Tweeted on 2010-08-29
- SWAT ('03): macho trash. Sam Jackson on 40% power. Colin Farrell is wood. 2 Wire actors and 1 Shield director don't help ** #copmoviereviews #
- NES-style map fun. http://8bitcity.com/ #
Tweeted on 2010-08-28
- Rewriting script for "Bret Braddock" animated series trailer. Needed more yelling and swearing. #fb #
- RT @coldhardflash (cheers! we made top 5!) Precinct Short in Sydney Opera House Contest | Cold Hard Flash .. http://bit.ly/doEFcu #
- Great sprite anim by Paul Robertson for the Scott Pilgrim game: http://probertson.livejournal.com/33796.html (why the girl becomes a log?) #
John Howard’s Knees: recording session 01
So I’ve mentioned that I’m working on a new music short film called John Howard’s Knees, about the ex-PM and his bewitching patellas.
- Everybody wants to smash ‘em!
We had our very first proper recording session last month. Prior to this, I’d recorded a fairly crap demo track featuring me singing the song over a lush bed of cheap Korg synth (Poly-800, if you want to know).
The idea with this session was to get two people in. One is my friend Sue, who’s an opera singer. I wanted her to take a crack at singing some of the song so I’d have something less nasty than my own voice to listen to on the demo. Also, I’d never heard her sing and I reckoned she might well be awesome.
As it turned out, she was (and is)! So she’ll be on the final track. She did an amazing job in the studio considering he had a cold, and this was our first rehearsal, and neither of us quite knew how the melodies/harmonies were supposed to go. Nao, the recordist, helped us out a bit with this (thank you, Nao).
The second person is sort of a hero of mine; Tony Martin (of The Late Show, Martin/Molloy and Get This, not Blue Murder, Wildside and The Interview). He agreed to drop in and be the voice of John Howard in the fillum.
I felt a bit shitty for asking him to come and do some schtick he’s been doing for twenty years (you can hear a bit of his musical Howard here!), but hopefully seeing his Howard as a cartoon character will be a bit of fun for him.
One challenge will be matching the design to the voice. The Howard impression he does is more a characterisation than a true “accurate impression”. If I was to compare it to a cartoon, I’d say his Howard is a Tandberg. So my Howard design is along those lines. It might need to be a little simpler even. I’m obsessed at the moment with the idea that maybe his mouth goes “vertical” when he yells, but this is a rip on Ren from Ren & Stimpy, so I may chuck it.
Anyway, the session went well, and swiftly, and, as with my recording of Shaun Micallef a few years back, he was swift and good-humored. And I kept things professional. I even did a dialogue list and remembered to get lots of little “uh!” “weh!” “yaaa!”-type noises out of him to use while he’s being chased, etc (this is important).
I didn’t get any session pics! I had two hours off work and we packed ‘em with recording. Next time.
Before I get the singer/s into the studio to do the song properly, I’m going to do a MIDI file with the melody and harmony lines in it so they can study it beforehand. Will also record the other actor voices soon.
I’m thinking of not bothering with a storyboard for this film.
Tweeted on 2010-08-24
- Audio recording for "John Howard's Knees" toon has begun! Blog post about session w/Sue Daoud and Tony Martin http://tinyurl.com/2borq66 #
- OUTLAW FORCE: excellent @davidheavener b-movie. Revenge, nasty punkers and country music sung by Heavener himself. ***1/2 #copmoviereviews #
Tweeted on 2010-08-22
- No, I would not try to eat this. http://bit.ly/99ZzuP #tripleparma #
Here’s the Precinct stuff from the Opera House contest
I entered and was a finalist in the Sydney Opera House’s GRAPHIC animation competition! I’ve whacked the stuff I had to make for the contest on YouTube.
First, there were two video diaries:
My head looks larger and pinker in the second one, but the clip is shorter and has a better ending.
And here’s my complete entry. The contest had 3 rounds, and we had to make 20 seconds of action for each round. I tried to make it a cohesive Precinct-type story even though we had to include specific themes and objects in our entry (“seven years” and “recovery” were two of them):
It was a lot of work, but a very nice experience overall. I went up to Sydney for the GRAPHIC festival, which was pretty kickarse, and met most of the other animators!
Thanks to Dave Thomas (who won the contest — congratulations, Dave!) for sending me thru this pic! I swear I was smiling in the other ones.
Tweeted on 2010-08-21
- Little old lady outside a block of flats, looking at a fairly standard auction sign: "Bloody maniacs." Then she chuckled and walked off. #fb #
- My last tweet is a micronovel, to be serialised over 3 wks on The Age site, 1 word/day. Sundays, 2 words. Paywall goes up after "sign". #
- 99% of the people saying "I'll leave Aus if Abbott wins" won't do it unless they get an arts grant setting them up in Berlin for a year. #fb #
GetUp’s visual communication problem
GetUp! is a grassroots political organisation which claims not to support any particular political party. They’re going to be handing these cards out at polling places on Saturday.
I’m a member and I like what they do but I have a problem with the cards from a “visual communication” perspective. This is the e-mail I wrote them:
Hi,
Just in response to your election scorecard: I’m in support of a”spin-free” scorecard, but from a purely marketing standpoint, I can imagine swinging voters such as myself might be unconvinced of its impartiality given the lovely “full marks” you’ve given the Greens. It reminds me of the kind of “unbiased comparisons” you see in paid-for car advertising, etc.
I know this is intended as a small, quick-glance tool, but if you’d like to consider yourselves (ourselves) impartial, and you hope to get the interest of intelligent people who might not already be GetUp members, it’d be best to avoid looking like a front for the Greens, however much you (we) might support their ideals.
Love your work generally. Keep it up.
Cheers
David
Am I being picky or just naive?
Tweeted on 2010-08-19
- GetUp's "election scorecard" is ineffective visual communication, says unimportant cartoonist: http://tinyurl.com/2aoel3s #
- Tony Martin/John Doyle/Tim Pye on writing satire, from Byron Bay Writers Fest: http://tinyurl.com/2b3p6g7 #
- Chris Morris & Marcus Westbury speak with Safran & Father Bob: http://tinyurl.com/28vjbm9 #
- Santo Cilauro on ABC Darwin radio: http://tinyurl.com/2b3p6g7 #
Tweeted on 2010-08-13
- Listened to old #GetThis while animating Dogstar character w/Tony's voice. Possible T Martin overload. #confusesyourbrain #fb #
- Morning synthrock: the modern sounds of David Mikeal! http://t.co/zpb948e Rest of the album's great. Samples: http://tinyurl.com/26uyout #fb #
