COVID Dystopia: Watch the Launch

The danger is sharing each shot in turn is that I always realize that there is more animation that can be added. This shot shows a huge crowd gathered on a bridge in Florida to look at a rocket launch. There were very few masks and people packed themselves in like sardines.

The animation in this shot consists of the astronauts looking up and a blast of light shoots from screen right to screen let. I envy those fresh oxygen supplied helmets. My thought was that the rocket blast would distract from the fact that the much smaller flames rising from the crowd would be less noticeable.

Now I am thinking I should dig in and animate all those tiny flames. I know how to do it since I did it in dozens of other scenes. Will people notice the movement of the small flames? Probably not, but I need to know I did my best to make the scene as strange and dynamic as I could. This will be about a days worth of work.

The list of subtle improvements to the film keeps getting longer. Right now I am in crunch mode working on Shakes Theater posters for next season, but once I am done with that, animation will begin again.

I am pleased that some film festivals have started reaching out to me, but there is no mad rush of festivals willing to screen the film. The message that the virus is not done with us, does not jive with the desire to think life has returned to a pre-2019 “normal” that includes packing  mask less crowds into movie theaters.