roto roto roto

I haven't updated in a while...but Sonoran is still progressing. It's in the slow and tedious, but weirdly relaxing cleanup stage. My buddy Jeremy is a great compositor (see his work at http://www.jeremyhoc.com) and we've been taking out all the wires in Nuke. About another week of rotoscoping to go! Then I can finally un-cross my eyes.

real reel REAL REEL reel reel

Here's my reel!
Some shots from Sonoran are in it.

Character Reel from Aarica North on Vimeo.

hello hello

It's been a while since I posted anything on here. The end of production led right into a whirl of post-production, the NYU Animation Showcase (which was a huge success and all the films were amazing), graduation, and napping. Lots of napping.

Sonoran is essentially finished though I still have some work to do (some compositing, painting out wires, color correction, etc). It will be screening for the first time as a fully finished film on August 7th, along with two other short films I made, at this show! Which you should go to!

hooooome stretch

I just finished animation on the opening shot...it was a long three-days of coffee, tiny naps, and every imaginable technical difficulty (also animation). So many technical difficulties that when the alien's neck snapped and I had to replace her body mid-action, it was the easiest problem I encountered. Thank you Dean Lennert for drilling it into my brain that you should ALWAYS MAKE DUPLICATES. Always do it, guys.

Anyway, it all payed off and I'm quite happy with it. Now on to the final shot!

sunrise/aaricarise

Saguaro Cactus

Here's a video about the beautiful Saguaro cactus, native to the Sonoran Desert where my film is set. THIS FILM IS BASED IN TRUTH. 

finally chose a title!

style frame by Raz Khashoggi! she's doing my titles

lil strata test

stratacut prep

Trippy spikes

other side of trippy spikes!

bunch of pieces in progress

Dancing cacti

If you're curious about the stratacut technique, here's a great interview with David Daniels. He got a geometric brain. LINK

hrrnff

Jolene strung up in her fishing-line rig

Here's the cowboy and his replacement mouths--baked sculpey moldmaker and painted. I'm going to blend the seams with a mixture of clay and makeup--a tip I picked up this weekend from a fellow stop-motion animator.

reaching the end of the tunnel

Got held up by the flu for a week, which was extremely stressful because I couldn't animate...but I'm feeling better and there are only three shots left now! I can see that ol' light at the end of the tunnel...well I guess I see post-production, and then a light.

Here's some stuff I built while I was stuck on my couch this week.

Cacti made to be strata-cut

Eyes and mouth

woooooahhh

it's a strata-alien!

Creative Solutions

The result of too much wine at lifedrawing and frustration at not being able to see the models' feet...

WHAT IF YOU'RE A PUPPET?

Henry Selick talks about a stop-motion puppet's point of view. Really really cool.



My alien puppet is sitting in the other room mid-blink while I eat lunch...time is a strange thing.

wild desert photography

THE PUPPETMASTERRR

rigging the cactus, making him run

sunrise painting

still animating!

I hear it's a really nice day outside.

motion blurrr

"heeeelp meeee"

GO-MOTION

Really getting into a groove animation and lighting-wise--every shot looks better than the one before it. Just goes to show that if you spend every waking moment of your life doing something, you will probably get better at it! Today we experimented with motion-blur for the first time--started off just waggling the cactus around and hoping for the best, then realized that go-motion would probably be more successful because that's an actual technique. Lowered the shutter speed and put the cactus on a slider and voila! Blurriness!

today was like this:

Placing the skulls. THANK YOU to all my nimble-fingered friends who made skulls for me.

screenshots

lost little alien

woof

Animating everyday! Here are some photos from Jenelle's phone.

DORK

my roommate matt helping us saw stuff/flip the grid

the set, the grid, my bed, and my desk underneath it

first shot...I plan to redo this one at the end--
I thought it would be the easiest one but it turns out it was the hardest instead

WALKING THE ALIEN 

late night painting

Jenelle goes crazy

late night painting

CACTUS VOICE

This is Craig Fox, the voice of the corduroy cactus.

If you need a voice actor or another type of actor I highly recommend Craig--he can do it all!

it's begun!

Jenelle building the 8-foot lighting/rigging grid

View of the set from my bed