COVID Dystopia: Times Square Protest

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This shot from COVID Dystopia has the doctor arching his back and looking up at the barrel of the tank cannon. I used the free online depth tool to zoom in slightly into the scene.

Back in the day people respected heath care workers for their tireless work trying to save people from COVID-19. Since then people have learned to hate heath care workers who they feel were responsible for letting them know some of the dangers from repeat COVID infections.

Over the past decades healthcare has made strides to prolong life expectancy. However since the start of the pandemic healthcare has reverted back to the 1800s.

I recently went to a doctors appointment since I needed to get a refill on a prescription. No one in the office was masked except for one secretary who wore his mask as a chin strap. Doctors offices have patients pack into a waiting room and then go into a tiny examination room. I glanced around for any sign of HEPA air filtration but there was non. Doctors seem to want to get repeatedly infected and pass that virus on to their patients.

Much of the American population has been infected. Once infected the virus must alter brain cells because the infected, might have once taken basic precautions, but they then feel the need to pack into crowded restaurants and other venues. Though smart, people can’t accept that they are not immune after suffering an infection. The saying vaxed and relaxed goes for the infected as well. The rush to a “New Normal” is too strong for most to resist. The risk benefit ratio swings in favor of repeated mass infection when a decent indoor restaurant is a consideration.

COVID Dystopia: Mass Infection Party

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This scene had the ripped plague doctor reaching out over the crowd while ghosts fly overhead. This is one of the first scenes in which I experiments with animating flames using After Effects. I would ultimately use this fire effect throughout the film.

Different scenes had different looks to the fire, so each scene required fine tuning to the effect. I abandoned hand animating the flames simply because it took so long and even when well animated, the flames tended to look false once painted. I experimented a lot with how the flames would glow.

Last night I got a request to upload the film for a large mid-west Academy Award qualifying festival. On March 8, 2024 I can officially announce the name of that festival. I have looked up B&Bs in the city and intend to book a flight soon. The film’s success is far outweighed by its rejections, but I can only focus on the success to keep pressing forward. I feel it is my job to wake up the vaxed and relaxed masses who think COVID is over.

My studio is largely boxed up now and I will be moving into a new studio on April 1. I need to be sure the WiFi is set to go when I arrive since I will need to teach virtual art classes almost immediately. I need to fill out a postal change of address form today. The to do list keeps getting longer but I have to layer it in with focused work on a season of theater posters.

COVID Dystopia: CDCDystopia

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This scene in COVID Dystopia simply had the bound man in the hazmat suit slumping forward a bit. It is enough motion for the moment. Several of the previous scenes shared could use some animation but right now I am crunching in a season’s worth of posters for the Orlando Shakes. I suspect the posters will dominate my focus for at least a month. I did a whole series of thumbnails of possible poster images the last two days and shared those. Now I need to get serious and do several large scale poser images for each show to get each poster approved.

I will also be doing sketches of the construction work being done at the Orlando Science Center. They are building a new area called Nature which features three separate environments. From what I heard, construction is close to being complete and animals are being moved in. The plan for now is to do 3 drawings on location and more if requested.

On top of all this I am having to move at the start of April. The house I will be renting has a nice large living room which will become the studio area. My mail and WiFi have to be moved to the new location. My studio is now half boxed up. I need to get maybe 10 more moving boxes to finish for the move. There are going to a lot of balls in the air this month. I just have to keep juggling.

Cabaret in Sanford

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Love or Something was a Cabaret about love… kind of at Theater West End 115 West 1st Street Sanford Florida.  The singers were Laurel Hatfield and Adair Watkins. The pianist was John Olearchick. The show explored a wide range of relationships through the heartwarming duets of Lippa, Jason Robert Brown, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and more.

The dive up to Sanford featured an epic rainfall. I arrived a bit early since I wanted give myself plenty of time driving through the downpour.

The lobby has quaint Victorian couches and ancient steamship trailers. As I sat down I could her the singers rehearsing in the next room.

I was assigned a seat in the back row next to a video camera. I blocked in the theater as the audience was ushered in.  The set was for Steel Magnolias which is now being performed in the theater. Since the singers would face each other as they sang, I was left to wonder if these songs held a special place in their hearts. An on going joke between sings was that they are married, … just not to each other.

One of my favorite songs, Suddenly Seymor, came late in the evening. I identify with the nerdy Seymour who can only find love through horrible and diabolical means. Though both singers are married, they recounted what it was like living through awkward dates and finally finding someone as nerdy as themselves. I am boxing up my studio and plan to possibly move on April 1. Looking around I realized I was the only masked person in the audience.

COVID Dystopia: Bleach It

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The animation in this shot consists of the former president waving his hands. The movement is hardly noticeable. I could go back in and increase the distance the hands move and perhaps wave them back and forth which would increase the speed of the action. Deborah Birx sitting rock still is perfect. She is frozen in disbelief. This is the moment her credibility as a health expert died. The fact that she did not correct the former president showed that she valued her job over the health of the American public.

Yesterday the CDC eliminated the 5 day isolation advice for people who get COVID. Now an infectious patient can return to work the second their fever drops. The problem is that the newest variant does not present fever as a symptom. The other problem is that people are still infectious for up to 10 days. The science has not changed.

People are being gas lit into thinking COVID is only a cold or no worse than the flu. It is however a vascular disease that harms every organ in the body, causes brain damage and harms the immune system. 2000 Americans continue to die from COVID every month and people either ignore the fact or are fine with it. The level of selfish disregard for others is hard to stomach.

Why is the formerly defunct but highly contagious measles making a come back in Florida? It could be that people’s immune systems have been damaged allowing another airborne pathogen to spread freely. We live in Orwellian times.

Florida Film Festival rejects COVID Dystopia

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I was saddened to find out that the Florida Film Festival has rejected COVID Dystopia. I had high hopes that I could screen the film at this high profile festival in my home town.

I have sketched at many Florida Film Festival events over the years and it is the film festival that I have felt most at home with.

I have a hard time imagining why the festival might not want to screen my film, but then I thought, well maybe they do not approve of my COVID pandemic depictions of the policies of our home state governor, Ron DeathSantis. Most festival judges in other states or other countries do not know who this fella is but locally his deadly policies are well known.

I also submitted the film to the Orlando Film Festival in Downtown Orlando but I suspect the result will be the same.It is best to ignore a film that contradicts the rush to a “New Normal” while 2000 Americans continue to die every week.

Find Me at Fringe Art Space

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Find Me written by Amanda Scheirer has three more performances at Fringe Art Space. The rock musical spoke to me on so many levels. It opens with Ally, performed by Laura Swindoll waking up and straightening up her apartment in anticipation for the arrival of a guest. Autumn performed by Cat Cuteness arrives and she silently runs through the room looking at herself in the 8 different mirrors scattered throughout. In the talk back, Laura explained that Ally was constantly examining herself in the mirrors. She is someone who is always giving everything away to please others to the point where there is little left for herself, and she is deeply unhappy, distracting herself with activity.

Autumn who has autism on the other hand is a bright light who is unafraid to be herself. She never says a word through the entire play but her joy and sorrow are brilliant. She becomes frustrated when Ally can’t let go. The whole play is about these two very different woman finding a middle ground to become closer. When Autumn zones out and stares into space, Ally tries to get her attention through dance and humor. Only sitting and patiently waiting brought Autumn back.

Ally is incredibly organized, to the point of obsession. She organizes games, books and other items by a system where items that involve the eyes, like books are on a top shelf, things that involve the hands like games are on a middle shelf and things that involve feet, like a yoga mat are on a bottom shelf. Autumn prefers the joy of chaos.

Part of the reason I love this play so much is that I teach virtual drawing classes to children on the autism scale. The biggest challenge is always to find a way to engage the child and accept where they are on their artistic journey. At times I have had students who might start to rock and humm to themselves. I just keep sketching and talking to engage them until they are ready to try for themselves. I love that painting is one way Ally wants to engage with Autumn. The first attempt is an utter failure since Autumn just places the bottles of paint in a row. Ally wants to squeeze some color out but Autumn just pulls the bottles away and lines them in a row. I am thinking she was mocking Ally’s hyper organized self. Ally gets frustrated and puts all the paint away, angry at Autumn for not participating the way she wanted her to.

Much later in the play Autumn signs that she wants to paint. This time, the two women are gentle with each other and find joy in smearing paint on the tall canvas. Bright vibrant paintings start appearing over every mirror so that by the end of the play the otherwise dull neutral apartment is now filled with color. The stage manager, Lita LaRoux, did all the paintings that appear over all the mirrors. She explained that she listened to the music for the show the entire time she painted.

The play features music written by Dan Drnach. Party Farm is a jingle for a party store and Autumn plays it on TV relentlessly. She loves to dance to the jingle. I wanted to dance as well but held back. If there was a plant in the audience I bet the audience would rise and dance along.

I applaud Amanda Schreirer for this joyous and subtle show. I fell in love with these characters as they struggled to find each other. You never know the battles others are fighting.

I highly advise that you see this show. You will leave the theater deeply moved and reflecting on how delicate relationships can be.

COVID Dystopia: Drowning Healthcare

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This scene from COVID Dystopia has the camera rotating around the young nurses head to give her some dimensionality. The mom and child and all the other medical staff are held cells.

I could animate the water but I don’t think that adds much more to the scene. I could also animate the mom clutching her child closer, but that would be a whole lot of work for characters that are not the center of interest.

I will probably leave this scene as it is. I plan to animate a background guy in a hazmat suit in the Disney Main Street scene today. I feel I should do it since he is clearly walking inn the shot, so a held cell does not make sense.

Skeletal arms in the religious scene should also move, so I might set that up today as well. It would be nice if there was a clear cut off date on animation production. But with millions of details that could be animated, it is hard to know when to stop.

Some festivals have started contacting me by e-mail after seeing the film online. They offer discounted submission fees. It is hard to decided if they truly saw the film or if they are just trying to rake in more submission fees. The Serbest International Film Festival (SIFF) festival in Maldova, next to Ukraine, contacted me and I though the fest might be a scam. However I then saw an animated short online that won an award at the festival. I decided to give SIFF a try. I am setting boundaries. No new festivals in their first year. And the theater has to be able to seat over 100 people. My goal is to get as many eyeballs in seats as possible.

COVID Dystopia: Religious Infection

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Right now, only the pastors hand moves. I am considering having all the skeletal hands move as well. Their movement would have to be subtle so as not to distract from the pastors hand.

I thought we were done with the surround sound mix on the soundtrack, but I got a long email today from the techs who are preparing the Digital Cinema Package. They seem to think some of the volume levels might damage the theater speakers.

I was hoping that the audio from COVID Dystopia would cause the theater speakers to burst into flames, but these tech guys seem to think that is a bad idea.

My sound technician, Alan Kirkland, is addressing all the notes from his studio in Georgia. Like most things in my life right now, I was blindsided by the tech issues. Everything seemed fine when I listened to the surround sound on Jerry Johnson‘s home system. Andy Matchett, who wrote the music listened to the surround sound mix and he liked it as did Jerry who is an audiophile. If they didn’t notice a problem, then the issues can’t be that severe.

By the end of today, I should know if the revisions to the audio track will work. It is out of my hands and I just have to hope and wait. That is the hardest thing to do since it leaves me feeling helpless and unable to assist.

COVID Dystopia: I Watched from a Distance

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In this shot the sculptor leans forward to perfect a tiny detail in his living room sand sculpture. This scene is of course based on a scene in First Encounters where the protagonist suddenly feels the urge to sculpt Devils Tower Butte in his living room. Such an obsession put a strain on his relationship since his wife and children were sure he was going mad. Such a strain exists inn my own life since COVID Dystopia points out that the shy is falling although people have been sold on the idea that life has returned to normal.

So for now, this crazy artist is looking for an apartment which will become the studio where work continues. I have started contacting theaters again to start sketching rehearsals for productions. As production winds down, I am searching for my bearings to figure out what is next in my artistic journey. I suspect I am loosing a best friend in part because I remain steadfastly COVID cautious.