The first part of the Quickdraw Animation Lockdown starts in two hours; I'm excited! I've been preparing - some preparation is permitted by the rules; see the first Lockdown post. Some preparation is technical and some (for want of a better word) artistic.
Technical - I've made sure that the computers I'm using will play together politely. I'm animating with Photoshop and my programs Stopmotion FrameCollector and StopMotion FlipView. I'm animating on my modern notebook computer for speed and convenience; it's running Windows Vista. I'll be assembling the movie on a much older machine running Windows 98 because it will run the editing and compositing software that I'm proficient with. And being proficient is what the lockdown needs - it's not a time to be learning new software. I also tested quick ways of getting a video onto YouTube - if time permits, I'll get a video or two into this blog.
Artistic - I'm going to be using my face as the main character, with a supporting cast of common artistic items. I've shot some more images of my face and prepped a pencil and some brushes I imaged using a scanner. The style is mainly cutout animation, like the animated GIFs I talked about earlier; here's a refresher:
What I'm doing must be "virtual cutout animation" - I'm not working with real cutouts, after all. The movie is narrative rather than abstract; I have it outlined in my head. We'll see if I've got the chops to do what I intend. Of course, after it's done, I'll say it's just what I intended all along!
And by the way - the movie I edited from animations done during Quickdraw's Zanymation animation events, Zanymation Magic, leads off the Lockdown and QAS 25th Anniversary party screenings on Monday May 18. Here's the movie - also in higher resolution. Enjoy!
