Young’s Corollary for Publicly Promoted Announcements: If a definite time for an announcement or a release is made, events will conspire to make it ludicrous or plainly impossible to try to meet the deadline.

Yes, I am here. I am not dead. I am not even dead tired. But there will be no announcement tonight. I registered the domain, I picked the images for the splash screen. I even opened Photoshop and began the layout. That’s when my iffy-but-working AC power supply for my laptop decided to fail, apparently irreparably.

30 minutes of fiddling later–still not working. No problem! Web work is by definition portable–I’ll just move over to one of the other computers. (BTW, you don’t begin to appreciate something like Adobe Photoshop until you have had it and suddenly don’t.) So I fired up the trusty-and-free GIMP to finish the job and suddenly it crashes. With an unexplainable error. I download and reinstall GTK+ and GIMP 2.4.6. Twice. With no better results.

Rather than attempting to do it with Microsoft Paint, I decided to have another go at fixing the laptop. 45 minutes, three rubber bands, a piece of aluminum foil and a Norton Anthology of American Literature later, the power blinks on!

Joyfully I power up the laptop, open PS, and am importing my images when it decides to quit. Going back once more to GIMP, I reinstall it again, witness it crash AGAIN, and seized by some kind of desperation, begin disabling any .dll in my system32 folder that comes up with an error message. Finally, at 11:58, I belatedly conclude that apparently I am not to get this announcement out before midnight.

That is the comfort of being a Calvinist–the Lord must have a purpose of some sort behind this–who knows, possibly forcing me to get some sleep so I can get up and get to work in the morning. So I shall. The announcement will come tomorrow or the next day when the Lord enables me to get my electronic world put back together. Apparently it is also time to buy a new AC adapter…

Until then, a teaser…
What occurred on July 6th, 1938 that would have repercussions for the next 70 years? Hint: it’s been in the international news a lot lately.

In His Service,
John Calvin Young

Although the organization of the project has been interesting, the quality of the finished project is the most intriguing point for me. Blender has come a long way–I’ve been using it since 2005, and its capabilities have expanded by leaps and bounds (no pun intended), especially in furs and particles, which are showcased in this film. This software has opened opportunities for many young animators who could not otherwise have made the step into professional-level animation. Some projects are even specifically using Blender for scalability, as it is freely available, such as The Filthy Spoon Project, modeled and designed entirely in Blender.

P.S.–The entire production files are also available, as well as DVDs for sale on the site. In the spirit of open-source software, though, the film is downloadable in up to 1080p resolution for free.

In other notes, the composer for the film, Jan Morgenstern, has released the whole score as a freely downloadable album.
Very interesting for those who might be scoring other short films. A full feature score is very interesting, but scoring a short film (like shooting one) is a rather different art.

Very, very interesting project. And I believe it was done with 7 lead animators. I think a project like this could very easily be done by one or another of the online groups, like CF.org for example.

In His Service,
John Calvin Young

Anyrate, I was handling some of the audio/computer stuff, and so I downloaded a thirty-day trial of Adobe’s new product, OnLocation CS3. I want to get CS3 so bad! (Actually, OnLocation is bundled with Premiere Pro now, as is Encore DVD, so I don’t HAVE to buy Adobe’s CS3 Production Pack to get it…) On that set we had some filmmakers who really KNEW lighting–such as Josh Moore out of California. He and Jesse, our DP, used my laptop with Adobe’s wonderful scopes (vector and waveform) and DV monitor all night long both nights to help adjust the camera and preview footage. Wonderful stuff–can’t wait until I can get it for real.

I’ll post a quick screenshot when I can find one from the set–I’m about run out on the trial. I might be able to find some video of it in action from the set on my camera to post on YouTube. For those that can’t buy Adobe yet (like me) there is an alternative in some things–Blender has scopes in its Video Sequence Editor pane, although they don’t work on live streams. For live previewing, VirtualDub works for a 1394 DV monitor when put into capture mode. No zebras though–pity–I really got used to using them in OL and will miss them on my next project, as my camera doesn’t have zebras…

Ah well, I guess we’ll have to wait and see what the Lord does–it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that I could have the Adobe pack come January!

In His Service,
John Calvin Young