ATC Talk at CCC

Margaret and I were two of the eight speakers at the Creative City Centre this evening, doing 6 minute artist talks as part of the Quick and Dirty series. Each participant presents 20 slides and each slide is played for exactly 20 seconds. Margaret was great; she has a far larger and more interesting body of work than most people know about. I talked about Star Wars, Sockvile, and Canister and handed out a new Canister card for people to colour on. Central to my discussion was the idea that the cards are less important than the drive to collect impossible sets. Time was short and I didn't drive this idea home. Oh well. Geremy and Saqib both came out. 

Mrs Stoattoadlich takes on Canister

Armed with a surplus of the dreaded "common sense", Mrs. Stoattoadlich banished Canister to the time vortex where he would not be able to get his hands on Frederick's plans for the unstacapacitor. 

Photos using strobe light

We did some pick up shots of Canister and Sawboy in the studio today while Erik is still in town. I also wanted to play with the strobe light a bit. We worked in complete darkness to get a few long exposures. It doesn't have as much of a throw as I'd hoped though.

Canister about town

Erik helped document Canister finishing my table today. He can be quite handy when he isn't bent on world domination. 

Violence on Campus

On campus today we witnessed an intense fight between the dread space pirate Squidmulon and Professor Delusia the Nochturnalist. It appeared that Delusia left the victor, having strangled Squidmulon with a poisonous snake, but the pirate proved not so easy to kill after all....

Canister the Robot versus Kynth the Vampire

Kynth/Canister Colouring page

While re-staging some scenes from Angst in 3D with Sunny Adams we were interrupted by the jealous robot who wanted to be the only star of my projects. Looks like nothing will stop him from fighting with all of my characters. Luckily no one was hurt.... this time. 

Canister with a twist

"Canister's Detour": click picture to go to YouTube

For the past seven weeks I've been posting trivial little videos on YouTube every day. Tomorrow will be #50, the last in the "series".  I rarely promote them as I would not spend more than 15 minutes making each of them and they are generally uninteresting. Today is only a slight exception. It features Canister the Robot - but with a twist.
Also, William and I got haircuts today.

Robots vs Dinosaurs

As everyone knows, robots and dinosaurs are natural enemies.The shocking thing is that it took until today for the anlog film class to recognise this as a significant point of conflict in their dinosaur-themed project. We shot 4 rolls of 16mm today (3 black and white, one colour). They included Dino-busker, Dino-magician, Dino-swordfight, and Dino vs Canister the Robot.

I also had William at the university to be a performer and to progress on his propaganda project. I'll publish his results once they are handed in, but I don't feel it right to have spoilers before the project is complete. 

a stay home day

Stayed in the house all day Sunday. I have the look I want but need the audio. Have been reading theory article on animation and compositing, discussing the figure/background correspondence that has been developing since the 1920s. Dry but interesting. 

Star Bright, Meagre Might,

Geremy and I shot Star Bright, Meagre Might, Canister the Robot’s infinitesimal invasion from another world today. We couldn't get the sound right. Not only was it just too difficult to read and puppeteer at the same time, but the lab was much too loud with fans and compressors and things that went PING. We have a guide track but will record in studio later. 

Taste of Cathedral

I finally got a draft of my new film; Star Bright, Meager Might, Canister the Robot’s infinitesimal invasion from another world.  I'll shoot it on Monday under a microscope. I've been writing draft after draft but it never seemed to really gel. I needed to put all of the other drafts aside and just start fresh. Thankfully, Margaret mentioned "Fantastic Voyage" and that triggered a creative couple of hours, enough to get the momentum needed. 
Tonight we went out to the Taste of Cathedral. Fred won a door prize. We got a couple of  new things from the auction. Nice food, nice event. 

Super-8 has been shot

 

This afternoon, after four days of planning, I shot my annual One Take Super 8 film (to be screened in Saskatoon in early July). These photos are the first, ultra-secret, behind the scenes images of "Rockem, Sockem, Canister" taken from the undisclosed location in the Film Department studio where, with the help of some of my graduate students, An, Jingyi, and Geremy, I have reinvented cinema (not really. actually I'll be lucky if you can even tell what is going on).