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(c) 2023 Jim Middleton, The Animating Apothecary |

Here lies the residue of "The Animating Apothecary," a source of obscure ephemera and thought, created fresh(ish), but now reduced to howling into the wind, sketching in sand, and nibbling at the crustier extremes of an overbaked society. Instagram? see - https://www.instagram.com/animating_apothecary/ - content (c) 2006-2023 Jim Middleton
Monday, December 04, 2023
Sunday, December 03, 2023
Post 627 - Blue Waves and Red Rats - Blending Pencil Tests
Saturday, December 02, 2023
Post 626 - A Blue Wave - "Pencil Test"
Post 625 - Time to Get "Rough on Rats"!
Thursday, November 30, 2023
Post 624 - Test for Closing Credit Background - Color and Timing - First Edit
Simple blue screen matting used, two layers of video, silent, ready for sound sync and final timing. This really is taking forever!
Sunday, November 26, 2023
Post 623 - Exposing Yourself Like It's 1999 - Exposure Sheets for "Sfumato #1: Flute Solo"
Ah the good old early tech days of digital animation - here was an exercise, rendered in the DOS 6 version of Autodesk Animator Pro, requiring frame by frame layering, one sequence at a time, in a day when a VGA GenLock was as good as output to video could get for the "hobbyist."
It was a further challenge since the Autodesk program rendered things out at 15fps, the sound was on a separate TAPE, and the cylinder used broke in mid-play on its second take, requiring a fast edit using a pause button on the cassette playback. A 1906 recording with a second generation dupe - yeah, good times, good times.
Here's a re-render of the project, done this year as a test for "Sfumatoscope!"
Click HERE for the "Updated Video"
Even had to create my own exposure sheets to try figuring it out. I know, I could have been watching football. This was still more fun, honestly. A sampling:
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(c) 1999, 2023, Jim Middleton, The Animating Apothecary |
Tuesday, November 07, 2023
Sunday, November 05, 2023
Post 621 - High School Hubris with Kubrick
Teenagers playing with a camera and a tape recorder. Kinetophones had approximately the same level of synchronics at play:
Teens and Dr Strangelove - ca 1972
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(the cigar was older than me at the time) |
Thursday, November 02, 2023
Post 620 - PNG layer effect on digital illustration test
Now to find some music from the Connecticut Yankees...
Wednesday, November 01, 2023
Friday, October 27, 2023
Post 618 - Playing Telephone
Landon, Holden gasped to stand, and broodish worlds of tea sing thighs
Landon, stand and hold the brute with wordy worldly tea-stained ties
Landon stood embracing brutes and disdained tea from those on high
Landon stood, embracing brutes and disdained tea from me, oh my
Land of snood, embrace, and sing dis tainted tea or dat t'aint me
Land of snoo, them braces sing, with tea too tainted me to bring
Land of snow, the bracings grow, but tainted tea will bring me low
(here the coffee wore off)
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Post 617 - More Ink and Paper! The Joys of Exposure to the Elements!
From the Greenville Daily News, Monday, 23 October 2023
If any conclusion may be drawn from this, it's obvious that I have a problem with breaking cameras.
Article by Elisabeth Waldon, a genius at creating coherency out of rambling thoughts. Many thanks to her.