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

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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: He Wasn’t Going To Move

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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: Getting Seated

Posted on by Thor

A slow zoom in as the boy makes his way up the aisle to his seat four rows from the back.

Today I have been animating the bus driver’s dialogue. I designed his face to look a bit like a stop sign. The octagonal pattern is pronounces in his jaw and eye lids mostly. Even his eyes are octagons though softened a bit. The animation is going well but I had to stop because my Apple pencil needs to recharge. Such lags in technology are an excuse for me to multi task, in this case, to write a brief article here. My pencil is now 97% charged so I might not write much more. I also have an animation student in a bout an hour, so I may need to work late into the night to finish the scene I started.

The scene I am animating has a large hand gesture and I decided to animate it on a separate level. My thought is to have it pop up hen the driver says, “Pleeeese.” I might slide it forward or backward in the timeline however when I see it play back with the audio dialogue. Callipeg doesn’t have the ability to import audio, so I am just using video reference to find when the mouth shaped hit on which frame numbers. Once I see it play with the audio in Adobe Premiere Pro then I often decided to change timing on mouth shapes to they read clearer. I try not to fuss too long since there are plenty of other shots to get done.

This short film will be on display at Yesterday This Was Home, an exhibition at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E. Central Blvd. Orlando, Florida 32801) from October 3, 2020 to 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 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: The Bus

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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

Posted on by Thor

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

Posted on by Thor

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.