Molrak.com
Daily Digital Wanderlust

My schedule has been approved for this, the second semester. In order to create an even work load, I started by looking backwards to my animatic. After viewing it a few times, I created a new shot list based off my animatic, then made corrections to the list based on the feedback I received when the animatic was presented. I then went through the new list and with my scenes open in Maya, I created a list of cameras needed for the entire shoot. I ended up with 70 shots and 15 cameras, excluding the fight scene (which is a whole other pickle in of itself, in need of a serious analysis (at a later date)).

I divided the 70 shots across 6 weeks, meaning that roughly 12 shots were due per week. I divided my week according to my class load–Tuesdays and Wednesdays I need to animate only one shot. Thursdays and Mondays I need to animate 2 shots, and Saturday and Sunday I need to animate 3 shots. Fridays are exclusively reserved for redos starting in ‘week 2′ of the schedule, but can also be used to pick up weekend shots early if time is available.

Thankfully a good chunk of those shots are relatively quick–there are only a handful that exceed five seconds. Probably on my busiest of days, I’ll only need to animate 15 seconds of footage. My average should be between 5-9 seconds of footage a day. That’s a lot of animation, but it should be achievable.
Over spring break and the week following, my sole goal is to work on the fight scene. This will be the most challenging aspect of the film, in spite of the fact that it will last less than thirty seconds. Creating a convincing fight between two titans is no easy task, especially since they’ve been endowed with rather strange proportions. However, I’m hopeful that I will be able to create something that at the very least, doesn’t detract from the remainder of the film.

After the fight scene, I have two weeks for redos, compiling, sound effects, and music. The film is due on Tuesday, April 17th at 09:00. After that, I have three weeks to work on a portfolio, which will be a cake walk. I already have a good chunk of my portfolio completed, and I’ll have time to work on it across *3* different classes.

Now it’s off to the races–here’s hoping I can stick closer to my schedule this time around.

Now that the semester has kicked into gear once again, I’ve resumed serious production on Godflower (remember, working title only). I finished off plotting the calendar and schedule for this semeseter–I have to average around 2 shots animated per day. OI! It’s not going to be a pretty scene, but thankfully I’ve left in considerations for redos if need be. I’ve also paced this semester out better, so that I don’t have to deal with a lot of work during the middle of the week, leaving the bulk of the heavy lifting for the weekend.

As the semester rolls on, I’ll be continuing to update this blog, for two reasons:

• As a record of my work on the project.
• As a tool to help keep myself motivated during the semester.

While I won’t be putting up the script, I do hope to get stills from various stages up in the next few days. I also need to find a good Norsk final name for the project. Thus far, I’ve mainly been running into dead ends with the limited time I have to look for such things.

Additional projects for the semester: College of Business and Professional Studies Interactive Flash Piece, perhaps writing a comic entitled The Unluckiest Leprechaun, perhaps writing and drawing a comic entitled either Henchmen or The Cleaners, painting class projects, print production projects, library publication projects (both digital and printed), and possibly an assistant editorship (primarily layout) for the monthly school newspaper.

Too busy? Nah…

1000 Blank White cards (often abbreviated as 1kBWC) is quite possibly the most creative card game ever invented. At its heart is a blank white deck of cards, originally developed using flash cards. The game spread from Madison at the University of Wisconsin to many other universities, including Harvard (from where it first hit the net).

To play, a group of players sit down with a blank cards and try to make the most creative ideas for cards that they can think of. Points are often given or taken depending on the card–for example, you could make a card that says, “Your continued denial of global warming”, showing a person melting beneath a hot sun, and then subtract a million points. The points are kept track mainly for fun, as the point of the game is to create the most original cards, rather than scoring. Cards can also be created to counteract other cards–for example, “Rocket ship takes you to a colony on Mars, thus preventing any global warming damage, earn +1 billion points”. Some groups with fully developed introduce the concept of a ’suck box’, where cards that don’t live up to the standards of the group are sent to sleep until they’re occasionally drawn back for reintroduction into the main deck.

Once an adequate deck is built up with my gaming crew, I’ll start posting them on the blog. Until then, here are some useful 1kbwc links:

• Wikipedia’s article on 1kBWC is the best general overview on the subject, including a brief history and rule guidelines.
• A geocities site on 1kBWC where I first discovered the phenomenon, including a good introduction to the game with examples.
• The Seattle Electric Grimmeldeck, which has an excellent online 1kBWC deck from which it draws random cards.
• 1kBWC in Boston, which includes the option to browse cards by subject and text.
• 1000 blank white cards on trouserarousal, the internet hub of 1kBWC.