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Previous News
 01.27.07
* Czech Stop
Mo Short: 'One Night in the City' .... Discussion at the message board. Very Euro style and interesting.
You can check out their website (not user friendly to navigate;
too much Flash). Quote from an article about the animated
short, "The story is only about 16 minutes long,
and we made it in 140–150 takes," he says.
"The animator does about two takes per day, which
means that it took us six to seven months to finish this
16-minute story." From The Prague Post,
read, Hands-down Indie Film
* What the Hell is UGC ? .... An internet techy trendy acronym that suppose to mean, User Generated
Content. Also another internet marketing lingo du jour is, Going Viral. I have in the past,
blogged about possible ways to market animation. It
is not easy and requires
'thinking out of the box'. I will only add: If
one is going for online internet distribution
(or DVDs), then why the pre-occupation
with Xtreme high-pixel schmixel resolution?
All that added labor, 'putering energy,
and excess pixels will be lost
for viewing on the internet. It seems,
if one desires to make any kind of $dinero$
(internet), one has to be able to pump-out
the animation hella
fast (for
volume/quantity). IMO, using Digital Still Cam Workflow,
just maybe too involved and overkill
for the end distribution. I rambled
already too much about it in past. I do not know if you
read them or what, since you all are so tight-lipped  . Anyway, here is a nice 4 page article read,
Animators Printing Money:
User-Generated Opportunities Edit 01.27.07
* Juergen  Kling's
Stop Motion Workshops .... If you are in Euro
countries, and desire to seek some hands on
crash course stop mo tutoring, you might want to check
this out. Stop Motion is mostly self taught. In most
schools or universities, they do not offer Stop Mo
curriculum. This is an alternative way to learn, through
specific workshops. At Juergen's website on the left side of page, click on workshops,
March 23 - 25 '07.
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01.20.07
* Brett
Piper: The 'B Movie' AUTEUR
.... made an appearance this week at the Stop
Motion message board here 1 & here 2. All I have to say, "It's
about time Brother Brett!"  Although, I am guessing that Brett
is probably soooo fugg'n busy in the trenches
cranking out the work,  with minimal crew & budgets and
stuggling to get as much bang for the buck on the
screen. It looks like Brett has a passion for
the Classical methods of Visual Special Effects,
especially Stop Motion, miniatures and full size
mechanical puppets, props, etc.; but also, combined with
some post production digital tweaking for compositing and
other minor digital effects enhancements. The best
of both worlds. No mention at board yet, about
his recent work, Bacterium; capturing the 1950'ish B-Movie Sci-Fi Retro feeling. Here is the only Bacterium
trailer clip that I quickly found. A couple of
Review links, one & two. For those who are not familiar with Brett;
an interview with him; here is another one (scroll to pages 7-13) at an
online magazine; PDF format & you have to unzip (it's
safe) but be warned, the mag is 'somewhat', for mature
audiences. I could not yet find the availability of Bacterium
DVD, for purchase or rental. Maybe not released yet (I'm
not sure) Edit 01.21.07
* Neil  Gaiman
'buzz-leak' about Coraline .... Well
actually, Neil wrote the Coraline story
and I am sure that Laika Studio, who are currently in production
on the Stop Motion feature, allowed Neil to reveal
some behind the scenes. This is at his personal blog. He comments a little bit and posted some teaser
pics inside Laika facilities.
Here are the links, one & two. Do not whine to me that there are only
a few pics. Hey, you are lucky getting
these  . Edit: LIO Micro-Rant © deleted and saving it for another
time, later  Edit 01.21.07
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01.13.07
* GBDeflicker,
a Free Beta Plug-in .... A critical
thing for all you Mega-Schmega ©LIO Pixel-holics who insist
on using Digital Still Cameras for Stop
Motion Animation, inspite of all
the information (raw truth) that our SMW staff  has presented; you compulsively
seem to thrive on Masochism in dealing with
the constant plague of
Flicker-Illuminance variation issues. It does
not matter what level of digital
still came ra model, be it low
cost consumer DSCs or the high-end
Digital SLRs: 'Flicker' will get
you. Do not blame the camera
manufacturers. You are using a camera
which is not designed for single
frame animation work. IMO, I am guessing that Digital
Still Cams may be an interim-temporary
method to shoot animation. I believe,
eventually, HD Camcorders might be the
technique and it will be good enough for
HD-TV broadcast. It just depends if
there will be Stop Motion Software to
directly interface with with the HD
video resolutions. Stop Motion Pro is working on that and I believe Animator DV already has HD source feature (I am not sure).
Back to topic ....
Flicker. You can bust your ass
trying to control or stabilize
the voltage in your studio,
or use certain kinds of lights to
hopefully reduce the flicker
phenomenon, but from what I researched &
heard, that is no guarantee. It seems to
me, Captain Kirk (you); that it would be Logical
(me .... Spock), to USE a post production
fix-workaround to address flickering matters.
From my past research, there seems to be no
'cost-effective' program for  us 'poorbies',
specifically designed to efficiently remove-reduce
or balance the exposure
variations of each of the still frames,
with one exception; there is TinderBox's Deflicker Plugin, however, it costs
up the $Yin Yang$ because you must
purchase 'all' the plug-ins
in the bundle. I heard of the free Virtual Dub using a free plugin called
MSU Deflicker filter, but no one at
the message board has given feedback
(or either, they are tight lipped secretive) IF
the MSU plugin will actually
work for post animation flicker fixing.
An individual, who has considered flickering,
a serious issue, is Craig
from Stop MotionMaker. He seems very pro-active
& motivated in attempting to finesse,
try-out tools and features for his products and in
particular, Stop MotionMaker Advance, which I believe, is the only
Stop Motion framegrabber &
compositing/chromakeying program that offers a Flicker reduction feature.
So, "without any
further adieu", let us welcome another
proactive & customer responsive company, Granite Bay Software, that has the foresight
vision to offer a specialty plug-in
to do battle with flickering
issues .... GBDeflicker (for  Windows/PCs). You will see a video
demo with very revealing info
and IMO, is also most applicable to the Stop
Motion Photography Arts. Granite Bay offers
programs for Time-Lapse work,
using the Canon Powershot line
of cameras. I posted about them back
in '05. At their
website, they offer informative tips & tricks that is relevant
to us (also read here and here too). If you test their
featured GBTimelapse program and
especially GBDeflicker ..... give them feedback. Get out of your closet
& speak-up, peoples Edit 01.14.07
* Glenneroo
.... a new member .... at the message board. According to his profile, he is located in
Vienna, Austria. He has interest in Stop Motion and is in
the learning-apprenticeship stages, but it looks like he
has much technical & creative prowess in the area of TimeLapse
Photography which is kind-of a kissing cousin or
related to Stop Motion. He just posted at the message board and has
provided some good technical info of his
experiences with the Canon
Powershots. Also, he contacted 'our' SMW staff
with similar information and has
given me permission to post at Stop Motion Works. I
think, I will later include his insights-comments at the Digital Still Cam link. Of course ..... credit
acknowledgement to Glenneroo. Visit his
website at www.glenneroo.org and look at his TimeLapse
work. He also is an artist in the area of Still
Photography.
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01.10.07
* Pete
Kleinow 1934-2007 .... Passed away January
6. One of many reports; read this, LA Times. The last time I saw Pete, was at the Gumby
50 Year Celebration
in San Francisco, in the summer of '05.
He made a quick appearance to pay his respects to Art Clokey. I worked with Pete on some ocassional
freelance Stop Mo gigs. A music career he also had which
I somewhat knew about, but not in much detail.
Apparently, Pete was well know in the music industry.He
lived in a modest home out in the Sunset district (near
the ocean) in San Francisco. I recall visiting him there
sometimes to discuss the projects and when I delivered
the work to him and I did see sitting in his garage that
unique musical instrument he mastered,
the Pedal
Steel Guitar. I
had no idea about the Alzheimers.I just looked at Pete's
website Sneaky Pete Kleinow, and apparently, his illness was
announced there.I don't remember when or seeing it in the
past.
Pete was a mild manner
gentleman, low key, most friendly, and a good story
teller. Much experiential wisdom about
the biz & life;
earning the 'School of Hard Knocks Degree'.
I cannot say that I knew Pete well, but it was an honor
for me to cross paths with him. An unsung
hero in our small Stop Motion community.
He did a lot of bread & butter work
in the biz, commercials, B-movies,
series, etc.I am further humbled, after reading up about Pete, not only his work in Stop
Motion & FX, but also his Musical background ..... Musical Photo Montage, late 1960's Live Concert about 1970 Burrito Deluxe Promo Lifetime Achievement Award 2005 Amazing .... Pete has rubbed
shoulders with many well known musicians & vocal
singing artists. At the message board, there is a Pete Kleinow topic/thread, if you wish to look at or post
comments.
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01.06.07
* Why
Hollywood Sucks .... Those are NOT
my words, but from someone named Tucker Max.
He has a website-blog; which can be in
your face, low brow & raunchy and kind-of, full of
himself arrogant. All, I am sure, a persona
created to draw attention  and it probably works, attracting certain
segments of the population. In spite of IMO
critique , 'he'
did start an interesting topic at his
forum. It is about an 8 page thread, so
it should last you a week if you read
a page a day . Some interesting
and cogent comments and observations
about 'mainstream showbiz'. In the past,
I have alluded to it in my own way, but I think you
should explore what others say. You see,
I am not just a ranting maniac here alone. Others,
also 'see' how Tinsel Town
works, in general. No, nothing about
Stop Motion, but you should enlighten yourself about the bigger
view of the politics of the biz
.... CLICK & READ. Addendum: Somewhat SLOW
with regards to Stop Motion news or related subject
matter. Also, it is not easy for me
writing extensive blogs. I was maybe on a 'roll'
for a few months, but I 'gotta' take a break once in
awhile. You dig?
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