I Let My Fists Do The Talkin’

Kirk and I finally committed “The Cake…” to paper after talking about it for maybe four months. Bill read the draft and gave it a thumbs up, so we’re in business. This one has special effects, so we probably have to plan it better than usual.

Our cast is in place (we actually had them on board back when we first started talking about it)—Brian Huskey and Gavin Speiller. Unfortunately/fortunately ace model maker Erika Kern is committed through the holidays making crafts for the Bust Craftacular and can’t help us out until after she finishes her embroidery pomo neofeminist Xmas ornaments, which pushes main filming until January. We also have to cast some kid, which Kirk is handling through his friend who worked at a performing arts summer camp.

They haven’t announced the next screening anyway, so we don’t know when we have to get it together by.

To kill November and December, I decided to take up the animating gauntlet that I fumbled in the months before graduating film school. Keep your expectations low… I have a rough script and I’m working out my character designs in Illustrator. My plan is to make a semi-animated storyboard (a little more than an animatic) first, record the voices, and then do lip-sync and a polish on the animation last. I’m going to be using Flash, probably, since I know it better than After Effects, which I only used to make “credits” in for a school assignment.

I get asked for Flash samples all the time… both in my twin non-careers of graphics and comedy writing. I don’t know why I haven’t pushed myself to do it more since it seems so obvious… it’s a ton of fucking work. It’s the anti-improv—all prep for precious little actual ha ha. I also have never completed a comic, despite the fact I want to… at some point… I think it’s knowing the hours I have to devote to it, I’m waiting for a really awesome idea that I think is worth it but one of my charming personal eccentricities is that I think anything that comes out of my brain is utter shit. The first step is always the hardest.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 15th, 2005 at 1:09 am and is filed under Adventures in Media, Design.