:

1.) our campaign is going a lot better than expected. over $300 in the first week! 20% of the goal! that's pretty awesome, dude!

2.) we're getting a custom camera stand built. whee!! this is coming out of my own pocket so the backer money will go towards films and even cooler stuff from the studio

3.) i am happy i think

thank you : ) i will be in touch

8-28-24 12:40 AM
hi, how are you? unfortunately the camera arm is still broken. the company who manufactured it will not answer my calls. tom cry and scream. but don't fret! i'm saving up again and we should have enough to buy a new one real soon.

i was looking at an old notebook of mine and have come to realize that, in my short time making films, that i have actually come to acquire regrets (already!). word to the wise, folks: make your damn film. my biggest inhibition was the arrogant pursuit of perfectionism when i was just starting out, and this led to the untimely deaths of many an idea that i would have loved to see expanded further. not that they can't be, but once you shoot down a script, you kind of begin to look at it in this weird new light should you revisit it, wondering if you're wasting your time with it when there are a million other ideas bouncing around in that old brain of yours. longtime visitors of the website will remember the old log's progress updates on "sum", my first studio project... i have come to regret not making it, and now, balancing other ideas and my life at large, i don't really have the time to. sigh!

let this tale be a lesson! life happens ridiculously quickly, and 99% of the time, the only person that's really going to care that your film sucks is you. just tell a freakin' story, man!

anyway, this week has been lots of fleetwood mac. good stuff, man. i went through a lot of academy-nominated animated shorts, and i really like "tango", "harvie krumpet", "history of the world in three minutes flat" and "creature comforts"

8-23-24 1:18 PM
soooo our camera arm broke completely, right in the midst of me not having the money for a new one. that really puts a damper on things. nnngh. usually this sort of thing doesn't bother me to much and i work with what we've got, but i mean, next to the camera, this is probably the most vital piece of equipment

8-1-24 1:26 PM
opened up these "commissions" the talented art folk tend to be doing. me doodle for money. its actually quite fun. got my first (double!) yesterday. thanks <3
seems like a decent way to make impromptu money. i don't expect to rack in hundreds but i think it will be a fun experience while i work on other things : )

7-26-24 3:56 PM
getting tired of waiting. money may be the root of all evil, but it is the root of all production as well and i need it to eat and make things unfortunately. very very antsy, so i might just start animating this thing now and shooting pencil tests all the way through because at least i have a little VHS camera with a tripod. i continue to build the stand, which mostly consists of theoreticals and waiting for paydays. maybe i'll just acquire a large steel beam from a construction site, open a hole in the roof, and have the camera arm stick out like an antenna or a dish or something. can you imagine that? 30" of arm movement... the most advanced animation stand ever made people.

i have nothing too interesting to write other than ive begun sleeping during the day and working at night. nothing prompted this. my body is a temple

7-24-24 2:07 PM
i come with better news than usual! the cine-kodak runs like a dream. yay. there is also bad news; the same issue that happened with the bolex on the copy stand applies to this thing. its too heavy. crap! we're gonna need to look for something more heavy-duty. or i might just throw one together. i kind of expected this to happen because the camera body alone is like 8-10 pounds. i think after work today i'll look into those manfrotto mounts because i have a few pipes laying around that'd make a mean rostrum.

its so god damned hot. i really, really do not like summer. thankfully this gives me reason to go back to the studio more often because, despite appearances, the a.c. unit is killer. i am really, really tired. things are going to be okay


7-22-24 10:35 AM
today comes the new animation camera, and i could not be more antsy. replacing the dismal-conditioned non-reflex Bolex H16 (no hate to Bolex, i love em) is the beautifully strange Cine-Kodak Special, sold to me at a generous price by Ed of mitchellcamera.com, a wonderful documentation of the legendary line of cameras that i one day long to have running on a big, bulky stand. go check his site out, it's lovely : )

if the titler stand arm i have supports the new camera, i can start shooting some tests... if not, then, agh. back to the drawing board-ish with the rostrum issue. but thats for later.

7-17-24 11:26 AM
in the middle of storyboarding this thing that i may or may not do. i'd either like to shoot this or a music video once the new camera comes in. there's a lot of optical tricks and magic i've been itching to put to work. so things wont be 100% ready to go this week, but i can probably get back into the studio and start working again, which will bring me modest joy; what more could one ask for?

hopefully you like the new website. sorry if not. each thing being dynamically loaded + its own simple page makes it a hell of a lot easier to edit. there's a few things i still want to put on here but im not yet sure where they will go. we will know in due time.

i have dubbed the makeshift animation stand the stupoptitron 2000. heehee

7-16-24 1:27 AM
i just read this on the post office's website:
    "The Postal Service is reminding customers that metallic mercury and devices containing metallic mercury are always prohibited in the mail stream. This includes antique items such as thermometers, barometers, blood pressure monitors and similar devices."
so uhh yeah. remember this before you send us mercury.

switching out the bolex for a different camera... she'll be here soon. the bolex would've cost more than its worth for a non-reflex to CLA, and basically: i am stupid and didn't research well enough. this time i did. so ha.
i will eat a frozen pop tart now