A few notes about 'The Orchestra'...

the last two and a bit months have been swallowed up whole (sadly never to be regurgitated!) by pre-production and more pre-production. the script has evolved through two new drafts - and is now VERY different to what it was, and worryingly longer than it was too. right now, i'm not afraid of the possible extra work - but ask my again twelve months into production! no, no... it's all for the good of the finished work. thanks to mel, jen and mike at screen oz for their valuable script input..

what can i say about the new drafting process? well, i have since learned quite a lot more about the formulaic side of screenwriting. i was lucky enough to attend a seminar hosted by michael hauge and steve kaplin in which i was enlightened by the gurus of storytelling and comedy about such things as script arc and character development are, and about the mechanics of comedy writing. these things may seem intuitive, and they definitely are to an extent, but when you know the nuts and bolts of these concepts they provide perfect tools to give the old script a make over - so now when something is awry, instead of just pounding the hell outta the old draft like a busted TV, i feel better able to actually diagnose the problems. (there, is that enough metaphors and similes for you). having said that, i plan to still rely on naked intuition when i start a script, the formulas come later...

so, yes we now have a fouteen page script. this should, if the old one page equals one minute theory holds up, have a film equal in length to ol' 'Eugene Green'. my hunch is that it'll be more like eleven or twelve mins long though... still long! i guess that's just what you get when you try and cram a complicated plot with two protagonists and a whole bunch of minor characters in a short.

what else is new? i have plans to join the 3D revolution (somewhat) and build the backgrounds from 3D models. i've even started learning maya, and have started construction on a very nice-looking lamp. thanks to andrew brown for his enthusiasm and tutorship in this regard - i'm pretty excited that it's going to look great with some sketchy dense matt martin textures. speaking off, have i posted the test background that was drawn for the film pitch. here it is...

she's a beaut!








and while we're posting one picture, here's a couple of images of the characters. these are still pre-production images, but i think the characters of vernon and doreen are coming along nicely...





















okay then, that's all for now. in the next day or so, we'll hopefully be given script approval from the funding body and then there'll be no stopping us! animatic, music, animation... we'll be done by christmas! (just like WW1 was to be over by the end of 1914 - and that all worked out fine...)
roger roger charlie foxtrot! over. and. out.

patience is a virtue...

the key word for today is 'patience'...

an animator needs patience during a film (obviously), but also after a film is complete.

i have learned this lesson the hard way today...

reflections on stuttgart...

sitting on a train traveling southwest at 153km/hr, from warsaw to krakow... (in poland the 'w' is pronounced as a 'v' - so heading phonetically from varsav to krakov)... seems like a good a time as any to vrite an entry for ze blog.

it's been a couple of weeks since the festival at stuttgart and i've had a chance to reflect on the happenings there. it was simultaneously overwhelming, thrilling, fun, educational and chaotic... i've never seen so many animators in one place before, and when you get a roomful of cartoon nerds congregating - a strange cross-section of folk who rarely see the sunlight, and by choice spend years of their life drawing the same pictures over and over - a weird pack mentality unfolds.. fueled by red wine and choked with cigarette smoke, red faces loom large, the cacophonic babble of multilingual banter fills the air and business cards fly through the air like little harmless cardboard ninja stars.. i collected billions of the little buggers. and then at the right concentration of alcohol, noise and bravado, bizarre occurrences occur, such as the impromptu formation of the hip hop band 'lei lei and the australians' - an eclectic fusion of chinese rap, melodica, twangy back-up vocals and experimental percussion... we were a hit and held three encore performances - one including david silverman on the tuba.

most importantly, friends were made, and there will be familiar faces at future festivals. and even more important than that is the hours of often beautiful, and only occasionally dull, short animations that i saw on the big dark screen. my favourite was 'a family portrait' by joseph pierce, which ended up winning the grand prize, an unexpected winner but wholly deserved! hopefully we'll get to see it in melbourne in a couple of months...

obviously the biggest thrill of the festival was premiering my film. i'm prone to slight hyperbole, but there were at least 700,000 people in the cinema that night, and the reaction was great... i've found that audience reactions to mr eugene green can vary depending on whether or not people start laughing early on... and on this occasion there was a lot of laughter and a general positive buzz in the air.. it was brilliant. after the film i was asked to come up on stage to be interviewed by the hilarious christoph.. who had a habit of saying that 'big tall handsome men made him forget what he wanted to ask'.. funnily enough he remembered all of his questions for me... unlike me, i wasn't nervous at all - it was all very off the cuff and relaxed.

another highlight - almost an unexpected one - was the screening of my film as the opener for 'the simpsons movie' on the outdoor screen in the schlotz platz... it was a filthy night - freezing and rainy... i thought it might have been cancelled, but it went ahead for an audience of maybe thirty or forty hardy souls, and again it had a great response... it was so good to stand in the rain with my friend and musical compandre, jamie messenger, by my side, both of us clutching hot mulled wine, watching eugene shine through the gloom...

so, the stuttgart international festival of animated film was a great experience - one i wish to one day revisit... hopefully i will.

an australian animator in deutschland...

hallo, danke gut morgen...
so... i premiered my film 'TNSGEG' at one of the largest animated film festivals in ze world last nite, the Stuttgart International Festival of the Animated Film (in German - the Trickfilmfestivale). strangely i did not feel nervous (much) as i stood on the stage in front of, saaayyy, maybe 7 or 800 people as i was interviewed by a famous german tv star. all in all it went swimmingly... i didn't make any culturally insensitive remarks - the worst (which occurred later in the evening) was an unfortunate mention of a woman's hair colour (nancy from belgium - the first lady of the european film festival scene).. all i said in relation to her flaming chilli red hair was that 'my mum naturally has the same coloured hair'... 'naturally' being the fau pax. anyway, forgiveness was found in a glass of red wine.. oopsiedaisy..


here is some cheese... very large cheese.. as modeled by my beautiful lil sister Lisa... it's nothing to do with Germany, but it is very interesting nonetheless.. thank you Lisa..

overwhelmingly, my film was received very well - i like the German's very much for laughing in the right places - they share my sense of humour.

let me give a shout out to some of the other great films i have seen so far.. 'family portrait' by joseph pierce (a very nice animator who enjoys baring his chest to the german club crowd, but sadly does not represent his country well on the football field), 'lucky' by darcy prendergast - an awesome light painting animation that was made in melbourne (if you squint you can see my silhouette in some of the shots), 'crocodill' - a wickedly absurdist estonian comedy, 'runaway' by cordell baker - the oscar shortlisted film that very very very much deseved to be nominated and WIN the damn award, and an awesome russian 2d animaation - i think called 'walk dog road' - i'll check that - about a world of dog poop and a lonely and hard working poop cleaning machine... twas tre cute and beautifully crafted..

ok, pretzels und coffee call for me, and then it's off to a film makers talk - note to self, don't mention hair colour...

PHEW!

making a website is hard... well, it is if you're a luddite when it comes to things like actionscript, or cssssss style thingo's...

HOWEVER! but for a few minor changes that my obsessive-compulsive-perfectionist disorder (OCPD) will no doubt shortly enforce, my website is brand spanking new and updated!

huzzah! it even has links 'n' stuff...

soon i will put a link on facebook and twitter and then sit back, relax, and watch the hordes of users roll by...

here's a pic... yes, that's it uuuuuupppppp there.

i've been putting some more stuff up on vimeo and the youtoobe too.. shortly i will put links on the blog.

and, speaking of links - here's one to my website: mrillogical.com

tonight i will have a go at animating a bird using light and shadow... more on that later.

cheerio for now,
mrillogical
www.mrillogical.com

numero uno

world! hello...



being a member of a global society who seems to be being sucked further and further inside the screens that hover inches from our faces, perhaps it is time that i become more eloquent, or at least more verbose, in our universal language...

today, it is grey and industrial... (literally - there's workmen outside my window), and i'm stuck doing the things that i should do, but certainly don't want to.

blog bleg blug blag blig,
mrillogical

www.mrillogical.com