Be ye warned: the following blog post is computery. Except for the last paragraph, which is a mini-rant about the postal system.
***
The other day, I discovered that both of my hard disks were over 3/4 full.
Those of you who pay attention to your remaining HDD capacity will be familiar with the old sinking feeling that comes when you realise you're running out of space.
Well, today I went on a digital rampage through my second HDD, which is where I store most of my filmmaking and animation files. I stuffed three years' worth of animation source files into zip archives, and threw out more than 90 GB of old video, mostly uncompressed animation renders, and a few hours' worth of bad footage of me rambling at the camera. Don't worry, I've kept edited versions of the more interesting bits.
But suddenly, HDD 2 is more than half empty, and it'll be even emptier by the time I've finished transferring those zip archives to CDR and doing a few last bits of mucking out, which will probably have to wait until sometime next week, as I'm supposed to be building a summerhouse tomorrow (yes, in mid-September), and I'm away for the weekend.
And now that I'm rattling around inside a half-empty computer, I'm starting to wonder what to do with all the freshly-cleared space. I've had a nagging feeling for months that I should have started on another animation project by now, but I've been struggling to get a decent script together. I have too many fragmentary, half-baked ideas, and none that are ready to move ahead and start animating 8p
***
For anyone who was hoping this post might contain news of Megastropulodon: I'm just waiting until the actors have received their DVDs, and then I will post the film online. Two down, two to go. Considering that I sent the discs by first-class recorded delivery on Saturday, at a cost of £1.70 each (daylight robbery!), I'm a bit annoyed not to have had all four confirmed as received by now. Darn Royal Mail and their snail-impersonating ways. But don't worry, I haven't forgotten my promise to inflict the movie on the interwebs.
- The Colclough
Thursday, 16 September 2010
Thursday, 9 September 2010
The monster is nearly here!
I mentioned in my last post that I was about to put the finishing touches to Megastropulodon Attacks!
Well, I ended up going to bed a little later than I had intended, but I achieved the prime objective, i.e. completing the film. From the start of serious pre-production work through to the end of the re-edit, it ended up taking around 7 or 8 months to make. That's not including the earliest faffing-about stages of story development. If you included that, the figure would go up to 9 or maybe even 10 months.
A large part of today has gone into engineering the DVD, burning copies, and designing and printing the disc labels and box sleeves. It only took one dud test disc before I got the codecs and menu structure right, which is relatively good going for me. Need to get the things in the post tomorrow.
I ended up with an oddly minimalist cover design, mainly because my so-called colour printer is currently only working in black-and-white mode. Last time I bought a colour cartridge, it didn't seem to last very long at all. Anyway, I decided to just put the top billing, the title graphic, and a stylised greyscale image of the titular mutant on the front cover, and here's what it looked like:
Mega is essentially just a gorilla suit with a home-made alternative head (cobbled together from old cardboard boxes and some jacket-making leftovers, apparently), with Jonny Wells stuck inside. The weird thing is, though, when I was on the bluescreen stage directing the VFX shots, it didn't take me very long to get used to addressing the mutant as an entity in its own right. I must admit that for maybe half of the FX shoot on that eventful Tuesday morning, I almost forgot that Jonny was inside there at all, and I found myself talking to Megastropulodon as though it really existed. I'm not too sure what that says about the state of my head.
But anyway, historical notes aside, the monster has now found its way onto the front cover of the DVD, which seems appropriate enough considering that its name makes up around three quarters of the film's title.
Having said the cover is a bit minimalist, I suppose the disc menu is too (in a less bloggable way), but it came out nicely enough in the end, after two or three rounds of metaphorical punches were exchanged between myself and the computer.
In case you're the sort of person who enjoys nerdy statistics:
- The Colclough
Well, I ended up going to bed a little later than I had intended, but I achieved the prime objective, i.e. completing the film. From the start of serious pre-production work through to the end of the re-edit, it ended up taking around 7 or 8 months to make. That's not including the earliest faffing-about stages of story development. If you included that, the figure would go up to 9 or maybe even 10 months.
A large part of today has gone into engineering the DVD, burning copies, and designing and printing the disc labels and box sleeves. It only took one dud test disc before I got the codecs and menu structure right, which is relatively good going for me. Need to get the things in the post tomorrow.
I ended up with an oddly minimalist cover design, mainly because my so-called colour printer is currently only working in black-and-white mode. Last time I bought a colour cartridge, it didn't seem to last very long at all. Anyway, I decided to just put the top billing, the title graphic, and a stylised greyscale image of the titular mutant on the front cover, and here's what it looked like:
Mega is essentially just a gorilla suit with a home-made alternative head (cobbled together from old cardboard boxes and some jacket-making leftovers, apparently), with Jonny Wells stuck inside. The weird thing is, though, when I was on the bluescreen stage directing the VFX shots, it didn't take me very long to get used to addressing the mutant as an entity in its own right. I must admit that for maybe half of the FX shoot on that eventful Tuesday morning, I almost forgot that Jonny was inside there at all, and I found myself talking to Megastropulodon as though it really existed. I'm not too sure what that says about the state of my head.
But anyway, historical notes aside, the monster has now found its way onto the front cover of the DVD, which seems appropriate enough considering that its name makes up around three quarters of the film's title.
Having said the cover is a bit minimalist, I suppose the disc menu is too (in a less bloggable way), but it came out nicely enough in the end, after two or three rounds of metaphorical punches were exchanged between myself and the computer.
In case you're the sort of person who enjoys nerdy statistics:
- The finished film runs for 15 minutes 48.48 seconds (or 48 seconds and 12 frames, if you prefer it in those terms). That's 23712 individual frames.
- At 720p resolution (1280 x 720 pixels per frame), that works out at 21841920000 pixels across the whole film. That is, of course, rather a lot of pixels.
- I think about three-quarters of the shots have some sort of colour grading and/or VFX.
- I haven't got round to counting the VFX shots yet, but at a very rough guess I might say there are 20 or 30.
- The MPEG-2 master takes up about 2.17 GiB of disk space.
- The total budget was £181.95.
- This works out at £11.51 per minute of runtime, or 19.18 pence per second.
- The Colclough
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Well, that answers that question...
I was wondering the other day whether anyone else would notice the passing of Grace and Caffeine.
Someone did. Feedback like this - http://hannahlikessheepbaa.blogspot.com/2010/09/grace-and-caffeine-or-works-of-someone.html and http://hannahlikessheepbaa.blogspot.com/2010/09/grace-and-caffeine-part-ii.html- makes it all seem worthwhile.
Can't let that pass without saying thank you, Hannah :)
And thanks also to Tim for the rather prominent G&C link graphic at his Sidewards webcomic site :)
On a totally unrelated note, I'm about to go and put the finishing touches to Megastropulodon Attacks! Watch this space for news on the film's online release...
- The Colclough
Someone did. Feedback like this - http://hannahlikessheepbaa.blogspot.com/2010/09/grace-and-caffeine-or-works-of-someone.html and http://hannahlikessheepbaa.blogspot.com/2010/09/grace-and-caffeine-part-ii.html- makes it all seem worthwhile.
Can't let that pass without saying thank you, Hannah :)
And thanks also to Tim for the rather prominent G&C link graphic at his Sidewards webcomic site :)
On a totally unrelated note, I'm about to go and put the finishing touches to Megastropulodon Attacks! Watch this space for news on the film's online release...
- The Colclough
Saturday, 4 September 2010
Rest in peace, Grace and Caffeine
So, it's all over.
I began writing Grace and Caffeine more than three and a half years ago. It's been with me since before I started my degree. It's been a major element of my life for what feels like forever.
Back at the beginning of August, I wrote the 178th and last strip.
And this afternoon, I completed and uploaded the new-look archive site, containing every single strip ever written, along with colour versions, development sketches, cartoonist's commentaries, a brief guide to the characters, a revised and expanded FAQ, and the 20-episode run of Grace and Caffeine's precursor Games Baptists Play.
Thing is, there is now absolutely no work of any description left to do on the whole 45-month-long project. And it feels really weird trying to get my head around the fact that one of the two longest-running creative projects I've ever undertaken is now done and gone. It hasn't really sunk in yet. It might take days, maybe even weeks or months, before I really get a grip on the fact that my pet project isn't there any more.
It didn't really end very spectacularly. You always want these things to end in a blaze of glory, with fireworks and trumpets and one last massive achievement. But it didn't. It all ended with a tiny - almost insignificant - fix to the HTML code on one of the new pages. It was a very small glitch that had snuck in ages ago and I'd forgotten to change at the time, so after making all the dramatic moves (logging in to the server, wiping out the whole of the old site and uploading the 388 files which constitute the new one), I then found myself going back into the abandoned house for a few moments to tweak a few characters of the source code, re-save the page... and with that tiny little gesture, it was all over.
I'm nearly finished with Megastropulodon Attacks! and The Making of "Intergalactic Hamsters" too. Once they're done, nearly all of the old threads will have been severed, and I'll be well and truly off the end of the map and wandering out into the post-college-era void, trying to pick up the threads of whatever new tapestry is heading my way.
The other thing is, I'm left wondering if anyone besides me actually cares. I made it known a month ago that the project was coming to a close, and nobody's said a thing. No "Do you really have to stop?", no "So why've you decided to pack it in now?", no "Well, it's been an interesting three years"... not even "Thank goodness you're giving it up at last you miserable *beep*!" Is there a single other human being on the surface of this planet who is remotely interested by the fact that I won't be restarting Grace and Caffeine this month as I have the last three Septembers? I don't know. I hope there is, but if they're out there then they're keeping really, really quiet about it.
Anyway, enough self-pitying rambling. If you are one of the minority who are at all interested, the shiny new archives are now open at the usual URL, http://gc.mattghc.com - feel free to take a look around and offer any feedback that might come into your head.
Now, what's the next project going to be...
- The Colclough
I began writing Grace and Caffeine more than three and a half years ago. It's been with me since before I started my degree. It's been a major element of my life for what feels like forever.
Back at the beginning of August, I wrote the 178th and last strip.
And this afternoon, I completed and uploaded the new-look archive site, containing every single strip ever written, along with colour versions, development sketches, cartoonist's commentaries, a brief guide to the characters, a revised and expanded FAQ, and the 20-episode run of Grace and Caffeine's precursor Games Baptists Play.
Thing is, there is now absolutely no work of any description left to do on the whole 45-month-long project. And it feels really weird trying to get my head around the fact that one of the two longest-running creative projects I've ever undertaken is now done and gone. It hasn't really sunk in yet. It might take days, maybe even weeks or months, before I really get a grip on the fact that my pet project isn't there any more.
It didn't really end very spectacularly. You always want these things to end in a blaze of glory, with fireworks and trumpets and one last massive achievement. But it didn't. It all ended with a tiny - almost insignificant - fix to the HTML code on one of the new pages. It was a very small glitch that had snuck in ages ago and I'd forgotten to change at the time, so after making all the dramatic moves (logging in to the server, wiping out the whole of the old site and uploading the 388 files which constitute the new one), I then found myself going back into the abandoned house for a few moments to tweak a few characters of the source code, re-save the page... and with that tiny little gesture, it was all over.
I'm nearly finished with Megastropulodon Attacks! and The Making of "Intergalactic Hamsters" too. Once they're done, nearly all of the old threads will have been severed, and I'll be well and truly off the end of the map and wandering out into the post-college-era void, trying to pick up the threads of whatever new tapestry is heading my way.
The other thing is, I'm left wondering if anyone besides me actually cares. I made it known a month ago that the project was coming to a close, and nobody's said a thing. No "Do you really have to stop?", no "So why've you decided to pack it in now?", no "Well, it's been an interesting three years"... not even "Thank goodness you're giving it up at last you miserable *beep*!" Is there a single other human being on the surface of this planet who is remotely interested by the fact that I won't be restarting Grace and Caffeine this month as I have the last three Septembers? I don't know. I hope there is, but if they're out there then they're keeping really, really quiet about it.
Anyway, enough self-pitying rambling. If you are one of the minority who are at all interested, the shiny new archives are now open at the usual URL, http://gc.mattghc.com - feel free to take a look around and offer any feedback that might come into your head.
Now, what's the next project going to be...
- The Colclough
New Megastropulodon Trailers
Here we go: three new mini teaser trailers introducing the principal cast of Megastropulodon Attacks!
Jason Meddings, the Chosen One :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYWTjXoPL
Ron Haggard, the Lovable Sidekick:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMBt54Dar
Doctor Shaughnessy, the Mad Scientist:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOwF63NnA
Enjoy 8]
And of course, watch this space for the finished film, which will hopefully be gracing the Interwebs very, very soon...
See, I told you my posts here wouldn't all be deep and angsty, didn't I?
- The Colclough
Jason Meddings, the Chosen One :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYWTjXoPL
Ron Haggard, the Lovable Sidekick:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMBt54Dar
Doctor Shaughnessy, the Mad Scientist:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOwF63NnA
Enjoy 8]
And of course, watch this space for the finished film, which will hopefully be gracing the Interwebs very, very soon...
See, I told you my posts here wouldn't all be deep and angsty, didn't I?
- The Colclough
Wednesday, 1 September 2010
Vision from the Edge of the World
I only left the group around the barbecues to get away from the smoke. I'd been queueing for ages, right next to one of the disposable charcoal trays, and getting gassed. I wandered off down the beach, not really planning to go very far, but the tide was out - a long, long way out - and I just kept plodding. Don't really know why.
Quarter of a mile later, I finally came to a standstill a few yards into the water. Nothing left, just the ripples on the water, and the sky coloured by the sunset behind me. No sounds worth speaking of.
And then I realised what I was looking at. You might not think a simple, flat line could be so profound, but I realised that when you live inland, you never really see the horizon. It's always hidden behind buildings, fences, cars, wheelie bins, blah de blah de blah. So much clutter obscuring the view. But out here in the edge of the tide, there was nothing left to get in the way, and the crystal-sharp boundary between the end of the world and the start of the sky stretched on and on and on all around.
And then came one of those odd little moments, when some little snippet of fiction takes on a whole new layer of meaning which the original writers probably never intended.
I've never played Portal, but I've heard the end credits song Still Alive a few times, and as I stood in the shallows at Littlehampton the line came to mind, "Now these points of data make a beautiful line". So? Life, as perceived from this side of eternity, often seems to consist of a long and convoluted string of random events - points of data, one could call them. Meanwhile, in another train of thought, it is an important component of Christian belief that God has a plan for the whole of history - past, present and future, and that when we reach heaven (i.e. upon arrival on the other side of death) our own place in this plan will become clear, if we hadn't realised it already.
And then, the two ideas came together, and I realised that this little snippet of fiction is actually a near-perfect parallel to what I expected death to be like. All the clutter will fall away from view, the horizon will be cleared, and my points of data - currently so strange and incomprehensible - will form a beautiful line, just like the song says, and I will be able to understand what I was actually doing on this planet for all of these years.
This new clarity came a few days after I had sat on a pile of wood chippings back at the campsite late in the evening, while everyone else was in the barn, talking, drinking, playing games. I had sat on the top of the pile, stared up at the majesty of the clear sky, and asked what I was here for. Then, on the thin end of the tide at Littlehampton, I was shown something amounting to an answer: "It's not time for you to know yet. But there will be light and clarity in the end."
In a way, I'm rather looking forward to being dead. Not to dying, mind you - I've never coped well with pain, and I'm happy to keep putting off the process of death for the time being. But as for what comes beyond? In another snippet of fiction, in The Return of the King, Gandalf describes death to Pippin during the siege of Minas Tirith, and says something about "white shores, and a swift sunrise". And there I had it, painted for me in the water and the air: a foretaste of the light, beauty and clarity that will follow hard on the heels of my last mortal breath. And there, enthroned above the circle of the earth, I will be able to look on the face of God. Not because I am good enough for him - far from it, so very, very far from it - but because he has chosen to pay my debt for me and forgive me everything. I will be able to stand before his radiant purity, clothed in his grace, and belong.
And then, I doubt I will ever want to move again.
I can't show you a photo of myself standing in the waves that night, because there was nobody else there to hold the camera. And even if there had been, the picture wouldn't fill the purpose anyway, because my outside shell has never even begun to approach the profundity and beauty to which my soul aspires. For once in my largely vision-orientated life, I find words are the better medium.
I came within inches of death later that night. But it was not my time, and I was left to live again, to find more points of data to add to the eventual line.
I've felt a little hollow in the two days since coming home from Root Hill, and now I've realised what's wrong with me: what I'm missing is the sense of engagement with reality which I felt during those nine days in the field on the other side of Surrey. I'm back at home, back within earshot of two constantly-grumbling smaller siblings, back in the banal rut of day-to-day existence, back with the nagging feeling that I ought to be doing something that I'm currently not doing, but not having a clue what that something might be.
But I intend to remember that horizon, and to find out what that something is that I need to do.
Don't expect everything I post on here to be all profound and angsty. It almost definitely won't be. I often resort to flippancy, mainly as a survival mechanism, and a lot of that will probably emerge here.
But there you have it. That evening in the fringes of the sea functioned, ironically, as a sort of new dawn in terms of my perception of the world, and now I need to go away and make something of the new day.
I shall start by throwing away some of the clutter from my cupboards, my desk and - I hope - my brain.
Watch this space.
- The Colclough
Quarter of a mile later, I finally came to a standstill a few yards into the water. Nothing left, just the ripples on the water, and the sky coloured by the sunset behind me. No sounds worth speaking of.
And then I realised what I was looking at. You might not think a simple, flat line could be so profound, but I realised that when you live inland, you never really see the horizon. It's always hidden behind buildings, fences, cars, wheelie bins, blah de blah de blah. So much clutter obscuring the view. But out here in the edge of the tide, there was nothing left to get in the way, and the crystal-sharp boundary between the end of the world and the start of the sky stretched on and on and on all around.
And then came one of those odd little moments, when some little snippet of fiction takes on a whole new layer of meaning which the original writers probably never intended.
I've never played Portal, but I've heard the end credits song Still Alive a few times, and as I stood in the shallows at Littlehampton the line came to mind, "Now these points of data make a beautiful line". So? Life, as perceived from this side of eternity, often seems to consist of a long and convoluted string of random events - points of data, one could call them. Meanwhile, in another train of thought, it is an important component of Christian belief that God has a plan for the whole of history - past, present and future, and that when we reach heaven (i.e. upon arrival on the other side of death) our own place in this plan will become clear, if we hadn't realised it already.
And then, the two ideas came together, and I realised that this little snippet of fiction is actually a near-perfect parallel to what I expected death to be like. All the clutter will fall away from view, the horizon will be cleared, and my points of data - currently so strange and incomprehensible - will form a beautiful line, just like the song says, and I will be able to understand what I was actually doing on this planet for all of these years.
This new clarity came a few days after I had sat on a pile of wood chippings back at the campsite late in the evening, while everyone else was in the barn, talking, drinking, playing games. I had sat on the top of the pile, stared up at the majesty of the clear sky, and asked what I was here for. Then, on the thin end of the tide at Littlehampton, I was shown something amounting to an answer: "It's not time for you to know yet. But there will be light and clarity in the end."
In a way, I'm rather looking forward to being dead. Not to dying, mind you - I've never coped well with pain, and I'm happy to keep putting off the process of death for the time being. But as for what comes beyond? In another snippet of fiction, in The Return of the King, Gandalf describes death to Pippin during the siege of Minas Tirith, and says something about "white shores, and a swift sunrise". And there I had it, painted for me in the water and the air: a foretaste of the light, beauty and clarity that will follow hard on the heels of my last mortal breath. And there, enthroned above the circle of the earth, I will be able to look on the face of God. Not because I am good enough for him - far from it, so very, very far from it - but because he has chosen to pay my debt for me and forgive me everything. I will be able to stand before his radiant purity, clothed in his grace, and belong.
And then, I doubt I will ever want to move again.
I can't show you a photo of myself standing in the waves that night, because there was nobody else there to hold the camera. And even if there had been, the picture wouldn't fill the purpose anyway, because my outside shell has never even begun to approach the profundity and beauty to which my soul aspires. For once in my largely vision-orientated life, I find words are the better medium.
I came within inches of death later that night. But it was not my time, and I was left to live again, to find more points of data to add to the eventual line.
I've felt a little hollow in the two days since coming home from Root Hill, and now I've realised what's wrong with me: what I'm missing is the sense of engagement with reality which I felt during those nine days in the field on the other side of Surrey. I'm back at home, back within earshot of two constantly-grumbling smaller siblings, back in the banal rut of day-to-day existence, back with the nagging feeling that I ought to be doing something that I'm currently not doing, but not having a clue what that something might be.
But I intend to remember that horizon, and to find out what that something is that I need to do.
Don't expect everything I post on here to be all profound and angsty. It almost definitely won't be. I often resort to flippancy, mainly as a survival mechanism, and a lot of that will probably emerge here.
But there you have it. That evening in the fringes of the sea functioned, ironically, as a sort of new dawn in terms of my perception of the world, and now I need to go away and make something of the new day.
I shall start by throwing away some of the clutter from my cupboards, my desk and - I hope - my brain.
Watch this space.
- The Colclough
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