Group Brainstorming

At work there's been a lot of brainstorming going on, trying to bang out lots of ideas for some interstitials. I am sooo excited to work on them! There are a bunch of ideas that we've got and now we're just brainstorming to make them better. When I go home and work on a project there's not really anyone there to brainstorm with... I could bounce ideas off of a friend but that's about it... I don't really have any writing buddies... I can remember my first big group film project in college, with KT, Jennie and Jen we came up with The Milkman. It didn't get to the animation stage but I learned a lot about writing and working with a team on that one. I enjoy any opportunity to work on an inspiring group project... If your fellow people can all work co-operatively, you can get a fantastic result. Really listening to others ideas and being able to drop 'less good' ideas is good. Plus bouncing all those ideas off of others can get more ideas out which spark more ideas...

thoughts on character choices / A Date with Your Family

This morning when I grabbed by bowl of cereal and plopped down in front of my computer at home to check mail and weather before heading to work, I turned on the desk light beside the monitor on the desk for some light. When I entered the room I considered flipping the switch to the light that lights the entire room but opted instead for the lamp. Probably because I light the light it gives off better... I hate ugly light... and wasting power... Plus Steve was still in bed so didn't want light peeking under the bedroom door and into his eyelids. But without thinking I turned the switch on the desklamp twice... That lamp used to be on my nighttable next to my bed for many years. It had a bulb in it that you could turn on, then on then on, you could get 3 different levels of light, the third switch being the brightest. We haven't had the right bulb in it for a long time to get that effect anymore, but without thinking I just twisted the on switch twice. I haven't really thought about the fact that it doesn't go 'on/off' with the two switches, just that it's 'on-stays on'. But I ended up thinking about this all at some point today and how it has to do with character and the choices that a character makes, whether that character thinks about their actions or not and why. I will have to inspect the lamp when I get home.

Another thing I did today was rush off to the bathroom. I had a lot of coffee and tea today but wanted to get to the end of a scene and was holding off on leaving the scene for just a few extra minutes. So when I did get up and go for the door out of the studio, I ended up pushing on the door a split second before I turned the handle. This results in my slightly smacking into the door before I turn the handle and get out of there. Normally I wouldn't do that. So would a real slick character ever turn the handle slightly after pressing their weight on the door? I guess normally I don't even put my weight to the door, I just turn the handle and push the door open all with one hand. It's weird how many routine things we do each day and we don't necessarily know exactly what we're doing. We don't need to think about it. And if someone doesn't need to do something, generally they don't. I do think there are a lot of choices that people make on a daily basis that involve more conscious and subconscious thinking than we realise. Like what T-shirt I put on. Well... I think about it... and thought Steve tried to convince me there is zero thought in his clothing selection I'm sure there is the occasional thought... Even if someone simply picked a shirt up from a pile of other shirts, why that one? Was it simply the closest?

While doing some research on the 1950's on the weekend I stumbled across a certain video on youtube.com. This very video- is probably the biggest inspiration for my shortfilm. There are many other pieces and ideas and thoughts that have come into the picture since that fateful day when my grade 12 history teacher showed his class this very video, but this was the spark that got the idea inspired. It was shown to us not to be followed in life, but more as a reflection on history and partly as a joke.... Please watch A Date with Your Family.

music and animation

Without music and sound effects, movies would be lifeless. I feel that animation and music are a perfect match.As far as animated musicals go... they have been done perhaps a few too many times, or maybe some animated films are musicals that shouldn't have been. Personally I love a good musical. Recently I've gone through a few artistic phases, basically where I get really hooked on a artistic medium and I think this is due to an artistic frustration... I've got creativity dying to get out of me and I have never created or found enough time to really express that the way I want to... by making a short film. My last hook was that I wanted to write music. Though that would be wonderful, to be able to write music and get out some ideas, it would take me years and years to be able to do. And it wouldn't be something I would pursure professionally either. So maybe in the future I will pick up an instrument and learn a little more, but for now I've tried to put that creative urge to use. Upon reworking the Pickled Perfection script, I tried to write it as if I was writing a song or a musical of sorts. I've got 'lyrics' and I can feel a very definite pacing of the whole thing. I hope I can get it to work... I'm going to need to find a composer to work with who is a match for the project and will feel rewarded by working on it. My brother composes and I am hoping he will be interested... Until I find someone I am letting the rough outline and script stew in my mind. I find it very difficult to critically look at your own work while it's still fresh.

A singer/musician I recently got inspired by is Jenny Lewis. You can listen to some of her songs on her myspace page. I often try to listen to new music and learn about artists I don't know much about.

Here are some very rough design ideas I got out today:

First Post

Today I found a very inspiring blog. It is leonardo and it chronicles the progress of Jim Capobianco's (Pixar story artist and director of the short Your Friend the Rat) short film, Leonardo. He has thus far spent 10 years on this labor of love!!! I don't know if I could still like working on one of my story ideas for that long... None of the ideas I've come up with yet anyway... Story ideas to me reflect a spot that I'm at in my life somehow and when you move on, staying with old ideas somehow seems like going back to a sketch you did in kindergarten and fixing it up... Anyway, this blog and Jim's obvious passion has inspired me to start up a blog about the short film I want to create. It used to be called Pickled and then Perfection and it will probably end up receiving the moniker Pickled Perfection. Aptly named blog.

I've been really wanting to make a short film for a long time but since graduating most of my time has gone to working professionally... Good for paying off student loans and weddings. I've gone through a few strange artistic phases over the past several years and I know I must create this short film!! It is my dream. So... I hope to update here with ideas more often than I've been updating my other two blogs because I am really dying to get this project going. Blogging for fun right now is waaaay down on my list of priorities but this short film is close to the top. My wedding is one thing higher on the list right now and that takes place in May.