Shooting is now officially finished! (And was a few hours ago but I was editing and then watching Hulu while my brain cooled off.)

Woohoo! Now time to take it all down. A lot of work for like 6 total hours of shooting and what will be a minute final project.

(Also, I slept on the floor last night under a large piece of felt.)

sleep

This is brief b/c I'm going to fall asleep typing. I didn't go back and work on animation after the meeting BUT the meeting went REALLY well. I will be playing 5 characters with accents (oh accents, *squeal!*) from French to Bostonian to New Yorker to mid westerner. So exciting. I already checked out the four apt dialect cds. Also, I'm excited to work with the other women cast. There's another 28 year old who's into art. She looks like an artist. Or she looks like what I think an artist should look like. Also she seems cool.

On a side note, it's always interesting for me to see people's careful reactions when I ask them what type of art they do. They give really measured responses b/c they are use to people asking but not use to people understanding what they give as an answer. I always want to say, "yes yes yes but what TYPE of art do you do?" and get into an actual conversation.

Animation Update

Why does this kind of work always take longer than it should?

I've been working today now almost 7 hours on the set build and it still feels so far from completion. The mistakes are starting to show and I can feel myself losing patience. The three main components I have left are a US Postal truck, a mail box and the letter itself. Oh and putting the main character back together again. His torso fell apart. See? Hot glue only lasts so long and I literally started the main guy back in May or perhaps earlier even. With magnets I know I can construct a better torso (so it might be good he fell apart in the long run) but right now my brain is too tired to come up with creative solutions, and I'm worried I'll hurt him more. So I'm taking a break. I'll go pet cats. Lay out in the sun. At 6:30 I'll drive back to Corvallis for a 7pm meeting. After that's over (for the love of God hopefully no later than 9) I'll head back here and finish constructing. I really think I can make it.

Animation Nation

So this weekend I may have coated my lungs with a fine layer of spray paint. Spray paint, I might add, that melts Styrofoam. How do you decide you're not going to use a certain color on a tiny stop motion house? When the color begins to melt your walls, that's how.

So I've not accomplished nearly as much as I should. If I had had a schedule I'd be behind. But things always pop up. Like I decided to make a tree. Hot gluing individual pieces of yarn onto a wire frame apparently takes awhile. If I had been keeping track I could have told you how many NPR podcasts it takes to make a yarn tree, but alas I cannot.

So tomorrow I'm jogging at 6:45 and will hopefully be back at the studio no later than 8:30. I still have mailboxes, eyes, and houses to finish but I'm infinitely closer than I was on Thursday night when this all began. (Actually many many Thursday nights ago this began.)

Tomorrow will still probably be almost entirely a build day. If I get my first shot off on Tuesday morning I'll probably be fine. Wednesday it's back to work...and my parents even in their infinite resilience to my crap have their limit. Also, hot glue doesn't last forever. I had to repair major parts of my main character due to hot glue decay.

Oh also, I cut my finger in my paper cutter. Nothing severed. But. The joint of my left thumb is going to hurt like a mother tomorrow. Luckily I didn't have to retrieve any of my skin off of the blade. Also luckily it happened on one of the last slices for the white picket fence.

So on that note! Good night.

A Chicken in a Road

I've never been an anti meat vegetarian. I don't make snide comments. I don't get grossed out by chicken on fine display. I have my opinions and I keep them mostly quiet unless brought out by thoughtful conversation. And I've been totally fine with the fact that my parents are slowly heading back into meat. They have the occasional tuna salad sandwich. They eat the luncheon meats we get for visiting artists. My dad can enjoy a salmon or steak at a restaurant. BUT. I was dumbfounded (DUMBFOUNDED) by the giant tub of Kentucky Fried Chicken that greeted me upon opening my parents' refrigerator this morning. Kentucky Fried Chicken? Really?

Speechless.

(But not so speechless that I can't confess that the fries I had with my veggie burger meal at Burger King last night were delicious!)

*sigh*

Just a tiny note

I'm going to my reunion tonight.

I am a little scared.

I've had 2 nightmares since I decided to go.

I decided to go on Wednesday.

But I'm bringing alcohol.

Everything will be fine.