Well, let's just say, I did A LOT of animation in June. I also did A LOT of Video Editing, Special Effects Animation, Motion Graphics, and also got a lot of my concept work done for my 2 TV Shows, networked with talent, scouted out a lot of locations, and shot LOTS of test footage at various locations, and we finally got BACK into production on "The Holy Maple Tree" on the 30th in Bridgewater. I also got MOST of the filming equipment I wanted: Jib camera crane, floating head Video tripod, waterproof selfie stick, gimbal.
Unfortunately, I CANNOT show share the visual effects animation, and graphics I did. I did stuff for a local TV show called "Tipsy TV" which is still in production, and I also finished up the main effects, clean-up, and compositing for the Gorgon Scenes of The Afterlife for "The Holy Maple Tree". I do NOT own the rights to those, so I will NOT be showing those works.
It's mostly just simple, basic effects, but TONS of layers. And I also re-shot some parts multiple times, MYSELF, and or with the Director.
I want to wrap up "Maple Bacon" which is a short film I'm doing with Pasteloween (my relative).
Here's a clip I just finished in Toon Boom HARMONY:
And, THEN there's THIS MOFO:
SO, THIS MOFO RIGHT HERE has been my lil PUNK! All I wanted to do was a SIMPLE Harry Potter/Warner Bros style Logo animation/motion graphics using Adobe After Effects' Extrude Raytrace. When I found it it could do that, I was like: OMG! I'm DOING THAT! But, I had a TON of setbacks for troubleshooting with After Effects multiple times (including again today).
I have tried SO many tutorials, and they're ALL outdated. I can;t get any technique to work. I did find out that the new version of Photoshop has a 3D extrude... but I don't understand it, but at least I could make THIS monstrosity.
I have worked on this LOGO motion graphic animation SO MANY TIMES, with SO MANY TRIES. I have multiple files. -and I don't really understand Adobe Illustrator, plus I HATE IT.
I used my old photography from around 2012 also.
I want to do a better version, and WAS working on that ALL OVER AGAIN from scratch 3 times TODAY, but now my After effects isn't working again. :(
Pasteloween wants me to do more animation memes... but I kinda did a montage.
I'm keepin' it real: video editing is kinda easy for me. I especially like music video style, or montage, or "documentary":
This remix track is from a band in Philly from the Bush era called "Hail Social". 1 of the band members was my old co-worker from AMC Marlton 8, Richie Roxas, who was a pretty good friend of mine in the late 90s. He has an Instagram about New Balance Shoe collection stuff, and purple things. But, I juts recently deactivated ALL of my FB & Instagram profiles due to very bad privacy concerns as a result of the loss of net neutrality But, my Twitter profiles are still up, and so is my Google+ stuff.
I have a profile on MeWe & Matadon which are much safer.
I'm trying to produce my own animated short, which involves practicing all kinds of things, because traditional animation involves LOTS & LOTS of DRAWING! But, since it's the new millennium that means LOTS OF PROGRAMS TO LEARN, which also involved PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!
It involves Qilin (Kirin or Kylin), Chinese unicorns, dragons, etc! Here is the Main BLOG: HERE The Facebook PAGE: HERE The Tumblr: HERE
I STILL haven't been able to get to doing Life Drawing, per se, but lots of OTHER DRAWING.
Since I'd launched my GoFundMe campaign I have been able to purchase Adobe Creative Cloud. I've been practicing that a lot. I also NOW can contribute as an editor and graphics creator on the the independent film (The Holy Maple Tree) I've been working on since November with my very good friend whom is the Director/Producer. I'd mostly been a P.A. doing mostly audio, but also prep for opening/closing film sets. I am truly lucky to have such a good friend! I've also made a lot of new friends and connections which have been SO encouraging, positive, and helpful to my life, creativity as an artist, and so on.
I've also been able to purchase many things that I NEEDED, which I budgeted for, including a condenser microphone kit! ^_^
I'm also still very grateful to my video teacher at UMASS for having opened up all of these opportunities for me.
I have also re-opened my Etsy. Nothing on it right now tho'. And, I ended up getting some paid freelance work (nondisclosure) from a very good friend of mine, going way back, and I was very happy to do this work. ^_^
Unfortunately, at the moment, my financial aid got stalled, and I cannot return to UMASS unless it can be resolved. I can't do anything about that until Mr. Wang gets back from Japan/China. I believe he's in China at the moment.
Also, an elder gentleman hit our minivan about 1-2 days before Mr. Wang had to leave to go to Japan. this had been a constant frustration ever since! The elder gentleman was so upset that he hit us, and was shaking & quivering, but he'd admitted he was guilty, and set up his very good insurance coverage for us. meanwhile, auto body shops are all on vacations lately. I did manage to get EXCELLENT coverage out of the medical aspect, and now I have full paid visits to the chiropractor! I am SO GRATEFUL!
I had to monitor my visits to the chiropractor, and I was almost halfway through my yearly coverage, which isn't much. I didn't know what I would do, because I hurt my neck really bad! Luckily, the insurance gave me medical coverage! When I got the statement for how much they decided to award me, I was happy! I just didn't know how to work that out! SO, I hobbled over to the chiropractor, and told them my situation. When they found out how much I was getting awarded, they dropped everything, started making calls, and even started either helping me with paperwork, or doing it for me!
So glad that had been taken care of! Apparently my neck had some tissue tears, and had healed wrong. I get to go 3 times a week now! ^_^
Here's the animation stuff I've been practicing:
Studio Ghibli's OpenToonz:
Notes:
I had pretty big hopes for this program. It's Studio Ghibli's open source animation program OpenToonz, which is entirely free.
Unfortunately, I found it to be SO ENTIRELY BACKWARDS which is much like how I feel trying to drive a Japanese car after growing up driving only American cars. It's just SO BACKWARDS, it often felt awkward. I was frequently lost. updates weren't making it better. It lagged when I drew. There was no precision in drawing. I constantly had to source tutorials on YouTube, but they often didn't help out.
The main thing I wanted to practice is a number of horse/equine walk cycles. It just makes logical sense. I want better quality animation, so the ONLY way to do that is to just PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE!
Toon Boom's Harmony Advanced Version:
First Hair Cycle:
With 2nd Cycle started:
With both hair Cycles and tweens:
2nd Hair Animation with it's 1st Animation Cycle:
Finished Version with 2 hair cycles and a head turn at the end:
Notes:
I mostly wanted to focus MORE on the motion, movement, animation, form, and timing, and not so much on the actual perfection of drawing, because it was making me crazy. I'm not accustomed to drawing with my WACOM "Bamboo" pad, I only use it for coloring the drawings I hand drew, then scanned. I like the feeling of real pencils and paper... but, I LOVE digital coloring. Toon Boom Harmony (Advanced Version)
So, I gotta tell ya, I have ALWAYS loved TOON BOOM, and I HATE Flash! HATED IT! I remember when in was Macromedia, and I also remember Macromedia had this GREAT program called Director, which was pixel based and I LOVED IT. I could even do scripting/coding like it was breathing! I ONLY liked working in Flash, honestly, whenever my friend Kyle was with me, because he's like MAGIC. But, when he wasn't there, the magic vanished...
The kicker is this: I SO WANTED to actually BUY this program. I figured the Advanced version (since it comes in 3 versions now) would suffice.... BUT, none of the versions EXCEPT the Premium version do audio! WTF! I can't do the monthly subscription, because my spouse is a control freak, and would veto that, and I can't guarantee I can have enough income each month to pay it, so I prefer the bulk 1-year payment of programs, which are a better deal. The problem is the Premium version is almost $900! WTF! So, not going to happen.
Anyways, I already have Adobe CC now... which has their NEW version of what USED TO BE Flash... Heidi says she thinks it's more like Toon Boom.... I hope that's true. *pouty face*
Fixing up my Vintage Animation from UARTS Phila and AIPH in Adobe Premiere Pro CC:
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Qilin Character Designs:
I have done SOOOOOOOOOO MANY sketches of new Qilin sketches! I'm NOT even gonna post them all here. You can catch them ALL in my GALLERY! Or a DIRECT LINK to the Gallery's Blog POST.
It was suggested to me, a number of times to try LIVE STREAMING myself sketching, drawing, or coloring. At the moment, my ability to do this was rather limited. Live streaming on YouTube isn't always free anymore, and you need to download a private party client/application.
Also, my ability to stream content outward is capped by my ISP broadband (Verizon) even tho' I've been using them since GW Bush was president.
Regardless, a lot of my coloring process is up on YouTube right now. I can ONLY get it to recognize the old vintage Photoshop 6.0 tho'. Almost no programs can be viewed in the live stream.
So far, this sort of thing wasn't going very well for me.... so, I might not continue with it. I will, however, continue coloring the Qilin, so don't worry.
Other Stuffs:
I may, or may not, have been looking into a certain potential position out West... possibly doing a portfolio of that. I was inquiring to a close friend of mine in Burbank, about their thoughts on it, and it was pretty honest, and encouraging. I have pretty bad anxieties over it... but, I had been suggested to this certain thing (potentially) regarding me reaching out and submitting some sort of a portfolio. I had previously been rather depressed (and this goes back to at least 2015) so I just wasn't open to the idea, and had a very bad attitude towards it. But, I had been suggested this by multiple persons, a number of times, and even this year. I had been on my mind a lot.
I'd stumbled into it, yet again, recently because the specific thing is a sequel of sorts to a well known film from the 1980s, which I absolutely loved which is whimsical, fantasy, but also dark, and very in line with the type of things I would LOVE to work on. Even my daughter got wind of this suggestion, when I was talking to someone about it, and was like: Mom! That is so perfect for you! You should at least try it!
I am also doing some graphics for the film I'm working on. We're often on this '90s stint. So, we wanted cheesey 90s looking graphics. We we actually shooting stuff at BTV, and going back again.
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There's an actress on the film, Sissy, whom you may recognize from some major mainstream films, but much of the acting talent is pretty good, and some are quite established.
This film is SO MUCH FUN! I gotta tell ya! But, after an entire day of shooting, I'm so drained. It's kinda like when you were kid and played all day at a Theme Park... except we were doing serious film making... serious for sure. But, it's SO FUN!
We've shot in several locations, including Rhode Island, all over Massachusetts, and even at the Director's house. We did stunt car scenes, lumber jacks, 90s party scenes, Heaven & Hell, and love scenes.
I'd also done some spontaneous acting. I'm NOT AN ACTOR, per se.
So, the Director was like: Kandice, you wanna be a nurse today?
If I'd known I'd have lines, I'd be like: NO!
But, next thing i knew, I had 1 line, then 3, then, a whole part.
Scroll down to watch the film: Smattering Thoughts Also Flow
There's a number of things I actually DID NOT get to do with this film, animation wise, that i would have lived and wanted VERY BADLY.
I COULD NOT find ANYONE to actually help me with the new version of Adobe After Effects to get the 3D animation stuff done for animating a simple butterfly. NOT A SINGLE PERSON would help me, nor did they understand the NEW version of After Effects.
I actually composed this whole ambient song JUST for a specific part of my film:
I also shot a LOT of footage to go with it which I wanted to incorporate the 3D animation of butterfly with. there was LOTS of symbolism happening.
But, there was at least 15 individuals that would NOT answer my messages because they had some petty beef with me for being registered Green Party (AKA "Green Rainbow Party" in MA) and NOT voting for HRC on informed principle, or they mistook my messages to mean something else politics related when I was asking about programing coding for the video program. virtually EVERT allegedly teacher or guru on YouTube that published tutorials online claiming to answer any and all questions about After Effects would NOT REPLY to me on YouTube and Twitter. NOT A SINGLE REPLY since October. 1 of my good friends from WAY back, to this day, still has NOT even opened my FB message since I sent it in November. That NEVER HAPPENS if u knew who I was talking about, who's like The Godfather of tech help especially all things animation and graphics. OUCH!
Murphy's Law is a SERIOUSLY REAL THING. So I DID have a number of set-backs with producing my film.
My stress level was THROUGH THE ROOF trying to get it done.
A photo posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on
I can't even tell you HOW MUCH TIME I LOST due to persons' own private pet political baggage. I really felt that I deserved a lot more time to work on my final which I DID NOT RECEIVE. There were TOO MANY setbacks, no-shows, people being late or not showing up, computer problems were a MAJOR PROBLEM. Things would work, then NOT WORK. this often happened due to Adobe updates. It was THE WORST. But, other times, videos would render out fine, then stop working.
There's also QUITE A BIT OF ARTWORK that DID NOT make it into the film... I had to cut so much stuff out, and re-cut and re-edit stuff. A major reason I couldn't include this artwork was due to the lack of knowledge and help with Adobe After Effects.
I also had a an entire video shoot, that I booked, that was completely fucked up because my kid kept also dying every week of blood issues. EVERY FRIGGIN' WEEK! at least TWICE a week since September. And, LITERALLY as soon as finals were DONE she was FINE. WTF!?
A photo posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on
Anyways, the film has quite a lot of Taoism in it, and philosophy. It's an art film.
There's a lot of puns & word play on Chinese words either by the way the sound, or the way they are written. Etymology stuff. This sort of thing is very common with Taoists, philosophers, zen practicing persons, and sometimes Confucianism. An entire video shoot done in the shooting room had to be completely scrapped, and the calligraphy part was re-shot so many times, on different days and locations that I lost count. Much of the Chinese Etymology won;t make sense if you're not bilingual in English & Chinese. Altho' I felt adding subtitles IMMENSELY detracted from the performance of the calligraphy story, I HAD TO INCLUDE the subtitles because it otherwise would NOT make any sense to an English speaking person with no knowledge of Chinese.
There's so much actual information IN THAT part that will MOSTLY be over the heads of MOST people whom have not studied philosophy, Taoism, Zen, or are at least unfamiliar with figures like Bruce Lee, or Alan Watts. It's literally about 5 years of thorough self study into these toppics at home, and I've barely scratched the surface.
I actually enrolled at UMASS Boston majoring in Philosophy, and I almost TOTALLY dropped out for medical reasons, including physical injuries, pain, and stress related problems. But, I stayed enrolled to finish my Video class, and my instructor actually encouraged me to stay in school, switch my major back to art, and also invited me personally to attend a brand new class he made which included animation. I am also going to work on an animation project for him and the school next semester.
Here's the film:
There are SO MANY layers of meaning and meanings in this film.
"Flow" is a big symbolism for me, and also in Taoism. It mentions the flow of Fire, Air, Water, Earth (elements). I believe that MOST people ONLY exclusively think of WATER regarding flow, and SOMETIMES air. AIR is a BIG ONE for me. The BLACK FEATHERS FALSE EYELASHES are especially meaningful for me. They not only represent AIR, but they are also BLACK which is YIN (From the Toaist concept of Yin-Yang). Yin is the feminine symbol generally. the way you KNOW THIS is that it had THE WHITE DOT or "Moon" on it. Moon is a feminine symbol. The WHITE side is the YANG or generally Male side with the BLACK DOT on it.
But, usually when you go on Deviant Art they get it COMPLETELY backwards in Western art and depict the White side as female.
Don't feel bad if you didn't know this because I also didn't even learn this until about 2004-ish.
Batting the eyelashes also represents the fanning of air, or the movement of AIR, hence air flow.
My Fursona is the Black UniGryphon, which is also a shape-shifter. Shape-shifting is also called "morphing" or "meta morphing" which involves changing from 1 form or shape into another, like a butterfly.
There is a Christina Aguilera video called "Fighter" in which she uses this kind of symbolism to change, transform, etc. including butterflies/silk-worm moths, feather eyelashes, and black to white cycling transition as character motif. It also incorporates a dance motif. The lyrics of the song also tell about overcoming hardships, and especially overcoming a psychopath abuser, or perhaps the cruelty of the world.
The cellphone bit part was actually an homage to 1 of my dance teachers who's band created an INCREDIBLE music video which was paid for by crowd funding of the fans. I wanted mine to be more awkward with the long extended pauses, but I had to cut it down a lot. The song/video is called "Revival" which is full of all kinds of beautiful art, symbolisms galore, and the doll/puppet dancer is my dance teacher, Zoe.
I actually made a number of butterflies, but I could ONLY USE 2 of them for the film.
Each butterfly was hand made using markers in my sketchbook. The actual sketchbook I used was a throw away sketchbook from drawing classes at UMASS Boston when The Art Department was seen by students as a way of getting credits and NOT taken seriously, which greatly offended the Art Faculty Teachers. They all revolted in around 2015-2016 and forced the changes for art classes being for serious Art Majors only, and creating Workshops for art for anyone else. Since there was a number of stacks of sketchbooks strewn throughout the Art department in various drawing classrooms, and they were about to be dumped, my spouse was tipped off by some art teachers to take his fill of as many as he wanted. So, during the summer, I made a trip there myself, and filled my backpack with discarded sketchbooks which were FULL of blank pages. Many of the sketchbooks were of high quality EXPENSIVE paper. I needed sketchbooks to practice my Croquis gesture life drawings. But, since many of the books were of such high quality paper I saved some for my own personal use.
I don;t always like using inks for drawing. But, i do enjoy using professional graphic art markers. I'd contemplated dropping out of UMASS in October and almost completely did. But, I'd decided to participate in #Inktober for the first time ever in hopes of using the artwork to experiment with at UMASS for my video class. I's originally created the Forbearance/Endurance Butterfly which has Chinese calligraphy in it. This character comes from Confucianism which usually is NOT my favorite. I prefer Taoism ideology by Laozi (Lao Tsu). However, I DO like this concept, and it's popular with Japanese Zen people.
The 2nd Butterfly is Task/Duty and they are both called "Ren". "Ren" is my Chinese surname in my Ming Zi.
This is also hand made with vintage professional graphic art markers from 1999.
"Ren" sounding words became a huge theme in the project, but i also noticed several similarities in how the words were written.
Anyways, It would've been different had I been able to do the 3D animation bit. But, oh well! I had a whole lantern video set that was perfect for it! But, whatever!
Why the ripple?
Well, several reasons. Is does fit well WITH the whole Taoism and FLOW. In Western thought "Air" symbolizes "thoughts, ideas, the mind, etc." and "Water" represents "emotions & feelings". But, in Chinese Water can actually mean an number of things, and especially money. Why? I have no idea. But, in Chinese "Air" can mean anything from nothingness, emptiness, energy, qi, a number of other meanings I don't even know. At the bottom of the character for endurance/Forbearance is the character for "heart" (which also has other meanings, including referring to the mind in old Chinese) and Traditional Chinese medicine uses the art of checking the pulse of the patient. At the top of the character is the symbol for blade which is different from the character for knife because blade refers to part of the tool which cuts.
I could go on and on about these symbolisms. But, the reason I chose to experiment with RIPPLES on BUTTERFLIES is a VERY specific one.
In 2001 I went to a concert in Atlantic City at, believe it or not, THE TRUMP TAJ MAHAL. Not even making it up! The concert was of Kelly Chen, whom was a favorite of mine at the time.
During this show, there was this incredible video art of butterflies using Adobe After Effects ripples, and I'd always wanted to create my own version. It just looks really weird! I didn't ant the butterflies to look like real actual butterflies, which was WHY I used markers. I wanted them to LOOK LIKE ART. The ironic thing was that no matter how stylized I made them look, a number people thought they were REAL butterflies when I was working on it!
I got SO many compliments on the butterfly animations I made.
When I was doing the arrangement for the ambient song, I was originally planning on making it be a 303 Acid song. FOR REAL. But, when I took out the beats, and slowed the tempo, and just ended up with the ambient sound it worked a lot better, and despite my stubborn ego, I threw out the techno and went full ambient.
It would've ended up more along these lines, only different:
You can hear how it sounds kind of like water ripples, or a flowing river, or brook.... Very 1980s-1990s vibe...
I programmed and modulated the music myself.
But, scrapped it for my butterfly animation. There's some 303 Acid at the end tho'.
As for my motivation for the actual FLOW of the ambient composition, I have a few. I wanted something eerie and weird, sort of like X-FILES, but I'd lost all of my old stock audio this year due to a malware virus. So, i fell back onto some old stuff that i knew worked, to save time trying to experiment too much n force stuff to work. Time wasn't something I had a lot of, especially if ur kid keeps almost bleeding to death.
So, I went with sonar and heartbeats.
It's 1 of those things I find always works. It's not anything new, and I've seen it done over & over. But, if you want some of my favorite examples, then strait from the 1990s here they are:
BTW, the English versions DO NOT mean the same things in the lyrics as the original German.
And, since we're already on the topic, of all things inter connecting... since I already had a Trump connection in here, weirdly... let's double down and go with more Butterflies connected to this, since we're on a weird etymology, and word plays:
About 50 seconds into the video after she's talking about butterfly motifs " ein Schmetterling" she starts the song.
As for the Philosophical reference to Heraclitus, it was a kind of Zen joke of sorts, since if you've ever attended zen gatherings in person in which u do nothing but sit and breathe, before hand they/we often blabber on about DEATH in words that seem rather morbid, but are actually almost like a joke, and much of zen end up becoming a jokes, nonsense on purpose, and abstract things. I have no way to explain any of this, because it's not explainable. Heraclitus was the pre-socratic philosopher whom came up with the first version of Monism and the line about "You can't step into the same river twice". There are so many things which Heraclitus came up with, philosophically, that is so many ways it sounds almost exactly like what Laozi described in the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) book about Taoism. Only, the weird thing was Heraclitus concluded that everything was made of FIRE! XD Oh, man, that's SOOOOOO ZEN!
Monism was the ancient Greek version of what Eastern thought often refers to as "Oneness".
"Mono" = "One" + "ism"
So, you could also called it One-ism! LOL!
It somewhat reminds me of a theory about electrons, which "pop in and out of existence". the theory goes that ALL electrons are ACTUALLY the exact SAME electron simultaneously, and the seeming appearance of "popping in and out of existence" while in motion, is actually it existing everywhere in space simultaneously, but we only perceive it as popping in and out of existence in other places, because space doesn't actually exist, and it's the same actual electron. This kinda makes me rethink the concept of electricity (also a flow) which is a current (a flow term) in which electrons move through a conductor.
Some of his ideas were wacky n weird, n way out there! But, very fascinating.
Anyways, if you don't know my Monad Migraine story, let's just forget about it. it's a long story.
But, in my several year search for nailing down the truth, and the origins of THE MONAD I finally found it, after years of searching in Heraclitus. Ironically, it reminds me a lot of electrons in an atomic structure. I'm not really an expert in Heraclitus nor Monism, so, don;t take my words too seriously.
I have no idea why so many set-backs keep on rolling out, one after the other. It's not as tho' I'm lazy, because I'm on the go CONSTANTLY. I HATE being caught unprepared. if something CAN be better, then it SHOULD JUST BE BETTER, especially when it's something SIMPLE.
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And, STILL, my daughter has no end to her bloody literal problems. Today there was the drama of her Niagara nosebleeds. STOP FRICKIN' CALLING ME IN THE MIDDLE OF CLASS! I've been w/her and the spouse at the hospital TWICE this week already, and NO there is NO REASON why BOTH parents ought to be there.... A fricken NOSE BLEED? It's called WINTER! I get them too! They go away when summer starts. It means ya don't have enough vitamin C, zinc, and antioxidants. DUH! The cure: pomegranates, oranges, pine needle tea, cranberry juice, animal livers. In fact, I was bleeding in my nose yesterday slightly. It's because of the extreme cold, then going into warm buildings, PLUS heaters make the AIR DRY which makes the skin dry, and after a few days to a few weeks of this the membranes of your nose get thin, especially when ur vitamin C levels are depleted from being in the cold air and breathing it. It's NOT rocket science. My family got this problem, and I'm not the only one.
SO, THIS, had no problem rendering out:
This was the footage I came up with Originally, but I need to re-edit it again and fix it up, because this is a rough cut:
My instructor insisted that I re-shoot it, and he's a really nice guy, and even gave me his own paper... So, I was looking forward to re-shooting it based on his suggestions on Tuesday... even tho' I already liked what I was doing... he's also, kinda an aloof social butterfly... typical video people...
I missed school on Monday due to A.) having to go early to the hospital to get the kid an ultrasound, then B.) FUCKING SNOW + MIXED WEATHER! DAMMIT!
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Then, after going to the hospital ALL THE WAY IN BOSTON, I couldn't go to the shooting studio which I reserved since last week on time. FEK! So, sentimental kid dude swoops in and takes the studio instead... fine, I can work on my editing... then, he's like: OK, it's all yours, but like EVERYBODY left, so I had to try n shoot the whole stinkin' thing MYSELF...
BUT, 1 of the light bulbs was broken. WTF!
So, then, I was blinded by the only bulb left, had to shoot almost totally blind, AND the lens focuses manually. I was SO proud of myself thinking I got it right, but ya never can really tell... I was off by like 2 mm so THE ENTIRE thing was OUT OF FOCUS. Not only that, but I shot EVERYTHING upside down! WTF! There's no other way to shoot it!
AND, the 1 light bulb despite being ULTRA BRIGHT was viewed by the camera components as shadowy... WTF? If It'd shot it with the bulb OFF it would've actually looked better... for lack of a better word... WASTE OF MY DAMN TIME! And, I'm OUT OF PAPER NOW! ALL DONE!
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I was already mad, and I didn't want to waste more time being mad so... I go to take back the video equipment n fetch tech dude whom wasn't even supposed to leave yet, n told me he was in the photo room, only to be NOWHERE... and the window was CLOSED.
SO, I'm stuck w ALL this thousands of dollars with of EXPENSIVE technology! AND I gotta take it ALL HOME, IN THE RAIN, on the TRAIN... don't even get me started on that... but, it gets worse... Mr. Wang makes me go to work... so, I gotta lug all THIS stuff, plus the stuff I lugged To school like Chinese calligraphy everything, in a luggage thingy because I hurt my back AGAIN. }:-(
I'm so sleep deprived, plus I gotta organize Biographies... lucky me... generally easy.... but my brain is drained...
Anyways, before I went to work, I manged to get some editing in and that's when stuff started not working right.
THIS bugger here went through several renders before it would work right!:
WHY???? I have NO idea! But, it kept squishing to 1444!
TODAY:
Anyways, I am frustrated as Hell w/Adobe because the updates screw stuff up OFTEN.
I
figured this week once I was on a roll: hey! I'm slick! I got this
stuff down! I'm nearly done, maybe I can still try n figure out that
butterfly bit I want to do after all! YAY! :D
Right?
Then, out of nowhere, Adobe doesn't feel like rendering things in the correct size, or sometimes without audio...
I kept assuming IT WAS ME! USER ERROR! WTF AM I DOING WRONG???
So, I grabbed Jon, the tech dude... over an hour later even he can't figure out why it's not working...
I lost so much time trying to trouble shoot, and NOTHING could be done to fix it! Not a single thing!
I started out by fixing up and reprogramming THIS:
It was KINDA amazing because I kinda felt like I WAS IN THE ZONE! Like I had the magic touch! It looked SO BAD before, and I made this version with the faster more liquidy ripple already, but the Butterfly body needed fixing. And, it just all happened like amazingly well! But, I got so caught up in tweaking it n playing with it because I could've done several things with it... this was what i finally settled on. SO, it looks good, I render it out, and all is well....
But, on my other rough cut edit with these butterfly bits strung together with my audio arrangement was missing the original project file, so I found another one similar to it... I had to adjust it because my instructor didn't like the way the Chinese characters seemed "distorted" as he put it... SO, I did actually fix that yesterday, but I lost some of the resolution quality, which bugged me when I resized the image overlay in Photoshop. That was a simple matter of just creating a new layer, and starting over... so i did. No Biggy...
Once I got to THIS MOFO Everything stopped working right:
See how it's the right size? 1920x1080!
But, I must've rendered a dozen times! This one when imported, even tho' it's the correct size if viewed by Adobe Premiere as a squished video even tho' the file plays correctly when NOT in the program, and the other files work properly also.
It rendered without sound, even tho' I didn't make it do that.
It should've been done BEFORE 3PM. I figured, OK, this looks fine. Let's render, then pop it into the full film sequence to edit it together as a rough cut and screen it to get a feel for the overall flow of the film so far... THEN, I intended to move onto trying, HOPEFULLY, to get the other 3D butterfly thingy I wanted for it. Otherwise, I gotta come up with more stuff like this to re-cut w/this audio.
While it was rendering, I had a tutorial open, and ready to watch hoping to really figure it out, as soon as THIS sucker was done as a place holder...
After 6PM NOTHING was done.
I even switched to a different computer. Then, THIS file started working right on it, just NOT in Premiere.
I HAD planned on going back tomorrow.... but, I'm SO exhausted...
I'll try to go back on Monday.
Today was technically the last class... but we have to come back on the 20th to screen our films.
I was told we were going to play it in the theater... but, now it's just being played in the video room...
