Hypercompendia

I’ve been woefully remiss in keeping up on the Alice project, as well as the Recycling project, as well as The Paths, and anything else my brain gets all fired up about as my ancient body trails behind in Warp 3 speed.

The reason is not from waning interest, nor the same virus that’s laid low my writing, but rather the drain on my creativity and time that comes out of greed. 

No, not really.  At least I hope that’s not it.  It’s a matter of principle and justice (and the Don Quixote in me that charges full speed rather than mere tilting at windmills) that both incites and bleeds me dry but leads me to continue my fight against my dear sister in estate matters for the last three years.

Oh that that dark cloud blows south very soon and leaves clear minded blue skies to fill with ideas and production instead.

More a case of the old updating to adapt to new methods.  In watching (half-ass, I’m not that into it) the races on tv this afternoon, I’ve noticed that it looks exactly like my home page selection on my computer.

There are modules that are related and yet not.  At one point, on the right half of the screen was the commercial, the left half split again with the upper showing the race, the bottom showing the statistics.  Along the top, just like the stock exchange ticker tape ran the driver positions.

At another time, there is a three-way screen showing the same scene from different camera angles.

Funny, I used to figure why would anyone want to watch tv shows on their computer?  Now it looks like I’m watching computer graphics on the tv.

If I knew what I have in software capabilities of the programs I have, I may be already able to create an element or object and then animate it, which just happens to be both my burning desire and the big boulder in my path to successful learning.

Then I stumbled across this program, Toonboom, which has 2D capabilities of animation and is compatibly integrated into software such as Flash, and possibly Alice.  Here’s one of the tutorials and it sure looks like it works very similar to the Adobe programs.   I’m adding Toonboom to my sidebar as a possibility though it just dawned on me that I can possibly find out on the Alice forums how some of the items and characters were created by the users. 

Working with Alice, gathering and molding ideas that are glimmers of thought that could be even a small part of the big picture of a project, I find myself learning from nature too, just watching movement, motion, credibility we take for granted in a real world that can be mimicked or manipulated in a created one.

The Cardinal births seem to be two boys and a girl this year, though I can’t be quite sure until I see two of the same sex together in their feather-color-changing adolescence.  Even without the obvious I can still tell the young from their parents in their behavior.  One young male took a long time to get over that creepy, funny sensation of standing on birdseed at the feeder and preferred the sorting through the empty and the fallen seeds on the ground below.  One male just couldn’t get the hang of landing.  He’d swoop down from the spruce tree or in from the peaches, overshoot the mark and I’d watch as the bush swayed and ruffled against his rough flight as he’d spit out the other end and finally land in the next shrub over.  Yes, I laughed.  Quietly, to myself so as not to embarrass him.  But I also learned the flight of a something that was just an egg a few weeks ago and learning to maneuver in his world.  Motion.  Movement.  Not always smooth and flowing.

It seems I carry my sabotage techniques into this area of new media as well.  Slowly getting used to the commands, taking a day to make an arm move because I back out in disinterest when it doesn’t go my way.

Or maybe more; looking on the web for creating a character from scratch that can be integrated with Alice.  Noble I would hope, but more likely simply stubborn, not to want to use an unoriginal.  The creative spirit is easily offended.

Not exactly new, but I would consider it to be so when it’s being produced on a computer.  John Timmons and Maggie Ducharme collaborated on this piece with audio interviews, old photos, some new film shots and audio clips of big band music relevant to the era and to the story being told.

Ruth and Bob,  A Love Story (link to post with a trailer video) is a documentary style project that tells a story of a couple’s courtship, marriage, and family, focusing on the beginning in the last years of WWII and quickly following up to the present.  While it just dawned on me that video of the interviews Maggie did with her parents, the subjects of this story, would have been a nice addition, because this project was a surprise gift to them and to the family it would have been too big a tip-off.

The first step in the project was for Maggie to sit down with her mom and dad and get them to recall their meeting and their early years together.  She hit a bonanza of information, including the real "first" girlfriends and boyfriends.  This bit of information was a great way to start the story, rounding the characters for the audience and preparing them (as well as mom and dad I suppose) for the real love of their lives.  John integrated photos of the couple along with a few of friends and family, using zoom methods in the software program to focus on an individual within a group.  Other transitioning methods included fades that were primarily used for a break in time period or a major change in setting–such as the wedding, the children, or at the beginning, the war and the young soldier who was anxious to be home. 

Basically starting with a story, or two stories, one from each main character that reflects their individual viewpoints that lead up their meeting, their attraction, their marriage, through separation, children, and a few words for the present and future, the images back up the audio story being told.  Music immediately recognizable as of the era and particularly, of the War years, gave grounding to the images.

Collaboration, planning, focus, and knowledge of software such as Adobe Premiere along with microphone and web access to images and music files all went into effort to achieve not only entertainment and offer a gift to a special couple, but in taking on this task, John and Maggie have produced a bit of family history that can be shared now and handed down to future generations.

Very interesting developments–printed page with circuitry that hyperlinks back to a computer to bring up the information. (if:book)  I’m just not sure it makes a whole lot of sense.

I really need to get back to Alice because I’m getting all hyped up between the weird world of Borges and some links I’ve wandered onto–don’t even know if the software they’re offering is capable of producing these, but this one really was an inspiration.

This post for info and and further exploration as soon as I can.

Relative to this post in Spinning, I kept thinking about what sort of character I would create as a persona in an online game.

Being a pretty honest and realistic person in reality–saving my fantasies for my own personal enjoyment, allowing them to leak into story characters at the most–I wouldn’t be likely to create a Barbie image.  Nor would I depict myself as an exact image of my self lest I scare folk off.

I have for various unshared projects come up with an "image" and while I didn’t go so far as to mix the blonde with some grey strands (and darker roots!), I do include the glasses, get as close as possible to accuracy with what options are available, and can’t help coming up with an extremely flattering projection.

But is it necessary to depict yourself?  Can’t we, since it’s a fantasy world, create a character to represent us that is more towards what we’d like to be than what we are?  Somehow, to me, it’d be like lying on a resume.

However, I’m going to find one of these create your avatar sites and see if I can be a bit less truthful, a bit more wishful, a bit more fun.  If it’s a knockout, and if I can make myself do it, I’ll post it later.

I guess diva actress Ada doesn’t like her leading man Joe.  I can’t get them to hold hands.  I almost did once, but her arm fell off.