Sorry I have posted in a while to anyone who has actually wanted me to post more. Life has been weird to say the least. School is less motivating than it has been … all my classes except for my camera techniques class take place behind a computer screen. Don’t get me wrong; I love computers, but I need to touch a piece of paper or canvas every once in a while. Aside from that assignments are annoying little exercises .. I don’t blame my teachers though, they are great people and I respect them a lot, but I don’t like learning how everyone else does. I want to be given large projects that I can dive into … the fear of “sink or swim” is something that drives me like nothing else, tight deadlines, project importance, projects that demands skills that I have yet to learn, drive me.

In the words of Darth Maul in in the Star Wars Episode I commercials: “Fear is my ally”. Small exercises are too comfortable. When I see a small project I think “I can do this at any time, and really quickly” thus making me complacent. Complacency is ambition’s enemy, an enemy that binds me from importance. To the gist of things; it’s making it hard to have interest in classes. I still want to be part of this school … more than ever in fact, because of the animation meeting my academic director Roby held. It was good to hear that his views paralleled with some of my own as well as my partner-in-crime Mari; story and character development being of upmost importance in animation, but also that our school has become a “monster factory” churning out anime girls, mechs, sci-fi soldiers, demons, wizards, superheros, and other cliche crap. Emphasis on larger projects also gave me a renewed sense of anticipation. A few points I would’ve like to have heard stronger would’ve been the professionalism of animators, and maybe a stronger push for traditional art knowledge … hell, Disney made his artists know it. People at this school will know what “inverse kinematics” and “ray-tracing” is before “contrapposto” and “chiarroscurro” are, which is unfortunate, but can be changed.

Also, trying to get out of student housing and into an actual apartment is a struggle.

Anyway, what is driving me back to posting on my own site again is to show off something special that is coming down my production pipeline (or maybe intestine is better vernacular). Without further ado, I present:

The Ends: in Luv-Taco is an animation project I expect to finish in the winter towards the end of Fall Quarter. The abstract thought that led to it’s creation was “Quentin Tarantino meets Fleischer cartoons” which seems to be a very natural combination. Tarantino’s influence would not necessarily be an emulation or parody of his work, but rather trying to approach my story, script, cinematography, etc. as he would. His plots are out of sequence, for what imagine is for the sake of contrast, and present information in a more dramatic way. He is also to be very dialogue driven, which creates very strong and unique personalities within the story, something I aimed to achieve after seeing 12 Angry Men last year in speech class. A Tarantino shot from my recollection; is dynamic without being a hyper-cut MTV shot. The Fleischer Bros. influence will be the rhythmic sense that those cartoons have, and the morbidly humorous aesthetic that encompass them. I could go on with references, but let’s take baby steps.

The basic premise of the story is that 2 friends go to get tacos, the restaurant is closed down because an evil local entrepreneur plans on building on the site. The friends seek revenge against the murderous businessman. The villain will be demonstrated to actually be evil in a certain scene, but it will present the question to the viewer “Do the ends justify the means?” Thus the title The Ends.

The Characters:
-Victor: Yeah I’m in it, so what? I am one of the friends.
-The Cougar: Also one of the friends.
-Robbie: Strange bearded guy who sells us guns.
-Dan Janus: The Villain
-Barney, Bixby, Bill - 3 Dogs with Balloons on their backs.

I plan on having the animatic done soon for my Digital Video Post-production class, but again the final piece will done hopefully this winter. Until then I could use all the support I can get.
-oli

EDIT: I Heart Ricky (The band doing the soundtrack) has a myspace site where you can listen tot he music at http://www.myspace.com/iheartricky

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