Yesterday This Was Home: Winter Park

Posted on by Thor

When the bus arrived in Winter Park, a 16 year old girl boarded. She was heading to Detroit as well. Chatting with a fellow passenger always makes the trip more pleasant.

This was a surprisingly tricky scene which might need more work. The bus was pulled into Adobe Premier Pro as a PNG file which preserve transparency. That means I could move the bus in Premiere and the back ground would appear behind it.

The problem came when I animated the girl turning to watch the bus approach. The animation was simple enough, but compositing her over the bus in Premiere turned out to be a hustle since Callipeg, the animation program doesn’t allow for exporting an entire animation with transparency. If I imported as an MP4 then the background an bus were hidden by the white page the girl was animated on. I could export a PNG movie but only one frame was exported. I ultimately had to export as a JSON file which packed all the elements into a WinRar folder. I then had to import each drawing individually into Premiere Pro and reduce the clip size to 4 frames. This was way more work than it needed to be. On top of that the girl drawings were strangely washed out. I adjusted the brightness in Premiere to compensate but still lines have dropped out. I may need to find another solution. In the mean time I am pushing ahead with another scene.

This is just one example of the myriad of unforeseen issues that come up even on a small production like this.

This short film will be on exhibit at Yesterday This Was Home, at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando, Florida 32801) This special exhibition will be on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021.

The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

 

 

Yesterday This Was Home: Everyone Behind Him Was Black

Posted on by Thor

This shot is a pan from the boy to the passengers seated behind him. I rather liked the lady with the cat eye sunglasses so she appears in many scenes. Since it a fairly fast pan I will likely not animate anything in the scene. If there is time in the end I cold animate the boys eyes glancing back but that is icing on the cake. Looking at the shot now, I realize I need to add a blurred out background outside the windows. There are so many faast decisions that need to be made, that sometimes I don’t see the forest through the trees.

For the rest of the afternoon I will be animating a passenger walking up the aisle of the bus. That scene appears for shots from this moment.  I also need to animate the boy walking back to his seat. I had some issues compositing yesterday. Callipeg doesn’t export PNG files with transparency in an entire animation. I ended up having to import each drawing and painting of the character individually into Adobe Premiere Pro and reducing the clip sizes to 4 frames. even with that solution I am finding that the images are bleached out a bit making line work drop away. I may need to find another solution. I also need to back up all the files onto an external hard drive from my iPad, but Apple makes that a nightmare scenario. I hope to accomplish that before the iPad freezes up from lack of memory.

This short film will be on display at Yesterday This Was Hoe at the Orange County Regional History Center, (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando, Florida 32801) on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021.

The exhibit is about the 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire for moving forward.

Yesterday This Was Home: He Wasn’t Going To Move

Posted on by Thor

After getting seated our protagonist stated that he was not going to move. As an animator that saves me some time since I don’t have to move him. Yesterday I animated a character walking up the bus steps and that took 125 frames. There were technical difficulties with the character partially disappearing behind the bus door and then into the bus. It took all day and I crashed my iPad at one point because it could not handle ll the memory needed. I need to get files off of my iPad and onto an external hard drive but Apple doesn’t make file management easy. I am still researching how to move a small mountain off my iPad and onto the external drive.

I will probably animate the girl again today since I have established the cadence of her walk.

This short film will be on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021 at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando, Florida 32801) as part of Yesterday This was Home, an exhibition about the Ocoee Massacre.

The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes

Yesterday This Was Home: Painting The Driver

Posted on by Thor

Though many storyboards are being posed in order, I decided to start posting scenes that I am working on at the moment. Right now I am painting this animation that I completed yesterday. I still need to paint his eye brows, the band around the brim of his hat, and his upper lip and tongue. I tend to do one element at a time going through all the drawing and painting just that one thing at a time. For instance I painted his skin tones from frame one to frame 179. Then I would go through and paint all the coat tones from start to finish. I have one frame fully painted that I reference when starting each step.

This is a dialogue scene with lots of head shaking an a big hand gesture towards the end.  This is about my third dialogue scene and I am getting much better at tying down the subtle movements. In a few hours I should be able to see this cut into the final edit and see how it plays with the sound.

One advantage of Callipeg is that I can carefully paint around the edges and then fill the color quickly by just tapping in the area twice to let it auto fill. As you can see, at this moment the driver is saying, “WeLL”

This short will be on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando, Florida 32801)  for the special exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home,  on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021

The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

Yesterday This Was Home: Getting Seated

Posted on by Thor

A slow zoom in as the boy makes his way up the aisle to his seat four rows from the back.

Today I have been animating the bus driver’s dialogue. I designed his face to look a bit like a stop sign. The octagonal pattern is pronounces in his jaw and eye lids mostly. Even his eyes are octagons though softened a bit. The animation is going well but I had to stop because my Apple pencil needs to recharge. Such lags in technology are an excuse for me to multi task, in this case, to write a brief article here. My pencil is now 97% charged so I might not write much more. I also have an animation student in a bout an hour, so I may need to work late into the night to finish the scene I started.

The scene I am animating has a large hand gesture and I decided to animate it on a separate level. My thought is to have it pop up hen the driver says, “Pleeeese.” I might slide it forward or backward in the timeline however when I see it play back with the audio dialogue. Callipeg doesn’t have the ability to import audio, so I am just using video reference to find when the mouth shaped hit on which frame numbers. Once I see it play with the audio in Adobe Premiere Pro then I often decided to change timing on mouth shapes to they read clearer. I try not to fuss too long since there are plenty of other shots to get done.

This short film will be on display at Yesterday This Was Home, an exhibition at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando, Florida 32801) from October 3, 2020 to February 14, 2021.

The exhibit is about the 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition by the Orange County Regional History Center will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire for moving forward

Yesterday This Was Home: The Bus

Posted on by Thor


The 1957 era bus. The numbers animate onto the windows and a line animates up the side of the bus as the narrator talks about deciding he will sit 4 seats from the rear of the bus. It is his battle line. I love the look of this old bus. It has an Art Deco smooth look. Some models have a gorgeous baby blue paint job and all the metal glistened. Some people are finding these rusted old buses and converting them into mobile homes. That seems like a noble ambition. I need to keep my writng short, I have lots of work to do.

This short film will be on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando, Florida 32801) in Yesterday This Was Home, on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021.

The exhibit ia about the 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition by the Orange County Regional History Center will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire for moving forward.

 

 

Yesterday This Was Home: Boarding

Posted on by Thor

A drivers seat eye view of our character entering the bus.Before bounding up the steps he glances towards the back of the bus then fills the frame as he passes our point of view. Glancing at this and writing about it, I realize that I need to change the angel of the molding on the inside of the bus. I will make that alteration today. That is the thing about animation once you make one change several others have to be made. I finished animating a pivotal scene yesterday and it affected the two scenes that followed.

Toady I will be animating a dialogue scene with the driver. He does a big flourish with his hands and I suspect it will get a laugh. The narrator over acted as he delivered this line so it is a chance to overact and exaggerate a bit the drivers performance.  It is fun each day to wake up to a new challenge. I am hoping to have seven seconds of animation finished by the end of today.

This short will be on display at a special exhibition fromOctober 3, 2020 to February 14, 2021. The show is titled Yesterday This Was Home. It is about he 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

Yesterday This Was Home: Boarding

Posted on by Thor

I woke up this morning realizing how nice it is to wake up to just focus on animation. For the past 4 months I have been doing dark COVID-19 themed illustrations and my research always left me fuming about the incompetence and indifference of America’s response to this global health  crisis. Now I can put that aside and focus on this tale of a bus trip.

Of course 1957 was also a dark time. Emmett Till had just been lynched and the civil rights movement had just begun. Despite this turmoil, a 12 year old boy took a trip up to Detroit on his own and took a stand.

I created this board with the idea of having the viewer a bit lower than waste level, making the adults look tall in relation to the small boy. The protagonist approaches the line, which is being held up as a woman fumbles for her ticket. I’ll   probably have to get rid of that purse under her elbow when i animate to allow some freedom to move her arms.

This short film will be on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando, Florida 32801) from October 3, 2020 to February 14, 2021. The exhibit titled Yesterday This Was Home is about the 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, which remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history. This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

 

Yesterday This Was Home: Getting the Ticket

Posted on by Thor

After teaching an Urban Sketching Class at Crealde School of Artthis morning I spent the rest of the day animating dialogue for this piece. The most important line of dialogue was “No.” I animated that line for much of the day today. I kept the timing on 4s which means most frames hold for 4 frames. This results in crisp rather clipped motion which I rather liked for this particular scene. A Disney Feature Animated film would always make sure the timing was on 2s or even 1s in some cases, meaning thee could be 24 drawings for every second. On 4s I would only have  to d 6 drawings which is a time saver as I get up to speed again.

I started a second dialogue scene which is framed much like the first scene. That scene is over 10 seconds long which should take all day to do. Besides animating, I also try and get the frames painted and then edited into the final story reel by nightfall. Animation is all consuming and there is always a pile of work waiting to be done. I finished the storyboards yesterday, so I know the story is solidly tied down and now I can just focus on production. This is going to be a crazy ride.

They boy in this scene seems a bit older than 12 years old , So I will likely change his look a bit when I start animating this scene. I like the Art Deco look of the station ticket counter. I used to work i the Empire State Building in NYC and the lobby and whole building had this look.

Again, this film will be on display at the Orange County Regional History Center  for an exhibition titled, Yesterday This Was Home, on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021

The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Yesterday This Was Home: Waiting Room

Posted on by Thor

Part of what I am figuring out as I board out this animated short is how tall the character should be. He is 12 years old and my drawing of him vary a bit as I try and recall how tall I might have been at that age. The look of the character slowly becomes clearer as I get further into the project. By the time I got to the pivotal scene I  felt like I had him established. When I go back to ass animation the characters can be refined an put on model which was established on the fly. There ws no time for a prolonged visual development I just had to start and hope it all  falls together.

These first shots in the film are fairly contained, but by the end of the film I was playing with some more complex camera moves and effects. I am learning so much ringing this character  to life. Timing is figured out based on the cadence of the oral history and in this case I decided it should take about four seconds to step towards the door, grab the handle, pull and take one step inside. I’ll let you know how that works out when I actually animate. Scenes I am animating to start are the close up dialogue scenes since they take time and care. By the end of production with the deadline looming, the time for care might be sacrificed.

Days are from about 8AM to 10PM or later but I haven’t started burning the midnight oil yet. Last night I spent an hour or so researching the case of Emmett Till who was lynched a year before this bus trip. Like George Floyd’s death, his senseless murder galvanized a civil rights uprising. In this film when the character refers to historical moments, Black becomes white and white becomes black.

This film will be shown at Yesterday This Was Home, a Special exhibition on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021 at the Orange County Regional History Center.

The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history. Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.