Post 685 - Ireland Part One - Dublin - Ashford Castle - Cong and the Wolfhounds

Don't let the sleek lines fool you - this American Airlines jet engine was about ten feet in height, and we had the great luck of having it in our view for just a few moments short of four hours.  It was the Friday of the CrowdStrike computer debacle, and we sat in the plane from just past 10pm to 2am.  At one point we were getting notification that, if the software couldn't be fixed, we'd all have to unload (it was a full 300+ passenger flight) and get onto another plane.  At 2:01am we were in the air.  At 3am, we were roused to be fed DINNER, and then four hours later, roused again for BREAKFAST before setting down in Dublin.  The delay cost us our first tour - a trip through the streets of Ireland's capital.

The Clayton House - Ballsbridge - was originally a Masonic Orphanage for Girls.  Yeah, that certainly sounds like the setup for a Netflix mini-series.  Amazingly, it was a well-regarded orphanage, and the converted lodgings were completely un-haunted.

Sadly, the water was a bit recycled in flavor, too.  In Ireland, the caps don't complete detach, so you don't lose them when you open the recyclable container.  However, it keeps hitting you in the snozzola when you take a drink.  I always thought Yeats was thicker than water.

First rural vision of Ireland.  Stone walls.  It's an art and a profession.

Tiny lots for Irish renters from British landlords.  Seems Henry VIII really wanted that divorce and took it personally when Ireland didn't capitulate. 

Cong was a quick drive-thru experience, but this is the Cohan Bar from The Quiet Man, and bits of the town are given over to the celebration of that film from 1952,  We didn't get off the coach (NEVER bus) because the amazing driver, Milos from Croatia, nudged his behemoth through the narrow one-way streets with scarcely an inch to spare, yet alone a door to open!

Hey, "Animating Apothecary," you know!

And lo! Ashford Castle, complete with moat and golf course.

And every castle must have its Lodge! (image by Richard Ong, fellow tourist from Toronto)

The Associated Lodge is a lovely Irish place - even the floors have freckles

Bathrobes abounding, openfaced showers, and furthermore, heated towel racks. 

About to inspect the gardens with the horticulturalist of the family

Odd how, in a country with so much rain, there are so many ornate places to sit

Jacob and Alesha, from Wisconsin, celebrating their honeymoon.  Some of the brightest and deepest conversations involved these two.  They were also smart enough to bring their own umbrella.

Where there's a rabbit hole...

...there's a RABBIT!

View from the Ashford Castle Lodge site - just above and behind this view is the Wilde Restaurant, named not for Oscar, but for his physician father.

It has been a while since visiting a restaurant where waiters wear gloves to pour my tea. Or was it a Guinness? Regardless, the Wilde Restaurant was a wonderful bit of pampering after a long flight and neck-bending twist through nearby Cong in our tour bus. It is in the Ashford Castle complex, and we were seated in the same window view shown in its online photographs. The cod was great, the pasta fresh and savory, but the "veg" course - a small saucepan of root vegetables - was a searing burst of flavor to these displaced Midwesterners taste buds.

Here are the ingredients to the little saucepan containing that evening's "veg" course:  butternut squash, parsnips, carrots, and turnips, with butter/milk/cream to make it buttery/milky/creamy, with a teeny dash of ginger.  Your mouth will depart for Nirvana moments after that.  Try to catch the lip gloss before it leaves.

Walking with the Wolfhounds of Ashford Castle - Molly, Mulligan and Shay

Molly, Mulligan, and Shay

Took off for a glorious day,

They chased all the rabbits

(As was their trained habit)

And frightened the faeries away!

The keeper of the wolfhounds, with tour coordinator Patricia O'Brien

Attentive to the safe word, "Sausages!"

At attention for attentions

The Garbo hallway

The Monroe Doctrine

A wee spot of breakfast.  The smoothie was very digestible, especially important for extended coach excursions.

 

Post 684 - ASIFA Central July Newsletter - with IAD Anijam Project for October 2024

Hi there!  You're likely peeking in for some data on the ASIFA International Animation Day Celebration and how to run around in your Anijammies with Bill Plympton's fantastic poster!  SO THIS IS GREAT!

The newsletter below will give you some general information of the project, but it boils down to this - Bill's poster has six images, in progression like a storyboard (you've seen it by now, but it's also in the images below).  ASIFA Central started a project where we snag two of the images and then blend one into the other, taking whatever distractions that occur in the process as they may.  

We have been running some tests, just to get a feel for it.   They are attached in this section of the blog.

The task is this - pick two of the sequential images, and move from one to another, directly or indirectly, using as many or as few images as you wish.  We assemble the images, edit them in a cycle, run them together, toss in music, and Viola! an Anijam!  You know how it works - Marv Newland did the "first one" a couple of years back - (as in 1984) Click here to see it on Youtube

Now that's a pretty high bar to reach, but you'll notice that even in that classic, some clips incorporated works in progress ("Get a Job," "Sunbeam") or exercises from individual animators who adapted them to the challenge.

For the sake of consistency, I have made the six "storyboard frames" into 1920x1080 jpgs - and here they are, ready for download:

Number Six

Number Five

Number Four

Number Three

Number Two

Number One

Pick a pair - it doesn't matter which two, but make them sequential, create a series of jpgs 1920x1080, name the series to identify you and the sequence number (ie "No1toNo2CandyK"), again, it doesn't matter how many drawings, and email them to yr hmbl typst, secty to the ASIFA Central chapter, at jim.middleton@gmail.com. 

I plan to begin the assembly on October 1.  If I have multiple submissions on a particular pairing, I'll  move back and forth until all are seen.  

I have a lot of PD music and FX to use as background, so don't fret about sound, about synch, or anything like that.  I just need to know who drew them and which sequence they represent.  If you want to go Full Bore Cray on it, sure, I'll be glad to accept mp4s with sound! lights! camera! and action, but that's putting to much on your shoulders.  

This is just a fun exercise, something that will be made available on FilmFreeway for the IAD programming across the globe!  Nobody will be collecting any revenue for this.  The contributing artists retain all rights to their work.

So that's the story, those are the drawings above, and here are the samples I threw together back in early August:

Again, any questions - contact ASIFA Central Secretary, Jim Middleton at jim.middletonrx@gmail.com - and the deadline is October 1. 

Oh, and here's the July 2024 ASIFA Central newsletter - the reason for this posting:

 

Post 683 - Another Concurrent Exercise - IAD Poster Distortion Project!

Members will be given six images from this year's IAD Poster, created by legendary independent animator Bill Plympton.  Here they are, au naturel, waiting for some serious in-betweening!

 And the mighty poster, itself!  As they say, "watch this space!"

(very very preliminary rough test, experimenting with morphing software, hardly a "final cut")