Post 463 - Reworking Some Very, Very Old Files - Sfumato #2

On the 4th of July in 2001, G. Bush, as his polling was sliding, was asked by a reporter if he thought it was due to his bad performance up to that time.  Bush responded, "Who cares what you think?"  before it dawned on him that he was speaking to a reporter.  "Be sure you get that right!"  he called back.  Later the reporter's boss said he'd received a call from the White House stating how rude he was to the president.  

 (cc) 2003, Jim Middleton, The Animating Apothecary, use with permission (please)

It was just a taste of what was to come, hardly a whiff, as we saw.  It was enough for me to revisit an old high school film that was not much more than a series of editorial cartoons on a Nixonian theme.  Only now, instead of Super 8mm film, I had Autodesk Animator Pro for DOS!  And a digital tablet!  Twenty seconds of material came of it, with a recording from 1917 to use as pacing, when the usual things happened, and it never wrapped.  I started and finished Sfumato #3 in the meantime, and even that took me until 2021 to get around to it.  Time flies when everyone is having fun.

So after Sfumato #3, it was time to look at the old flic files and try to convert them into jpg format, only to find everything was in 720x480, the State of The Art in 2000, where the currently soon-to-be outmoded format is 1920x1080 (if ever I go to anything approaching 4K, it'll take a new computer).  Anyway, a bit of work in a new-ish version of Flash (a version one can actually buy) with some framing learned from updating an even earlier film, along with some effects courtesy of Sony Vegas, and the existing footage from 2001 has been converted to this file -- 

 (c) 2022, Jim Middleton, The Animating Apothecary

Still silent, with some earlier tests for the stop-motion ending of this 180 second opus posted elsewhere around here.  Just have to fill in about 140 seconds now.  Let's see - 140 seconds, 24 fps -- that's 3360 frames, or 1680 if I "shoot" on twos... and in another 20 years it should be done!  Now to look at all those boxes in the basement...

We all need goals!

Experimenting with Soundtracks - "Rush Job"

Originally a six week project in 1998, using a DOS animation version of "Autodesk Animator Pro," this collection of 2800 frames was initially paired with a 1917 recording of a Chopin Waltz composed in the 1830s.  When first uploaded to test the limits of a Facebook posting, FB said, "Oh that music violates copyright!" based on some parallel world regulations.  

So I went with a 1911 performance of Victor Herbert performing his own work, "Scherzo."   

Thought I'd test the limits on uploads to Blogger...

Christmas 2020

 

Sparrow Greeting as a GIF

Because Atticus demands attention, too

And for the video inclined, the following distractions are offered:

Air Travel Sketchbook Dump 2011-2015

Filling time between terminals...

Fixing Things from Flash 5.5 Days

Not example a "fix," more of a "restore."
The original Flash 5.5 files had become unstable - mainly a font issue - so this was reworked into a collection of about 2000 jpegs and then re-edited in a contemporary video editor, rather than rely on the space hogging (and poor resolution) files within the Flash software itself.  Not sure it's worth all the effort, but it's one less thing on the bucket list, and there is "time" these days....

Evolving Project Test GIFs

(c) 2020 Animating Apothecary

A later iteration.... (c) 2020 Animating Apothecary

And still more.... (c) 2020 Animating Apothecary

...and to the end of the initial assembly... (c) 2020 Animating Apothecary

Monster mouth test (c) 2020 Animating Apothecary

Mouth and foreground assembly test (c) 2020 Animating Apothecary

Hey, I'm trying to sleep here!

   

     Well, the latest reverie was me being inserted into an intervention led by Nick Nolte and a Keanu Reeves-ish counselor for a suicidal Gary Busey.
     Nolte tells Busey, "Hey, you've got all your fans to think about - they loved you in...." and he turns to me and says, "Quick! A Gary Busey movie!" and nobody can think of one, including Busey...
     Nolte gets Busey's gun, we all run out into the night and end up over a bridge where Nolte accidentally shoots the gun into the dark, and says, "Oh that's harmless," and immediately there are sirens, an upended vat of red paint is mistaken for blood, and a crowd of people run out into the street and onto the bridge.
     Then, a block away, a deserted building explodes, and we surround Nolte, still holding the gun, afraid to toss it because of all the witnesses, and unwilling to hide it in his pants because the barrel is still hot from the firing.

     Then someone yells "CUT!," and Sparrow demands to be let out.  

     6:45am.  

     So much for retirement.

Esperanto Pronto

Effects test - and just generally annoying the software:

(cc) 2019 The Animating Apothecary

Coffee Playtime - Experiments in Animated GIF to mp4

Version 1 - Rough animatic (animated gif format)

Version 2 - checking timing (mp4 render in Vegas)

Version 3 - with video effects added (again, mp4, again Vegas)

Version 4 - with music edit added (mp4, Vegas)

Version 5 - just an ever-so-slight adjustment with two keyframes - this is why you make exposure sheets, kids, even for short experimental pieces....the difference is barely perceptible.

Animation using Flash CS5, output as a jpg series, imported into Vegas for edit and adjustment.

A "production note" - the background was from a quick acrylic painting of some 8 years past, quickly photographed and placed into the Flash library, before being converted to a symbol and then given an alpha adjustment. The original imported image was fairly large, even after conversion once introduced to the Flash environment.  As a result, animating even this brief piece became a challenge due to memory restrictions - things slowed down and the system crashed frequently (the laptop being used having only 8megs of RAM).  I ended up deleting the background file until everything was completed, then put it in place for the two sequences where it appears (after the explosion, I darkened it slightly and knocked it askew).
Everything was still exported as a series of about 225 jpgs, then imported as individual frames to the Sony Vegas software (now called MAGIX - Version 15 is used here, since version 16 is a real estate hog on the hard drive).

Complications from Taking Things for Guinness

I like burnt toast. I made a crunchy meatloaf tonight. It has carbon. I am carbon based. If I ever burn my fingers, I may be my own lunch. I also had a bear tonight.  A beer. A bear would be silly. If I were a bear's lunch, I'd be pretty burned. And then I'd have dinner too. Maybe I'd invite the bear for a beer.  A Hamm's. A hemms. Ahem. Time to dream of bears. A bare dream. No that's something completely different.  That's a Python. A python in a bare dream with a beer and a bear. As long as I'm not bare with a bear and a beer.  That would be a bore.

I should write this down.

And later:

There once was a saucy mosquito

Who craved a juicy burrito

But when she lay in the mud

Con-templating blood,

She switched her desire to some Cheetos.

Sleep can only help so much....
(rewrite when awake to...)

Abuzz in jungled mosquitoes

Was an egg-borne pester of cheetas

She hummed o'er the swamp

All primed for a romp

But settled for tartare burritos



And, emerging from the fog:

A submental collection of weasels,
Oleagenous as freshly-lubed diesels,
Tied themselves into knots
On the subject of shots.
News report: they all died of the measles!

Talking Alone to the Phone on a Long, Long Drive....

Maybe an animation narration here...(begun in the mid 1980s, bits found on a micro cassette from that "era"):

Said Laura Palmetto McGregory Toon

“I just read a story that ended too soon!

Oh sure, it had gremlins and dragons unnumbered,

And even a princess in eternal slumber.

The problem’s the story just ended too soon!”
Said Laura Palmetto McGregory Toon

She went to her granny’s, found all the best books

She read them in crannies, she read them in nooks.

She read them with cookies piled high upon lace,

She read them so close she smeared ink on her face.

She read them at night, with her little flash lightie,

She read them all cuddled in a blue flannel nightie. 

A distraction appeared, as a canine named Beet

(But he'd answer to "Boo!" or "Come Here for a Treat!")

She taught him to sit, to roll over, and stay

But found he liked books in a very wrong way... 

She read tawdry romances - novels - adventures!

(And a medical essay on ugly old dentures).

She read about people from Kalamazoo

She read about hormones (and made a few, too). 

She planned a career filled with keyboards and easels,

And was vaccinated against getting three-day-old measles

She never found princes, nor flared dragons, either,

Just boy after boy all determined to tease her. 

She was married once, she was married twice:

The first one for love, the other for vice.

She had a sweet daughter, the usual way,

Who turned 17 and then sauntered away. 

So what was this story that caused all this strife?

It wasn’t a story, it was simply a life.

So while it lacked princes, it gave a good slumber

And moments of happiness too many to number. 

“The problem’s the story just ended too soon!”

Said Laura Palmetto McGregory Toon.

-or-

Margaret Millington MacDonald O'Foon

Tina O'Leherity Smith-Wallington Soon

Stacy McMacey Sans-Souci Muldoon

Racheal Fontunis FitzWalletter Moon

Vickie McLitchey Sympatti Racoon

Phun Pharmacy Phacts - December edition

If you wrapped every cough drop sold inside every condom sold at the pharmacy, you'd never get any droplets.

With injectable diabetes treatments, cherry flavoring is preferred to kiwi  by a factor of 12 to 1.

If you count your ADHD medications by threes instead of fives, your chances for OCD increase by 47.382%.

Shameless Self Promotion Update

Update in February, 2025:  Lulu press has discontinued certain publication size options, so without notice, my assembly of sketches went Pfft!  All that remains is "No Time For Time" in their catalogue, with the other titles being reformatted for other venues, TBA.  So Here is the link to "No Time For Time," also available on Amazon.

 

No Time for Time, a novella for the 1980s 

http://www.lulu.com/shop/jim-middleton/no-time-for-time/paperback/product-23497363.html

Testing the AGPtEK light box

It's hardly a box, and it's wonderful because (a) it's cheap, and (b) it's light, and (c) it doesn't heat up and make your hands sweat when you're using it.  And it has three levels of illumination - AND it runs off your powerstrip or through the USB port on your computer.  Here's a quick test of four images into an animated GIF:

And this is just another Photoshop test, using some onionskin sketches from the 1980s... so many boxes of stuff to digitize...

from the "Benny Bugg Workout" (1988)

A Hot Summer in 2005

Sketch for a story about downtown development in Battle Creek, Michigan....

Once Upon A Time - another typing exercise

Celebrating the metaphor...1948 Royal "Arrow"