It is about modern day Stregheria (Italian witchcraft). If that catches your interest, why not support a Rochester writer and buy a copy?

Oh, and here’s the cover, done by yours truly (and inspired by John William Waterhouse’s The Magic [...]]]> Lesia Vincent’s first novel, “Paradigm,” is now available through Createspace and Amazon.

It is about modern day Stregheria (Italian witchcraft). If that catches your interest, why not support a Rochester writer and buy a copy?

Oh, and here’s the cover, done by yours truly (and inspired by John William Waterhouse’s The Magic Circle).

Buy “Paradigm” on Amazon.

When last I blogged, I was pushing Mind Rip’s Kickstarter campaign. Well, that fundraising tactic fell short, but that doesn’t mean we’re not making the movie any way possible. We’re continuing to shoot the first half hour of the film (which are relatively low on special effects). Thanks [...]]]> What’s been going on with Mike lately?

CSI: Mike. (Photo by Stephanie Viriyakul)

When last I blogged, I was pushing Mind Rip’s Kickstarter campaign. Well, that fundraising tactic fell short, but that doesn’t mean we’re not making the movie any way possible. We’re continuing to shoot the first half hour of the film (which are relatively low on special effects). Thanks to our leads, Joe Thompson and Kristen Royale, for shooting with us for a few nights in July. For more pics, friend the film at http://facebook.com/mindrip

Strange things happen in the desert.

Meanwhile, after a 6 day shoot in and around Death Valley, I’m now editing the feature film “3.14…” for writer/director/actor Greg Smith. This is an indie feature that looks at mathematical concepts and philosophy through dream logic. Oh, and there’s guys dressed in zebra striped lycra suits riding motorbikes. Friend the movie at http://www.facebook.com/pages/314-the-movie/142935755771042

Casa Phil-Mad

And this is a good time to mention our new base of operations for Philrose editing projects, which I’m dubbing the Phil-Mad offices. Because, you know, I’m there too. At last, John Vincent and I have enough space for computers AND noxious chemicals. (That’s office plus workshop space, folks.)

The Old Fish and the Sea

As long as I’m in recap mode, I’ll mention that I won the Rochester Movie Makers short script competition for the second straight year. My entry is the soul-searching tale of a young man and a talking trout. (Gulp! Now I have to consider shooting it.) Read “The Old Fish and the Sea” online here.

Paradigm, by Lesia Vincent, cover by Mike Boas.

Lesia Vincent’s first novel will be released soon, so here’s a sneak peek at the cover by yours truly. Paradigm’s story involves a woman connecting with her ancestors via Italian witchcraft. For the cover, I did an interpretation of John William Waterhouse’s painting, The Magic Circle. Watch this space for an announcement when the book goes on sale.

Ammo and Attitude

Ammo and Attitude is a reality show on the Versus network. Derrick Petrush (of Rochester Movie Makers) is editing the show and asked me to update the animated intro for the new season. The original intro was really well done, and it was a fairly straight forward job to go in and swap in this year’s contestants. Still, it involved a certain amount of rotoscoping and After Effects cleverness. Find out more about the show at ammoandattitude.com

Summer Filmmaking Camp for Rochester Youth

And finally (finally!) I should mention what a pleasure it was to co-teach a class on storyboarding to 36 young filmmakers at the 360 | 365 film camp. Fred Armstrong and I went in armed with dittos about camera shots and tons of samples.  The kids were super creative and super appreciative.  Their resulting short films will be going online soon at http://film360365.com/school

That’s all for now. Here’s where I should insert a witty comment about it better not be another four months before updating again, but… eh, I don’t feel like it.

AIRPORT SHENANIGANS
To begin with, I’ve been fielding comments from family and friends who’ve seen my face on giant screens at the airport. No, it’s not security related, it’s a short movie called Virgin Fang written and directed by Mike Russo. [...]]]> It’s about time for a run-down of my current projects.

AIRPORT SHENANIGANS
To begin with, I’ve been fielding comments from family and friends who’ve seen my face on giant screens at the airport. No, it’s not security related, it’s a short movie called Virgin Fang written and directed by Mike Russo. (I play Draculess, the Woody Allen of vampires. ) It’s part of a media showcase put together by the Rochester/Finger Lakes Film and Video Office to showcase local productions.

ANIMATUS STUDIO
Over at Animatus, our big project in 2010 was dancing cats for Wegmans’ Buju & Ziggie cat food. More recently, Fred, Dave, and I worked with a group of Rochester teens to animate a music video about teen pregnancy and STD’s.

SECRET ANIMATED SHORT
I’m contributing animation, drawings, and random textures to a mixed media film that Frank Kielar is directing. I’d say more, but we’re keeping it quiet for now.

ROCHESTER MOVIEMAKERS WRITERS WORKSHOP
As a challenge to myself, I take part in the RMM Writers Workshop. I’ve written a few shorts in the past couple months, based on elements chosen at random. The “talking fish, lemon, argument in a laundromat” script was particularly fun.

MIND RIP
The Philrose horror feature Mind Rip is still cranking along. We held some auditions (more to come) for upcoming shoots. We’re also designing and making creatures, plus planning a Kickstarter campaign to raise some art department funds.

POPCORN
I’m contributing website stuff and moral support to the Bells On Productions DVD release of Popcorn. It’s a personal favorite of Kristy Jett, Horror Queen of the Internet and Fright Rags huckster. She’s tracking down video elements and producing a behind the scenes documentary.

MERRY-GO-ROUND / 3.14
Back in the fall, I crewed on this feature from writer/director Gregory Gotham Smith. (It was once called Merry-Go-Round, now the name is changing to 3.14.) Now I’m editing, assembling the footage before continuing with the second half of the shoot — a week in the California desert later this year.

360 | 365
And then I go home at night and watch short films, trying to decide what we’ll screen at the 360 | 365 George Eastman House Film Festival at the end of April.

THE INTERROGATION
When will I get the chance to do my own Lunchbox short? I’ll have to squeeze that shoot in soon, then get to work animating the monster character.

Is that all? Certainly it’s enough for now. Stay tuned for news of my impending bout with exhaustion.

Today I hold in my hands a book by Albert Halstead. It’s a monograph Al wrote as a critical analysis of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I did the cover artwork and design.

“Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey – How Patterns, Archetypes and Style Inform a Narrative,” treats the film as a work [...]]]>

Today I hold in my hands a book by Albert Halstead. It’s a monograph Al wrote as a critical analysis of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I did the cover artwork and design.

“Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey – How Patterns, Archetypes and Style Inform a Narrative,” treats the film as a work of art with purpose. Al writes about how Kubrick used the language of cinema, mathematics, and music to tell the story of man and technology.

Holding it in front of me, it feels like I’m actually part of Kubrick’s movie now. That’s kind of cool.

The book is currently on the shelves in about half of the independent and college bookstores in the Southern Tier, including Cornell University and Ithaca College. It is currently awaiting approval from Barnes & Noble and CD Baby. There may be independent book stores in the Monroe County area carrying it soon as well.

In the meantime you can order the book directly by sending a check to:

Leonine Productions, LLC
7 Spring Street
Waverly, NY 14892

email: ahalst(AT)verizon.net

Full retail price is $22.95, plus N.Y. State sales tax (based on your county).
For shipping, please add $3.00

Al is offering a discount price for members of Rochester Movie Makers, Upstate Independents, and Binghamton Classic Films members:
$17.59 (about a 23% discount). With the Monroe County (8% ) sales tax added the total comes to exactly $19.00. RMM members can avoid postage if they’d rather arrange to pick up a book at the next meeting.

Click here to see the cover in close-up.

I’ve had it with pretending I know everything. At least once a day, I get stumped by something I want to do, but Photoshop won’t let me. Or Premiere. Or Final Cut.

Sure, I could look it up in the instructions. I could Google it. I could post questions on message boards. But [...]]]>

I’ve had it with pretending I know everything. At least once a day, I get stumped by something I want to do, but Photoshop won’t let me. Or Premiere. Or Final Cut.

Sure, I could look it up in the instructions. I could Google it. I could post questions on message boards. But I’ve done all that, and you know what? It’s time consuming, and I often don’t get the answers I’m looking for.

So now I have a new plan. I’ll be posting my questions in video form, and the internet will bring the answers to me.

Watch for the latest webcast sensation, coming soon.

My interest in the subject matter led me to become an “internet friend” of [...]]]>
I just watched American Grindhouse, the all-inclusive documentary about the history of exploitation films in America. It’s a great doc, shining a light on the entire spectrum of fringe movies, from the earliest days of cinema to today.

My interest in the subject matter led me to become an “internet friend” of director Elijah Drenner a few years ago when he was working on the special edition of Jack Hill’s Spider Baby. He reached out to ask me to do some animated titles many months ago, and I jumped at the opportunity. I did “film burn” effects from scratch in After Effects, communicating with Elijah and editor Andrew Goldenberg (aka Goldentusk) entirely through email and Facebook. Who says social media is just a fad?

Yeah, it’s cool to see my name credited along side the likes of John Landis, Joe Dante, Jack Hill, Larry Cohen, H.G. Lewsis, and Fred Williamson. The movie has some great interviews with film scholars Eddie Muller, Kim Morgan, and Eric Schaefer (whose “Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!” sits within arm’s reach on my bookshelf right now). A nice surprise was discovering that the narrator is Rochester’s own Robert Forster!

American Grindhouse is making the rounds to “festivals first followed by TV, DVD, etc” according to Elijah.

In the meantime, check out the website at http://americangrindhouse.com

Connect with A.G. on Facebook here.

Some stills of my titles are online here.

Some of my film burn animation can be viewed here.

It’s been an embarrassingly long time since I updated this blog. Why is that? Am I spreading myself too thin? Perhaps I need to pull some of my many projects into one place. (Perhaps I’ve already been doing that on Facebook?) Perhaps I need to rethink my blogs, podcast, and website and make them [...]]]>

It’s been an embarrassingly long time since I updated this blog. Why is that? Am I spreading myself too thin? Perhaps I need to pull some of my many projects into one place. (Perhaps I’ve already been doing that on Facebook?) Perhaps I need to rethink my blogs, podcast, and website and make them all one sticky blob of a website.

But not tonight.

No, tonight I’ll be giving a run-down of things that are going on in my world. Ready?

***

THE 360 | 365 FILM FESTIVAL

During my day job at Animatus Studio, I’ve been working my tail off with a new uber-website. The Rochester High Falls Int’l Film Festival is now called 360 | 365, and the website is its public face. It’s a daring new identity, and I’m really invested in making this year’s film festival better than ever.

Check it out at http://film360365.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/film360365
Animatus on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/animatus

***

SUBTERRANEA PROJECTS

Remember The Other Gods? It’s playing in Buenos Aires. Yeah, that’s cool.

Love classic horror movies? My horror-movie-music-video-mash-up for Aviary’s Skeletal Remains is playing at The Little this Halloween.

Do I have a new career as an actor? Well, let’s put it this way — I only go out for silent movies. Mike Russo’s Virgin Fang features me and was edited by… me.

No clips for those last two on the internet yet, but you can see each at The Little Theatre’s 25 Hour Horror Feast October 31st.

And then there’s Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated. Honestly, it’s too complicated to explain here, but there’s clips over on the Subterranea blog.

Read about all of that at http://maddogmovies.com/subterranea
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/subterranea

***

MIND RIP

The John Vincent movie project is chugging along. We shot several scenes this summer, including a zombie congregation of epic proportions. I put on my assistant director hat and got out there to wrangle zombies — a great experience. We’re working on editing a promotional trailer to present to investors.

See some pics & clips at http://philrosefilms.blogspot.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/mindrip

***

ROCHESTER MOVIE MAKERS

Another summer, another series of summer shorts. I worked as A.D. on Wing Man, written by Mike Russo and directed by Derrick Petrush. It’s currently being edited, but the footage I’ve seen is pretty darn impressive.

RMM also hosted a night of shorts at the Club at Water Street a couple weeks ago. We had about 100 people, raised some cash for the 501c3, and we’re looking forward to doing it again in the future.

Join the educational cooperative at http://rochestermoviemakers.org

***

OBLIGATORY SOCIAL MEDIA PLUG:

Okay, that’s all I’ve got for now. Here are my favorite virtual locations.

I’m on the Twitter. Find me at http://twitter.com/mikeboas

Facebook is much cooler than Myspace. Find me at http://facebook.com/mikeboas

I first heard about this online competition a couple months ago. And by competition, I mean a thing you do with other writers not for money, but for the satisfaction of accomplishing a goal. The point of Script [...]]]> Those of you following my Twitter feed have probably seen my references to Script Frenzy.

I first heard about this online competition a couple months ago. And by competition, I mean a thing you do with other writers not for money, but for the satisfaction of accomplishing a goal. The point of Script Frenzy is to write 100 pages in 30 days. That’s 3 1/3 pages a day.

That sounded like something worth trying. Can I test myself? Can I pump out a first draft in one month instead of the year(s) it usually takes? Can I force myself to write every day? Can I ignore the lure of the television?

So far, the answer is… sort of. No, I haven’t been able to write every day. But yes, I am getting something done. I’m working at half speed, but there’s still time to catch up. And even if I write three pages every two days, I’ll have something in two months. Not bad.

What am I writing? It’s a sci-fi action movie I’ve had in the back of my brain for a few years. I already had tons of notes and an outline, but now I’m actually writing the thing. One intimidating factor is the main character — I’m determined to write a female lead. I’ve been told to just write the character, don’t worry about the gender. Maybe on the second pass I’ll put in lots of references to fashion and hair products. (Kidding.)

Naturally, when I started last week, I got all jazzed up about the new internet technology I could use. Maybe if I make this project as public as possible, I’ll feel obligated to follow through and finish it! So I’m making the process transparent. I’m blogging about the writing process, tweeting my #scriptfrenzy stats on Twitter, and posting the script itself as it’s being written. I’m even using a new cloud application called Zhura instead of MS Word. I can access the files and write from anywhere with an internet connection.

Why not check it out? I could use the support. Visit the Gamers screenplay site at http://maddogmovies.com/gamers

According to their FAQ, the announcement was made a month ago, then videos went offline January 31st. It’s possible they sent me a warning email, but it would [...]]]> I just noticed that my Brightcove media players for Mad Dog Movies and Animatus are no longer working. Why? Because they’re discontinuing their free hosting services.

According to their FAQ, the announcement was made a month ago, then videos went offline January 31st. It’s possible they sent me a warning email, but it would have been to my Yahoo account, which I rarely check.

I’m not going to complain. They’ve got a right to make a buck, and their service is worth paying for… if you’ve got the cash. To find out the price, you need to call a representative. I don’t know what it costs, but you know what they say… if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.

For me, however, I’m going to look around for another free service or start building my own Flash players from scratch.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have put all my eggs in one basket with Brightcove. But their media players were just so darn attractive, I couldn’t resist.

UPDATE: Since first posting this, I spoke with Caren Cioffi at Brightcove. Although the company doesn’t have a current option for small independents like me, that may change in the future. I’ll keep my eyes open.

Reporter Jane Flasch spoke with Adrian as part of a series of stories on Autism. Adrian is open about discussing his Asperger Syndrome and how it affects his filmmaking interests. As his instructor at the Animation Workshop for the last several [...]]]> One of my students, Adrian Esposito, was recently featured on Rochester’s Channel 13 News.

Reporter Jane Flasch spoke with Adrian as part of a series of stories on Autism. Adrian is open about discussing his Asperger Syndrome and how it affects his filmmaking interests. As his instructor at the Animation Workshop for the last several years, it’s rewarding to see how Adrian has grown.

Watch the video and you’ll see the last document of my wild hairstyle before my summer cut!

See some of Adrian’s work on Youtube HERE

This week’s City Newspaper has a good overview of the local film community, written by Susie Hume.

Susie is the reporter who spoke with me last year for the Rochester Insider. This time, she took on the entire film scene and talked to tons of people. John Vincent and Matt [...]]]>

Susie is the reporter who spoke with me last year for the Rochester Insider. This time, she took on the entire film scene and talked to tons of people. John Vincent and Matt Ehlers get some facetime, as well as The MAD DOG MOVIES Podcast, Rochester Movie Makers, and Rochester Film Lab.

An excerpt:

Vincent, a Rochester native, worked in both New York City and Los Angeles before eventually settling back here, his hometown. His long list of film credits includes visual effects work on cult classics like “Freaked” and sci-fi favorites like “Robot Wars” and “Prehysteria.” He now works full-time as a writer, director, and effects artist, and as president of his own production company, Philrose Productions, which provides effects and production management for industrial videos, commercials, and feature films.

“There are other smaller cities with big film communities, like Austin and Portland, that are really promoting their work, and it pumps millions of dollars into their economies,” Vincent says. “We need to promote that here. We’re not Hollywood, and we never will be, so to people here it’s very intangible to think of Rochester as a film city. But to us, it is what we do already, so we need to change the way they’re thinking.”

Vincent also remains involved with a core group of local filmmakers committed to boosting the Rochester film scene. He co-hosts a podcast on local writer/filmmaker/animator Mike Boas’ website, maddogmovies.com, and will shoot a lower budget film (“100 grand or less,” he says) with Boas this year with the working title “Lake Midnight.” In addition, Vincent acted as second unit director to Matt Ehlers’ recently premiered film, “Smoking Laws.”

“People like Matt and others could be working in L.A. or New York, but the great thing here is that we just help each other out or work for free on each other’s films,” Vincent says. “It’s a ‘You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ mentality, because we’re all in this together.”

Read the entire article online here: “Rochester’s local filmmaking scene” By Susie Hume.

Thanks for the press, Susie!

Links:

The MAD DOG MOVIES Podcast

Lake Midnight

Smoking Laws

Several weeks ago, I was contacted by Susie Hume of the Rochester Insider. She had run across the Mad Dog Movies MySpace page and wanted to do a profile of me in the August 31 issue.

So I invited Susie to come by Animatus and ask me 20 questions, give or [...]]]> Look, I’m famous!

Several weeks ago, I was contacted by Susie Hume of the Rochester Insider. She had run across the Mad Dog Movies MySpace page and wanted to do a profile of me in the August 31 issue.

So I invited Susie to come by Animatus and ask me 20 questions, give or take. Actually, I tend to ramble, especially when talking about my various projects. She probably had enough material for an unauthorized biography by the time she left.

As a follow-up, photographer Matt Wittmeyer carted in all his various lights and tripods to get a picture. Something about my face suggested “fisheye lens,” so there you go. It’s funny, my brother keeps bugging me for a serious photo for his family tree project. Oh well — this ain’t it.

Click here to read the whole article.

The Rochester Insider is a publication of Gannett Rochester Newspapers.

I’m often asked how to optimize videos for websites like Youtube or Myspace. The eternal struggle is between quality and file size. My first uploads were Windows Media (WMV) files. Lately, I’ve been using Quicktime.

My edit program of choice [...]]]> NOTE: I’ve updated this post a couple times. See my latest notes at the bottom.

I’m often asked how to optimize videos for websites like Youtube or Myspace. The eternal struggle is between quality and file size. My first uploads were Windows Media (WMV) files. Lately, I’ve been using Quicktime.

My edit program of choice is Adobe Premiere, but I don’t trust Premiere to do a good job with Quicktime compression. Quicktime Pro does it right because that’s what it’s designed for. For $30, you can buy a registration key from Apple to unlock the editing functions of Quicktime.

I really like the IPOD export settings from QT Pro. Here’s how to take advantage of them.

OPTION “A”

1) In Premiere, go to “export movie.” Choose Quicktime (MOV) as your format. Set the pixel ratio to square with an image size of 320 x 240 pixels. You want to delay compression until the last step, so
choose the Animation codec and set the quality to “best.”

2) Your resulting MOV will still be too large for Youtube, which has a 100mb size limit for uploads. Open the MOV in Quicktime, and go to “export.” One of the settings for export is simply labled “ipod.” These settings are locked by the software developers, so you can’t adjust them at all. I presume that the mystery compression utilizes the much-loved H264 codec.

Your resulting M4V file should look great and have a suitably small file size. There may be some video sites that won’t accept M4V, but Youtube likes ‘em just fine. Youtube will recompress your uploaded file as an FLV (or H264 for Iphone users, although this is a new development).

OPTION “B”

Let’s say you’re not working from a Premiere project, but from an AVI file with DV compression. Can you still use Quicktime Pro and the Ipod settings? Yes, but it requires an interim render.

1) Pull the AVI through Quicktime and render a 320 x 240 uncompressed Quicktime (Animation codec set to best) to correct the pixel ratio.

3) Open the resulting MOV in Quicktime and render again using the Ipod compression settings.

Rendering the Ipod file directly from the DV AVI is a bad idea. The Ipod settings don’t know what to do with the DV file’s rectangular pixels, and you end up with a stretched image.

OPTION “C”

Youtube’s actual Flash interface is 400 x 300 pixels, so if your file is 320 x 240, it will be blown up a bit during playback.

If you don’t like this loss of resolution, you can set your first export as 400 x 300 before running it through Quicktime. The problem? Your final file size will be significantly larger. Keep in mind that your typical Youtube viewer may not appreciate longer download times.

***

If anyone has additional tips or corrections, feel free to comment below. I’ll be updating this post if necessary.

***
UPDATE 09/18/07

It’s only been a couple months, but I think I have a more streamlined approach.

I believe the mysterious Ipod settings are really the same as H264 set to “high.” Not best, which is huge, but a rung below that.

So the other day I tried exporting a 400 pixel wide MOV from Premiere with H264 set to 75%. (Premiere doesn’t have medium, high, or best.) The resulting file looked pretty good and played nice on Youtube.

***
UPDATE 06/18/08

So, what’s the problem with exporting H264 compressed files directly from Premiere? No AAC compression option for the audio. AND no “Prepare for Pnternet Streaming.”
I’m back to rendering out of Premiere with uncompressed audio with the video Animation codec at best.

In Quicktime Pro, I’ve been pretty satisfied exporting 400×300 MOV’s with H264 compression set to medium.

PLAY SCENES FROM CLICKER CLATTER

Clicker Clatter is an animated short that exposes television and TV journalism for the wasteland that it is. From scare-of-the-week programming to Katie Couric’s stupid interview questions, [...]]]> Writer/Director Ben Radford gave me the go-ahead to put some scenes from Clicker Clatter online. You can check them out at Youtube:

PLAY SCENES FROM CLICKER CLATTER

Clicker Clatter is an animated short that exposes television and TV journalism for the wasteland that it is. From scare-of-the-week programming to Katie Couric’s stupid interview questions, inane drug ads, randy rhinos, “boob terrorism,” and the frustration of scrambled porn, nothing is safe in this sharp satire! Mike Reiss, writer/producer for The Simpsons, calls Clicker Clatter “smart, funny, and beautifully executed.”

I served as animation supervisor on this cartoon short. Flash and After Effects work was produced by the artists of Animatus Studio, with character designs by Adam English and Brian Oakes.

Ben is currently sending the short out to film festivals. You can read more about it on his website at radfordbooks.com

What’s next? JOOST is on the horizon, designed to bring high-end content and high resolution video. They’ve got deals with Fox, Sony, and Time Warner. [...]]]> When YouTube hit, everything changed. Now there are a thousand video sites where you can watch 400×300 pixel videos of your pets and favorite bootlegged moments from Family Guy.

What’s next? JOOST is on the horizon, designed to bring high-end content and high resolution video. They’ve got deals with Fox, Sony, and Time Warner. That might be hard for the indie filmmaker to break into.

Today I uploaded a short to VUZE, (formerly ZUDEO), an on-demand service from Azureus. Using VUZE requires downloading a special browser. There’s a ton of content, from movie trailers to A&E programs and the sci-fi show Red Dwarf. I believe the content is downloaded to your computer using bit-torrent, but I’m not sure yet.

To download the full version visit vuze.com

Another site I’ve been toying with is DOVETAIL, which is aimed at independents. Again, you need to install a special program.

What worries me is that none of these is available in your standard browser. It will take a lot of persuading to get the bulk of mainstream users to download a new program.

It could happen — just look at iTunes. That interface had the advantage of being tied into the Mac operating system and the popular Quicktime player, though.

We began with the intention of doing a short film.  We had [...]]]> I just finished Draft 06 of Lake Midnight, a film I’m working on with John Vincent of Philrose Productions.  This is the first time I’ve collaborated on a feature script, and it took some sweat to figure out how to do it.

We began with the intention of doing a short film.  We had a good location, a fun story idea, and a good supply of 16mm film at our disposal.  For about a week, the project was called Lovecraft’s Typewriter, as the writer H.P. Lovecraft was referenced directly in the story.  At some point, our short morphed into a feature project.  Our tale of a writer going mad would become a writer caught in a time loop (and going mad).  The short could stand as the first cycle of time in the feature.

It was always John’s story.  During the brainstorming process, John and I would have meetings where I would take notes furiously.  I’d go off and try to write some scenes.  Inevitably, by the time I’d get them back to John for approval, he’d already come up with new ideas that contradicted what I just wrote!

Eventually, John took the bones of our original short film script and expanded on it.   When John writes, he likes to begin with page one and push through until the end.   He would call me up and say “I’m on page 60.  Things are going good.  Now we need a good action sequence for the end.”

Meanwhile, I was taking his work and chopping it up into pieces, trying to flop things around so they made sense to me.  I’m desperate to get the “cool scenes” to adhere to a sort of logic.  I have to believe that everything in the film happens for a reason, so I do tons of research to back up the backstory.  I get ideas from everywhere — when I’m writing, it seems everything I read relates to the script somehow.  Some of influences on this script: the works of H.P. Lovecraft,  Dashiell Hammett, and other pulp writers; stories of North American lake monsters; references on Babylonian and Greek mythology; and paranormal stories from “Weird U.S.”

I see a script as a jigsaw puzzle, so when John would ask me what page I was up to, I couldn’t answer.  I didn’t start at the beginning, I’ve got holes all over the place.  How can I have a page count? A few months ago, I felt like it was never going to come together.  I tried to break it down into acts, but the script refused to behave for me.

Once John finished his version, I looked at what he wrote and saw it more objectively.  It was more coherent than I had expected, considering the mind-warp nature of the story.  It needed work, but at least I could pinpoint what needed fixing without tearing it to shreds.

In the last few weeks, I’ve built on his framework.  I swapped a few scenes around, brought in some old dialogue from my days of noodling, and added crucial exposition and character details to tie our various story points together.  John has been hands off, encouraging me to put in everything I think the script needs.

The next step?  We’ll be taking suggestions from an objective third party.  Then we’ll undoubtedly tear the whole thing apart again.

At Animatus this week, I’ll be testing out the workflow for production on a high definition cartoon. We don’t have an HD camera or VCR, so we’ll be working in conjunction with another production house for the final product. The trick is, at some point I’ll want to down-res it for standard television [...]]]>

At Animatus this week, I’ll be testing out the workflow for production on a high definition cartoon. We don’t have an HD camera or VCR, so we’ll be working in conjunction with another production house for the final product. The trick is, at some point I’ll want to down-res it for standard television specs, too. I’m looking for advice from anyone who’s tried something similar.

1) I start in my animation program, working at a 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels. I output each shot as a series of PNG’s, which have lossless compression.

2) I import those PNGs to After Effects, where I apply blur effects (only if necessary to guard against moire problems). I export as AVI at the proper framerate for HD (unless I can import image sequences into Premiere, then I’ll do PNGs again).

3) I set up an Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 project for HD specs (I’ll have to look at my choices. I assume I want 1920 x 1080, but is it 30fps or 29.97 fps?)

4) I do all my video and audio editing.

5) When it comes to exporting, I may be able to render out sequential PNGs again to keep file sizes down. I then deliver those images on data DVDs (or a hard drive) to the production house with the HD decks.

6) To make a standard definition version, I’m not sure what to do. I could take my rendered sequentials back into After Effects and shrink them into a 640 x 480 comp & render out a new AVI. Or do something variation of that using Premiere. The end result should have black bars for letterbox at the top and bottom.

Thoughts?

UPDATE! ANIMATION PIPELINE VERSION 2
(See below)

I had a long talk with our HD post people yesterday to nail down some of my questions. They work almost exclusively in 720p, so that’s the format we’ll go with. One thing I didn’t quite understand was the rectangular/square pixel issue, but the tests we did showed that if I stayed in 1280 x 720 square the whole way through, that would work for them.

Here’s the pipeline I’ll be using.

(1a) Create animation for some scenes in Flash at 30fps. Export sequential PNGs. (Exporting Quicktime won’t work. Exporting AVI might be problematic, but I should do a test of this.)

(1b) Create animation for other scenes in Toonboom at 30fps. Export sequential PNGs. (I might be able to export Quicktime 59.94 or 29.97 with Animation codec set to best, if I wanted to skip the next step.)

(2) Run sequential PNGs through After Effects. Apply blur if necessary to fix any jitter problems. Render out scenes as Quicktime with Animation codec set to best, 59.94 or 29.97 fps (still not sure), square pixels.

(3) Edit project (Quicktimes and audio files) in Premiere Pro 2.0. Project settings are Adobe HD-SDI 720p 60. (They call it 60, but it’s really 59.94 frames per second.) Make sure it’s drop-frame.

(4) When ready to go to tape, export an HD Quicktime oner from Premiere with the DV/DVC Pro NTSC codec, square pixels. This will allow our post house to play the file without re-rendering.

(5) For standard definition, either render out a 4:3 oner with letterbox (is this possible?) or somehow convert the HD quicktime oner to SD. Still to be determined.

—

I’m still working on a couple things. My premiere project is definitely 720p 60 (59.94 drop-frame). So what fps should I use render the Quicktime elements that I’ll be importing to premiere?

So here’s the weirdness. My 30fps test composition in AE is 8 seconds, 27 frames long. I render out a 29.97 Quicktime, bring it into my Premiere project, and it’s 8:56. That tracks okay, 27 doubled is 54, which is close to 56.

But when I render out a 59.94 Quicktime and import to Premiere, the time is way off. The length is 7:50. That’s over a second shorter, so the animation is running too fast.

I don’t know what’s going on there.

As I looked at my video in slow motion, I was getting a “future echo.” Every time an animated character would move, a ghost of their movement would appear a frame [...]]]> On a recent animation project (entitled “Clicker Clatter”) I noticed a problem when I output from Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 to tape or DVD.

As I looked at my video in slow motion, I was getting a “future echo.” Every time an animated character would move, a ghost of their movement would appear a frame or two BEFORE it happens.

Strangely, it wasn’t an interlace issue. I’ve had interlace problems with projects in the past, and this artifacting (right word?) was different.

I did a series of tests: 30fps clips into 30fps project file, 29.97 into 29.97, and 30 into 29.97. The only time I had problems was with the 30 into the 29.97 (which was the way I did my master project).

So I rerendered my 30fps clips (all 50 of them, one at a time!) through After Effects to make them 29.97. Those updated in my Premiere file and all was right with the world.

I wonder if I should have made my Premiere file 30fps to begin with (and then render out 29.97 later). I assumed this would have bit me with dropframe problems, but maybe not.

This is what happens when you import 30fps clips into a 29.97 timeline in Premiere:

Rock Flathead bad hand

Rock Flathead bad lips

Paper Cut Kid bad fingers

I don’t have any examples handy of bad interlacing, which can come from switching the field order. That would have a combing look, most noticable on character action or camera moves. In those cases, the fields are out of order, so instead of 1a 1b 2a 2b, it would go 1b 1a 2b 2a.

My frame rate problem resulted in multiple frames appearing simultaneously, probably as a result of Premiere trying to time stretch the clips.

This is most likely the result of Adobe trying to “help” me by re-interpreting footage. The frames tend to pile up on each other, causing the frame blending look. It probably would be almost imperceptable with live action clips.

It [...]]]> Last week former Animatus intern and RIT student Jeremy Galante asked if he could interview me for a paper he’s writing. As someone who’s worked at an animation studio for several years, he wanted my thoughts on the state of 2D animation. I said sure, and he sent off a list of questions.

It turned out to be an enlightening experience. It forced me to think about what I’ve learned and what I hope to accomplish in the future.

Q and A with Mike Boas

Where are you from and what is your educational background?

I’ve lived in Rochester my whole life. Attended Fairport High School and graduated from SUNY Geneseo with an B.A. in art studio. (For my complete bio and credits, visit http://mikeboas.com)

At what point did you know you wanted to go into animation?

I’ve been developing my comic style of drawing since about fourth grade. In high school, I thought advertising and graphic art was for me. Later on, I realized that filmmaking was really what I should be doing. I loved movies with a passion, and my friends really pointed that out to me — I was too close to it! I graduated from college and did some research about filmmakers in Rochester, which led to interning with Animatus. After doing some ink & paint, and later animating scenes on Derf the Viking, I realized how prepared I actually was to be an animator.

First, I had always been a big animation fan. I went to see every Disney movie, had all the old Warner Bros. cartoons memorized, and kept up with the current Saturday morning and after-school shows.

Secondly, I had actually studied enough to understand the process. I remember noticing Chuck Jones‘ name on cartoons as a kid and liking his style, even before I understood what a director did. Not just WB stuff, but Riki-Tiki-Tavi, the Cricket in Times Square, The White Seal, and the Grinch. Later on I read his biographies and other interview books with animators. I had done flipbooks and animated projects on videotape as a teenager, too.

How long have you been at Animatus, and have you worked anywhere prior?

I started at Animatus in the summer of 1998. At the time, I was also working at WCMF radio in Rochester. Not a lot of opportunities to do art in radio, but it’s one of my many interests. That’s where I first got the chance to do audio editing on professional equipment.

How has your experience been at Animatus and what have been your functions?

I began working on the first Derf cartoon, The Scent of Valhalla, and since then I’ve animated large portions of the two Derf sequels and the Su & Mo series. A major challenge was in co-directing Su & Mo’s “Lost in Animation” because I had to delegate work to others and organize the production pipeline. Who gets what scene to work on, and when?

Because we’re a small studio, I’ve had the opportunity to learn how to do a little bit of everything. I know some animation students have specific goals like, “I want to be a professional modeler” or something like that. Not me. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert in any one field, but I know how to do a better than average job in many aspects of production.

Through working at Animatus, I’ve learned many programs like Photoshop, After Effects, CoolEdit, Premiere, Speed Razor, Video Toaster, and especially Macromedia Flash. I took the Animatus website from bare bones to become an impressive multi-media site. I now handle the graphic design for many website clients, and I’ve learned it all on the job. It’s great to have a site to try things out on, get familiar with what you can do, and then offer it to clients. The Animatus site has been that sort of training ground.

So I’m an animator, a webmaster, a graphic designer, and an editor. I have pretty good language skills, so I’ve written a lot of promotional materials and done internet marketing. Last year we put together a compilation DVD, so I learned about MPEG compression and DVD authoring. We now offer that to our clients as well.

What have been the most difficult projects while at Animatus?

The scary jobs are the ones that come from an ad agency at the last minute. “We just got the go ahead to do animation and we need it by Tuesday! Can you work this weekend?” There’ve been a few of those. It’s not working long hours that’s tough (although it’s not very fun) but doing boatloads of work before a client has a chance to approve it. You hope they’re going to like it, and there’s not a lot either of you can do if they don’t. It’s also teeth grinding time when you are trying to get the files rendered or finalized at the last minute. That’s usually when the computer crashes or the DVD’s won’t burn without errors.

There are also times when a client has a very specific idea of what they want. You’re sure you could do something cool (and have more fun) if they’d give you more freedom, but it’s your job to do what they ask. So that’s more of a psychological challenge.

Specifically, there have been a few challenging projects that I’m proud to have worked on. We did a short video for a Paychex conference that incorporated photographs and clip art of the American southwest, animated with a combo of Flash and After Effects. A music video we did for local singers The Dinner Dogs was our first professional Flash gig, and it still looks really great. One of the difficulties in that was exporting it to video after originally designing it for the internet. It took some work, and now I know enough to plan ahead for video output from the beginning. Recently, I did an animated tag for a Sticky Lips BBQ ad using the same methodolgy: producing with Flash and exporting as sequential images for video.

Has working in the industry given you any insight on your own projects?

Being exposed to other artists’ work is great. I’m more open to different styles of drawing and storytelling than I once was. I’ve learned that there’s a hundred different ways to do any one thing, so if I’m stuck, I can always turn to my associates for advice.

When working on your own projects, are there any artists from whom you draw inspiration?

I’m working on a piece right now that borrows the visual style of German animator Lotte Reiniger. She did these great silhouette pieces, including the first animated feature, “The Adventures of Prince Achmed.”

I love Chuck Jones’ sense of timing and character subtleties. His Bugs Bunny can get a laugh just by twitching his whiskers and looking at the audience.

Current indie animators inspire me through their marketing savvy and continuous output. Pat Smith, Bill Plympton, and Don Hertzfeldt come to mind.

I get inspired by comic strip sources, too. As a kid I was influenced by Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes. The Uncle Scrooge comics by Carl Barks are incredible, as is the Bone series by Jeff Smith. Smith worked as an animator, and you can see that expert timing on his printed pages. Anyone working in animation or comics should read Scott McCloud‘s books on sequential art: UNDERSTANDING COMICS and RE-INVENTING COMICS. He goes into the history and application of comic art, which can be helpful in understanding animation.

For studying body language, and I would encourage students to look at the acting in silent movies. Especially the works of Lon Chaney and Buster Keaton, two of my favorites.

I love the attitudes and methods of directors like Robert Rodriguez and George Lucas. Rodriguez knows what he wants to do and then just does it. He doesn’t wait for permission. Both he and Lucas have built up the means to just shoot what they want, even on a whim, and incorporate the results into their projects. Aside from whether you like the latest Star Wars movies, the craft behind them is fascinating. These movies are made using an animation mindset. Shoot one character, composite it with another character, add and environment, etc. Rodriguez has now done the same thing with Sin City. Why make a movie that looks like every other movie? Why not have some fun with the style?

Your more recent work seems to be geared towards Flash and other computer-based digital media. Do you prefer this over traditional media?

Flash is my favorite program right now. When doing character animation, I always start on paper. I’ll do straight ahead animation, or just body parts depending on the project. Then I’ll scan and bring these elements into Flash. I can build characters as if they were cut-out paper this way, with replacement heads and other parts. I love the instant feedback in Flash. You don’t need to wait for renders, as in After Effects. You can see all your layers, you have onion skinning, and you can plot moves easier than you can in some animation programs.

I’m not the most accomplished animation “artist.” I don’t have a lot of patience for perfecting fluid movements. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but personally, I usually just try to get across the main idea of each shot and get on with the story. The shortcuts involved in using Flash are suited to my attitude.

That said, Flash can be open to many styles. Many people react with surprise when they find out my “Jason” piece was done with Flash. This was something that was created in a few weeks for a fan contest. I did about a hundred really sketchy drawings and brought them into Flash. The line quality restricted me in terms of coloring, but that was fine for this project. The final product was too complicated (in terms of framerate and camera moves) for SWF output on the web, but that wasn’t the goal anyway. I exported the shots as sequential images and did the final edit in another program.

What do you still think is lacking in a program like Flash?

It’s great that the latest Flash has blur options and transitions. That’s a step in the right direction. But the major thing I’m itching for is the ability to scan directly into Flash. I like drawing and inking on paper — I’m just more comfortable that way than with a Wacom. Right now, to bring drawings into Flash, I need to scan into Photoshop, save bitmaps, import them, rotate, trace bitmap, delete extra white space… it’s a lot of wasted time. The latest version of Toonboom has some neat scanning and vectorizing functions, but it’s still not perfect.

How much time do you spend working on art?

Not enough! I feel guilty vegging out at night watching TV instead of working on my short films, but it’s tough to find the energy and the motivation. Also, carpal tunnel is an evil thing. If I’m using a mouse all day, it really hurts to use one all night.

Also, I feel I need to brush up on my figure drawing. I’ve been “cartooning” for several years now, and I feel the anatomy skills slipping away.

I use “research” as a way of procrastination, though. I watch classic (and not so classic) films, read film magazines and how-to books. I’m always learning new things.

What motivates you to make art?

Sometimes I’ll watch a bad movie and say, “Heck, I can do better than that.” Sometimes I’ll see something great that gives me something to aspire to. When Bill Plympton spoke at RIT, he mentioned that going to film festivals really gets him motivated. I’m the same way. I’ll come away from festival screenings with a hundred ideas for my own projects. Sometimes I feel satisfied if I merely storyboard something, other times I need to push myself further.

I have yet to create a film that’s entirely mine. I’ve been working with other people’s characters and storylines. So I’m itching to get my own story ideas out there. The hard part is finishing. I have a half dozen things I’m working on now, and others in the embryonic stages. If I pick a date, say a festival deadline, as a goal for completion, that can help to motivate.

What is the most challenging part about being in the industry?

Rochester is a smaller market, so drumming up work is a challenge. We need to convince potential clients that animation can offer them something that live action cannot. Sometimes this means doing some work on spec or at a reduced cost.

Pleasing a client can be tricky. Some people need to see what they don’t like before they know what they like. The thing to do is to get approvals every step of the way so there’s no surprises.

Where do you see 2D animation headed?

The media makes a big deal about the popularity of 3D over 2D films. As an independent, I don’t see the point in picking a winner. 2D isn’t going away, but we’ll see new styles push themselves forward. The “Waking Life” rotoscope style is really fascinating. Later this year, we’ll see if there’s an audience for Through a Scanner Darkly, the new Linklater film.

Those filmmakers are using proprietary software, but you can do similar work in Flash. Just bring your quicktimes in on one layer, and trace on layers above… fantastic! Some might say it’s not animation when you start with a live action source. But of course it is. The computer doesn’t do the work — a million creative decisions have to be made by the animation artist.

We’ll see more convergence of 2D and 3D. Anime productions are ahead in this regard. Movies like Ghost in the Shell 2 and Metropolis have used 3D backgrounds, 2D characters, whatever works for the story and looks cool.

The anime/manga style in general will continue to bleed into American projects. At the Animation Workshop, where I teach classes several times a year, half the kids are drawing like Yu-Gi-Oh and Dragonball. As these artists become professionals, we’ll see more American produced shows done in the “big eye” style than ever. And they’ll comment on the style while they’re doing it, like FLCL and Teen Titans have done.

Do you plan on staying in Rochester? If not, then where do you plan on taking your career?

The last few winters have really inspired me to move to a more temperate climate. No immediate plans, though.

What is your personal goal as an artist?

Not to be famous, but have quality product that people recognize. Something that I’ll mention being involved with and people will say, “You worked on that? Hey, that was pretty cool.”

What advice would you give to anyone interested in animation?

Learn the basics of hand drawn animation before getting hip deep in CG. Concepts like squash and stretch, anticipation, and gravity.

When doing character animation, give your creations personality. Get across what they’re thinking by their expressions and the way they move.

Make it a goal to enter some festivals. Keep your festival piece to ten minutes or less. Ask for feedback when you’re in the storyboard stages to be sure it makes sense to your audience.

Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity to do what you want to do. Make your own opportunities. If you don’t have a camera or computer, do flip books. Find a way to tell your stories.