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Previous News
01.28.06
* Is this
crap?.... Live Freaky! Die Freaky! What do you think? Perhaps, if
beginners "starting" in Stop Motion  or if children had done the animation,
"maybe" okay. However, for sort-of,
kind-of quasi-mainstream animation
work .... this further contributes to
the perception by the public, that Stop Motion is
crude & inferior ..... but yet the Freaky
people have a kind-of, slick online marketing campaign.
To me "hype-ness" all vaporous hype.
You will realize the when you see thetheir website .... "one"
trailer clip of the animation at the clip and
their site is uses Flash format .... www.livefreakydiefreaky.com Hmmmm ..... second thoughts now
.... maybe this is just weird artsy fartsy
and it isn't even close to mainstream ..... so most of
public will not see it  Edit 02..04.06
* This is
maybe "so-so" .... Hoodwinked .... An all CGI animation,
theatrically released. In their press releases
and statements, they seem to be riding on the coattails of Stop Motion ..... kind-of stealing or
blurring the true defintion of our animation art/craft
and perhaps making it more confusing to the
public. I am not panning the movie (I have not
seen it) but only judging from the trailer clips
posted in this article ... Filmmaker Sees, Well, Red, With
'Hoodwinked' .... Read
it and you will see the Stop Mo
connection. You tell me .... Does it
look like Stop Motion? Not to me .... zero
similarity compared to the tactile
realness of real puppets,
sets & props and obvious that it is a
synthesized CGI product.
* This seems
to be good .... Davie and Golimyr .... I think they even posted about
a year ago at the Stop Motion forum
looking to hire people. Real Stop
Motion ..... I'm not sure if it uses some clay
animation .... but very clean work ..... it seems to have
reasonably good production values. Here is QT trailer clip (7mb). At Lumenas
Studios website
(producers of D&G) and their press releases, they are saying the best
of both worlds ..... traditional Stop Mo
combined with
CGI backgrounds/scenery and other added special
effects & tweaking ..... and I agree
that is the way to generally go .... for the 21st
century .... digitally Turbo Charged
Stop Mo.
____________________
01.21.06
* Pursue your
"passion", but keep your "day job" ..... Still occupied here but almost
done in clearing my life of some busy-ness and
other unforseen things. Shortly, will start blogging,
what I will be up to. All these years, I
have always done Stop Motion puppet armature fabrication
small side jobs for others but lacked
the motivation or creative energy to actually pursue my
own stuff. I cannot explain these brain
funks. The Entertainment/Arts biz
in general, is not "secure", fiercly
competitive, lots of rejection, and can be clique'ish.
Only those with extraordinary perserverance & passion
pursue it, no matter what, but they might make personal
and other sacrifices elsewhere for the sake of their
passion. I would have been financially broke if I did not
have a bread & butter straight regular job that
pays the monthly rent & bills and also provides
medical benefits. For me, there has never
been any "regularity" with just doing
armatures. It is way too specialized and that is
my fault for not branching out or focusing more on other
aspects of animation production. Fortunately, through the
years, I have done lots of research, info gathering, and
I am very observant & learn fast ..... have done
tests here & there in other aspects of Stop Motion
.... where I feel confident I can do much of it myself.
Also .... the timing seems right, with all the cost
effective software tools now available. I am pursuing
Stop Motion with perhaps a realistic goal &
attitude and doing it for mostly creative
personal pleasure now. If anything positive
"extra" happens ..... then that is just more
icing on the cake. Perhaps .... finally .... my
hard earned self-taught armaturing expertise
will benefit me personally for some of my
own projects, experiments, etc.. By the will
of the Gods .... "The Return of LIO"
or "LIO Reborn" .... be afraid ....
be verrry
afraid 
* Slight change to SMW home
page ..... it was
done about a month ago, about the same
time as the rotating banners that you
may have noticed at the top of this news/blog
page. If you are not an efficient web
surfer-lurker .... well .... what can I say? It's your
loss if you don't stay on top of it  . I
won't say what the change is but if you are a proficient
regular web wanderer/visitor, it should be noticable.
____________________
01.14.06
* Stop Mo
rumblings in Portland, Oregon USA? ..... That's the buzz I
have been recently hearing. You already know about the
somewhat well known animation studio in
that city. This subject-topic has been mentioned before
here at SMW Blog and also at the SMA
message boards. Apparently, "it"
has been given the green light as a Stop
Motion feature film project. I have other minor
details about it, but at this time, I cannot say anymore.
* King Kong
2005 .... I finally saw it ..... I was able to squeeze some spare
moment in my schedule to catch it on the big
screen (before it goes to DVD). I have a
feeling, the masses are maybe afflicted with ADD ... all are so immersed in their bread & circuses diversionary toys and have no
discipline to focus, be patient, and savor.
Understandable .... brainwashing
saturation by the mainstream media onslaught &
marketing, conditioning everyone into this behavorial
syndrome. Whoaa ... almost going off topic. I mention ADD
because Peter Jackon's Kong did not feel
too long for me. Many have whined and
complained that Kong was too lengthy at 3 hours.
I was absorbed in the movie and it felt like a
great escape. The casting of Jack Black
& Adrien Brody were perhaps, so-so
choices but they kind-of worked
"somewhat". Namoi Watts .... perfect
as Ann Darrow I still stand by my
original comments link 1 link 2 link 3 about some of the, perhaps ridiculous
scenarios with the CG Animation/Special Effects. The
Bronto stampede .... too over the top 
and miracuously, the humans surviving that. Same applies
to the Vine Scene .... not quite
believable .... and the pit scene too,
with the plethora of nasty pit creatures and we have to
further suspend our belief that the crew could have
survived that. In spite of all this though, I
still enjoyed King Kong. From a marketing POV,
as I commented before .... the "suits"
should have maybe first released a shorter Kong
version for the ADD masses, and saved the longer
version for DVD release.
* Hype:
“Stop-Motion Exhumation” ..... A topic-thread at the Comics Journal Forum
____________________
01.07.06
* Motion
Capture Propaganda ..... It has
been awhile ..... I have not been around since last
year  . Still here, there, everywhere and occupied.
Also, temporarily kind-of escaping from civilization.
Back to topic ...... I just read an online article
promoting motion capture as the manna
from heaven, panacea miracle tool for
"animation". Author of articles says
he has been in animation for thirty years. A quote from
his 4 page MoCap infomercial .... "Is it  animation?
Absolutely it is! Would I work with motion capture again?
Absolutely! This is a process that is now just reaching
its potential and continues to reveal new
possibilities". I say .... what a bunch of mind
twisting bull crap!  Motion Capture is the copying-recording
of REAL TIME, LIVE ACTION MOTION.
It is a very high-techy equivalent to
traditional Rotoscoping methods .... the tracing/copying
of live-action motion used sometimes
with 2D animation (cartoons).You can
read his sales schpeel in detail .... Apes to Dragons: Jane & the
Dragon (MoCap) .
You read it? My observations & commonsense says .....
Motion Capture IS NOT "Animation".
Here is the best and clear definition of
"Animation" in this other AWN article
by Gene Deitch, written some years ago
.... Animation - What The Heck Is It? I have nothing against
Motion Capture itself .... BUT
.... just DO NOT STEAL the definition
of "ANIMATION" from us. Get your
own NEW
description for your very
pricey hi-techy toy .... like MoCap
Acti-mation, Live Action Perfomance
Capture, or whatever you want to call it ....
but again .... do not call it Animation
..... because it
ain't ! Edit 01.08.06
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