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?

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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

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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: ZOE Depth for Store Monkeys

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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

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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

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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.

COVID Dystopia: Animating the Monkey Scrum

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I animated four monkeys in the monkey scrum yesterday. There will be three more monkeys in front of this grouping and one monkey further down the aisle. All the animation I did yesterday was quite contained so that the leaping monkey is the action that should catch an audience’s eye.

The animation that remains is more complex since the monkeys will be walking or shifting their weight forward. There are so many layers now that the Callipeg program is struggling to play them all back. I might have to merge layers as I add more animation to keep the scene from freezing up. I should copy the scene today and work on the copy just in case the program does indeed fail.

Last night Pam helped in making plans for the trip to Berlin. We also wrote the festival organizer to see if he has advice about the best places to stay. With a six hour time difference I think I will be teaching virtual art classes until 2AM from Germany. I have to double check the schedule against the flight times and screening times of the festival. COVID Dystopia screens in the 6PM time slot on Sunday February 11, 2024 at the Babylon Theater. On the day before, screenings start at 6PM through about 10PM. Then there is a mixer for directors and producers at the Griffin, an “American Style” bar.

Pam and I watched a Rick Steves youTube video about Berlin to get a feel for what else to see in the historic city. My father fought in Germany at the end of WWII. He would have wanted to push into the city but he was tasked with cleaning out the resistance in the industrial Ruhr Pocked West of the city. I know which cities he fought in and would like to follow that route someday, but that will have to be another trip. Pam and I will be flying about 24 yours to be in Berlin for about 48 hours. It is quite a whirl wind but it is a once in a lifeline opportunity.

The Germans seem to appreciate COVID Dystopia‘s macabre outlook on the worlds failed response to a virulent virus.

COVID Dystopia: Animating the Monkey Scrum

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Most of my effort went into animating the monkey who leaps, reaches but falls short of the prize.The arm reaching was the challenge. I wanted the reach to happen quickly and then slow down as the monkey dropped back to the floor.  The lower half of the monkeys is hidden by the mass of monkeys all around him, so that mace the job much easier.

With that finished, I added a simply movement to one of the monkeys in the scrum. There is another group of four monkeys in front of this mass, so part of this animation sill be hidden. All together I have nine more monkeys to animate. The movements for each should be much more subtle than the leap I just finished animating.

Animation for all the monkey tails is already done, but I will import that at the end. I am hoping that today will be another two monkey day.

COVID Dystopia: Official Selection at the Berlin Short Film Festival

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COVID Dystopia is an official selection at the Berlin Short Film Festival. Pam and I ordered new passports and they came back surprisingly fast. My film will screen on February 11, 2024 at the 6PM screening slot. The Babylon Theater is located at Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße 30, Berlin, Germany. Today we will make plans for plane flights and an air B&B inn Berlin. I found a nice place within walking distance of the theater but we aren’t sure of flight times yet. These international festivals don’t give much time for making plans.

I am of course curious about the films in my screening block. I found a couple on youTube. One was an interview in German about stereotypes associated with Germans. The other, also in German I gave up on. I will not watch any others, I would rather see them on the big screen.

There is one social event where film makers can mix and mingle. It is being held at an “American Style” bar. The place is a hole in the wall dive with graffiti on the facade. It is quite a walk from the theater. There is quite a bit of large graffiti in the neighborhood reminiscent of the days of the Berlin Wall.

This screening should be quite an adventure. I know a minimal amount of German after studying it in high school. I really never got past counting to ten however and all that conjugation stuff threw me for a loop.