COVID Dystopia: NYC Tsunami

Posted on by Thor

We are at the peak of the second largest wave of the pandemic. Few take any precautions because the president has said there is nothing to worry about. Every day bring new horrible news of how the virus is damaging immune systems. The initial infection might not kill, though about 2000 Americans are dying every week, but people are dying of stroke at a very young age and Long COVID is disabling the American workforce.

Anyway it took quite a few days to clean up this scene so that it will not be blurry when projected on a large movie screen. I am animating scenes at 4K now which is double the final resolution so that lines stay crisp. I am still working on the wacky wavy scene but progress is slow and methodical. Part of me worries that all the wacky waving action might be overkill. I have to push ahead and finish the scene to see if it works in the flow of the film.

COVID Dystopia: Wacky Wavy 5

Posted on by Thor

Two more wacky wavy animations were done yesterday. I need to finish up painting one of them.Now that the front row is in motion I am realizing that there are a bunch of legs I places in the original illustration that do not line up with actual characters. I am if I should leave this as a painted element held cell of keep adding characters to get those legs to move.

There is another whole background contingent of wacky wavy characters and I may simplify their movements. I might just move their arms in a subtle way the way the scene was first animated. Today I will animate the outer most wacky wavy guys. The end goal is to feel like you can see a massive crowd going back into Times Square. The negative spaces need to be filled to make it clear this is a massive crowd. I had the same situation with Centaurs running down the street. I solved that scene with a moving painted dark crowd to represent the other Centaurs but I don’t think that will work in this case.

At some point I will only be animating what can be seen. So far I have animated each character separately and on may partly hide another. Once characters are only partly seen the animation might be done on mass. In two days I will start teaching virtual classes again, so production will slow down. This is probably the last scene I am animating, so I am not rushing to finish quickly.

On the COVID front we might be at the peak of the second largest wave of the pandemic. About 1 in 3 people are infected. 2 million people are being infected each day. 2000 people are dying from COVID each week. Repeat infections do not build immunity, rather immunity is being destroyed much in the way HIV destroys immunity. Good luck out there stay safe.

COVID Dystopia Wacky Wavy 4

Posted on by Thor

I finished two more wacky wavy animations yesterday. I have stated to realized that every one of them is standing upright at the end of each animation, so with the second row I plan to have some leaning down at the end of the animation. I need to add more variety to the heights.I can move characters if needed as well, but for now everyone is staying in place.

In the original illustration I have many leaning down so I could see into the distance down the street. Perhaps a clear view isn’t needed as long as I can see the mass of distant waving arms as well. I am sticking to getting two done each day. This scene in the present version of COVID Dystopia does work. It appears as slow motion movement but I think this will work better in the end. The question become what is good enough versus what works great.

The first week of the year brings some sadness as I have to prepare all the expenses from last year into a spreadsheet. On top of  that the DMV never sends me my new tag for the car license plate each year. We discovered that they were sending the tags to an old address. That was corrected but I bet they aren’t smart enough to make that change and send it to the right address.

Orange County DMV still hasn’t done its job and sent what I ordered. I have had to go downtown to the DMV office before to beg them to do their job and give me what I paid them for. It looks like I will have to do that again.

COVID Dystopia: Wacky Wavy 3

Posted on by Thor

I finished about one an a half Wacky Wavy animations yesterday. I am looking at live action reference to figure out how the arms wave but I am learning that I can make things up so long as there is some wave action happening. I don’t need to be 100 percent accurate in how the arms move the movement just needs to chaotic and believable.

Having made quite a few mistakes I am now getting abetter handle on what is believable. I have to take into account gravity and the force of the air billowing up the arm tubes. I hope to finish two more wacky wavy animations today.

While working on this scene I am listening to accounts of the final 100 days of WWII. My father was in Germany of the final 99 days of the war, so I am trying to figure out his movements. My father died in 1987 and her never spoke of the war, so I am researching to try and find out what happened “over there.” I figured out which cities in the Ruhr pocket her fought in and I now know he helped deport victims of a forced labor camp. Forced labor was common in Germany to fuel the war effort in the industrial pocket. I am trying to narrow down exactly which camp he would have liberated, but there are so many in the Ruhr area. This is an account from the other 1st Lieutenant in my fathers unit…

“In this capacity, we had a strange task that I have brooded about for years. There were many Displaced Persons (DP’s) that apparently, by treaty, were to be shipped home by the easiest rail line. I, of course, would have given my eyeteeth to be sent home and I therefor was very perplexed as many of these people did not want to go “east.” In fact, we had to nail the doors shut in the 40-8’s to keep them on board at least until they left the marshaling yard. I now realize that for many there was no “home” and that this act that I considered a good deal was often really a  death sentence. I can still see the sad faces as they were boxed up to go “home.”

– Joe Colcord Lieutenant, Company C, 290th Infantry U.S. 75th Division

COVID Dystopia: Wacky Wavy 2

Posted on by Thor

I didn’t complete a whole lot of work on this scene Sunday. Pam and I did a major day of house cleaning in preparation of her having some of her family friends over from Iowa. I stayed masked any time I was in the house. The HEPA air filter was on full blast as it always is.

Both of our dogs have been in lockdown since the start of the pandemic so they are not used to having people enter the home. Donkey went ballistic screaming and barking at the guests, so I stayed with the dogs outside until she calmed down. I then brought her inside again and stayed with her in a far room so she could see the guests but not jump on them. In some ways this was good for me as well since it guaranteed I kept social distanced and masked inside.

We put the dining room table outside on the screened back porch and that worked well. It was a perfect day to be outside. All the home windows were open and ceiling fans stayed on indoors and outdoors on the porch. Pam used the Uni pizza oven to bake pizzas for everyone. This was the first dinner party we hosted since the pandemic began.

Donkey calmed down once everyone was seated outside. I am new to the risk assessment game and I decided the mask could come off outside but I would put it back on any time I went inside. My hope is that the ceiling fans outside would circulate any aerosols down and then outside. A couple of times I just held my breath inside as I went in to get guests drinks.

Right now the pandemic is raging. We are now in the second largest wave since the start in 2019. This wave hasn’t peaked yet. It is expected to keep rising through February 2024. Only the Omicron wave was larger. About 2 million people are being infected every day and no one knows exactly what percentage of those people will develop long Covid. By the end of this wave one in three Americans are expected to become infected.

COVID did come up at the dinner party. One guest had COVID twice. COVID had been in our house twice but my layered mitigations managed to keep me from getting infected. Masks, HEPA air purifiers and vaccines do work.

Promoting my COVID Dystopia film will likely be the most risky thing I do in the coming year since it might mean attending crowded film festival screenings in cities around the country and around the world.

When the White House press secretary was asked point blank about the rising cases, she said people are responsible for accessing their own risks. In other words, “You do you.” America has always been, and continues to be, the most infected nation in the world when it comes to COVID. You are free to become infected and encouraged to infect others. It is the American way.

COVID Dystopia: Wacky Wavy 1 color

Posted on by Thor

Yesterday I was helping Pam clean up the house, so I didn’t expect to get much animation done. I did however get a chance to animate all the tendrily fingers hanging off the tube arms. This was some fun straight ahead animation that added plenty of overlap to the flapping arms. I also painted the entire character late in the day.

What I learned from animating this first Wacky Wavy Uncle Sam can be used when I continue to animate all the other Uncle Sams. I will not reuse any animation. Each Uncle Sam will move differently. It looks like there are about 8 more characters t animate in the front row and there are plenty more going back in space. By the time I finish this scene I should have a better grasp on animating waving tube arms.

 

 

COVID Dystopia: Wacky Wavy 1

Posted on by Thor

I decided to animate the wacky wavy balloon arm guy in passes. The first pass is animating the body movement which is a straightforward wave. The head however drags giving some overlap at the extremes. The arms are the bulk of the action in the scene. Air billows through the tubes causing them to wave like a flag. The animation is being done straight ahead and I am looking at plenty of wacky wavy reference to see what the arms tend to do in real life. The billowing air causes an outward flowing wave then the arm snaps straight and starts to fall as the next wave of air billows out.

The possibilities of arm shapes are endless and my first pass was too stiff. The version of the COVID Dystopia scene in the film now is rather stiff with very little motion happening in slow motion. It actually works but I have to give this a shot to liven things up. If this version doesn’t work I can always fall back on what I already have.

COVID Dystopia: Press Kit Page 7

Posted on by Thor

This page has an abbreviated version of the end credits for COVID Dystopia. The Borg image isn’t actually in the end credits but I king of like it. With over 600 other unused images to choose from I have to stop myself from overthinking what should be included in the credits. Only about a dozen images scroll upwards as 30 second time lapse clips of the painting in progress.

My thought was that most people will not read the credits, but they do want something to look at that is moving.

I noticed there is a strange glitch in the V in COVID so I need to go back and figure out what is causing that. The glitch isn’t in the poster. Just another example of having to chase down digital anomalies. I am al so thinking the tag line might be better in a lighter typeface.

I am still working on the NYC scene I was cleaning up yesterday. I just need to draw bare arms and legs to improve the high resolution version of the scene. Most of the pant legs of the runners are black and moving rather fast, so they don’t need to be drawn as sharp. When this scene is done, I will go through the whole press kit one more time and make corrections.

COVID Dystopia: Press Kit Page 6

Posted on by Thor

The Queen’s COVID scene is one of the scenes with less motion in the film, but quite a bit of work went into making her appear three dimensional. Most people will not notice the effect but they will feel it.

I think I will finish the high resolution version of the crowd running from the robotic virus today. I have put two days of work into the scene so far,, but yesterday wasn’t really a full day. I work on layers in Callipeg redrawing sections that need refining. The low resolution green screen movie is on a bottom layer so I can work on top of it. One problem with Callipeg is that the green screen layer flickers on an off when the scene is played. This makes it seem like the scene will not render correctly. The last scene I did this way flickered as well but the render was fine. I have to just keep working and hope that it turns out fine in the end. It seems I keep pushing the limits of what the tech can handle.

The newest render of COVID Dystopia is now up on Film Freeway as we head into the new year. Once I finish the final scenes I need to get very serious about finding the early deadlines for film festivals in 2024. I have one year to get this film circulating at film festivals worldwide. Like very other aspect of the film’s production, I am on a steep learning curve.

I just noticed several more typos. I should go through the whole press kit one more time today and make corrections. Posting here is always a goo chance to catch mistakes as they try and slip by.