Monday, September 04, 2006

The DARKLAND production race countdown.... day 1

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To explain what's going on, my Sister in Stopmo Shelley Noble just announced the other day that she at long last has 16 free days to work on her stopmotion film Halfland. Well, I was just about ready to end my month (or so) long vacation from animation anyway, and what better way to do it than to challenge her to a production race.... 16 days of concentrated production for each of us. The competition can only do us good. She has a bit of an advantage in that I have to hold down the day job and can only work for a few hours each night, but then I have a good deal of experience in stopmo stuff over her, so this should be pretty close. We've both chosen tentative deadlines for our films at the end of the year, and time's a'tickin' away.... in my case I did a bit of experimenting a while back but haven't really launched into any kind of production schedule yet, and I know if I don't very soon I'm not gonna make it.

My first order of business is to make my 8 puppets. Two nights ago being the first day of the challenge, I intended to get started, so I accomplished step 1... scraping the inside of a bunch of brass and aluminum tubing with an X-Acto sawblade to rough them up so they'll grip the JB Quickweld better when I jam the armature wires inside.

...That's it. Yep, that was absotively posilutely all I got done on day 1! But of course it's not about who wins... there are no losers in this. We both benefit from the slingshot effect of each other's momentum. This is the COMERADERY/COMPETITION effect I sometimes rhapsodize about, that can spur both participants on to ever greater achievements.

5 comments:

UbaTuber said...

Thanks for the post, short and sweet...slingshot effect is exciting, taking the motivational thing to the next level....I can throw myself into the mix in a way, stopmoshorts on the 30th and I really want something done...I've been staring at a faceless armature for a week, trying to sculpt my version of Cesares from Devils Backbone for my little zombie film...I think I have sculptor's block :) probably angst about the unfinished Jenny 2 sculpt....poor assless Jenny 2...in her little plastic baggy tomb...anyway :) I'll shoot for daily posts too, to motivate myself and force progress along...gonna get on that now ;)

Darkmatters said...

Hey cool! Damn, now I guess we gotta change the name to Ubadarkland! ;)

Shelley Noble said...

I love this! Ubadarkland! I didn't get the fun of Darkland until that joke!

I'm soooo glad you posted these days' progress, Mike, what a thrill to see the action!

Couple a things, one; Brother say wha? Ain't no way mama gonna be done with Halfland by December 31, 2006? My stated goal is Film 1; Scene 2; Animated, that's it. There's no other production schedule for Halfland nor do I want one as long as I'm making daily progress.

Mine is more painting than movie, therefore more about my pleasure and less about Hollywood methods.

Darkmatters said...

"Ain't no way mama gonna be done with Halfland by December 31, 2006? My stated goal is Film 1; Scene 2; Animated, that's it."

Well yeah... that's what I meant.

Shelley Noble said...

You wus ambigguisis. I jus wanted to makes sur.