COVID Dystopia: Wins Best Micro Short Film Award

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COVID Dystopia was shown at the Berlin Short Film Festival. It won an award as the Best Micro Short Film. Pam and I traveled to Berlin and spent a week exploring the city.

The Berlin Short Film Festival wasn’t the experience I had hoped for. The films were to be shown in the historic Babylon Theater which was build in 1928 which seats about 500 people. It is a gorgeous theater with a huge balcony and large screen. However the festival films were screened in a much smaller room, Kino 2, at the back of the building. Although technically in the same building as the historic Babylon Theater, it was a much smaller space that seated about 80 people. Next to the Berlin Festival screening room was the rehearsal space for an orchestra. They could be heard tuning up through the walls as the Berlin Film Festival films were projected. I am glad my film is rather loud which meant it could drown out the rehearsal.

In the Babylon Theater itself. the classic silent film Metropolis was being shown with a live orchestra. I honestly wish we had gone to that showing instead, which reflected back to the classic early Hollywood era.

Each film maker in the Berlin Short Film Festival was promised tickets for two of the crew members to attend the festival screenings. In Chicago Pam and I sat in on every short film to show our support for fellow film makers. Perhaps we were spoiled by the experience.

COVID Dystopia was to screen on Sunday in Berlin, but the festival started on Saturday. We made our way to the Babylon to meet the Festival organizers in the lobby. I simply introduced myself as the creator of COVID Dystopia. They seemed confused. Since COVID Dystopia was not on the line up for the first night they said, “We changed our mind, you must pay to see the films.”

I would have turned on my heals and left, but Pam stepped in and politely decided to pay. Every film we saw that first night was about death and murder. It was a depressing endless stream of existential dread. I can see how my film fits into the festival’s curated line up. Berliners like dark shit.

Of course Pam and I were the only people wearing N95 masks in the audience.

COVID Dystopia: Burials

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It has been an incredibly long day exploring Berlin. Emperors get incredibly ornate sarcophagi in cathedrals while people considered gypsies in WWII were sent to concentration camps and murdered. The site of one of the camps was converted into a pig farm and it took decades to convince the government that this was a desecration.

How we honor the dead says a lot about society. Nothing has been done to honor the millions of dead due to the ongoing COVID Pandemic. People need to pretend that it never happened and that it is not still happening. To honor the dead would be to admit to a horrific injustice and acceptance of mass infection that was and is completely preventable.

COVID Dystopia: Unemployment

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With millions dead and millions disabled due to Long COVID, businesses are having trouble finding able bodies workers. The animation in this scene works fine. I could animate someone in the background pulling their mask down, but that would be overkill.

Today COVID Dystopia will screen at the Babylon Theater in the Berlin Short Film Festival. It will not be shown on the large screen in the historic 1920s theater, but on a smaller screen in the back of the theater next to the orchestra rehearsal room.

Charlie Chaplin‘s Modern Times will be shown on the big screen with a live orchestra. I would really like to see that screening but it will be happening at the same time my film will be shown. Pam and I have explored much of East Berlin already and we will be heading to the Museum Island for a day of exploring the museums before going to the film festival tonight.

 

COVID Dystopia: Death Chorus

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This shot of the Death Chorus is based on the incident at the start of the pandemic when a church chorus held a rehearsal. They thought they were doing the right things by not hugging and avoiding hand shakes. They didn’t however wear n-95 masks. At the time people were being discouraged from buying masks because health care workers needed them more and there was some worry that supplies might run out.

The two guys in hazmat suits are animated walking forward for a step. They were reworked to keep them high resolution.

I don’t think any other animation is needed. I could open the skeletal jaws to make it look like they are singing but the shot is so short I don’t think such subtle animation would be noticed. Scenes like this don’t seem to fly in America, but Germans seem to love macabre scenes like this.

COVID Dystopia: Assembly Line

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In the Assembly line shot, one robotic arm thrusts forward toward an ICU patient on a ventilator. A nurse in a hazmat suit also reaches forward and places her hand on the patient’s forehead. I had sketched this gesture from a friend taking care of her bed ridden mother.

I am satisfied with the animation in the scene. I might consider using ZOE Depth as opposed to Volumax Depth for this shot. That is the only possible improvement I could make. With travel to NYC and the Berlin Short Film Festival, animation is on hold for a bit.

The film was turned down by the Atlanta Film festival today. I need to get used to the idea that it isn’t the quality of the animation that is being rejected but the overall message of the film. I am releasing this film that states that the pandemic is far from over, just as events coordinators want to believe that life has returned to the former 2019 normal.The truth is that several thousand Americans continue to die every month due to COVID and millions are disabled due to Long COVID, which has no known cure. Repeat infections increase the chances of developing Long COVID. Exactly 100 years ago the exact same denial and wishful thinking played out with the Spanish Flu.

143 Washington Street NYC

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While Pam was meeting with 9/11 Museum colleges, I decided to sketch at 143 Washington Street, which was the home of the Hickey Family. My grandmother Josephine Marie Hickey grew up here. Augustus Arthur Thorspecken met her while he was stationed on Governor’s Island during WWI. He didn’t go to Europe because he caught the Spanish Flu. The Hickey store might have been on the ground floor of the 143 Washington Street address.

The brownstone is gone. 140 Washington, across the street is a huge hotel. The 9/11 Memorial is one block north. A large synagogue is between Washington Street and the 9/11 Memorial. The site where the Hickeys lived is now a utilities storage lot. The fence around it is covered with images of brownstones but they are not historically accurate representations of what used to be here.

It was bloody cold. I had to keep warming my drawing hand in my coat pocket. Shadows of the skyscrapers in the financial district downtown mean that you only have a half hour at most of sunshine. When I started sketching I was in sunlight reflected of the glass facade of a skyscraper. I was then plunged into the fridged shadows of a skyscraper. Just as I was about to give up, since I was so cold, the sun flooded out from behind a tower and warmed me up. With the sketch line work complete I was thrust info the shadows again. I decided to add color across the street where it was still sunny. Wearing a mask is actually helpful in the cold since it kept my lower face warm. Since I didn’t have my art stool, I kept dancing around as I sketched. Moving around probably also help keep me from freezing.

 

NYC COVID Cabanas

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Pam and I flew into New York City for a weekend. The first thing we did when we arrived was go to a restaurant. She isn’t as COVID cautious as I am but I insisted on outdoor seating. Thankfully the first restaurant we went to had a COVID Cabana. It was built in the street in front of the restaurant. The indoor restaurant was packed which to me seems insane, but no one was in the outdoor seating area.

The Maitre d’ was wearing a mask and seemed thankful that I entered wearing a mask. The outdoor cabana had plenty of heaters and was fully enclosed. One waitress was working on paperwork out there but she left shortly after we were seated.

COVID Cabanas popped up all over Manhattan at in the first years of the pandemic. Recently the mayor has decreed that the outdoor seating areas can stay with restrictions. They are to become seasonal after November of 2024. That means restaurant owners will have to foot the bill of tearing them down and putting them back up every year.

Some COVID Cabanas are beautifully destined and built. One is in the shape of a London Bus and another is in a classic art Deco style. I think that restaurants that invested so much in creating unique outdoor dining experiences should not have to tear them down. COVID has not disappeared. Over 8000 Americans died this last December from COVID yet that is not being reported.

If I had more time in NYC, I would want to sketch all the COVID Cabanas and write bout which restaurants still take COVID precautions. They deserve the patronage of people who remain sane.

COVID Dystopia: Blossoms

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Trump declared that when the weather got warm COVID would disappear like magic. Four years later and the virus continues to spread and mutate making it impossible to contain. This scene had a subtle movement on the arm holding the cell phone and full animation on the guys in hazmat suits wheeling a body screen right. They are rolling the body head first or backwards which makes me a bit uncomfortable but I am sure it is done all the time.

I could animate the foreground couple moving closer and locking lips or rather clicking teeth, but I think I prefer that they are already locking teeth.

I have a few hours before I start teaching class here in NYC. I think I will start animating several rhinos turning their heads. I considered sketching on the streets of NYC but I don’t have my art stool and I think my hand will freeze as I try and get a sketch done on my iPad. I may at least get a sketch done of the view from the top floor of this brownstone. I tried twice but didn’t finish either of those sketches.

COVID Dystopia: Gone by Easter?

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Back in 2020 Trump declared that COVID-19 would be gone by Easter. Now four years later, COVID continues to spread unchecked as we approach yet another celebration of rising from the dead.

I am satisfied with this scene. If I decided to add animation, I might have the skeleton parishioner raise the hymnal a bit. I could have the skeletons who are around the hymnal sing by animating their jaws, but I think that might be overkill.

Churches are back to holding COVID superspreader parties every Sunday. Masking has fallen to the wayside and instead the faithful believe in promoting mass infection. One in four people who have been infected by COVID have developed Long COVID symptoms. Long COVID can leave you bed bound and completely unable to function. Long COVID is a disease that doctors don’t understand and are unwilling to treat. Each repeat infection increases the chances of getting Long COVID and yet people are getting infected multiple times every year. The growing population of people disabled by long COVID is depleting the workforce.

COVID Dystopia: Beached

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After using ZOE Depth on the Rush Home Scene, I decided to use it as well on this Beached scene. By using ZOE Depth I was able to zoom in a bit and move the camera downward to shift the focus on the nude on the beach. I then had to add some animation to one of the men in a hazmat suit. His movement leads they eye to the area of the screen where I want the audience looking for the next shot.

There is now much more movement overall in  this scene and it ties in better with the previous Rush Home shot. I am quite pleased that the latest technology is helping me refine shots in this film. Most people probably think that a 4 minute film must be a breeze to complete yet this film has taken over 6 months to animate and I am still finding things that need refining.

I have been told the film is a diversion, but I consider it a shout for sanity in a world gone completely mad.