It’s halfway through week nine, and a lot has been accomplished. Monday and Tuesday (the 18th and 19th of May) I finished shooting. I shot transitions, the end of the colored conscience scene, and the end of a balanced world (the stars come out!). Thursday morning I worked in the 2D lab to export all my animation clips to quicktime. That afternoon, I imported everything into Final Cut and logged and captured all my time lapse footage and started organizing everything in general. Friday night I continued to cut and order clips. Over the weekend I recorded some more audio, then on Monday (the 25th) I finished ordering everything and then mostly worked on the audio. I tried to keep the audio pretty minimal: ambient nature, ukulele chords, fast and slow breathing, a few sound effects, etc.
So far, my most frustrating issue with editing, is framing! I kept a careful eye on those little turquoise lines in Dragon, outlining the visible action and was careful to keep the unwanted stuff outside those lines… alas, in Final Cut, the action-safe lines seem to be wider, and therefore pick up the animation pegs and the edges of the paper. I fussed with sizing and cropping for so long, and then when I saw my piece on the projector in the Com, I saw those nasty little pegs and paper edges again. SO I figured out I just need to give all my animated pieces a quaint little black border to cover up the ugly.
Tuesday (yesterday) everyone showed off their rough cuts. Though sitting in the tiny closet that is com 326 on a warm day with no circulation picking on each other was a little tedious, overall it was a very productive day. It seemed everyone’s audio was a little rough, but all had great video to show. It’s really helpful to see others’ pieces, here about what they struggle with, and see which techniques work and don’t work. After showing mine, Laurie and I watched it several more times and discussed various alternative orders for the three animation clips and time lapse sequences. As I showed it, I had all the time lapse clips at the beginning of my piece. Starting out at a high speed with rapid breathing, the sequence gradually slowed along with my breathing, elucidating my struggle to stop concentrating on the time, deadlines, or my own life issues, and keep my focus centered on the actual animation process. Ambient nature sounds drift in as I complete my drawing. Then I cut to the balanced world scene, which transitions into the moving doors. After the arrow of time squirms off the page, my animated head pops up, and cut-outs proceed to plague my attempted meditation. After finally clearing my mind, my cut-out conscience slips off and into the next scene. The piece ends with the color conscience scene. In this original version, the flow is unbalanced by the intense beginning, the cut-out scene is a little long and awkward, and the scene of my meditation is too short. So instead, the order will be as follows: time lapse (quick breathing), beginning of cut-out, time lapse (moderate breathing), moving doors, time lapse (easy breathing), mountains (with the transition to one door), a clip of meditation, the ending of the cut-out scene, then the whole meditation scene.
I also finished Secret of the Golden Flower. The very last quote sums it up well, “The Way is present before our eyes, yet what is before your eyes is hard to understand. People like the unusual and enjoy the new; they miss what is right in front of their eyes and do no know where the Way is. The Way is the immediate presence; if you are unaware of the immediate presence, then your mind races, your intellect runs, and you go on thinking compulsively. All of this is due to shallowness of spiritual power, and shallowness of spiritual power is due to racing in the mind (pg. 71).” The world is confusing and upsetting and wonderful and flabbergasting. We don’t always know what to make of it, or what to do with ourselves living in it. The only thing to do is work with the present. To accept what is around you and to strive to bet
Now I have started Nothingness and Emptiness and am slogging through the text, which somehow manages to be abstract, yet highly technical at the same time… that’s what I get for reading a book with the subtitle being “A Buddhist Engagement With the Ontology of Jean-Paul Sartre”. Never fear, I shall conquer!
Loie – I want to commend you on your blog – you have been disciplined about writing and detailing your activities. Very thorough and interesting to read as your project progresses. I also appreciate the quotes from the texts you are reading, centering on the ideas that are informing your creative work. Keep up the excellent blogging through next week!
Lovely animation especially for your first time doing it. The title is great as well. My only suggestion would be to shorten the beginning. Otherwise, I wouldn’t change a thing. I love the breathing in the beginning – it makes me anxious! (in a good way) Also love the tears/water coming down with the lips in the center.