COVID Dystopia: Stadium

Posted on by Thor

I am sharing the scene that is on my desktop this morning. The first pass at this scene was a simple zoom in towards the burning car. Using the ZOE Depth app I can now have the camera fly towards the car as if it were a drone. The change might seem subtle, but the crowd in the foreground flies under the camera in perspective giving a better sense of how large the stadium is.

At the time that I did this illustration, the Michigan State Stadium has a seating capacity of over 107,000 people. Stadiums today are once again packed full of mask less fans.  Now over 1000 Americans are dying every week but that has become the accepted norm and the price of getting back to “normal” while abandoning all COVID precautions. Many of these deaths are preventable if people simply learned how to truly live with the virus. That involves masking indoors and in crowded settings cleaning the air with HEPA filters and not holding super spreader events.

People are unable to adapt and this film is a reminder of that fact. As we approach the new year another wave is rising exponentially upwards with its corresponding hospitalizations and death. Deaths doesn’t always come with the first infection but will happen weeks and months later from vascular damage and brain damage. The virus replicates in the body long after the initial infection. The polite yet cautious keep getting infected by the clueless hoard.

 

COVID Dystopia: Sperm Death

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On Christmas day I killed After Effects with sperm. I spent much of the day trying out a free software which allows the user to build a forward Kinematic rig which wags the tail when the base pin is rotated. This seemed like something I needed to play with, so I downloaded Duik Angela which is a freeware animation program for After Effects.

in Duik Angela, you add a line of pins in the tail as bones and then hit a button which links them together with some expression which moves them less near the base and more at the tip when the base pin is rotated. Though simple in theory, the results looked like a horrific twitching tail that had just been bitten off a lizard as it squirmed in the dirt. I experimented for hours trying to get some semblance of natural movement but finally had to give up.

At the end of the day I hand animated the tail in Callipeg. The animation took maybe half an hour. With the one tail animated and painted I imported it with a green screen into After Effects. I kept duplicating this green screen movie and moving the tail into position for each sperm. After duplicating the tail about 10 times the program seized up and the screen went black. Once again I pushed the program too far. Adobe programmers had not considered that a single clip might be duplicated so often.

I abandoned After Effects and went back to the original animation in Callipeg. I had already created several scenes with dozens of levels so I figure that program is more robust and will not crash. I have started duplicating tails and positioning them in that program since Adobe failed. I haven’t finished yet, but once all the tails are in place, I will turn off the background layer which consists of a tan field and the sperm heads. All the animation tails will then be exported together as a single green screen movie file. Adobe worked with the first few movie files so this single file should work.

The depth map distorts the background image to make it appear dimensional, so I may have to place pins at the bases of several tails to stretch then to where they need to be when the is scene animated with depth. I think all this might work, so now I need to make it happen.

COVID Dystopia: Burn It Down

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Crisis Eve was a productive day for film production. I finished revising five shots for the film. In this shot, titled, Burn It Down, i felt the large flames on the boat were not vibrant enough. The timeline for this shot was rather complex. I believe this was one of the earliest flame shots I worked on. The shapes of the flames are hand animated but the interiors of the flames have Fractal noise for texture. I also had hand painted the flames but those paintings seemed rather flat. The paintings were layers on top with the transparency turned way down.

I ended up throwing our many of the hand painted elements and adding techniques I had learned form doing about 30 other flame scenes. I could add fractal noise but when I added a displacement effect it changed the shape of the flames since the animation was a green screen element thus all the pixels were effected.

What I did instead was layer another flame element on top which added more flickering. I experimented with all the layering modes and settled on Linear Dodge. Both fires on the boat are now darker than the torch, but have more interesting and animated textures.

I also animated the cloud of smoke rising from the fire by adding turbulence to it. I added a turbulence adjustment layer to the waves as well which helped bring them to life. If I really wanted to go crazy I could animate the flags waving. I have them moving slightly now using pins to change their shape. The camera zooms in rather quickly into the scene and my assumption is that the flaming torch will catch the eye of the audience. They will not have time to look for the waving flags. Everything else in the scene is in wild motion.

It is very possible I might finish revising the final shots on this Crisis Day. On the list are animating sperm tails and revising the shirt on a guy in the audience early in the film. I might dream up other revisions, but end is in sight.

COVID Dystopia: Shrunken Brain

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COVID-19 has a nasty habit of fusing and shrinking brain cells. Most people are happy to overlook this since their brain cells have already been damaged.

This shot done in Volumax Pro had some dimension but when I redid it using ZOE Depth the scene rally pops. When I was first throwing together the shot I was in a mad rush to finish before May 11, 2023 when the United States lifted the COVID Emergency Declaration. In that rush I forgot to add the breath and spatter and going back I reconsidered.

Last night I thought I had just one more shot to go in the film, but after watching the film one more time, I jotted down a list of seven more tweaks. This is all a matter of “good enough” as opposed to exceptional. After all these months of work, I now know how to use all the tools at my disposal to bring each scene to life.

I will probably be working through Christmas day to refine and correct the final shots. I saw a great Christmas lawn sign, it read, MERRY CRISIS.

COVID Dystopia: Duck and Cover

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I reworked the Duck and Cover scene using ZOE Depth. This allowed for a more dimensional zoom in. I am still keeping the scene as a held cell since everyone is crouched with their fingers interlocked. Movement isn’t needed.I needed to keep the camera move subtle because if I moved the camera too much long tendrils would appear from the student edges extending towards the background.

It was a productive day, with five scenes getting adjusted and improved. Pam has a hard time realizing that animation can take so long. The film was essentially complete back in May of this year when the COVID emergency was lifted. However that was sort of a highly detailed storyboard pass with no animation included.

Many of the scenes at the start of the film have large crowds of people and I have only animated the single person that I want people to look at. I still think that animating the crowds would be overkill. Animation is only added where I want the audience to look. The rest can remain as frozen moments in time. Part of me wonders if Film Festival judges even consider this to be an animated film. I also realize that any festival wanting to crowd a theater full of a mask less  audience might not approve of this film.

We are in the midst of a huge COVID holiday wave right now. The film’s message is as important as ever, but getting audiences who are willing to see it is a problem.

COVID Dystopia: Shock Wave Blast Animation

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Yesterday I experimented with animating a shock wave blast in After Effects using fractal noise. Since I have never tried this effect before I relied on a youTube video to get me up to speed to try it out. Part of me wants to try the effect a second time to see if I can get an even better result, but it appears on screen for only a fraction of a second. Most people will never see the effect since it happens so fast but they only feel the explosion, they have no time to notice the details.

I animated the effect against a black background which shows off the fiery colors best.  When I imported the effect into the actual scene and used an add blend mode, the effect became super bright. Ultimately it just adds more complexity to the already existing explosion animation that I drew by hand in Procreate.

The final shot of the movie was changed. At first the curtain closed after the COVID bomb exploded. This however seemed to stiff. It also implies that the pandemic is over and that is not the message the film is meant to convey. Instead, I animated the curtain closing half way, and then the bomb explodes and is blown upward, followed by a long transition of debris and smoke rising upward which then cross dissolves into the credits also rising upwards. For me this is a much more satisfying ending.

COVID Dystopia: Bell Jars

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I animated the bell jar scene by turning the foreground person towards the camera to show he is wearing a mask. I thought I was done but when I looked at this image for the post, I found out I didn’t paint out his legs from the background layer. This makes his left leg look a bit broken. It is a subtle thing, but since I know it is there I will correct it today.

I also used ZOE Depth on the scene which allowed for a clean truck in. ZOE is however confused by glass. The people are interpreted correctly in space but the bell jars flatten out towards the background. Even stranger the round gall orbs on top of each bell jar act like spikes extending forward in space.

With the limited camera move and lack of movement up or down I was able to minimize the odd depth. The bell jars are warping a bit as well. I might redo the scene using the Black and white depth maps I already created. I will be able to move the camera more up and down and the animation will composite fine into that shot.

Every day I discover more about what works and doesn’t work with this new depth map technology. Trail and error and experimentation are my way to figure out what works for each scene.

COVID Dystopia: Mask Waste

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The animation of the turtle in this scene required some adjustment. I had the turtle open its mouth at the end as if it were going to eat the mask floating in the water. I held that drawing for just two frames. Transitions between shots all consist of fast zoom effects and in the final edit the open mouth got lost in the transition.

I decided I had to go back and make sure the open mouth held for at least six frames. Six frames is about the amount of time needed for anyone to notice something in a film. Sure enough the open mouth is now noticeable. Many of the shots in the film cut right at the moment something terrible is about to happen.

I have added about six shots with the new ZOE depth feature to the film. This new tech allows for the camera to truly truck towards the subject. I might use the feature a few more times. This turtle scene worked as it is however.

Each morning I watch the film and jot down things that could use improvement. Pam said she thinks I will be tweaking the film until I am 100. This morning I am down to five tweaks. There might be a few more but I am very close to calling the film a wrap.

This leaves me wondering what new direction I should take in 2024. I don’t think I should continue the COVID series although the pandemic is still ongoing. People will not listen since they want to believe life has returned to “normal.” That new normal comes with accepting over 1000 COVID deaths a day along with rising Long COVID Disability.

I was pleased to get an e-mail form Ambetter, my health care provider advising to get a COVID vaccine and test if sick. The saccharine photo of a mom, child and doctor had everyone in baggy blue surgical masks like those shown in this illustration. The child was shown in a useless cloth mask. There was no mention of well fitted respirators like N95 masks or social distancing. Medical messaging remains in the dark ages.

Documenting politics and the collapse of society will date my work. Forcing my way back into crowded theaters to sketch doesn’t have much appeal, since I have no desire to sit among a mask less crowd. Perhaps I can only focus on acting companies who allow me to sketch rehearsals. I remain a COVID virgin, but it takes some sacrifice to remain that way.

Ophelia Pre-Show at Fringe Art Space

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Mallory Sabetodos Vance founded Phoenix Tears Productions, a local acting troupe that experiments with interactive theater. I have been sketching their quirky shows for years. They are now staging Ophelia, an original musical about Hamlets amore.

It was pouring as Pam and I drove to the theater. We honestly thought we might be the only people willing to go out in such insane weather. We got to the theater an hour early to be able to see the pre-show in the lobby of the new Fringe Art Space. Sure enough we were the only people in the lobby.

Mallory came out and explained that the show would be starting late because of the weather. Apparently the drummer could not get off from work. With time to kill Pam and I looked around. The show has a well designed and illustrated poster. The poster artist also had her thick impasto floral paintings on display outside the bathrooms.

Originally I had not planned to sketch the pre-show but with an hour and a half to kill I decided there was plenty of time to get a sketch done of the lobby and ensuing frivolity.

The actresses began to trickle out and interact with the gathering crowd. Combine,  in a peach colored dress (Emily Sheetz) kept dusting all the surfaces in the room. She asked the couple next to us to get up so she could dust their seats. Thankfully she left me to sketch in peace. Violet, (Carson Holley), in a light purple dress came over. welcomed us and offered her hand which I delicately shook. In Hamlet’s day a gentleman would have stood and kissed her hand, but I was busy sketching.

There was an Ophelia backdrop where people could have their pictures taken. Violet was gleefully encouraging people to pose. In contrast, Rue (Lex Bently) lurked nearby all in black exuding her goth menace. Fennel (Ashley Vogt) in her bright pink stippers outfit and fabulous white leather boots with massive heels, made her way into the sketch.

COVID Dystopia: Freezer Truck Morgue

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I figured the Freezer Truck Morgue would be a perfect application for the ZOE Depth I tried on several other shots. Zoe allows to the camera to truck forward. The other depth maps I have used only allow for parallax when the camera trucks side to side. So with this shot the camera trucks forward towards the prisoners who are working in the background.

One worker is tightening a strap around the midsection of the corpse and the other simply places his hand on the corpse, probably in preparation to move it, him, her. Figuring out the verb is the first step towards making the action make sense. What is seen her is the very rough animation just to get a feel for what motion will work over the 26 frames.

The first pass at the animation had far too much motion, so the action felt rushed. I had to throw out keys and simplify the action to slow it down. The feet on the one prisoner are going to be held cells which is why the feet are not drawn.

A major issue with this animation is that the prisoners are in stripped jump suits. Stripes are always a challenge to animate so the final animation will take some time to clean up.

This morning COVID Dystopia was accepted to be screened in another film festival with animated flames and confetti on Film Freeway. The proposed screening date however was in 2020 long before my film had been created. An e-mail to the film festival producer conformed that Film Freeway had simply gone rogue. The acceptance was a glitch in The Matrix.