Animation Final Format Instructions

Hey guys, I just posted videos showing how to put your final animation into .mov format. Check 'em out.

They include instructions on how to export separate video and audio tracks and edit your final movie together in QuickTime Pro.
Hope it helps!

Animation Final Info

Animators,
Miles will be lurking about the lab or in his office (AB 111) at 2:00 on Monday, Dec 7 to collect your animation magic for the screening on Tuesday! Bring all of your files in case something goes awry, but I'd like to get a high quality .mov from you.
Cheers,
Miles N' Such

Cripes! Real live comic colorists at SOU Tuesday (tomorrow!) at 9:30 a.m.!

Comic book-types. Go check this out!!!!

Hi Miles,

The DC Comic Book colorists, Jeremy and John, are going to be at my class this Tuesday, December 1 at 9:30 AM in MA 003.

They'll be showing their work. This will be a good opportunity for students to ask questions about the BIZ, techniques, etc.

Sorry for the short notice. I just got the word. If you can't get word to your classes on time could you send out class emails.

Thanks,
Don

Get "Covered"!

Check out Covered, a blog that posts covers of classic comic covers alongside "covers" of the originals by contemporary artists. Dan Scanlon's take on Kirby's X-Men no. 1 gets my vote. Thanks to K. Silem Mohammad for the link! Make sure you check Kasey's blog for the best use of blurb-based elipses (. . .) I think I've ever seen.

Final Crit for Art 352 Animation

Let's put on a show! If you can get your final projects to me by noon, Monday, December 7, I'll put together a compilation DVD we can watch in Meese auditorium for our final. That will be Tuesday, December 8 at 6:30 p.m. If Meese is booked, we'll come up with an alternate location.

Final Crit for Comics & Picture Books AND Art 450/496

We're on the home stretch, so we'll basically just be doing studio days from here on out. I'll be around to help with technical junk, therapy, and self-esteem issues as needed. Heck, I can even provide feedback on your actual work too. Why not?

Our final critique will be on Monday, December 7 at 6:30 p.m. in MA 101 (and the lab to look at web stuff). We'll make an unholy Frankenstein mix of Comics/Picture Books and Art 450 Special Projects (and 496 Capstone!) I'll bring the pizza. Plan on having your finished product whatever that may be--web site, final dummy, individual illustrations, etc. As always, keep your blog updated! Electronic existence is good for your stuff.

Good Stuff - 3 Cheers For Phil McAndrew

I forgot who sent me this, but I think it is wonderful. Go check out Phil McAndrew's work!http://www.philintheblanks.com/comics/manenough.html

More nifty links

Check out these lovely stop-motion delights.

Muto - A wall painted animation

Strawberry Swing

Final Project - Art 352 Animation

Hey, let's do a final project! Come up with a concept or treatment for the project, put it on your blog and we'll look at 'em on Thursday.

Here're some links that might help get you going:

The Blackheart Gang! Make sure to check out Tale of How and The Making of the Tale of How.

Michel Gagne. Some concepts for Ratatouille, really nice post on pre-production work for Iron Giant, and his nifty silhouette animations which I'm pretty sure were done with Flash.

Good Stuff: LeUyen Pham

I picked up some good stuff from More Fun last week. Including Prince of Persia, illustrated by LeUyen Pham. She's done some beautiful picture book work as well. Those of you considering illustration, ought to take a gander at her website, this interview, and well, uh, this other interview. Good stuff here on college years, getting started in the field, and her technical/creative approach. Read and learn.

How to make a scrolling background! And how to do Swap Symbols!

Here are Miles' videos for making a scrolling background for your walk cycles. Enjoy.

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4
Video 5

Here's a simplified Symbol swap video too -- useful for setting up a character for lip synch.

Jeff File for Animation Class-- lip synch with phonemes and flash symbols

Animation students, click here to download the Jeff.FLA file (if you dare). It's a 9 mb zip file, so it might take a bit to download. Patience and all that. Anyhow, you can analyze to see how I worked with nested symbols and "swapping" for the phonemes. Quality. Regular folk, can click the picture to see the swf file.

How to loop a SWF

1. Create a new layer, call it "Actions" and insert a blank keyframe on the last frame. See below--click on the images for higher res.

2. Make sure you are on the timeline on the blank keyframe you just made. Click Window > Actions
and then type:

gotoAndPlay(1);

Yer done.

Enbed Code For Your SWFs

Here is the embed code for putting up your own swf files:

<object height="230" width="395"> <param value="yourfilename.swf" name="movie">
<embed src="http://yourremotesite.com/yourfilename.swf" height="230" width="395"></embed></object>

DON"T COPY AND PASTE THIS CODE. IT WON'T WORK!!!!

Do download this .rtf that has the code for you to copy and paste!

Enter the correct height and width fit your actual movie size! (look under Modify > Document in Flash to get the dimensions. I've also found it works to make a copy of your movie and make a shrunken version that's under 400 pixels wide.

Walk Assignment

For Tuesday, October 27 have the following up on your blog.

1. A walk cycle including arms and legs.

2. A walk cycle with a panning background.

Remember:

1) Pans look better on ones (24 fps or 30 fps).

2) Arms tend to hit their extremes at different keys than the feet. For example, feet hit extremes on 1 and arms hit extremes on 3.

“Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: The Art of the Superhero” at U of O!

Beg, borrow or steal a ride up to Eugene to check out “Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: The Art of the Superhero” up at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon. It's up until January 3rd, so see it; it could change your life. . .

Walk Cycle Demo Videos

Here are the step by step videos on creating a 9 frame stick figure walk cycle in Flash. Enjoy.

Video 1: Contact and Passing keys.

Video 2: Up and Down keys.

Video 3: In-Betweens.

Video 4: Converting the step to a cycle.

Click here to download the .fla file of the stick figure walk before it is converted to a cycle.
Click here to download the .fla file of the stick figure walk converted to a cycle.

New Tween Demo Videos

Classic Architecture, Classic Rock, & Classic Tweens. Here's how to do some ball bouncin' with ease control classic tweens in Flash CS4.

Tween Video 1: How to set up the basic classic tween.

Tween Video 2: Adding easing (adjusting spacing).

Tween Video 3: Adding funky strokes n' blurs. Creating a shadow.

Tween Video 4: Easing the shadow scale tween.

Icycle & A Good Intro To Easing Video

Icycle by Damp Gnat Games - Excellent-looking nude tricycle riding post-apocalyptic side-scroller! That's entertainment.

Here's a good intro video on using the Flash CS4 Motion Editor to control your easing. Turns out the Flash Motion Editor is different from Maya and Max. Irritating. Irritating. Irritating.

Jill Bruhn Time

Here's a link to SOU Art Alum Jill Bruhn's stuff she did for the animation class. Nifty! While you're at it, check out her blog too.

Comics & Animation: Look No Further Than Brad Neely

Brad Neely is fantastic. Absolutely wonderful. Love love love his stuff. Free Love. Short sentence fragments.

Makin' Love with Kenny Winker:


Role Playin' with BABY CAKE!!!!! BE AGGRESSIVE!!!!! Marry me.

Flash Ball Bounce Video How-to!

I'm posting nine videos that take you through each step of the ball bounce assignment. I'll post as they upload.

Video 1: Setting up a new file and creating a ground layer, how to extend a frame (6 min 8 secs)

Video 2: Onion skinning & setting initial keys for timing, turning off snap, looping playback (5 min 42 sec)

Video 3: Moving frames on the timeline to adjust timing. How to keep the timeline cleaned up by removing unnecessary frames (2 min 49 seconds)

Video 4: Quick review of moving frames on the timeline. Adding keys and initial spacing pass. (6 min 13 sec)

Video 5: Polonius says SAVE YOUR WORK, adding keys and adjusting spacing (6 min 44 sec)

Video 6: Spacing above and beyond (5 min 35 sec)

Video 7: Squash and Stretch!!! (3 min 37 sec)

Video 8: Final inbetweens and spacing (5 min 08 sec)

Video 9: Cleaning up the loop, deleting guides (3 min 41 sec)

Art 352 Animation Assignment 3 - Bouncin'

Yes, it's time for the infamous bouncing ball. Live it & love it. It's actually pretty fun. Here's the deal.

1. Create a looping animation of a ball bouncing in place.

2. Create an animation of a ball bouncing twice and off stage.

3. Create a looped animation of a character doing some kind of bouncing related activity.

* These will be due on Thursday, October 15
* The first 2 animations must use frame by frame; no copy and paste, and no tweening.
* The third animation can be done however you'd like. Some folks might want to experiment with the IK tool.

Simplify!

Compare Durer vs. Clowes (above) & Inada vs. Michelangelo (below)

Sleazy Comic Page Template

Hey kids, get yours today! Click on the picture for the full size version, then right click and download. Loads of laffs! Fool your friends! Also, here's a link to Scott McCloud's pyramid of comic styles which we'll discuss today.

Art 349 Comics Assignments & Schedule

Let 'em rip. For Wednesday, October 6, do one of the following:

1. A 4 panel strip.
2. A 1 page comic.
3. A free-form narrative drawing (a la Maurice Sendak). This can be multi-page if you want.

For class, we'll discuss developing an approach to the visual side of things (I think the technical term for this is "art"). We'll check out Scott McCloud's pyramid, page templates, and thumbnails.

For Monday, October 11, we'll talk about lettering, typography, page layout, speech bubbles and the like.

For Wednesday, October 13 you'll present your project proposals to the class. Use the guidelines for the Art 450/496 projects. Make sure your proposal is entirely on your blog as that's what I'll be evaluating. Bonus: it'll be much harder for you to lose or forget to bring with you once it's on line. The only thing that could stop us would be some kind of computer/network outage, but that will never happen.

Good Resources on Clowes & Comics Simpsons!

Eightball fans, head on over to Warren's Wiki for some good links to Dan Clowes interviews and such. Damn, I have to see this Simpsons episode. That's Clowes, Art Spiegelman, and Alan Moore--shirtless!!

Treatment Bound

For an example of some rough treatment examples (har har), check out Inadaville for a couple of recent posts on the Jefferson project. Here are some specific links:
Writing and Spiritual Fathers
A rough character concept by Miles
A rough concept by Miles

Chris Ware: A spiritual brother (I think he's younger than me). A harder-working, more talented better musician than me brother. Check out this excellent database of his work, The Acme Novelty Archive by Adam Kempa. If you're interested in further Ware reading, dig the lucidly titled book, Chris Ware, by Daniel Raeburn.

Art 352 Assignment 2-Abstract Animation

Create an abstract animation using tweening, symbols and whatever else you want to use.
100-300 frames.
Think about the films shown by Steven Mayerson. Here are some stills from Oskar Fischinger's work that might help get you going.
Due Thursday, October 8 at beginning of class.

Art 352 Tweening In Flash CS4

Here's a link to a video tutorial on tweening in Flash CS 4. Dig it.

Art 349 Comics Assignment

Here's your weekend assignment. Enjoy!
1) Create the folder where you'll be keeping a hold of all your stuff (sketches, notes, source material, research, breakdowns, writing, etc) related to your project. Make it portable so you can bring it to class.

2) Take a first stab at a treatment for your project. What's a treatment? I use the term to refer to any kind of rough first stab at developing your project. A treatment can include some early attempts at the basic components of a book project: writing, illustration, layout and design. It could include a plot sketch or outline. You could write a description of the setting or world your book takes place in. What kind of characters live there? It can also be more abstract--something relating to the feeling or vibe you're trying to achieve, but not yet settled into any kind of final form. One of my favorite treatment examples (possibly apocryphal) is David Lynch being obsessed with a piece of blue velvet (the material) for a long time before making the film Blue Velvet.

3) On your blog, visually analyze a page of a book that you like. Look at type choice and size, use of white space, relation of pictures to images and the like. If you're doing a comic, note the lettering and gutter choices, panel breakdown, etc. Approach this not as a critic, but on a functional "how does this tick?" level.

4) Blog a bit about your creative process. How are you going to get this project done? Some things you might think about: Where do you like to work? Do you have a ritual? A schedule? What distracts you? How can you deal with those distractions?

Git yer blogs going and bring all of this good stuff into class on Monday for show and tell. Looking forward to seeing what's cookin'!

Art 352 Animation is Fresh and Lovely. Hoorah.

Hey, go ahead and comment your blog urls here, if you are in the ANIMATION CLASS.

Every week, you'll be posting your class work on your blog along with:

1. Create a post about one of your artistic fathers/mothers. Include images and some reflection on why you like the work.

2. Something new. Create a post about an artist/thing you didn't know about until recently. This can be a piece you found in the Mobile Comics Library (RIF! see above image), a tip from a buddy/pal, something you picked up at More Fun, cultural flotsam from the web, etc etc. Include images and some reflection (deep) on why you were drawn to it.

Welcome Art 349 Comics and Picture Books

Miles (right) and one of his freaks (left) man the Mobile Comics Library

Howdy folks. Go ahead and post your blog urls as a comment on this post. Please use your real name, so I can set up the class links.

Here's the assignment for Wednesday.

1. Go to a place you've never been before and write about it. Post it on your blog and bring a hard copy of your writing to class on Wednesday.

2. Create a post about one of your artistic fathers/mothers. Include images and some reflection on why you like the work.

3. Something new. Create a post about an artist/thing you didn't know about until recently. This can be a piece you found in the Mobile Comics Library (RIF! see above image), a tip from a buddy/pal, something you picked up at More Fun, cultural flotsam from the web, etc etc. Include images and some reflection (deep) on why you were drawn to it.

Welcome Art 450 & Art 496 Capstone Kids! Y'all are Special!

Yay. We'll meet every other Wednesday from 3:00-4:30 for critique. Our first crit will be next week, Wednesday, October 7 at 3:00. I'll post our quarter crit schedule later this week. For now, go git the following ready fer Wednesday.

1. Start a blog, and post the url as a comment to this post. Do this immediately.
2. Post links to your classmates' blogs in a sidebar.
3. Use your blog to work out a project proposal that you will present to the class on Monday.

Your project proposal must include the following:

0. A working title for your project
1. Project goals (personal? professional? exploratory?)
2. A project description.
3. Specific products of study or deliverables that you will be creating for your project.
4. Visual and/or written research for your project. Stuff done by other people.
5. Treatment visuals for your project. This is stuff done by you. This can consist of links, a bibliography, images, etc.
6. A written description of specific technical and research issues you will need to address during the course of your project.
7. A timeline of your project. When you will be doing all of this good stuff. You must include specific DEADLINES (for example: "January 27th", not "some time in January."

Capstone folks, you'll be putting all of this into a written paper by the end of the quarter. More on that later. Go forth and conquer!

Phosphorescent Dreams an Evening of Fantastical Shorts!

Steven Mayerson and the S.O.U. Art Department present: Phosphorescent Dreams an Evening of Fantastical Shorts, this Saturday, October 3rd at 7:00 p.m. in Meese Auditorium,

located in the S.O.U. Arts Building. This is a FREE show. The program will be otherworldly and exotic. It will include some rare vintage animation, a modern science fiction adventure designed in "steam-punk/goth" style, French fantasy shorts from 1900-1908 and a Bollywood production number among other things.

The show is not designed for kids. If they are under ten you be the judge. This is the first show of our sixth season of film programs at Meese Auditorium. Steven introduces each short and welcomes comments from the audience. Come ten minuets early for the best seats.

Meathaus, Lost At E Minor, contemporary creative inspiration sites

Looks interesting, people. . . Meathaus: "Comics, Cartooning, Art, Inspiration" Dig it!

Also: Lost At E Minor features a huge range of contemporary hip artsy stuff. Here's an image by contemporary illustrator Hope Gangloff to prove it. . .

UGLY DOLLS Interview!

A Crown Dozen interview with David Horvath creator of the Ugly Dolls. I'm resisting the urge to go buy all of the figures. Better go take a walk.

NYT Interactive on Comics & Clowes PDF

A very nice interactive feature on comics in the New York Times from way back in 2004(!) featuring Seth, Chris Ware, Joe Sacco, Art Spiegelman, and Chester Brown.

Also in the NYT, a free Daniel Clowes story, Mister Wonderful, in PDF format! Huzzah!

Guest Speaker! Steve Mayerson!

4:30 Thursday, Oct 1, we'll have a guest lecture on Abstract Animation from Steve Mayerson. Steve will be doing a fabulous free film presentation in the Meese Auditorium on Saturday, Oct 3 at 7:00 p.m.

Dan Clowes

panels excerpted from Dan Clowes, The Happy Fisherman

Read Dan Clowes' stuff again last night. I'd kind of forgotten how good he is. Jeez. Depressing for me, but good for you. Pick up anything of his you can get your hands on. The more the merrier. "The Happy Fisherman" (see image above) changed me forever and is available in the Twentieth Century Eightball collection. He's just pure quality.

On a stupid note, here he is doing a commercial for Apple that is actually pretty damn funny if you are condemned to making comics.

Three Cheers For Robot Frog

Sad Sack, Misreading, and The Anxiety of Influence

After reading Derf's swell Punk Rock and Trailer Parks (here's a link to my post, and another link to a nice interview), I started thinking about why I was drawn to his work. I mentioned the Don Martin vibe, but the more I thought, the more I found myself thinking about the Sad Sack work of Fred Rhoads and George Baker. Derf's work definitely has a 'Sack vibe, and so I got to thinking about how much I loved those Sad Sack comics in the 70's. I haven's seen any since then, as they don't seem to have gotten the glamorous retro love as of yet. I will posit Sad Sack as an eery harbinger of Arms and Ether. Weird military types, and lots of beat-downs. Compare the above strip by Fred Rhoads with my 21st century effort. (I know, Rhoads kicks my ass.)
Anyhow, hooray, and here's a link to a blog that gets into some of the deeper nuances of Sad Sack. Okay, back to work.

Dig Some Derf

Just finished Derf's Punk Rock and Trailer Parks which I thoroughly enjoyed. Here's Derf's website: derfcity.com. (Hey, kinda like Inadaville!). Thoroughly dig his Don Martin-inspired visual style. The writing is also top notch as is his musical taste. And finally. . . OHIO. Check out his weekly strip, The City.

Milton Bradley--as in the 1860 board game designer

Interesting article on old school game designer Milton Bradley and "The Checkered Game of Life," written by Jill Lepore in the New Yorker. You have to subscribe to read the article, but you could also track it down in the library for freesies.

Also, an interesting interview with Jill Lepore who turns out to be a Harvard history prof. Some people like working out or fixing up their houses, but me, I like reading about folks who took a while to figure out what they wanted to do.

Miyazaki, folks

Jen Harlow attended the "you don't get to see this guy every day," Hayao Miyazaki lecture in L.A. this summer. She's posted a transcript of the Q and A on her blog! Read and learn. Catbus ftw!

Graphic Memoir by David Small

Just out and reviewed in the NYT is picture book illustrator David Small's graphic memoir, Stitches.
Dig it, or at least read about it via the link!

Two Nice Links to Groovy Sites

tor.com has a really splendid sampling of interesting independent animation.

Vintage Children's Books My Kid Loves focuses on some classic picture books with lots of nice visual samples.

Get inspired. Thanks to Jen Harlow for the links!

Someone Should Go Work Here

Here are job listings for Bethesda. Makers of Fallout 3 n' Oblivion.

FINAL!

Final Critique is Monday, June 8 at 5:30 p.m.

JOB for you graduatin' types

Good morning SOU Art Dept!
This is Megan Holmes - I graduated from SOU (finally) last March. The Agency I've been working at for the last eight years is looking for a new designer (my husband Jeremy is finally leaving to start his own agency - yey!). I know you have students that will be graduating in the next week or so.

Could you send this out to students in the design program, or if you know of any especially talented students that may be interested, can you have them contact me? We will be interviewing next week. The job description is listed below. Hope you all had a great term. Thanks!


megan angele holmes
agency director of marketing and client services
the maentz agency inc.
541.857.8443 • 541.618.0502
megana@maentz.com


Looking for creative artist to work at fast-paced, full-service advertising agency. Requires proficiency in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Acrobat at CS2 or higher. Experience with Quark, Corel Draw and PowerPoint and other Microsoft Office programs a plus. Applicants experienced in Dreamweaver, Flash and the latest web-design technologies will have an advantage.

Experience is not necessary, but skill and creativity are a must. Send resume and 3 examples of your work (print or web) to the email below. Have portfolio ready for review. We will be interviewing qualified candidates starting July 6th. Full-time position available.

Creating An Online Comic - Arms and Ether Style

Oft, I start with a scrappy sketch done in the doldrums of a faculty meeting or while fidgeting about the Beanery in caffeine-stoked reverie. Here's the initial sketch for a recent strip.


With some strips, I'll scan the pencil sketch first, then bring it into Flash and draw over the top of it. Here's my first Arms and Ether strip. You can see the pencil sketch scans, my first "ink" lines drawn in Flash, and some Kaz and Achewood strips I brought in as references for setting up my template and comparing the visual quality of my work with theirs. Since Underworld and Achewood are popular on-line strips I figured they'd be good guides to getting my stuff "internet-ready."


Sometimes I start a strip without a preliminary drawing. Here, I just laid out the text (utilizing my award-winning Miles Inada 3000 font, of course) and made a quick sketch directly in Flash. The screen cap shows my template with pre-made panels and layers. The color layer contains the color swatches for the characters, so I can just grab 'em with the eye-dropper.



When I'm "inking", I'll take at least three passes through the strip. The first pass is to get the main idea blocked in. The second pass is to adjust proportion, composition and detail. The third pass is to clarify and simplify the lines. Here's a strip somewhere between the 2nd and 3rd pass.

After finishing up the inking, I do color passes. I'm a funky fellow, so I do this all in Flash. I like Flash because it's vector-based--a.k.a. resolution-independent. With a vector drawing, I can scale the drawings up and down to my heart's content and do big prints later on. For the most part, I make a quick outline of a color area and fill it with the paint bucket (don't do that in Photoshop--it'll be lousy). I find working in Flash much less fussy than working in Photoshop. In my first pass I go through and color in the main characters. I then make a few more layers and add in the background colors. If you look at the last panel, you'll see that I still haven't finished drawing in the students, even though I've proceeded with the coloring. Shirker.



Somewhere along the line I draw in the balloons, adjust text as needed and add any goofy marginalia. Yes, I just draw the balloons in Flash. No tricks. It looks better. I color them in using the ol' paintbucket. Here's the finished strip in all of its glory.

Illustration Gig

The folks below are looking for someone to work with them on illustrations for a picture book/comic book. If you're interested, email Jacqueline Sa at the following email address.

sixarcenciel@yahoo.com.

STORY LINE:

Through the twists and turns on the paths of lifetimes of two people who are committed to their spiritual work for humanity, they finally came together to serve a bigger cosmic cause than they could ever imagine… Mystical encounters, spiritual entrainment, overcoming dark forces, journeying to the underworld and the overworld, guided by the living Earth consciousness.

SCOPE OF WORK:

Looking for a student illustrator who is interested (hopefully passionate) about environmental issues and consciousness shifts, who has a refined sensitivity with the likes of Hayao Myasaki or Satoshi Kon (examples of their movies available on www.youtube.com and www.video.google.com such as : Howl’s Moving Castle, Millennium Actress) without the expectation of their mastery or over-complex drawings. We don’t want cute or dark gothic kinds of drawings.

The project is for the entire book; though we can start with a few pages on a trial basis. The work is ready immediately, and it will last this whole summer, full time. We need a serious person who is committed to focus and to take pride in delivering a quality book with us, and not abandon midway. Our budget is modest, and we are open to discuss various ways of compensation, as we fully intend to publish this book as soon as it’s completed, that will be of substantial contribution to humanity.

We thank you in advance for your help in finding such an ideal collaborator. Any questions or clarifications that might be needed, please contact me by email or phone. Look forward to hearing from you.

Warm Regards,

Jacqueline Sa

Job Opportunity

Web design types
part time job opportunity:
Hi Miles,

My name is Erin and I am an SOU alumni. I am working for Sunday Afternoons, a great local company in Talent, and we are looking to hire a part-time web designer. I noticed that you are teaching a Capstone class in graphic design, so I though some of students might be interested in this opportunity. Please forward this any students who are interested. Please feel free to contact me if you would like more information.

Thank you!
Erin @ Sunday Afternoons
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Opportunity with growing company in Talent, Oregon


Job Description:
Maintain an e-commerce web site (using X-Cart).
Update content on web site (inventory, product photos, copy, pricing, etc.).
Create and send email promotions.
Use 3rd party email marketing service (e.g. Constant Contact).
Work collaboratively and under the guidance of Graphic Designer.
Possibly edit/retouch/manipulate photos.

Requirement/Skills:
2–5 years relevant experience.
Familiar with Mac OS X Operating System.
Proficient in Adobe Photoshop (preferably CS2).
Strong understanding of web technologies (particularly HTML and FTP)
Proficient in GoLive or other WYSIWYG editor
Basic knowledge of ImageReady
Detail-oriented with excellent design sense
Organized

Starting as a part-time position. 16-24 hours a week. Photo editing is a plus, not required. If the person is proficient with photo editing, extra hours may be available.

Detail-oriented and organization is very important.
Hours can be somewhat flexible for student.

Please emial resume and a sample of your work to: lauren@sundayafternoons.com

Ashland Independent Film Festival starts THURSDAY!

Ashland Independent Film Festival student tickets are only $6 per screening--so GO. A unique opportunity to see things you likely won't see anywhere else. April 2-6. This is perfect material for you to write about in your blogs. Anyone even vaguely interested in film/video should go and check this out.

Art 450 & 496 Critique Schedule

Critique Schedule for Spring 2009

Thursday, April 9, 2:30.
Thursday, April 23, 2:30.
Thursday, May 7, 2:30.
Thursday, May 21, 2:30.

Final Critique is Monday, June 8 at 5:30 p.m.

Art 450 Special Projects & 496 Capstone

Okay kids--
We'll meet next Thursday the 9th at 2:30. Here's your to-do list.
1. Create ein blogue if you don't have one already.
2. Post your name and your blog URL as a comment to this post. I'll be posting the links this Friday, so post your comment before then.
3. Post links to your classmates' blogs in a sidebar.
4. Use your blog to work out a project proposal that you will present to the class on Thursday.

A project proposal must include the following:

0. A working title for your project
1. Project goals (personal? professional? exploratory?)
2. A project description.
3. Specific products of study or deliverables that you will be creating for your project.
4. Visual and/or written research for your project. Stuff done by other people.
5. Treatment visuals for your project. This is stuff done by you. This can consist of links, a bibliography, images, etc.
6. A written description of specific technical and research issues you will need to address during the course of your project.
7. A timeline of your project. When you will be doing all of this good stuff. You must include specific DEADLINES (for example: "January 27th", not "some time in January."

Final Projects, Final Blog Assignment, & Final Critique

The Art 351 Interactive Studio final critique will be Tuesday, March 17, 3:30 in the Digital Studio.

Your final blog assignment is to go to the Art Dept. web site and write a critique on your blog.

Primitive Paddle Love

Here's the latest version of Primitive Paddle Love. Cherish it as much as I have.

ARt 450 and Art 351 notes. Art 450 Final Crit.

Ashland Independent Film Festival Talk Friday, 11:00 Meese Auditorium!

ART 450 Final Critique will be Monday, March 16 at 6:30 p.m. in the digital lab.

Whitney Biennial 2008 site
Here's a nice image from the 2002 Biennial. It's Gilles Barbier's Nursing Home.

The Classic Artist's Programming Error

Here's a self-inflicted error you're likely to hit upon as the quarter comes crashing down upon your head. Hey, I just made this same mistake twice in the past hour. I am not Spock, clearly. Let it forever be known to us as, "The Equal Sign As Used In Programming Does NOT Equal The Equal Sign as Used in Math Error."

In other words:
= ≠ =

Ah ha ha ha ha ha!

We're used to saying things like "5 = 5," or "2 + 2 = 4." Ho hum. In a math context, "=" could be translated as "is." "5 is 5," or "2 + 2 is 4." In ActionScript, however, when we want to make plain old "is" statements we use the "==" operator, as in "5 == 5."

Here's the rub. In ActionScript, "=" is an active command, not a passive statement of fact. In programming, we can translate "=" as "gets" or "is now assigned the value of". For example, in ActionScript, the simple line of code written as

dx = 5;

is a command to the computer to, "under pain of death, drop whatever you were doing before and hold on to the value 5, you little maggot."

If you don't understand the difference between the two meanings, this will destroy you when you start working with if statements.

For example, here's a perfectly innocent looking function that is buggy as the day is long:

function checkLives (){
if (lives = 0) {
gameOver;
} // end if
}

In this trashy code, the computer will interpret "lives = 0" as a command to stop whatever the hell else it is doing and set the lives variable to 0. The effect is that the computer whilst innocently checking the "if"condition freaks out (pain of death, remember) and set the "lives" variable to 0. This makes the "if" condition true and so the gameOver function runs constantly. The game ends before it begins and you, the programmer are puzzled.

What you want to write instead is something like this:

function checkLives(){
if (lives == 0) {
gameOver;
} // end if
}

Our translation is now in line with what we actually want: "If lives equals 0, then run the gameOver function."

Nifty Bit of Bloggery

Here's a cool Blogue from Graham Annable (that's his "Kodiak Mary" image above). He's a story artist, animator, and "comic fellow" who works for Laika up in Portland and recently worked on Coraline. Most importantly, he's a hockey teammate of SOU's own Jill Bruhn. Some very nice stuff; this guy's good. Check it out and get inspired.

Midterm Madness & Flash Demos

On Wednesday, Feb 18, we'll take a look at your midterm projects. . . so . . . get to work!
You can present one grand project or several smaller ones. It's up to you.

On Monday, Feb 23, you'll present pseudo code, concepts, and a work schedule for your final project.

Here are the .fla demo files we covered today:
sound01.fla
sound02.fla shows how to add a dynamic text box
sound03.fla shows how to place a movie clip on the stage with ActionScript
alarm.wav

Time For Tanklin

Click on the image at left to play Miles' first Flash game. It's retro and kind of difficult. Try to break 500.

Consider it an ode to the Atari 2600, the obscure Roosevelt Franklin from Sesame Street, his grandson "Franklin" from Arrested Development, and Vladimir Tatlin, Russian Constructivist. Actually, it's just a crappy third-rate beginner's video game, but I do like to prattle on. The base code comes from Andy Harris' outstanding Beginning Flash Game Programming for Dummies. This book is a fine intro for the coding impaired (like your truly).

Click here to download the tanklin.fla file for the game.

Click here to download Tanklin to play at your unconnected leisure.