Poster Evolution: Zoom in

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Since the door seemed to predominate the first pass of this poster, the easiest solution was to create a version that was zoomed in.That allowed the tile and author information to cover the door and camouflage it. The scene was still a bit to bright and cheery. I needed some urban grunge but wasn’t sure which way to turn yet. The director of the show was shown the poster and she had some magnificent suggestions.

She sent me on a search of a particular style of portraiture that uses unexpected colors in skin tones. This allowed me to keep the bright colors I was drawn to in the steps but use those colors to paint skin. I was no longer limited to painting variations of flesh tones.

The show is about love and acceptance but also about intolerance, to a hint was needed of conflict. The director helped me find that balance in the final poster.

Though set in an imagined future utopia the themes of the show are particularly relevant today.

First Concept: Apologies to Lorraine Hansberry

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This was my first poster concept for Apologies to Lorraine Hansberry by Rachel Lynett which ran at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater. After reading the script I was fixated on the brownstones in what was an all black utopia after a civil war in the future. It is a play about race and gender and trying to find happiness only among others who are truly black.

I added rainbow colors to the steps to add color and lighten the mood of the poster. It was felt that the door took up too much of the composition. It takes up about half of the image. I also felt that it had a bit of Sesamie Street feel as apposed to an urban feel. For a start I just had to reduce the size of the door so it didn’t dominate.

Pandemic Film: Digital Depth

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Today at the last second this shot replaced a shot of a couch potato lounging with the virus with beer bottles and pizza strewn about. In this shot children inspect the virus with their cell phones. It tied in better with the lyrics. The other issue with the couch potato is that it depicted Mark Wahlberg. Pam picked up on that fact and I realized that if the star caught her attention I might want to change it so the scene would not be about star identification.

This is a depth map I just painted to fix an issue I noticed in the final render of the film. The virus became distorted around the children;s heads so I went in and darkened the negative shapes between them. The fix might not be in the film shown at the free Fringe screening on May 19, 2023 at 6pm in the Shakes outdoor courtyard. I will probably cut this into future edits that will make the rounds at film festivals.

Today I got caught up in trying to complete a final render. The computer kept freezing just as the audio stated in the film. After hours of research I found that the bitrate didn’t match between the audio clip in the timeline and the final output. I had to change the render bitrate from 384 to 320 and then all was well. This type of arbitrary tech stuff is soul crushing but I managed to get the render completed. Pam is going to coach me on how to submit the film using Google Docs. Today I counted and there are over 200 paintings in the animated short I am submitting.

May 11, 2023 the United States is dropping the COVID state of emergency. All future medical expenses are out of pocket for any American infected. The pandemic is not over but the state of emergency is. May 11. 2023 therefor is this films birthday.

Pandemic Film: Stockholm Syndrome

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This shot turned out even better than I expected. That is what I am enjoying about this process, I am often surprised by the results. The couple was separated from the environment behind them. Thankfully I had painted them on a separate level so that was an easy task. Each head was assigned a 3D mesh for the depth mapping. I massively distorted the blue mesh to work with the skull.  The female mesh didn’t require much adjustment at all. Then I drew several depth maps for the bodies.

The shot involved a pan downwards and to add depth I rotated the After Effects camera around the couple. Two separate camera moves were used to get the effect I wanted. The flaming background was scaled and moved independently.

I have just two shots remaining. Both a complex shots. I also have to add more information to the credits at the end. My goal was to finish by May 11, 2023 when the United States would drop the COVID emergency declaration. Yesterday the World Health Organization essentially declared the pandemic to be over. Anyway that is how most people will perceive their declaration. The virus however is not done with humanity. One in ten people infected develop debilitating long COVID. Mass infection and re-infection is not sustainable. A person dies every hour from COVID.

I will be releasing this film as the world embraces mass delusion and denial.

Pandemic Film: No Escape Depth

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I kept camera movement in this prison shot prison shot rather limited since the prison bars would warp to allow for some depth of field. In my painting I unfortunately drew the prison bars on the same level as the virus. I could achieve much more depth if I took the time to separate the bars from the virus. That would allow me to move the bars and prisoner completely independent of the cell behind them. I could then do a depth map just for the virus and the room and a separate depth map for the prisoner and bars. Those tow could then be combined in the final comp with a green screen.

However all those steps take time and for a shot that lasts less than a second, I am debating if all the extra work will be noticed. I will be doing a series of shot today that are very complicated which are close ups on peoples faces. I need to invest the time I have in the shot where the effect will be most noticeable.

I am keeping a mental list of the shots I would like to go back and tweak and make better. I will only go back however after all the shots are complete. I have to keep moving forward to hit the May 11, 2023 final film render date. I tried to render the film midway through the process and the render stalled. It is a strange leap of faith to do all this work with the possibility that the digital gods may thwart a final render. Anyway no time to think about that now. Forward.

Pandemic Film: Waning Immunity

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This is the depth map for Waning Immunity, a shot that lasts just about a second in the film.Light objects in the foreground are the bodies of several fallen knights. The dragon is breathing fire at the standing knight whose shield is melting. I am describing this since you cant see the painting and most detail except depth is lost in a depth map.

The camera pivots from the dragon’s open jaws to the melting shield. I have been dialing up the parallax in recent shots and I am amazed at how the musculature in the shoulders rotates with the camera move. The problem is that adding more parallax boosts the render time which leaves me sitting on my hands waiting to see the result. I am trying to find the balance between time invested in renders versus finishing the film on time. I have 12 days before I need to turn in a final edit for a screening at Orlando International Fringe Festival,  3rd Annual Film as Visual Art screening on May 19, 2023 at 6PM at the Shakes outdoor courtyard. The screening is free and this will be the world premiere for this 2.5D animated short.

 

Pandemic Film: Black Lives Matter

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I am deep into production now, having finished 13 shots yesterday.I had to stop because I was getting blurry eyed and though I might punch a wrong button and experience another Premiere Pro crash. This morning I am starting off with a shot of BLM in Washington D.C. That is the D.C. Mayor  Murial Bowser on the balcony looking down the street at the White House.

I debated weather I needed to actually put a depth map on this shot because this is a fast pan that lasts just a second and 22 frames. I did notice the depth when working on the shot in After Effects, but with the pan added in Premiere Pro that illusion of depth is very subtle. I doubt it will be noticed. All his is part of the learning curve, if time gets tight, I know where corners could be cut, but I always want to go for the best possible solution. Some shots at the end will likely be re-done to improve the production value.

I tried to send musician Andy Matchett the latest edit of the project, but the render froze. The project is huge now and a simple render is another technical hurdle I will need to conquer. I tried just shooting a video of the program and sending that via WeTransfer but that also didn’t go through. We may need to Zoom so I can share the progress.

Pandemic Film: Flaming Baby

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I have several shots of flaming babies in the film. This is probably the most extreme close up in the film. For some reason this image seems to upset COVID minimizers the most. Some folks think I should be panting cure kittens instead of documenting mass infection. When I do paint a cure baby then feathers fly.

Since the CG mesh in the program is for an adult male, it took quite a bit of work to wrestle it into the shape of this baby’s face. It still isn’t perfect but it is good enough for this shot which lasts for about a second. I pumped up the levels for parallax bug the face got too distorted to be believable. I had to relax the setting to get the effect I wanted.

I added depth maps for the flames as well but that effect isn’t noticeable. What I should do is find a program which will morph the flames over time so I can have some control over their movement. I’ll have to do some research along that line today. I could also hand animate the flames, but considering how many things burst into flames in this film, that would become too much work. I need to finish production by May 11. 2023.

Run for the Trees

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I am beginning to be hired to cover some events again. I rolled out of bed at 5:30am to get to this 5K run in Winter Park. Sketching in public in Winter Park is illegal according to a city ordinance, but I managed to pull it off on this sunny morning. I knew event organizers wanted a view of the start of the race, so I didn’t have to think twice about what was the best option for a sketch to document the event. There were an assortment of merchant tents set up to my left but I kept my focus on the starting line.

I sketched the setting and then slowly people filled in behind the line for the start at 7:30am. Some folks stood in front of the starting line for selfies and for a moment I considered sketching the guy who held an American flag for the Star Spangled Banner. I decided he was blocking the forward progression and I replaced him with a woman who was doing some sprints before the starting horn blew.

After the crowd of runners sprinted off, I focused on adding water color for another hour. It was a pleasant morning. The usual suspects, photographers, and videographers had to get a shot of the artist at work. As is fitting, the tree is the star of my sketch. Every runner would get a tree sapling to plant after the run.

 

Pandemic Film: Depth Map

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This is the depth map for the shot called Stealth Wave. Anything close to the camera is light and anything far away get darker. The large grey mass towering over the figure is a wave. The metal I-beam structures on the beach are for stopping armored vehicles.

The process of creating the 2.5D shot is incredibly simple. I import the jpg of the painting into Photoshop. A script was used in the actions menu to create the grey scale depth map. I just push a butting and it is automatically generated. I use this technique for most of the simpler shots which don’t have complicated camera moves.

The main disadvantage of this technique is that there is often one spot which gets distorted when the camera moves. In that case I have to go back and create a mask to kill the distortion.

I had a major setback 2 days ago and had to re-edit 18 shots back into the Premiere pro final timeline. Since I had just recently done all the shots, It was a quick process to re-create them. Yesterday work progresses without a hitch and the shots are looking better than I imagined they could.

I can’t see the 3d effect in real time, so I just look at the first frame and the last frame and then imagine the movement between them. I then do a render of the scene and I am getting better at judging how much parallax to ass before the shot breaks down.

With a shot like this stealth wave, little can go wrong since there are three clear shapes, a foreground, mid ground and background.