Sweat Box 69 002

An experiment with green screens. I had problem with the background and could not get it to sync up. Needed to be done at 30 frames per second. It was a failed project, originally a test for commercial for the Gail Knapp Memorial Dulcimer Fund, a charity to help provide dulcimers for those who couldn't afford them themselves. It was determined that this might cause too much a strain on the participants running the charity itself.

Sweatbox 69 Assignment 002 from John Morgan on Vimeo.

Sweat Box 69 001

Here is the new version of my video blog. The first episode is about doing the titles to said blog.

sweatbox001 from John Morgan on Vimeo.

Lost Weekend

I'm sitting here on the couch seeing my weekend ... once again slip away.

My back is out. I am not only tethered on line but to the heating pad. Soooo ... I'm overdue to catch up.

This project has gone one far too long. So long ... even I have lost count. The years and the amount of times I have started from scratch ... yet again. But it's not like I haven't made progress. I actually have a "Dulci-toon" finished ... the problem is that it is not the first one. That one at least the work I had done was all lost as the external hard drive crashed (literally) when it was knocked off the shelf of the coffee table by Fergie, our cat. It is for the best as I will do it better ... but once again I am at square one.

Here is what I have accomplished:

1.) I have created my company banner or titles.

2.) I have created opening titles.

3.) A commercial

4.) End titles

5.) and an ending bumper.

All the above can be re-edited or simply tacked on to new episodes leaving me to just have to work on the content of the cartoon.

6.) I have gotten the help of Stephen Seifert to work on the Old Joe Clark episodes.

7.) I have worked on character designs for the characters Old Joe Clark and Aunt Rhodie.

The real challenge is that I have now developed diabetes and had my thyroid removed. It is imperative for me to loose weight ... so that takes up much of my time. Between that, work , husbandly duties the lawn and practicing my dulcimer and the cigar box guitar and learning new techniques and programs ... there is little time for such a time consuming activity but somehow I find that time.

Oh yeah 3 blogs and a web site ... including this one ... I hope to have time to blog this one too.

Walt ... Not Disney

Miracles do happen.

No I didn't finish an animated cartoons ... No My forces are still pretty scattered. I fussing over my titles. Rethinking the music.

But after 20 years I've been contacted by my good friend Walter Deanovich. Walt and I met in college, in one of my art classes. I think it was Comp I. He invited me to a friend's house. There I met Mike, Martin and Sue. And it was at Mike's, that we would gather to watch movies. No ... not DVDs! Not VHS tapes! Super 8 and 8mm! Mike would project them on a screen that was as big as his bay window. And they were silent.

Once a week we would all gather. We all collected films from Blackhawk. Mike had the biggest disposable income and wow!!! I can't believe what he collected. Walt and Mike were so knowledgeable ... I learned more from them than any of my professors at college. This was my real school.

However, when I left for Disney, we parted company. Mike moved to Ohio ... Martin and Sue left for West Virginia. Walt was left alone in St Pete. Life was not kind . I kept in sort of contact with Mike. But It wasn't until about a month ago we all reconnected with Walt.

Thank God for Facebook!!!

A Grant

Just when things looked bleak ... it seems as if I got a royal grant for improvements to the studio. This means a new computer! I just did a wedding video for a daughter of a friend of Yoko. My valiant little laptop crashed 5 times. It just doesn't have enough chug. I had done my title bumper and while everything seemed okay in test mode it would not render the final product.

Lady Sylvia gave me a budget that was much larger than I was looking ... and words of wisdom. Don't scrimp. Still when I first started looking at buying I was amazed. Dell wanted $3000 for a top of the line computer. Ernie pointed me in the right direction and I decided because of my needs to go with the I7 processor. I found a Dell at Best Buy. And pricing around it was cheaper than all the rest of the compreable models. Even Dell!!! Why is it that the same specs on a Dell computer from THEIR site is $400 dollars more.

The new computer is up but not running. Toon Boom is loaded (something even Ernie couldn't do with the laptop.) I am getting a KVM switch cable to connect my old computer and new to the monitor, mouse and keyboard. And somewhere I need to find a mini jack y splitter with ONE female and TWO males. Sounds dirty ... huh?

The Instructions are in Ancent Aramaric...

One of the things I am trying to do is take the segments, put them in order and publish them. So I went and got out 3 books ... and while they explain what to do ... they don't tell you what to do if you made this and saved it as itself ... on it's own.

So here's what you do.

Open the first film to be your segment. Minimize it. Open the next intended segment. Select ALL the frames and right click. From the directory choose copy frames. Then close the movie. Reopen the first. Open the windows and open segments. Open another segment ... select the first frame and right click. From the menu choose paste frames.

This will create the new segment. You repeat for each scene and then publish.

Some Real Progress

This last weekend, I made some real progress.

Finally.

I redid the ihop commercial . It was basically the same material as I used the first time. But this time it was done tighter. The time bar is much slicker. I am learning.

I did the end titles. I reused and colored the black and white title holder and added the credits. It worked great.

I did the Dulci-Toon cartoon titles. I can't believe I did most of it in Flash. I'm learning to do vector work. Who would of thought it? I came out better than I thought.

I made the web page on the fldulcimer site. I set up Dulcitoons 000 on Vimeo and embedded the video on the web page.

We're getting there. Now I have to do the ACME titles ... the Zen Doodle titles ... and the cartoon itself.

We're getting there.