COVID Dystopia: Press Kit Page 5

Posted on by Thor

This is the Bios page of the press kit. Posting it here, I immediately notice a typo, so I should fix that.

Each morning I keep waking up and thinking I am working on the last shot in the film that needs improvement, but during the day I find something else that needs a tweak. I decided the Times Square Hazmat scene was of a high enough quality to keep as is. However I decided the crowd running from an alien crap virus craft needed work.

I got about half the crowd into the high resolution version of the scene and I need to work on the other half today. I changed the timing on an arm swing while I was at it. I suspect all the line work will have to be cleaned up for this scene to sharpen up the image. The scene is just over one second long but it will involve several days work to draw and paint the high resolution version.

The film was rejected by Sundance and Slamdance film festivals to start out the year. I need to get serious in 2004 to find all the early submission dates for film festival submissions. People either love the film or they hate it. There is no middle ground or grey area. I need to find the festivals willing to take a chance on screening this monstrosity.

One question at the Chicago International REEL Film Festival was, what was the cost of the film. For me there was no cost other than the insane amount of time I committed to the project. The laptop I purchased a year earlier but at the time I made sure it had enough ram and memory to handle film editing. The biggest cost it turns out is the admission fees for submitting to film festivals. Part of me wonders if I am making a mistake keeping COVID Dystopia off of Social Media so that it can have a film festival run through 2024.

COVID Dystopia: Press Kit Page 4

Posted on by Thor

The first post of 2024 involves me making a bunch of new folders on my computer to store images for the new year. This day also marks the start of panic as I prepare to pay the government taxes so they can continue to let COVID rip.

I am debating about going into the Times Square 2022 scene above and improving the resolution of the hazmat suited cleanup crew. With each animated scene I am now going back and making sure the resolution will hold up when projected on a large movie screen. With yesterday’s scene I also ended up adding a few more drawings to the scene to smooth out the motion. I now understand the importance of a clean up department in an animation studio, since the scene might feel complete but a second look can make it even better.

Sprout and Donkey, our two pups were in an absolute panic last night since neighbors turned the block into a war zone. Seriously they all must spend thousand of dollars on explosives. When I let the dogs out in the yard there was so much smoke that I couldn’t see the far yard fence.

I did a COVID themed painting for each of the last three years of the pandemic but I didn’t do one this year since I am focusing on refining the film. 2024 will be the year I push hard to get COVID Dystopia seen. Perhaps 2024 will be the year people start to realize that COVID is a vascular disease which is easily avoided with masks and air purification. The film battles amnesia and denial and is as important now as it was in 2020.