Land of Winter concept art, and Improving my Posting Habits

I seem to only update this blog annually. That is probably a mistake. I will try to be more diligent about posting new material as I make it. These days have been split between endeavoring to find a job, script-writing, and creating concept art for the script I'm writing.

The current plan is to turn the script into a graphic novel, or a similar format, upon its completion. When working alone, as I am, animation is such a labor-intensive process that it rarely makes sense for the sorts of projects I have cooking up. My main interests tend to lie in narrative. Ideally I like to convey that narrative visually, but I also immensely enjoy dialogue, and occasional forays into conceits that cannot be expressed without a bit of dialogue. I have nothing but absolute respect for the John Lasseters of this world who can convey sophisticated emotional experiences, often in very brief runtimes.

It's a skill I need to improve, it certainly isn't easy. Like the quote that's usually attributed to Blaise Pascal goes, "I apologize for writing such a long letter, I did not have time to write a short one."

Anyhow, with all that said, I may as well explain the images at the top of this post. They're from the script I'm working on, as I attempt to establish a tone and aesthetic. The former is approaching the intended look of the bulk of the piece, with the middle approaching the intended look of a recurring sequence of traumatic flashbacks for the protagonist. The last one is the intended aesthetic for the third act clash, borrowing liberally from the climax of Seven Samurai, if I'm going to borrow, I may as well borrow from the best. These were all done in Corel Painter XI. Usually I work from a sketchbook, scan the drawing, then paint, but in these cases I decided to try my hand working digitally from scratch. For all you lose in immediacy using a tablet instead of paper, you gain a lot in flexibility after the sketch is done.

And finally, just because Ireland sensationally clobbered England in the closing round of the Rugby Six Nations, a quickie little sketch from the week before that turned out to be somewhat prophetic.

Ireland finally coming into form in the 6 Nations Rugby, as imagined a week earlier

New Life Drawings

I haven't updated this blog very often. One of the reasons, of course, being that I haven't been tremendously active, animation-wise. Currently I'm studying for a masters degree in Film Theory & History, but to keep my hand in the visual arts game I've been keeping up with life drawing sessions. I thought I would post some of the results of that now.

They are variously: Gel pens, felt pens, Japanese brush-pens, or pencil.

Showreel

My Showreel:

"Laowai" more or less finished

So the academic year is wrapping up, and so is production on my graduate film. Here are some screenshots from finished scenes:

4th Year Graduate Film

I've just (more or less) finished pre-production on my 4th year graduate film, ready to jump into full-blown production. I'll wait until it's finished before relating any specific story details, but the overall gist of it is that it's an espionage drama set in Shanghai, and involves Numbers Stations.

Here are a few of the pre production images...

The eventual result of "Kiska"

Wow, way to wait a whole year for a new update :)

This is supposed to be a blog of course, but there is rarely time to update these things with decent posts, and not many people are looking at it anyway, but it's good to have a website.

So of course, having finished 3rd year of my college animation course, I finished, to a degree, "Kiska." And boy was I disappointed. Most of my problems were that I mired it in preproduction hell. I was in love with the setting and the idea of the one lone person against the tragic impossible, I also am fascinated by things in the ignored corners of history. Despite the central anecdote of the story being totally unproveable (I could find no evidence of a person who held out in the frozen cold for many days, but that in a way makes it more suited to a fiction retelling) I felt like this kind of thing happened a lot to real people. Tiny humans caught up in the flow of nations.

Anyway, I could never come up with a way to end it that satisfied me. The story defied structure. Also, I wanted to try new methods of animating, specifically I wanted to teach myself how to animate with Corel Painter. Unfortunately I couldnt devote the time, so there is very little real animation in it. Darn.

Anyway, I love the subject matter and concept enough that someday I will revisit it. When I am capable of doing it justice. Someday.

In the meantime, here are some still from the eventual film. Maybe I'll put it on Youtube and upload it here.

Current Concept Art

I'll just start with some of the work I'm currently doing as part of my college coursework, a short film project. I decided to tackle a subject that had been knocking around in my head for some time. The only US territory to ever be occupied by an enemy power, Kiska Island in Alaska. An extremely remote island near the arctic circle that housed a navy weather station, it was occupied in 1943 by Japan. Some saw it as a plan to island-hop to the North American continent, some saw it as merely a diversionary action away from Midway. What followed was a full campaign to retake the island, in which 300 Americans and 2,300 Japanese died.

In any case, one interesting historical anecdote caught my attention: All 7 of the Americans on the island surrendered, but one escaped, ran off into the depths of the island, only to give himself up 40 days later, on the brink of starvation. What motivates these kinds of actions? Every option he had was one of futility, yet he chose to test his own endurance on something impossible. My search for this man's name has so far been fruitless, leading me to believe that perhaps it's an apocryphal fiction, but like Plutarch said, never let the truth get in the way of a good story. This kind of subject matter, besides the romanticly evocative images that come to mind when one thinks of a modern war in a desolate place even by Alaskan standards, and its overlooked status, opens up a lot of interesting issues that I've had to deal with in my fascination with Japanese culture. No one from my family participated in the Pacific War, I was never affected by it. All I have known in my lifetime is Japan as a friend. Yet only 60 years ago America and Japan were engaged in one of the most brutal, bloody conflicts mankind has ever seen. The only nuclear weapons ever used against human beings. Hatred and ferocity, camps on both sides brutalising the percieved enemy. Yet I feel none of this emnity, and I have no interest in hearkening back to a jingoistic past of 'USA USA!'

Anyway, I digress.

Here's a photo of the actual island, at least the northern part, that has an extinct volcano.



Click these for a larger version.

Here's the first bit of visuals I did for this piece. I moved away from this look fairly quickly.



The second one moves closer to the kind of look I'd like for this film to have. A real thickness to the atmosphere, and a sense of the cold low sun, with a barely visible threat looming.



Here'es the latest image. A bit more of the island's landscape can be seen here. In reality, it graduates south from a snow covered volcano to more barren areas, dotted with lakes and the occassional bit of scrubby grass. Probably my favorite image of the bunch. Also the most colorless, and the one that most strikes fear into me at the thought of translating it to an animated film...



Bit of an odd first post, but I'll do more later, hope someone likes these.