143 Washington Street NYC

Posted on by Thor

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

Posted on by Thor

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

Posted on by Thor

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?

Posted on by Thor

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

Posted on by Thor

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.

COVID Dystopia: Rush Home

Posted on by Thor

This scene had depth using Volumax, but no animation. Since everyone is stuck waiting, I doubt animation is needed. The fast pan plays down ability to notice the depth. I might just see what the scene looks like if I use the ZOE depth effect. My assumption is that the result will be very similar.

I am NYC right now and maybe 1% if the people are masked. We are coming down from the second largest wave of the pandemic right now and yet most people want to believe the pandemic is over. Over 8000 Americans died from COVID in December 2024 and that is not counting those who died of vascular diseases, organ damage and other complications caused by the virus.

NYC suffered more that any other place in America at the start of the pandemic. The image above is of people rushing back into NYC from Europe when it was announced that flights into the country would be suspended. There was an opportunity to contain the virus and eradicate it but governments fumbled that ball. The biological weapon continues to spread and people are actually being encouraged to get infected and to infect others. The world population of 8 billion people is being culled. Heath care in this country is reverting back into the dark ages.

COVID Dystopia: Fun Spot

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The animation on this Fun Spot scene seems to work as it is. When I uploaded a recent edit of the film onto Film Freeway, I discovered a slew of scenes that ended up cropping incorrectly. Black bars appear on the right side of the screen. I am going through the whole film to try and catch each and every one of these glitches.

I have been viewing the film mostly in the Premiere Pro program. In that program the film plays against a dark field. With that dark field I didn’t notice the dark glitches. It was only when watching the film on Film Freeway, that I noticed the glitches. Film Freeway plays the film against a light tan filed and the black bars suddenly became obvious. I have also been watching the film on a tiny laptop screen.

I didn’t notice the glitches when the film played on a large screen at the Chicago International Reel Shorts Film Festival. That is because the theater was dark and the glitches would have been less obvious. Anyway, now I am on the case.

COVID Dystopia: ZOE Depth for Store Monkeys

Posted on by Thor

I am excited for this shot since the ZOE Depth did such a good job of recreating a long store aisle. When the camera move is added it will far surpass the previous version of the shot.The animated monkeys are ready to be imported as three separate layers to add to the depth. The two foreground monkeys will disappear rather quickly as the camera moves up the aisle and zooms in on the baby monkey.

The scene looks darker in the 3D diorama view which can be rotated to see the depth, but the color and values are corrected automatically when imported into After Effects. By the end of the day today I will see how this all falls together.

COVID Dystopia: Last Tail

Posted on by Thor

Today I just need to finish up animation on the last tail in this scene. I still need to add some darker values on the smallest monkey up the aisle as well. I then have to add shadows under all the monkeys and start exporting movies with green screens. The green masks might make that tricky. I don’t want the masks to become partially transparent.

I plan to composite the scene in After Effects as well today. I want to use ZOE depth so that a camera move up the aisle will feel dimensional. I will export 3 separate movies so they can be stacked in depth. If the ZOE method doesn’t work out I already have the scene composited with depth using Volumax. I would just need to replace still images wit the animated movie movies in deep space.

I had another rejection yesterday from a film festival, so I need to start thinking about which film festivals to submit to next. I am making a expenses spread sheet for my 2023 taxes and it turns out that Film Festival submission fees are the biggest expenses I have had in making this film. Facing rejection week after week becomes taxing over time. Once I have all the papers sent off to the accountant and the government has reached into my pocket and taken its cut, I might once again be able to breath a sigh of relief.

 

COVID Dystopia: The 11th Monkey

Posted on by Thor

Yesterday I animated two more monkeys in COVID Dystopia. I had to completely redo the animation on one monkey because the Callipeg program refused to allow me to erase. Instead of erasing the program would replace the element with a color. Initially the eraser would work but when I scrolled back in the timeline it would reappear as a color block in the shape of what I had erased. I closed and reopened the program and rebooted the iPad but the problem persisted. Such a glaring glitch will guarantee that I do not use this animation program next time I wok on an animated film.

The only way to get the animated monkey to work was to completely redo it. Since I already knew what I wanted the monkey to do, the animation went much faster the second time. Playback faltered with all the layers I had for each monkey, so I also had to compress the layers down to allow for smooth play back. The small monkey holding the toilet paper is the only monkey that has all the layers in case I want to go back and edit his animation.

Today I have three more monkeys to animate. All three have very subtle animation but with fluid tail movement. After this scene is finished I plan to go back and add animation to several of the rhinos in a previous shot shared. I figure if I animate the rhinos on either side of the single masked audience member, having them look at the masked man will help focus the audiences attention. The other 50 or so rhinos can remain still.