Everything But The Frames!

I promised an update on my rotoscope, and that's exactly what you're getting. I don't want to show frames from the actual animation yet, as I still want to do more post-production, and my collaborator has yet to see it. But as of 4:45pm today, it is on a timeline, synced to music, and working. AND IT LOOKS SO BEAUTIFUL. I'm really proud of myself. I'm not gonna lie, with such an experimental process to a traditional technique, a lot could go wrong, and the image could end up muddy. But it actually worked! Here's a bit of what my life has been like for the past two weeks.

First, I cleaned my studio. These are some things I made (enamel necklaces--side note: I am a beast at sawing copper; lockets made from photographs and thread; woven photographs; merit badges; paper chain; handmade negatives; 

This rectangle is the approximate format and size of my BFA projects. More about that another day.I completely organized my cabinet. Notice two things: one, the giant stack of frames to be traced on the top shelf, along with a sliver of my tracing paper collection; and two, the wide variety of materials I keep handy, aka, why I hate moving.Yes, those are the frames I need to trace. All the scenes were organized and tied together.

More art things. Things I'm thinking about. Things I consider organized enough. And a blue ribbon from Debbie.Look at how clean my desk is here! And how few library books I have checked out!And this is what it was like. A DVD playing, a lightbox, and a set of Micron pens.And as you can see, my desk didn't stay that clean. 

As I finished each scene, I tied the frames together, labeled them with the scene number, and pinned them to my wall.Each scene averaged about 130 pages. Some were as short as just 24 frames, and others were 230+.The animation was based off of that old photo you see in this image. The young lady's name is Joanna Simmons, or so I believe.And here you can see that the tracing paper supply has disappeared and has been replaced by all the original copies I traced.Hello, I'm Michaela, and I never ever seem to sleep. I'd rather accomplish something.This was partway through photographing the frames. You can see that my laptop also has anxiety. That's a good chunk of the frames I drew. I drew that many frames in 10 days. I amaze myself sometimes.This is my basic set up for photographing the frames. Don't worry, the coffee's just out of frame. (Dear Nicholas, please plan on building me a copystand like this one.)Hopefully this gives you an idea of my insanity. There's still work to do, and I still have to format it for the dome. But when I get an official flatscreen version, I'll be sure to share it with you.Sleep now? After making more art.