Yesterday This Was Animation

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Cross dissolve to the character now walking to the Orlando Bus Station. This re-used the animation form the first shot but the animation had to be repositioning. I was hoping I could move the animation as a whole in Callipeg but that solution evaded me. Instead I re positioned each drawing one at a time making sure the foot positions lined up on the pavement.

Today was a good day of production, I got a bunch of boards done and several of those seem animated since I used the Procreate video playback feature to recreate the process. I get my best ideas as I am waking up in the morning lying in bed and this morning I came up with the idea of having negatives playback when the character reflects on our countries history of racism. I had one of these Ah-Ha moments each day when I was doing my COVID-19 series of illustrations. It was hard to stop the COVID-19 series since the ideas keep coming, But now that I am animating again, I am loving the process and getting lost in the work all day and into the night.

At first the project seemed impossible on the tight deadline, but I keep chipping away and things keep falling into place. There is a definite sense of serendipity that comes with making a film. Working from the oral history makes boarding a breeze since the length of each shot is determined by the narration.

Again all this work is being done of the exhibition titled, Yesterday this Was Hone: The Ocoeee Massacre of 1920. The Exhibition is on display from October 3, 2020 to 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. This exhibit is sadly still relevant today with the election coming up in November,  since America has never been able to fully address racism.

Yesterday This Was Home: Learning to Walk

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The first scene opens with a close up on the Christmas star in Downtown Orlando. I created the sketch and painting in Procreate. The great this about that program is that you can play back a movie which shows every stroke creating a time lapse replay of the painting as it was created. I tool that movie and panned town to the street level. The sketch is created as the camera move happens and when I got to the street I lap dissolved to the final painting to save some time. A young boy walks across the street with a suit case in hand.

I fully animated this scene to test out thee program I plan to use to do all the animation for the project. The program is called Callipeg and it was designed to be used on the iPad. The program is surprisingly intuitive if you have animated with paper and pencil before. That reminds me, I am writing this entry because my Apple Pencil has run out of battery life and I am waiting for it to recharge. A good old wood and graphite pencil never needs to be recharged and sharpening it takes just a second if yo have an electric sharpener.

I animated my character taking four strides across the street and the scene required 97 drawings. I am learning by trial and error discovering ways to save time each time I animate a scene. Since I decided to keep the head and torso still, I could cut and past those elements from drawing to drawing and just animate the legs and arms. Having him carry a suit case had the added advantage of fewer arm swings to animate. I  used the standard timing I teach most students at Elite Animation Academy. Each stride takes about one second or 24 drawings to animate. I am experimenting quite a bit with timing to see when I can get away with animating on twos and fours when possible. That means each drawing is held for two or four frames of film. It can save on the amount of drawings that need to be done.

In traditional animation you flip the drawings as they are created to watch the motion as you work. In Callipeg, three fingers scrolling up and down the screen accomplish the same effect. For some reason my pencil turns into an eraser unexpectedly while I animate so I have to be very careful with how I touch the screen. Just selecting multiple frames in the timeline was a challenge. You have to touch and tap twice very fast and drag to make the selection. I had to practice most of an evening because the selection would just move the frame I tapped on.  So much of my time is being spent training myself on developing just the right touch so the computer knows what I want.

This scene is part of a short being show at the Orange County Regional History Center for their exhibit on the 1920 Ocoee Massacre. The exhibit is titled, Yesterday This Was Home. This special exhibition is 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: Greyhound

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Cross dissolve to second title card. I spend much of mu first day of production figuring out the aspect ratio to be used for the film. Adobe Premiere Pro had to have this aspect ratio and I made a blank fame of future storyboards. Black and white was the theme from the start. The oral history is a bit over three minutes long which is an eternity of work if you are doing frame by fram animation. There are 24 frames per second for most traditional animated films so that was the frame rate that I am using moving forward. Three minutes means about 4,300 individual drawings for smooth animation. I am finding various ways to streamline the production workflow. For instance storyboards double as the lay outs for each scene.

This film is going to be shown at an exhibition titled Yesterday This as Home, at the Orange County Regional History Center. This special exhibition 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.

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 as Home: Animating Again

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For those of you who have been following my COVID-19 series, I have had to stop that series since I am now fully engaged in animating for an exhibit at the Orange County Regional History Center. I am animating oral histories, using those stories as the audio for the animation. This process is an all consuming obsession so I have decided to just post small clips each day of the project in progress rather than posing old sketches each day. I haven’t been fully involved in animation since Disney Feature Animation closed over 20 years ago. At Disney I was one of several hundred artists who helped create films that were drawn by hand with 24 drawings for every second of film. I am tipping my toe in again, and having fun solving new challenges every day. Should any animation student find this series of posts they should find it helpful to see what problems and solutions had to be found to keep this project moving with an army of one.

Fade in on this simple title card. The black border is the film safe 1920×1080 aspect ratio. All of my storyboards are done in this black and white style. I am hoping that the boards are finished enough so that I can use the art as the background for the animation itself. I am working digitally keeping the background level separate for drawings of characters and background elements. I jump around each day sometimes animating sometimes boarding and every day compositing it all in Adobe Premiere Pro.

Today I am working on a animation that I consider the cornerstone of the piece I am putting together. It involves lip syncing dialogue and if it goes well, more scenes will be done this way. I find myself acting out actions during the day thinking about the animation to come. An added benefit is that working on animation in the studio keeps me very engaged during the COVID-19 lock down. Anyway, I need to keep these post short since there is tons of boarding and animating left to do.

Stars of Hope

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The Orange County Regional History Center exhibited a large collection of these stars that were left at the site of the Pulse massacre. Stars of Hope gives communities the tools to empower children’s compassion through creativity. They foster empathy and compassion for communities throughout the world. They are pioneer communal therapeutic art at a global scale, while combating loneliness. Speaking about the organization were, Marcel, Annie, Sarah and Elsie.

Marcel was a New Yorker. She met the man of her dreams and moved to Georgia in 1998. She has two daughters Sarah born in 2001 and Annie born in 2003. They started making the stars as a way to handle the grief. Everyone is hard hit in the beginning, but they quickly get back to their own life.

Annie is a photo historian. She has a quiet energy. Pulse was emotionally draining for everyone. AS a family they felt the need to regroup. The family saw the wall of stars at the History Center’s Pulse exhibit. For them it as a beautiful ray of light. It was so beautiful. They hope that the stars inspire people to feel hope rather than slip into depression. Negativity only pushes us into darkness. They want to inspire us all to tolerate one another and enjoy people.

Elsie lost a daughter on 9-11. She drove up to NYC right after that tragic day. It was the longest car ride of her life. Here in Orlando Pulse is hallowed ground. Going there felt up lifting. Everything was so bright. There was healing and spirituality there. There were rainbows and free hugs. I felt so inviting and embracing.

The Starts of Hope group wants to have a day of celebration each year. It doesn’t need to focus on a tragedy. The Texas division of Stars of Hope cuts all the stars. All the volunteers gather on labor Day weekend, celebrate and eat a lot of meat. The kids started painting he stars and so many were painted for Orlando. Signing the back of the star is as important as the painting of the star.

Jeanine and Wally Goodnough

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Jeanine and Wally Goodnough from Sarasota, Florida, decked out a little Smart car in honor of the victims from Pulse. They were invited to Tampa Pride. The car had a top hat which cost about $400 to build. All expenses came out of pocket. They were invited to events all over the state.

Jeanine is the parent of a child who is gay. She identifies with the heart ache and pain that the pulse families of victims are going through. Brenda Lee Márquez-McCool was at the club with her son and her story toughed Jeanine deeply. That could have been  her with her son. He was actually going to go to Pulse that night but chose not to. He had to work. One of his friends died. That person worked just a couple of blocks from their home. Less than 6 degrees of separation brought Eddies life, his tragedy, into their life.

They decked out their Smart car to carry on Eddies Justice‘s motto, “Do as much good as you can, for as many people as you can, and do it as often as you can.” They created the car out of love, out of respect, out of compassion. It was done, because they wanted to show their, love, their respect for a hurting community, a hurting world.

When they took the smart car to Saint Pete Pride Parade, a woman was looking at the car, and Jeanine explained that the 49 stars represented the 49 victims and the 53 smaller hears represented the 53 survivors. The woman was one of the survivors. Jeanine broke down and cried. The simple stickers on the car meant so much to so many people.

 

Pre-Pandemic: A Holdover in Washington DC

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On The flight back from Turkey there was a holdover n Washington D.C. before flying back to Orlando, Florida. Back in April of 2020 the Trump administration gave a $25 billion dollar bailout to the airlines industry crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic. That money was used to pay salaries and keep the flights in the air. That was provided so long as the industry  didn’t cut jobs until Oct. 1, 2020. That date is fast approaching. U.S. airlines have warned more than 70,000 of their workers that their jobs are at risk when the current round of aid expires in the fall.

President Donald Trump has recently expressed support for a proposal for another $25 billion in federal aid to support airline industry jobs. The proposed extension has gained bipartisan support as a rebound in travel demand remains remote. He said, “I think it’s very important that we keep the airlines going,” Trump said in a White House press briefing when asked whether he supported the proposal for the extension of the aid. “We don’t want to lose our airlines. If they’re looking at that, whether they’re Republican or Democrat, I’d be certainly in favor. We can’t lose our transportation system.”

Orlando Arts venues are being illuminated in red to highlight how the arts have also been crippled by COVID-19 shutdowns.

 

Pre-Pandemic: Istanbul Apartment

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United States foreign service employees at the US Embassy get to stay in a really nice apartment complex in the heart of Istanbul Turkey. I did a drawing of the complex from a model in the lobby. The arching windows had an amazing view of the surrounding neighborhoods for miles. Right next door was a huge mall and several mom and pop restaurants which were packed at lunch time.

On June 11, 2020 Turkey announced opening the majority of its international air, land, and sea borders. The land border with Iran remains closed. The border with Syria remains closed. To date, tourist travelers do not need any specific health documentation to enter/exit Turkey unless they are arriving for medical treatment.

On August 5, 2020 Reuters reported that doctors in Turkey’s COVID-19 hots pots say hospitals are filling up with more cases than are reflected in the official nationwide count, which re surged above 1,000 this week.

The government, which lifted a partial lock down in June 2020 to restart the economy, sounded its own warning when the health minister described the 1,083 new COVID-19 cases as a “severe” rise after a four-day holiday weekend.

In response, authorities rolled out new inspections and enforcement measures, including fines for not wearing masks or maintaining social distancing. New cases had hovered just below 1,000 for more than three weeks, according to official figures.

All individuals in Turkey must wear cloth face coverings where people are collectively located, including supermarkets, marketplaces, hair salons, shopping malls, and workplaces as well as in all forms of transportation (including private vehicles) with at least two persons inside.

Pre-Pandemic: Boating off Kaş

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Boating off Kaş off the southern coast of Turkey. Kaş was founded by the Lycians. In the Hellenistic period and under the Roman Empire it served as the port of the neighboring city of Phellus. In 1923, because of the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey after the Greco-Turkish War, the majority of the population, which was of Greek origin, was forced to leave the town for Greece. This exchange was based upon religious identity, and involved nearly all the indigenous Orthodox Christian citizens of Turkey. The most often given figure for Ottoman Greeks killed from 1914 to 1923 ranges from 300,000-900,000. Abandoned Greek houses can still be seen. In the early 1990s tourism started booming in Kaş.

Residents of Kaş have social isolated since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, 2020. Hotels have not accepted guests since the beginning of the outbreak, hopefully postponing bookings until after the disease has subsided. Only health professionals, funeral staff, food suppliers and facilities workers are allowed to enter the town. The resort village remains empty of tourists.

The Turkish lira dropped to a historic low of 7.3677 against the dollar before recovering slightly. The lira is down about 19% versus the U.S. currency since the beginning of the year. Turkey had been hoping for an influx of foreign currency through exports and tourism revenues, but the COVID-19 pandemic has sharply undermined the tourism industry and disrupted global commerce.

Turkey is seeking to re-open its tourism industry, a key contributor to economic growth, for domestic tourists in June, 2020. Foreign visitors are then due to be invited back from some countries in a stepped approach that will include testing and social distancing at hotels and on beaches. Kaş, on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, is currently free of the COVID-19, but locals are afraid that visitors from virus hit cities could soon bring the disease to the area as Turkey gets set to re-open its tourism sector.

Pre-Pandemic: Square Outside Spice Bazaar

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Sketching in a public market makes me feel like I have a faint hint of what day to day life might be like ere I to live when I am traveling. This is a pre-pandemic sketch done inn a square outside the spice bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey. A mosque can be seen in the background of the sketch with it’s ornate architecture. I was more focused on the people however. They once gathered close to gossip and catch up in crowded groups. Today they would all be wearing masks of face a $129 fine.

On August 6, 2020 the CDC advised that the, “COVID-19 risk in Turkey is high. Travelers should avoid all nonessential international travel to Turkey. Some examples of essential travel may include traveling for humanitarian aid work, medical reasons, or family emergencies. Older adults, people of any age with certain underlying medical conditions, and others at increased risk for severe illness should consider postponing all travel, including essential travel, to Turkey.” The virus has decimated the Turkish economy.

COVID-19 research in Turkey is being stifled by the Ministry of Health which insisted on a mandatory application for permission for research on COVID-19. This unprecedented decision was against the Constitution and laws regulating research activities in Turkey. Most submitted projects have been approved by the Ministry of Health, but some projects, including a large, multi center observational study by the Turkish Thoracic Society, have been rejected without any clear explanation. Much like in America, politics Trump public health.