Poster Evolution: Kinky Boots Final

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Kinky Boots was a really fun poster to design. The idea came from watching  Hollywood Bubsby Berkely dance numbers. I saw one scene there the camera trucked down between a long row of dancers legs. I watched YouTube videos of various productions go get an idea of what the show was like but unfortunately I missed the show at the Shakes. I have been so caught up in the film production that the show slipped past my radar.

It is a really fun production, I am rather sad that I missed it. It is about an old show factory in England that has run across hard times since they only produce old fashioned shoes that are going out of style. The entire staff including inflexible yokels are set the task of producing Kinky Boots to keep the business alive. It is a joyous musical.

Anyway my COVID film is wrapped up and I am looking for ways to promote it. I don’t know how to get The challenge will be to get as many eye balls as possible to see it in the coming weeks. The world premiere will be May 19, 2023 at the free Fringe Film showcase inn the Shakespeare outdoor courtyard. I had to put a warning in front of the film. This has to be the first time an Fringe animated film had had a warning. I can’t wait to see how an audience reacts. I’ll be there with my mask on.

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.

Apologies to Lorraine Hansberry

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With the film wrapping up, I am realizing there are many images I have not shared here yet. I wanted to back up some files into the portfolio section but this first image could not be found on this site. I will share the evolution process for this poster over the net few days. This is the final version of the poster. The director of the play sent me some magnificent reference material that sent me in this direction.

In wandering Times Square when I lived in NYC, I used to sketch the intricate patterns created by layers of theater posters being ripped off of the billboards. I can’t imagine any other artist has ever paused in Times Square and sketched these patterns while the crowds rushed past. I used that sort of abstract layering of posers for the background for the final poster. I felt it gave the urban vine I needed.

I did get to sketch the play itself and I am glad I did because I fell in love with the cast and the message of perseverance they all shared. As an artist I identified with their strength of spirit. Seeing the play inspired me to keep pressing forward.

Pandemic Film: Plague Doctor

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The film has been wrapped up and sent off via WeTransfer. I actually spent most of today reworking a number of shots that had minor glitches. The final render was again a head ache to set up but I managed to juggle all the right settings eventually. Rendering the film was without a doubt the most stressful aspect of producing the film although Premiere Pro crashing and erasing all the past saved versions of the film was also a contender.

I actually went back to some of the earliest shots in the film today since I learned what settings worked best over the course of adjusting over 200 shots. I suspect I will hold off sharing the film until the free world Premiere at the Orlando International Fringe Festival. That screening will be on May 19, 2023 at 6pm at the Shakes outdoor courtyard.

The challenge over the next week will be figuring out how to promote the film and then how to distribute it. My primary goal is to get as many eyeballs to see the film as possible. I have never shared video on social media before but it looks like I will need to learn how. It will also reside in the animation portfolio section on this site after May 19th and I am sure to post it on YouTube as well.

Pandemic Film: Another COVID New Year

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This shot was added in the 11th hour, right before rendering the film. Three times in the film I include a new year illustration for each year of the pandemic. I had an illustration of a skeleton leaning over baby new year but at the last minute I decided this works better.

The background had a depth map added and the other layers went on top. All the confetti animates down and on top of it all another layer of confetti was added in VoluMax Pro 7. I added chaos to that animation layer and just realized that some of the confetti is blowing back upwards in the background. That is chaotic but I find it distracting, so I will be dialing back that animation and re-rendering the scene.

After rendering the movie I saw it at a large scale for the first time. There are about 5 other shots I want to revise, so I will be spending the day making those changes. I already submitted a render to the Fringe Film Festival but I have until midnight tonight and I plan to resubmit the changes before that deadline. I spent most of yesterday struggling with technical issues trying to get the film to render. After hours of research I found that I had to change the audio bitrate from 384 to 320. Trusting a youTube video for the settings got me into the trouble to start and another youtTube video resolved the problem.

Anyway the shot above is the first I will be adjusting, I am off to the races to get these in on time.

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: Wacky Wavy

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In 2021 they literally lined up wacky wavy tube arm men in Times Square since crowds could not gather.This shot in the film seemed fine, but Pam really wanted to see the tube arms wave. I found out that there is something called pin puppet animation in Adobe After Effects. The icon looks like a push pin at the top of the screen. With that tool selected I could place the yellow markers on the layer I wanted to animate. Tube arms seemed like they should be an esy way to learn how to use the tool.

As always I messed up the first several times but persistence pays. The main problem I was having was that I could not find a way to ease in and ease out of the keyframes. A tutorial pointed out that the keyboard shortcut for the tool I wanted was F9 on the keyboard. Well of course my keyboard does not have an F9 key. Since the shot is less than a second long, I decided to get around the issue by simply not stopping an arm wave during the shot. This works since there isn’t time to see the arm accelerate of decelerate if I cut on the movement.

The arms move a bit slow for my taste, but I accepted the shot as is so I could move onto the next shot. In the next shot I will find that darn ease in option come hell or high water. I will be rendering the film tonight or tomorrow night and I suspect that will be it’s own form of torture.

Pandemic Film: Freedom of Religion

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I used VoluMax Pro 7 portrait mode to work on the freedom of religion shot. Though the program works convincingly to create depth maps for the faces, I am limited to just 2 faces. There are a whole lot more people in the shot but they didn’t get screen time largely because the shot is so short. This is happening in many shots where I focus on a detail rather then show the entirety of the painting. The primary goal is to make the story point clear, not to show every detail.

This film isn’t for those who like to linger on details and contemplate the deeper meaning in each shot. I don’t believe many Americans ever take time to contemplate of slow down to think. Mass delusion is a far simpler norm to follow.

Masks caps and gowns were all blocked in as well separate from the mesh work shown here. Noses and lips were hidden by these additional depth maps. Late yesterday I simply painted the details of a depth map and I now realize that that is a far simpler approach to getting facial depth rather than this digital tech approach. I will probably go back and rework shots that lack depth with this in mind as time allows. I have four days to make adjustments. I made a list last night after watching a run through of the film and have 14 shots I would like to rework toady.

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.