AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY...

Today, the seventh day of my first 7ism work, herewith my report and results.

Decided to start with something small and insignificant so I chose to make an improved version of my stop-motion animation NOT a celebrity, the first rough cut of which I posted here last month. Since I declared then that I was definitely going to improve it, this seemed like a good way to test the 7ism movement's effectiveness. 

My usual approach is to declare that I am going to do something, then put whatever it is on the shelf (virtual or literal) with all the other things I have declared I am going to do in the immediate future. In my vocabulary, the word immediate is elastic and infinitely stretchable. Unfortunately, reality doesn't understand my vocabulary. Hence the pile-up of broken declarations, which 7ism is going to fix. I hope. 

I began at about 2:30 pm on Tuesday, November 8th. The first requirement was to devise a more efficient arrangement to hold the camcorder. A book I have (Get Started in Animation) includes a diagram for building a simple copy-stand with camera mount. While the plan is perfectly feasible, I didn't want to spend too much time on this so I opted for improvisation, my favourite modus operandi. 

An old portable easel was given a new function which you can see in the photos below. I pushed the normally vertical canvas-supporting arm into horizontal position, adjusted the legs to the needed height and tightened all the bolts. Then (here's the clever bit) I took one of those tiny tripods available in any camera shop, put its legs together flatly and taped it down firmly to one end of the easel's horizontal bar. The camcorder could then be screwed into the reclining mini- tripod, allowing the camera lens to point straight down. I attached a cable to connect camera to power socket and a Firewire to link my Mac to the camera (I'm using iStopMotion software). 

The above photos were taken in the downstairs study where I ended up making the third and final version, but I first set up the rig in my upstairs studio. By the time I was ready to shoot, daylight was gone and I had a lot of trouble positioning lamps even when using daylight bulbs. Version Two was a big headache (literally) for many reasons but I learned a useful lesson.

When something doesn't work because I haven't prepared well enough, my usual tendency is to keep nagging away at the faulty item until I've knocked it into some kind of unsatisfactory order, even though a much more effective solution would be to start from scratch. I went through my old routine in the second version and wasted several days painstakingly re-drawing frame after frame of a whole sequence because I'd filmed it too close and some of it was out of frame. The obvious answer was to re-shoot it. But no, I had to be the masochist.

However, because this was a 7ism project and I was committed to it, I then threw out all those files I had so obsessively been re-doing, re-uploading and... well, you don't want to know every twist and turn of that winding road....decided to do a third version. That's when I moved everything downstairs.

Finally here are the two versions of NOT a celebrity my seven days produced. The animation is still not even close to perfect but I'm satisfied with this particular project and pronounce 7ism a success in enabling me to finish something I probably would have abandoned. 

All comments/criticisms etc. are welcome.

THE FINAL VERSION OF NOT a celebrity is here on Vimeo and also on YouTube

THE SECOND VERSION is here on Vimeo and also on YouTube 
 

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AGGRAVATED AND ANIMATED

Another month has streaked by. Where have I been all this time?  Well, here's my first excuse:

Persuaded by dire warnings of ever more virulent types of flu waiting to attack us this winter if we are not vaccinated, I went obediently to get the shot. As soon as I walked out of the local health centre - I'm not making this up - my throat began to feel prickly. By the time I got home I was sniffling, sneezing and limbs ached. The doctors say a reaction may set in after twenty-four hours and will last only three or four days. I must have a speedier and more contrary immune system because my reaction was instantaneous, has lasted over a week and is still not quite okay. I may or may not now be resistant to the latest flu virus but I sure as hell am not getting shot in 2012. 

Second excuse: I was making a stop motion animation. Or rather trying to make a stop motion animation just because I said I was going to, didn't I? As everybody knows who has ever tried, animation, especially stop motion, is a slow, painstaking process requiring infinite patience and precise attention to detail. Well, I wanted to see instant results and so did my usual thing of cutting corners, lots of corners, and improvising - all the while sniffling, sneezing etc. 

I had already made the Naugustine paper puppet (see October 7th below) but her wire joints weren't holding so I had to re-do her and hinge her parts with needle and thread - excruciatingly fiddly! I wrote a short script and made the Doremy Faxman puppet, hinged in the same manner. Too impatient to build a proper copy stand and get proper lights, I set up the camcorder on a tripod above my desk but couldn't, of course, make the lens point straight down because the tripod legs were in the way. For lighting there was only my desk lamps, so there's a pinkish cast on everything and the dialogue, written by hand on the white backgrounds, is barely visible. And when I started moving the puppets, I didn't do it smoothly or slowly enough. I used iStopMotion Mac software (bought ages ago and never used until now so my version is already obsolete) to capture the frames and put them on my computer. Then began the editing process: tooth-grindingly, eye-wateringly, repetitive-strain-injuringly slow and tedious but being obsessive as well as undisciplined, I stayed up all night, several nights, then did it all again in iMovie, adding all sorts of effects in attempts to slow down the jerky action and improve readability, but then deleted it all after realising that the original simple rough cut was much better. Imported that rough version to Garage Band and added an improvised musical sound track - couldn't add speech because the action is too fast. 

So, here is the very very rough, very very fast fruit of all that impatient labour. I will do a smoother, more proficient version by and by, but have to say I am not entirely displeased with this amateurish first draft. Because the text flashes by too dimly and too quickly to be read, here is my script:

NOT A CELEBRITY 

Doremy Faxman (Hard-hitting Media person/interviewer):  So, Naugustine, why are you here?

Naugustine:  That is the question I ask myself every day.

Faxman: Come on! I asked you why you're on this show and you start waffling on about the meaning of life!

Naugustine: Sorry, I thought you meant...

Faxman: I know what you thought I meant. Just answer the question!

Naugustine: Well, I'm on this show because I'm not a celebrity and I thought it might...um...give me some...um...publicity.

Faxman: I'm afraid I have to terminate this interview, Naugustine.

Naugustine: But why? I haven't even started!

Faxman:  You've broken the rules of this show . NOT a CELEBRITY dot com does not permit non-celebrities to seek celebrity by appearing on this show.  This is Doremy Faxman saying goodnight non-celebrities, wherever you are! 

The video is on the main Blaugustine blog, on Vimeo, on YouTube and here:

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GUILT PURSUED

The thoughtful comments to the last post here and at my main blog are forcing me to look further into this murky topic. Having established that what my own particular guilt-harpy keeps harping about is that I'm guilty of Squandering My Gifts and Not Living Up to My Potential the logical next question is: what exactly are these gifts or potential which I'm supposedly not living up to? Do they exist at all or are they yet another mirage? Another false concept plugged into my brain by the competitive, egocentric, celebrity-obsessed culture we live in? 

Well, you know, maybe. But I don't think so. What I think, what I know gut-wise, is that I really do have gifts I'm not using. It's not vanity or arrogance to say so because gifts are gifts and the real reason why the exasperating little guilt-bug keeps buzzing around me is because it knows that I know that I'm built to fly but settle for crawling - I crawl very well but that ain't flying - and I'm designed to burn bright but settle for flickering, a flicker flicker here, a flicker there. 

You may say ah, but that's what we are: crawling, flickering creatures, doing our best against all the odds. Well if that's what you'll say, I'll have to disagree. Because what I really know down in my deepest of deep guts is that many of us have a locked cellar full of unused gifts - or maybe just one unused gift. It's not a thing, not even a talent, but a degree of feeling. It doesn't necessarily mean achievement or success in worldly terms. It means being willing to risk flying, Icarus-like.

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BLAUG MEETS DODD

My sister came from Paris to stay for the week which was supposed to be My Operation Week but since the op was postponed we spent the time doing ordinary sisterly things like going to the cinema, shopping, etc. One of our outings was to the National Portrait Gallery and in the basement café, while waiting in line, who should I spot but Ken Dodd. Now some of you non-Brits (like my sister) may not have heard of our Ken but let me tell you, he is a very big celebrity over here, an institution - like tea or fish and chips or the Queen. I smiled at him and he acknowledged my recognition with a friendly wave of the hand. We went to sit out of sight in the bookshop area of the café but then, on second thought, I decided to go back and ask for Ken's autograph. He and his companion (Gladys) were drinking their tea when I sidled up with my little brown notebook and, having ascertained my name, Doddy graciously gave me the memento you see here on the left.

We chatted for a few minutes and he said he had come to the gallery to look at his portrait. I asked if he liked it and Ken's furrowed brow furrowed a bit more. "It's...um...interesting", he said. I mentioned (I would, wouldn't I?) that I am an artist and he asked: "Do you reveal the inner self?" I said: "Sometimes it works , sometimes it doesn't." (Yes it did cross my mind that I would love to be asked to paint his portrait and that it would be more than "interesting" and I did mention that I have a website). The charming Gladys said that Ken too has a website and I resolved to look it up as soon as I got home. As I left I handed Ken Dodd my card and invited him and Gladys to visit my cyber home. Maybe they already have?

After tea, Annie and I went upstairs and found the portrait of Ken Dodd by David Cobley . I could see why Ken's verdict was hesitant: it is only an "interesting" portrait - one of the better ones in what is, in my opinion, a very poor collection of contemporary portraiture (likenesses: yes. Good paintings: mostly not). It captures the anything-but-funny exhaustion and sadness of the long-running, driven comic but it misses his warmth and humanity - the qualities that have made him so popular for so long. With my French/Russian/South American background I must admit that I didn't really get Ken Dodd's humour in the past: Diddy Men, tickling stick, chuckabutties - what was that all about? But I do recognise that he has something unique - not a satirist, not an innovator, but a hard-working man, a craftsman who has built his comic style like an old-time cobbler fashions a pair of shoes. He concentrates on what he does best, regardless of changing tastes and trends, works overtime, loves his audience and stays approachable. "Innocent surrealism" is how Andrew Martin (in an article I've linked to above) describes what he does and that's exactly right. My chance meeting in the N.P.G café was such a pleasure because Ken Dodd seemed like a loved and eccentric old friend.

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