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: Boarding

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A drivers seat eye view of our character entering the bus.Before bounding up the steps he glances towards the back of the bus then fills the frame as he passes our point of view. Glancing at this and writing about it, I realize that I need to change the angel of the molding on the inside of the bus. I will make that alteration today. That is the thing about animation once you make one change several others have to be made. I finished animating a pivotal scene yesterday and it affected the two scenes that followed.

Toady I will be animating a dialogue scene with the driver. He does a big flourish with his hands and I suspect it will get a laugh. The narrator over acted as he delivered this line so it is a chance to overact and exaggerate a bit the drivers performance.  It is fun each day to wake up to a new challenge. I am hoping to have seven seconds of animation finished by the end of today.

This short will be on display at a special exhibition fromOctober 3, 2020 to February 14, 2021. The show is titled Yesterday This Was Home. It is about he 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: Boarding

Posted on by Thor

I woke up this morning realizing how nice it is to wake up to just focus on animation. For the past 4 months I have been doing dark COVID-19 themed illustrations and my research always left me fuming about the incompetence and indifference of America’s response to this global health  crisis. Now I can put that aside and focus on this tale of a bus trip.

Of course 1957 was also a dark time. Emmett Till had just been lynched and the civil rights movement had just begun. Despite this turmoil, a 12 year old boy took a trip up to Detroit on his own and took a stand.

I created this board with the idea of having the viewer a bit lower than waste level, making the adults look tall in relation to the small boy. The protagonist approaches the line, which is being held up as a woman fumbles for her ticket. I’ll   probably have to get rid of that purse under her elbow when i animate to allow some freedom to move her arms.

This short film will be on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando, Florida 32801) from October 3, 2020 to February 14, 2021. The exhibit titled Yesterday This Was Home is about the 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, which remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history. 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.

 

Yesterday This Was Animation

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Cross dissolve to the character now walking to the Orlando Bus Station. This re-used the animation form the first shot but the animation had to be repositioning. I was hoping I could move the animation as a whole in Callipeg but that solution evaded me. Instead I re positioned each drawing one at a time making sure the foot positions lined up on the pavement.

Today was a good day of production, I got a bunch of boards done and several of those seem animated since I used the Procreate video playback feature to recreate the process. I get my best ideas as I am waking up in the morning lying in bed and this morning I came up with the idea of having negatives playback when the character reflects on our countries history of racism. I had one of these Ah-Ha moments each day when I was doing my COVID-19 series of illustrations. It was hard to stop the COVID-19 series since the ideas keep coming, But now that I am animating again, I am loving the process and getting lost in the work all day and into the night.

At first the project seemed impossible on the tight deadline, but I keep chipping away and things keep falling into place. There is a definite sense of serendipity that comes with making a film. Working from the oral history makes boarding a breeze since the length of each shot is determined by the narration.

Again all this work is being done of the exhibition titled, Yesterday this Was Hone: The Ocoeee Massacre of 1920. The Exhibition is on display from October 3, 2020 to February 14, 2021 at the Orange County Regional History Center. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history. This exhibit is sadly still relevant today with the election coming up in November,  since America has never been able to fully address racism.

Yesterday This Was Home: Learning to Walk

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The first scene opens with a close up on the Christmas star in Downtown Orlando. I created the sketch and painting in Procreate. The great this about that program is that you can play back a movie which shows every stroke creating a time lapse replay of the painting as it was created. I tool that movie and panned town to the street level. The sketch is created as the camera move happens and when I got to the street I lap dissolved to the final painting to save some time. A young boy walks across the street with a suit case in hand.

I fully animated this scene to test out thee program I plan to use to do all the animation for the project. The program is called Callipeg and it was designed to be used on the iPad. The program is surprisingly intuitive if you have animated with paper and pencil before. That reminds me, I am writing this entry because my Apple Pencil has run out of battery life and I am waiting for it to recharge. A good old wood and graphite pencil never needs to be recharged and sharpening it takes just a second if yo have an electric sharpener.

I animated my character taking four strides across the street and the scene required 97 drawings. I am learning by trial and error discovering ways to save time each time I animate a scene. Since I decided to keep the head and torso still, I could cut and past those elements from drawing to drawing and just animate the legs and arms. Having him carry a suit case had the added advantage of fewer arm swings to animate. I  used the standard timing I teach most students at Elite Animation Academy. Each stride takes about one second or 24 drawings to animate. I am experimenting quite a bit with timing to see when I can get away with animating on twos and fours when possible. That means each drawing is held for two or four frames of film. It can save on the amount of drawings that need to be done.

In traditional animation you flip the drawings as they are created to watch the motion as you work. In Callipeg, three fingers scrolling up and down the screen accomplish the same effect. For some reason my pencil turns into an eraser unexpectedly while I animate so I have to be very careful with how I touch the screen. Just selecting multiple frames in the timeline was a challenge. You have to touch and tap twice very fast and drag to make the selection. I had to practice most of an evening because the selection would just move the frame I tapped on.  So much of my time is being spent training myself on developing just the right touch so the computer knows what I want.

This scene is part of a short being show at the Orange County Regional History Center for their exhibit on the 1920 Ocoee Massacre. The exhibit is titled, Yesterday This Was Home. This special exhibition is 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

Yesterday This Was Home: Greyhound

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Cross dissolve to second title card. I spend much of mu first day of production figuring out the aspect ratio to be used for the film. Adobe Premiere Pro had to have this aspect ratio and I made a blank fame of future storyboards. Black and white was the theme from the start. The oral history is a bit over three minutes long which is an eternity of work if you are doing frame by fram animation. There are 24 frames per second for most traditional animated films so that was the frame rate that I am using moving forward. Three minutes means about 4,300 individual drawings for smooth animation. I am finding various ways to streamline the production workflow. For instance storyboards double as the lay outs for each scene.

This film is going to be shown at an exhibition titled Yesterday This as Home, at the Orange County Regional History Center. This special exhibition 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.

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 as Home: Animating Again

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For those of you who have been following my COVID-19 series, I have had to stop that series since I am now fully engaged in animating for an exhibit at the Orange County Regional History Center. I am animating oral histories, using those stories as the audio for the animation. This process is an all consuming obsession so I have decided to just post small clips each day of the project in progress rather than posing old sketches each day. I haven’t been fully involved in animation since Disney Feature Animation closed over 20 years ago. At Disney I was one of several hundred artists who helped create films that were drawn by hand with 24 drawings for every second of film. I am tipping my toe in again, and having fun solving new challenges every day. Should any animation student find this series of posts they should find it helpful to see what problems and solutions had to be found to keep this project moving with an army of one.

Fade in on this simple title card. The black border is the film safe 1920×1080 aspect ratio. All of my storyboards are done in this black and white style. I am hoping that the boards are finished enough so that I can use the art as the background for the animation itself. I am working digitally keeping the background level separate for drawings of characters and background elements. I jump around each day sometimes animating sometimes boarding and every day compositing it all in Adobe Premiere Pro.

Today I am working on a animation that I consider the cornerstone of the piece I am putting together. It involves lip syncing dialogue and if it goes well, more scenes will be done this way. I find myself acting out actions during the day thinking about the animation to come. An added benefit is that working on animation in the studio keeps me very engaged during the COVID-19 lock down. Anyway, I need to keep these post short since there is tons of boarding and animating left to do.

Stars of Hope

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The Orange County Regional History Center exhibited a large collection of these stars that were left at the site of the Pulse massacre. Stars of Hope gives communities the tools to empower children’s compassion through creativity. They foster empathy and compassion for communities throughout the world. They are pioneer communal therapeutic art at a global scale, while combating loneliness. Speaking about the organization were, Marcel, Annie, Sarah and Elsie.

Marcel was a New Yorker. She met the man of her dreams and moved to Georgia in 1998. She has two daughters Sarah born in 2001 and Annie born in 2003. They started making the stars as a way to handle the grief. Everyone is hard hit in the beginning, but they quickly get back to their own life.

Annie is a photo historian. She has a quiet energy. Pulse was emotionally draining for everyone. AS a family they felt the need to regroup. The family saw the wall of stars at the History Center’s Pulse exhibit. For them it as a beautiful ray of light. It was so beautiful. They hope that the stars inspire people to feel hope rather than slip into depression. Negativity only pushes us into darkness. They want to inspire us all to tolerate one another and enjoy people.

Elsie lost a daughter on 9-11. She drove up to NYC right after that tragic day. It was the longest car ride of her life. Here in Orlando Pulse is hallowed ground. Going there felt up lifting. Everything was so bright. There was healing and spirituality there. There were rainbows and free hugs. I felt so inviting and embracing.

The Starts of Hope group wants to have a day of celebration each year. It doesn’t need to focus on a tragedy. The Texas division of Stars of Hope cuts all the stars. All the volunteers gather on labor Day weekend, celebrate and eat a lot of meat. The kids started painting he stars and so many were painted for Orlando. Signing the back of the star is as important as the painting of the star.

History Happy Hour

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Staff from the Orange County Regional History Center have been working from home in order to self isolate and flatten the curve of the Covid-19 virus.  They meet each morning to plan the day’s work and to check up on each other. Work continues on an Ocoee exhibit that might, virus allowing, open August 29, 2020. The exhibit called, Yesterday, This Was Home: The Ocoee Massacre of 1920, is about the election day race riot that 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.

Suddenly having the staff working from home created challenges. Everyone had to adjust to video conference calls on Zoom. Some staff love the one on one interactions that can be found in the workplace. To help staff adjust to this digital divide, Lesleyanne Drake, the curator of collections initiated a once a week Happy Hour. Staff get to meet on Zoom and share a drink and stories. It is not about work but instead a chance to socialize. Pam Schwartz, the Chief Curator, suggested that each week someone might come up with a short presentation and she volunteered to give the first such presentation. I sketched while she told her story to her staff while sipping a prosecco. 

___________________________________________________________________________________


Her mildly nearly drinking history was about Queen Boudica (Boo-di-cah) of the British Celtic Tribe the Iceni. She was a badass. She was described as having tawny hair down below her waist, a harsh voice and a piercing glare. She habitually wore a large golden necklace, a colorful tunic, and a thick cloak fastened by a brooch.


She married Prasutagus, the king of the Iceni people (now the Norfolk area of England) and they had two daughters. They ruled as an independent ally of Rome and when the King died, he left his kingdom to their children. However, his will was ignored by Rome who went ahead and took all his stuff. The Romans and their slaves flogged Boudica and raped she and her daughters.


In 60 or 61 AD when the Roman Governor Paulinus was campaigning on the island of Mona off of Wales (a refuge for British rebels and a Druid stronghold), there was ongoing mistreatment of Britons by the Romans, even those that were allied to them. Boudicca, led a revolt of the Iceni, Trinovantes, and other tribes. They destroyed Camulodunum (Colchester), a settlement of discharged Roman soldiers.


The Roman Governor hurried on down to Londinium (London) and realized he was up the creek without a paddle without enough men to fight this lady who was headed that way. Tacitus, a scholar of the subject, wrote, “Those who were chained to the spot by the weakness of their sex, or the infirmity of age, or the attractions of the place, were cut off by the enemy.”  He took whoever would join him and fled.


Boudica led her now large army, including random farmers who joined along the way, and burned Londinium to the ground. It is estimated that some 80,000 Romans and Brits were killed in the 3 cities conquered by Boudica, many were tortured. Cassius Dio, another scholar, said the most noble of women were impaled on spikes and had their breasts cut off and sewn to their mouths.

Roman Emperor Nero basically panicked over all of this and almost pulled all of his Roman troops out of England. Boudica led her growing troops from her chariot. The Roman Governor regrouped, put together a whole new legion, and posted up, waiting along a Roman Road now known as Watling Street. Though greatly outnumbered, they moved into a wedge formation with auxiliaries on their flanks atop a defile. They charged in, lances set, many of Boudica’s common folk, unskilled in battle, went to flee, but their women and children who had come to watch what they assumed would be a sweeping win, lined the rear of their battleground with wagons, making it impossible for anybody to escape and her troops were slaughtered.


It’s not 100% certain how Boudica died, but, after the battle she may have taken poison, as well as given it to her daughters, to kill them all rather than go through being beaten, raped, and tortured again. She died c. 60 or 61 AD.


After this brutal tale the staff continued to socialize. Welcome to the new age of digital storytelling as we sacrifice through social distancing to try and stop the spread of Covid-19.

Weekend Top 6 Picks for March 7 and 8, 2020

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Saturday March 7, 2020

8am to 1pm Free. Parramore Farmers Market. John H Jackson Community Center, 3107, 1002 W Carter St, Orlando, FL 32805. Purchase
quality, fresh and healthy food grown in your own neighborhood by local
farmers, including Fleet Farming, Growing Orlando, and other community
growers.

10am to 1pm Free. Mayor’s Jazz in the Park. 

Cypress Grove Park


290 Holden Ave., Orlando FL.

Orange County Mayor Jerry L. Demings invites you, your family and friends to attend a free evening of jazz. 

6pm to 8pm Free. Yoga Glow Festival. 

Novel Lucerne


733 Main Lane, Orlando FL. A high energy YogaFlow for all ages and levels. Glow paint and glow sticks provided.

Sunday March 8, 2020

9am to Noon Free. Fleet Farming Swarm Ride. 

East End Market


3201 Corrine Drive, Orlando FL. Visit farmlettes and learn about urban agriculture on a 1 to 2-mile farming bike ride.

2pm to 3:30pm Free. Florida’s Female Pioneers with Peggy MacDonald. 

Orange County Regional History Center


65 E. Central Blvd., Orlando FL. Historian Peggy Macdonald examines some of the notable women who have
shaped the Sunshine State, from Dr. Esther Hill Hawks, a female
physician who ran the first racially integrated free school in Florida,
to Betty Mae Tiger Jumper, the first female tribal chair of any American
Indian tribe in the nation.

 

1pm to 5pm Free. Love Fest. 

Quantum Leap Winery


1312 Wilfred Drive, Orlando FL. Block party with artists, vendors, food and more.