Yesterday This was Home: Getting Seated

Posted on by Thor

The girl gets seated. As she does, the narrator is warming up to telling her about their possible predicament. I finished animation on this scene and some of the drawings of the girl have nailed her personality in my mind. The best way to find a character if by digging in an animating them. Many model sheets at Disney Feature Animation are simply drawings lifted from a scene that really worked. This is one of those scenes for me. The boys animation is limited to him tilting his heat to watch as she bounces down into the seat.

This film will be on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) from  October 3, 2020 to February 14, 2021as part of Yesterday This Was Home an exhibition about the 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition by the Orange County Regional History Center will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire for moving forward.

To promote safe distancing, the History Center has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. These procedures go into effect after October 3, 2020. For the run of the exhibition, they will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays after October 3, the History Center will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours later until 7 p.m. On Thursdays, they will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tickets for timed entry are available online.

Upcoming events surrounding the exhibition:

AdVOTEcacy in Action
Saturday, October 3, 2020

Coffee with a Curator
Sunday, October 4, 2020
Saturday, January 9, 2021

Celebrating Black Culture: Music, Storytelling, and Poetry
Evolution of Music
Thursday, October 15, 2020

The Legacy of Ocoee: A Panel Discussion
Thursday, October 29, 2020

Lunch & Learn: Crafting the Ocoee Exhibition
Friday, November 6, 2020

The Destruction of Rosewood
Sunday, November 15, 2020

Family Days: Growing a Better Tomorrow
Saturday, November 21, 2020
Saturday, February 6, 2021

Celebrating Black Culture: Music, Storytelling, and Poetry
Storytelling & Poetry
Thursday, February 11, 2021

Yesterday This Was Home: The Timeline

Posted on by Thor

The girl enters the bus. This is a view of the Adobe Premiere Pro timeline. Clips are stacked in the timeline along with the audio. The project started by editing the oral history. That is the base clip under all the animation clips. Some shots require multiple clips for the various elements, like the bus, backgrounds characters etc.

Red lettering in the upper left hand corner of the screen warn that I do not have enough processing power for the program. I am proceeding anyway. Playback of the scenes is often stuttered but the final render of the movie runs smoothly so I just have to live with the stutters for now. If I keep producing animated shorts, I will have to get a better computer. I have not been able to see some dialogue scenes straight through with out stuttering which makes it hard to judge if the lip sync is working smoothly.

I have about 4 large scenes left to animate and I wake up each morning excited to tackle something new.

This film will be shown as part of Yesterday This Was Home a new exhibition at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando, Florida 32801). This special exhibition on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021.

The exhibition is about the 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition by the Orange County Regional History Center will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire for moving forward.

Tickets are now available for timed entry.

Yesterday This Was Home: Animating

Posted on by Thor

This is one of three scenes I animated today. In this scene Sam looks out the window, sees the girl boarding in Winter Park and decides to switch seats so she can sit beside him. The scene is 68 frames or to seconds and 20 frames. I had to act out how you might switch seats and I decided on him leaning forward and hen thrusting himself up on both arms to swing his butt over. It is a classic squash and stretch scene. The squash being his lean forward and the stretch being his thrust upward. I had fun animating his hand move to the far seat. He pauses for six frames looking out the window and then swings across.

In this screen shot from Callipeg, you can see the different levels used in the animation. The bottom level is the background . Above that I put the storyboard so I could reference it for the values used when painting the character. The animation drawings are on a level above the character’s painting level. I am not hiding how the drawings were dome. Some of them are very rough while other inbetweens get cleaner since they are put in to simply slow down certain sections.

It turn out I miss animating. It has been fun getting back into the process without having piles of papers cluttering the desk.

This short film can be seen at the Orange C0unty Regional History Center in the special exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021, The exhibition is about the 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

Yesterday This Was Home: He Was 12

Posted on by Thor

He was 12 and she was maybe 15 or 16. He watched as she s she boarded and he moved to the window seat. I will likely revise this pose when I start animating this scene. I have to decided how a 12 year old would excitedly switch seats.

I animated the protagonist entering the bus station today. I am pleased with his more relaxed walk and the timing I developed to make it clear the door had weight. The length of the scene turned out longer than expected so I will have to trim a following shot. I will likely spend less time at the ticket counter.

I also animated a dialogue scene this morning. It is from a distance, so I simplified the scene with just his head moving and the lips. I am learning what is noticed and what isn’t so I am using these short scenes to save time n the animation process.

I am cross eyed from animating all day so I will cu this short. The demands of animation are unrelenting.

This film will be on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021 at the Orange County Regional History Center for the exhibit, Yesterday This Was Home, an  exhibition about the 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, which remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

 

Yesterday This Was Home: Winter Park

Posted on by Thor

When the bus arrived in Winter Park, a 16 year old girl boarded. She was heading to Detroit as well. Chatting with a fellow passenger always makes the trip more pleasant.

This was a surprisingly tricky scene which might need more work. The bus was pulled into Adobe Premier Pro as a PNG file which preserve transparency. That means I could move the bus in Premiere and the back ground would appear behind it.

The problem came when I animated the girl turning to watch the bus approach. The animation was simple enough, but compositing her over the bus in Premiere turned out to be a hustle since Callipeg, the animation program doesn’t allow for exporting an entire animation with transparency. If I imported as an MP4 then the background an bus were hidden by the white page the girl was animated on. I could export a PNG movie but only one frame was exported. I ultimately had to export as a JSON file which packed all the elements into a WinRar folder. I then had to import each drawing individually into Premiere Pro and reduce the clip size to 4 frames. This was way more work than it needed to be. On top of that the girl drawings were strangely washed out. I adjusted the brightness in Premiere to compensate but still lines have dropped out. I may need to find another solution. In the mean time I am pushing ahead with another scene.

This is just one example of the myriad of unforeseen issues that come up even on a small production like this.

This short film will be on exhibit at Yesterday This Was Home, at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando, Florida 32801) This special exhibition will be on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021.

The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

 

 

Yesterday This Was Home: Everyone Behind Him Was Black

Posted on by Thor

This shot is a pan from the boy to the passengers seated behind him. I rather liked the lady with the cat eye sunglasses so she appears in many scenes. Since it a fairly fast pan I will likely not animate anything in the scene. If there is time in the end I cold animate the boys eyes glancing back but that is icing on the cake. Looking at the shot now, I realize I need to add a blurred out background outside the windows. There are so many faast decisions that need to be made, that sometimes I don’t see the forest through the trees.

For the rest of the afternoon I will be animating a passenger walking up the aisle of the bus. That scene appears for shots from this moment.  I also need to animate the boy walking back to his seat. I had some issues compositing yesterday. Callipeg doesn’t export PNG files with transparency in an entire animation. I ended up having to import each drawing and painting of the character individually into Adobe Premiere Pro and reducing the clip sizes to 4 frames. even with that solution I am finding that the images are bleached out a bit making line work drop away. I may need to find another solution. I also need to back up all the files onto an external hard drive from my iPad, but Apple makes that a nightmare scenario. I hope to accomplish that before the iPad freezes up from lack of memory.

This short film will be on display at Yesterday This Was Hoe at the Orange County Regional History Center, (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando, Florida 32801) on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021.

The exhibit is about the 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire for moving forward.

Yesterday This Was Home: He Wasn’t Going To Move

Posted on by Thor

After getting seated our protagonist stated that he was not going to move. As an animator that saves me some time since I don’t have to move him. Yesterday I animated a character walking up the bus steps and that took 125 frames. There were technical difficulties with the character partially disappearing behind the bus door and then into the bus. It took all day and I crashed my iPad at one point because it could not handle ll the memory needed. I need to get files off of my iPad and onto an external hard drive but Apple doesn’t make file management easy. I am still researching how to move a small mountain off my iPad and onto the external drive.

I will probably animate the girl again today since I have established the cadence of her walk.

This short film will be on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021 at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando, Florida 32801) as part of Yesterday This was Home, an exhibition about the Ocoee Massacre.

The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes

Yesterday This Was Home: Painting The Driver

Posted on by Thor

Though many storyboards are being posed in order, I decided to start posting scenes that I am working on at the moment. Right now I am painting this animation that I completed yesterday. I still need to paint his eye brows, the band around the brim of his hat, and his upper lip and tongue. I tend to do one element at a time going through all the drawing and painting just that one thing at a time. For instance I painted his skin tones from frame one to frame 179. Then I would go through and paint all the coat tones from start to finish. I have one frame fully painted that I reference when starting each step.

This is a dialogue scene with lots of head shaking an a big hand gesture towards the end.  This is about my third dialogue scene and I am getting much better at tying down the subtle movements. In a few hours I should be able to see this cut into the final edit and see how it plays with the sound.

One advantage of Callipeg is that I can carefully paint around the edges and then fill the color quickly by just tapping in the area twice to let it auto fill. As you can see, at this moment the driver is saying, “WeLL”

This short will be on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando, Florida 32801)  for the special exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home,  on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021

The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

Yesterday This Was Home: The Bus

Posted on by Thor


The 1957 era bus. The numbers animate onto the windows and a line animates up the side of the bus as the narrator talks about deciding he will sit 4 seats from the rear of the bus. It is his battle line. I love the look of this old bus. It has an Art Deco smooth look. Some models have a gorgeous baby blue paint job and all the metal glistened. Some people are finding these rusted old buses and converting them into mobile homes. That seems like a noble ambition. I need to keep my writng short, I have lots of work to do.

This short film will be on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando, Florida 32801) in Yesterday This Was Home, on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021.

The exhibit ia about the 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition by the Orange County Regional History Center will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire for moving forward.

 

 

Yesterday This Was Home: Getting the Ticket

Posted on by Thor

After teaching an Urban Sketching Class at Crealde School of Artthis morning I spent the rest of the day animating dialogue for this piece. The most important line of dialogue was “No.” I animated that line for much of the day today. I kept the timing on 4s which means most frames hold for 4 frames. This results in crisp rather clipped motion which I rather liked for this particular scene. A Disney Feature Animated film would always make sure the timing was on 2s or even 1s in some cases, meaning thee could be 24 drawings for every second. On 4s I would only have  to d 6 drawings which is a time saver as I get up to speed again.

I started a second dialogue scene which is framed much like the first scene. That scene is over 10 seconds long which should take all day to do. Besides animating, I also try and get the frames painted and then edited into the final story reel by nightfall. Animation is all consuming and there is always a pile of work waiting to be done. I finished the storyboards yesterday, so I know the story is solidly tied down and now I can just focus on production. This is going to be a crazy ride.

They boy in this scene seems a bit older than 12 years old , So I will likely change his look a bit when I start animating this scene. I like the Art Deco look of the station ticket counter. I used to work i the Empire State Building in NYC and the lobby and whole building had this look.

Again, this film will be on display at the Orange County Regional History Center  for an exhibition titled, Yesterday This Was Home, on display October 3, 2020 – February 14, 2021

The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.