About time I put some animation news up!

Yes, for an animation blog I havent really been posting much about animation have I? Ah well, better get cracking. First of news, me and my partner both now have a home, at least for the next six months, and we also have the internet connected, making life much easier for us. I also have a job interview on Wednesday for a banner ad studio, fingers crossed for the best.

Now, for animation!

On Monday I released my first little short in a long time, the pacing is all over the place, the concept is far from my usual fair, but I just felt like I really had to finish and release something, it had just been far too long. Its called Happy Bieberday and was originally going to be a short for xmas, unfortunately due to floods and moving it didn't quite work out that way.



Since the release of that particular short, I have gone back to work on my film project that has been dragging on for far to long, a film called The Telescope. Its about a small child that finds a telescope laying on the ground after being sent away from home by his abusive mother and this telescope acts as a portal for his imagination. I started this film back in late 2009, so the fact its still going is embarrassing, but I have made good progress the last few days, focusing mainly on filling in gaps from earlier, adding more detail to backgrounds (with place holder assets as you will see in the next two shots) and adding more animatic work to the end.





Here are some more screens just showing off some other parts of the film.







And this is what it looks like before I vector it and make it all pretty



Im not making any promises about a release date, but id really love it to be finished within the next 2 months... fingers crossed.

Alright, onto something else now.

I recently sat down to watch Spieldbergs War of the Worlds. Its been a number of years since I last watched it and seeing as one day id love to make a film based on the book by the same name (it really bares little resemblance to the Spieldberg film) I thought I would sit myself down and take some notes, on what I liked, and didn't like about the film.



Im not going to bring up the obvious stuff, like the fact the Tripods were already here and that the aliens came down in lightning bolts, that would be to easy, nor will I go on about Spieldbergs usual traps like the fact a mans video camera continues to work after everything else has been stopped by EMP and leaps in logic just to pay homage to the film from the 50's (which I will review at a later point) . Rather, my main problems were with missed opportunities to further engage the audience which are found in the book, but in none of the adaptions.

Of course this film is set in 2005 rather than 1898, technology had changed a lot, in the original novel mankind was armed only with rifles and cannons, and one naval vesel. In 2005 we had access to all sorts of advanced weaponry, which is why I suppose they gave the aliens force fields, because thats what every sci fi movie does when it wants to explain why our weapons have no effect. I guess this is one way that the films (all of them) have really deviated from the book, in the original book the army actually managed to take out a number of Tripods, using surprise attacks and playing off the fact the invaders didn't have an understanding of how all humanities technology and war tactics worked. A canon ball to the face as a tripod walks past a hill with the military hidden behind a piece of higher ground manages to take one of them out, as does the naval vessel Thunderchild, taking out a number of tripods by being unpredictable, This created hope for the reader, as you thought humanity stood some sort of fighting chance, of course the invaders were smart, and never fell for the same trick twice, crushing the readers hopes and increasing tension. In every adaption the invaders had been completely unstoppable, never showing any weakness and then just falling apart at the end. Humanity is just left in a defenseless panic and then BOOM everything works out okay. This has always bothered me.

Likewise the ending of each adaption has been completely rushed through, in the novel you have a man who believes he has lost everything, and then tries to offer himself to the invaders because he feels alone in the world, and like life is no longer worth living, this act in itself stirs emotions in the reader, you've spent the whole book with this person, you feel for them, and now they want to kill themselves. Only then is it revealed that the invaders are dead, as the narrator stands there offering himself only to find that the invader is dead, standing motionless with crows pecking at the pilots corpses.

Each of the movies just sort of rush it in, the stars of the film have pulled through this, they came out okay, and the invaders are dead, lets have a party.

Of course these are just small things and its probably just me being to much of a purist as far as the book is concerned, and I realise that written work and film are two very different mediums, and that over 100 years has passed since the books release.

There are a number of things I do like about the film, the main one of course being the design of the tripods.




And also a number of nods to the original book, such as having crows land on the tripods to show that they have lost their shields, but as a whole, after watching the film for the first time in around 3 years, I found the first 45 minutes to be as exciting as ever, but everything after the characters head into the basement is just... feels like another movie, a far less superior movie.

Personally if I could recommend one adaption it would be this one.



As for me, im going to keep doing layouts, character designs and what not while I finish up The Telescope and whatever comes up next.

Dont feed your Korean girlfriend hot dogs made with Kangaroo

What a strange little bug...



Yes, this was my lesson for the week, I thought I might give a bit of the ol' cookin a go. I had some Kangaroo sausages, had some onion, had some eggs and got some bread rolls. Turns out it wasn't such a great idea, for my girlfriend at least. I liked it, but im told I like strange things.

So here is my step by step instructions on making the "Kangaroo Manwhich"


Step 1) Caramelize some onions and fry some eggs.


Step 2) Bust out your weight loss friend Mr George Forman, he can cook like nobodies business, make sure you put some holes in your banger's with a fork first, or else they end up looking like mine, consider yourself warned.


Step 3) Cut some bread rolls down the middle, probably the easiest step.


Step 4) Probably the most important step, cram it all into said bread roll and drench it in BBQ sauce, and that's pretty much it.

Its not for everybody as Kangaroo is quite a strong flavored meat, but there you go.

In other news!



This jeep has a shovel mounted to the front. I didn't get a chance to ask the man why, seemed a little strange to me. Was he a grave digger? Perhaps just wanting to be ready for the inevitable zombie apocalypse? Or maybe even he was just a guy who wanted to stick a shovel on the front of his jeep for the hell of it? I guess we will never know.



Also worth noting is this form of advertising, I know its a little hard to see but its a helicopter flying with a big banner behind it. Ive seen this done with planes in movies but never in real life, least not with a helicopter. What happens if the wind changes? Or it starts to rain? Or storm? Helicopters aren't cheap to run, why would you want to use one for your marketing campaigns, especially when it all depends on the weather?

Last of all, aside from all these fun things, I've had the opportunity to play through Transformers: War for Cybertron.



Its actually the first game I've played from start to finish since Mass Effect 2 hit last year, and I got that game at launch. This game has been out for months. Ive got to say I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The art style was a great ode to Gen 1 of the TV series, all the characters sounded how I remembered them for the most part, and it contained plenty of references to the original series and movie. I was a little saddened by some characters absences like Shockwave and Wheeljack, but it was far from enough to spoil the experience. The gameplay itself felt refined and enjoyable as well, the shooting felt smooth and responsive, the ability to transform at any time really opened things up strategically. But I did have a few niggling issues with the game as well, for one some parts of the game (one in particular) were clearly designed around playing co-op online, and playing these areas of the game solo lead to large difficulty spikes. Also the Decepticon campaign felt more enjoyable then the Autobot one for me, especially with all the scripted events surrounding Omega Supreme which were fantastic. The Decepitcon campaign really built up towards the confrontation where as I felt the ending of the Autobot campaign fell a little flat by comparison. Id easily recommend the game to any 3rd person shooter fan, whether they are a fan of Transformers or not.

The only other note id like to make is I get the net back at my own home on Wednesday. Hurrah!

Making a house a home

What a busy few days it has been. Ive been to two interviews at two different recruitment agencies, pretty well moved into the new house, all kinds of fun and exciting things have been going on.













The main thing to come out of these interviews is that I need to do some tweaking to my resume and completely redo my website, again. Now im okay with this since my current website was little more then a place holder, I just need to work out how to get some code to work that I had struggled with last time, that being parent and child .swfs in AS3. Probably the only thing I can get to work in AS2 but not AS3. Quite a pain indeed. This means pushing back my iOS app, but im sure it will live. There are quite a few options open to me in the web banner space, its just a matter of waiting for an opening.



Check out this place, it has vines all over one side of it, I love it!







Obviously since all our gear has arrived we have also begun the process of turning this house into a home. The bedroom is still looking a little bare but the home theater has come together nicely. I love having a dedicated home theater!





Also worth noting are these slugs, I don't know what kind they are or where they came from but they are far bigger than anything back home on the Northern Rivers.

The new crib

Yes, me and my partner finally have a new home to move into, although we wont be for a number of days yet, this is due to the need for the connection of power and gas to the home, what fun is a home without power? None says I, least not when the sun goes down. But I digress, I shall return to this topic in good time.

EH HEM!

Okay, so really, me and my partner did go to a couple more inspections before deciding that we would go with the home that we now have. They were actually on this side of town, which we were rather keen on because its close to the university and the food here is just, well, great. This homes were so close in fact that we walked from where we are currently staying.



I dont really have an explanation for this, it was at a pottery store, a life size green giraffe, or at least what mankind would assume to be life size for a green giraffe, as the creature doesn't exist one can only speculate as to its size.







I also saw some pretty clouds =3



And this old building which was opposite a home we were inspecting, so much character! So pokey looking, but those windows just open it right up. Love the flaking dark paint as well. Reminds me of something out of an old painting.



We also found this awesome crossing button on the walk home, I dont know how old it is but it just looks classy.



Compare that with this, the cold hearted and boring design of modern society with a giant button as if to say "you clearly dont know what your doing, you should walk this way!"



I also found this mother at the local 7eleven to be a wee bit over priced, $4.80 indeed, what do they take me for? Wait, hang on a second... that says $48.00! Those are some good margins!



As mentioned earlier there is some great food in this area, this however is not food, its a soft drink, from Japan. Whats up with the marble in the top section? I had no idea what I was doing when I "opened" this bottle and still to this day dont know if I was doing it correctly.





This was at Shuji Sushi again by the way, amazing bento boxes for $10.90, unbelievable value, I should be getting paid for this blog post, maybe I could ask them about doing some marketing online for them? ha ha...

Yesterday we also ventured to the Pancake Parlour in the CBD, now ive been to the one in Brisbane CBD a number of times and never come away feeling like I got what I paid for.



I came away from the one here in Melbourne feeling like I had committed crimes against humanity, or at least my stomach. So much food, but ever so good.



They also had these funky balls... thats all im saying.



We were welcomed home by this lovely sunset. Awww.

So that brings us to today, the day we went and picked up our keys to our new home.



I saw this sign while we were waiting for the train, something about it, just cracks me up, I think perhaps it should have been two separate signs? Almost looks like they want to deter people from people feeding the birds cigarettes. Just saying.

Eventually after signing several thousand documents we got the keys to our new house. It was much easier to take photos now that there is nobody moving out.





The back yard once again, nice and green, im a bit iffy on the BBQ by the shed, im going to try to get it going but I make no promises.







The kitchen has recently been redone and is quite frankly brilliant. Also comes with a heater for those cold winters nights, I hear it gets quite chilly in these parts around winter time.





This is the lounge room, which we are thinking of using for a bedroom since it has a set of doors and a heater, no heating in any of the real bed rooms. Its unorthodox but we are going to give it a whirl anyway, with plans to use one of the bedrooms as studio and the other as a designated home theater.





This place also has a heap of stain glass out the front which I absolutely love.





This is looking from the lounge room into the bed room and back again, just to give a sense of size to this place, which is massive.



And heres some pretty leaves so your eyes can take a break from all the brown and white.

Lastly worth noting is that on the way home there were some "storms'a'brewin".









These of course lead to flash flooding which you can read all about here.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/floods-cause-traffic-chaos-20110204-1aga5.html

Ironically we left Brisbane thinking we were getting away from all this... ha ha

I wish I had more to post on my iOS app but between moving and looking for work I havent been able to spend the time I would like on it, so hopefully I will have something to show for myself next time. I also need to change that header, looks awful...