Category Archives: projects
What’s essential?
In theory, we could loose the intro to Joe, though that fucks up the ending with the surveillance of C and G, unless we introduce the interface on laptop with G, which has to stay anyway. Then the inference is … Continue reading
Posted in budget, Daughter of God, plan, production and post, real life, research, software, technique, time, workflow
Tagged calibrate, clock, code, director, essential, ftp, lingo, post, programming, pulling hair, roto, text, time, video
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Here we go again
That’s a delightfully ambigious post title for a critical topic – the schedule for completion. Am I reluctant to jinx myself with another prediction of imminent closure? Indeed I am! No more optimistic announcements, just the facts, ma’am. Last night … Continue reading
Posted in budget, Daughter of God, people, plan, production and post, real life, research, technique, time, workflow
Tagged ball park, budget, calculate, completion, cost estimate, data, estimate, expertise, guess, measure, prediction, productive, productivity, project, projection, rates, roto, schedule, scope of work, spreadsheet, time, VFX
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Testing V 1.0 2012 script revisions
I’m now cutting a rough test of the script revisions, with some basic effects and visualizations. So far so good. Having tried with the narrator voice, it’s too heavy and preachy. Interwoven with other audio it’s doable. The shortwave audio … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, people, plan, production and post, research, story, technique
Tagged backstory, editorial, flashback, inventory, rough cut, story, surveillance, taoism, taoist, trope, VFX
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And so, New York
I got back from a 10 day NYC expedition last Monday. Here are some quick commemorative pix. On the way out I stopped at Cabelas near Ann Arbor seeking alcohol for my stove (they didn’t have). Snapped this iconic camo … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, people, projects, real life, research
Tagged brain, composting toilet, good times, noodles, nyc, philadelphia, pix, rant, rap, road, seaport
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DOG – script revisions
The plan is to revise the DOG script based around existing live action and VFX elements, adding new elements only when absolutely needed. It’s faster to rewrite than it is to edit. Unfortunately, Final Draft doesn’t have a very robust … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, plan, production and post, real life, story, technique, time, workflow
Tagged Daughter of God, deletion, DOG, inventory, notes, rationale, revision, script, technical, VFX
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How I became a genius!
I had a conversation with Curtis the other day. He’d like to direct – he’s written scads of lots screenplays and lately has been exploring editorial. Now I want him to learn how to do roto. Is that a digression, … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, people, production and post, projects, real life, research
Tagged curtis pickford, digital compositing, editorial, mike seymore, ron brinkmann, roto, rotoscoping, VFX
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Internship – a symbiotic alliance for dream manifestation
Version 1.1 February 01, 2012 Version 1.0 January 31, 2012 I have to evaluate interns at the end of the semester using CTC’s form, so let’s look at the categories that are most important to Trickster Pictures. Read everything, there … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, people, plan, production and post, real life, research, workflow
Tagged career tech center, evaluations, interns, trickster pictures
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And so, DOG
Recent posts explore the motivations behind finishing / not finishing Daughter of God. Dedicating an hour to daily introspection makes sense, meanwhile the urge to edit builds. If finishing is really so important, why don’t I just finish? Rather than … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, plan, production and post, real life, research, story, technique, time
Tagged completion, episodal, length, notes, review, strategy
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2012 year in creation
Heal back/pelvic basin stiffness, reveal cause and discover / implement protocol for repair. physically robust, feeling/looking svelte and yummy. Daughter of God is finished. Ultimate Around Lake Michigan Expedition. Science Fiction Musical script and score/lyrics. 6 new feature scripts. Feature … Continue reading
Posted in people, production and post, projects, real life, research
Tagged future, motivation, objectives, plans
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2011 year in review
On December 28’s M3 meeting, we asked everyone present to talk briefly about their top three accomplishments for 2011, and it was darn inspiring. I think it’s valuable to do a more extensive list for myself, so here goes… With … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, ideas, people, production and post, real life, research, Science Fiction Musical, SFX reel
Tagged 2011, accomplishment, achievement, project, year in review
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Ecosystem
In a June 26, 2011 post on Michigan Movie Makers, I blithely asserted that the regional production community is an ecosystem. I wonder – what was I talking about? Does the metaphor actually provide any movie making insight or advantage? … Continue reading
Posted in people, production and post, projects, real life, research
Tagged artist, aspire, audience, ecosystem, enthusiast, entrepreneur, movie, movie making, process, producion, profit, story, student, vision
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Hanging treehouse
This came to me as I woke up this morning. A tree house is an intriguing idea, I’ve been thinking about how to expand the Artist house’s guest capacity without permits, maybe this is also research for some utopian movie. … Continue reading
Desire to finish DOG
I’ve added a new blog category – desires – specific objectives and rehearsed feelings. My motivations deserve more screen time generally, so now it’s got it’s own category. Ok, revelation. I’ve stalled on exploring my feelings about the finish of … Continue reading
Everything I do I do to get laid
I wrote the song, ‘Everything I do, I do to get laid’ around 2000, a post divorce dark anthem. In 2011, thinking about why I want to finish DOG, “Laid’ seems spookily profound. In the early 90s, after several successful … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, people, real life, research
Tagged blog, cynical, cynicism, divorce, freak, highly attractive, hot women, laid, marriage, Shakti Gawain, true love, trust, visualization
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Why finish DOG, a history
Here’s the history of ‘Why finish DOG?’ posts pre 11/25/11, references are mostly oblique to be sure. The Whys of finishing… http://www.holyboners.com/2010/01/13/a-coherent-plan-emerges-mission/ Daughter of God is my most ambitious narrative project to date. It’s a surreal exploration of how picturesque … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, people, plan, real life, research
Tagged b roll, bogs, colonization, composting toilet, conspiracy, i ching, magic, memory, mistakes, objectives, oracle, real life, RL, spooks, stigmata, success, tarot, theory, thoughts, transparency, veil
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Distractions
Bit of a time warp here. It’s now November 22, 70 days since my last DOG post and/or any structured progress towards completion. What happened?! Let’s have a look. Is saying I want to finish DOG an articulation of actual … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, people, real life, research
Tagged affirmation, cognition, completion, conditional logic, delayed gratification, DOG, emotion, feeling, finish, if, laid, real life, RL, sigmund freud, then, why
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Inventory end within sight
I’m pushing mid September with this shifting milestone, and it’s all good. Since combing through my journals from 2006-2009, I’ve discovered more material scattered hither and yon throughout the full archive. I’ve not included analog storage like notebooks in my … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, plan, production and post, real life, research, technique, time, workflow
Tagged extension, inventory, journal, milestone, milestone missed, momentum, motivation, plan, practice, protocol, timeline
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Inventory milestone still pending
Another 7 days have rolled by and the inventory milestone is still on the horizon. It’s been a slightly traumatic week. I extracted DOG references from my personal journals from the years 2006-2009, which meant slogging through a lot of … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, people, plan, production and post, real life, research, time, workflow
Tagged Faisal Azam, inventory, journal, milestone, milestone missed, references
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Another DOG milestone… missed!
I’ve overrun the rescheduled inventory deadline, after only getting in about 30 hours in the last 6 days. What else was I doing? Some M3 business on Wednesday, the usual training, eating, sleeping, maintaining social ties, fixing things… Below is … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, people, plan, production and post, real life, research, story, technique, time, workflow
Tagged a unit, Alan Watts, Ann Loeding, b unit, canada, eiji sumi, Faisal Azam, Final Cut Pro, inventory, milestone, objective, plan, prickles and goo, projection, test screening, tight, wide
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Inventory emerges
I’ve been poring over the drive “momma”, 2 terabytes (5 years) of accumulated DOG development. I had this idea that the content was relatively organized, but it turns out – not so much. Sifting through the hoary once upon a time, … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, hardware, people, plan, production and post, real life, software, time, workflow
Tagged alien aesthetic, Archive, audience, blog, cognitive wormhole, content cosmos, creative control, diskcatalogmaker, DOG, gigabyte, inventory, momma, oscar, supra-luminal, terabyte, VFX
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DOG notes August 1-15, 2011
As I dive back in, there will inevitably be tangential ideas and inspiration. These I’ll write down for later review, deep storage… edit (tools) image placeholder or describe what’s seen new script index cards image cards qualities humor / backstory … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, plan, production and post, research, story, technique
Tagged adr, notes, to do, variation, versions, VFX
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3 flavors of DOG
Let’s talk 3 versions. There’s a working 3:30 minute core, ready to get sleeky. The 2011 approach to the final cut is to cut to the core and add back in. Story support – what’s worth adding to deepen, reveal … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, plan, production and post, research, story, technique, time
Tagged festival, flavors, grail, length, motion graphics, short, sweet spot
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ECL interviews DK – 3:30 milestone
A transcription of pro tem Producer El Carne Loco’s interview with Director Dan Kelly regarding Daughter of God’s first milestone completion in 2011. ECL: Regarding the 3 minute version, what do you feel was accomplished, did it meet your expectations? … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, people, plan, production and post, real life, research, story, technique, time, workflow
Tagged blonde, dan kelly, director, el carne loco, Faisal Azam
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DOG resurrection
She’s back! Daughter of God is in the house. 3:30 minutes The first objective was to post a micro version of the story (~3:00 minutes) by Wednesday 8/10. Between Sunday 8/7 and Wednesday 8/10 I was able to dedicate 11 … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, people, plan, production and post, real life, research, story, technique, time, workflow
Tagged accelerated narrative, creative direction, dan kelly, director, DOG, dramedy, edit, editorial, el carne loco, Faisal Azam, producer, recap, sleek, uncle joe, vision
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DOG post-production meeting
After updating the archive’s catalog the last couple of days, (40 terrabytes worth), I was finally ready to crack the DOG project this morning. Upon reviewing the major sequences, I had a series of epiphanies. Inventory Cataloging the possibilities will … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, people, plan, production and post, real life, research, story, technique, time, workflow
Tagged 3 movies, deliverable, DOG, edit, editorial, epiphany, Faisal Azam, inventory, milestone, nyc, production, script, sfx, story
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Awash in wildflowers…
…and basking in beauty, that’s the summer of 2011. Hello World has been beached (blossomed) for a solid year following her crippling injury 30 miles north of Chicago that ended our 2010 expedition. She’s communing with the flox and vetch … Continue reading
Posted in Around Lake Michigan, Daughter of God, people, plan, production and post, projects, real life, research, SFX reel, time, workflow
Tagged ALM, combat mime, compost, corn, distraction, DOG, garden, gertrude ekstatisch, girlfriend, hello world, horse manure, james weston, lauren di scipio, marijke church, michigan movie makers, mykl werth, nuclear, soil, solar power, sustainable, tai chi, tcff.org, traverse city film festival, will church
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The aesthetic and what’s next?
So we’ve pre-released the sfx reel and shared a little history. Now what? There are 4 sheets of newsprint in the backroom covered with to dos, here’s the jist. Two archival and non trivial projects are in the queue for … Continue reading
Posted in budget, Daughter of God, people, plan, production and post, real life, research, SFX reel, story, technique, time, workflow
Tagged avenues, constant vigilance, good enough, kiss, perfection rejection, serving story
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V 0.9 Trickster Pictures SFX reel
This is for my extended inner circle of creatives, both producers that might have a micro budget and/or good things to trade and artists that might have a wild idea or fancy getting hired to help. Please upgrade your browser … Continue reading
Canyon Princess
Premise “Up on the canyon edge, there’s a ship that sails the sky. They say it carries a thousand ghosts who once ate black gold and lived as gods. Big waters brought it here before my grandmother was born. We … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, people, plan, production and post, projects, real life, research, SFX reel, story, technique, workflow
Tagged aleister crowley, bricks, color correction, cruise ship, Daughter of God, Dave Crowley, kiss, roto, san juan, tracking
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Uturnpike’s drift
Premise Mysterious rows of snow covered cars snake into the distance. What happened here? Was a neutron bomb exploded nearby? Were the drivers raptured away by the returning Messiah? Why are the cars bumper to bumper in both directions? Unturnpike … Continue reading
Posted in Daughter of God, people, plan, production and post, projects, real life, research, SFX reel, software, story, technique, time, workflow
Tagged 3D, ae, cars, dan kelly, documentation, DOG, Jeff Gibbs, low level, mocha, patrick kelly, pennsylvania turnpike, planar tracker, the road, tracking, uturnpike, viggo mortensen
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Commando Kill
Premise CK is a black ops super warrior run amok. His self determined mission is to bring down technical civilization by crashing key elements of infrastructure. He’s forever skulking around power stations and military installations, tossing precise sabots with economy … Continue reading
Posted in people, production and post, real life, research, SFX reel, software, story, technique, time, workflow
Tagged 3D, bear lake, blender, box truck, brad kinnan, catastrophe, character, chinese, cigar, city of milwaukee, clouds, commando kill, composite, concrete, epa, fire, halloween, hazard, industrial, infrastructure, live action, mandarin, manistee, missile, msu, no smoking, penske, rocket, ron brown and sons, roto, sabot, sabotage, signage, super warrior, translation, us 31, vector, vixia hf s100
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Climate Change and digressions
Premise Climbing high above a menacing mega-weather system, the VIP passengers aboard the Execu-jet attempt an escape to gentler climes, anticipating warm backrubs and frosty cocktails. Hubris! Even the mighty kerosene sucking turbo engines cannot forever loft such a heavy … Continue reading
Posted in production and post, projects, real life, research, SFX reel, software, story, technique, time, workflow
Tagged activist arrogance, ae, After Effects, boondoggle, california, cherry capital, climate change, container ship, convenience, environment, environmental debt, excess, genarts, global life support, hollywood, jamaica lynn weston, james weston lynn, james weston schaberg, Jeff Gibbs, jet, jet flight, Jonathan Kelly, landing gear, life support system, lightning, local growers, patrick kelly, privilege, right livelihood, roto, sapphire plugin, stabilized, stabilized footage, strobe flash
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Documentation protocol
Documentation protocols under consideration, for collaborator review. The next step in getting the lads to blog. 1. Technical terms are bolded and either briefly defined on the first use or linked to a definition on our other project sites, wikipedia, … Continue reading
17 months for 3 minutes
That’s how long it took to develop the (preview) of the motion graphics and special effects reel, from inception to launch. Let’s see… that’s 170 days per minute, 3 days per second or 2 hours and 15 minutes per frame. … Continue reading
Posted in budget, Daughter of God, people, production and post, real life, research, SFX reel, time, workflow
Tagged inception, launch, motion graphics
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Behind the scenes
Here’s Version 0.9 of the Trickster Pictures SFX and Motion Graphics Reel. Please upgrade your browser Excerpt from Kellys’ secret blog, December 2009. This is an outreach to potential clients, based on bliss projects. The theory is that if … Continue reading
Posted in people, real life, research, SFX reel, workflow
Tagged 16 bit, 32 bit, 8 bit, aesthetic compromises, apocalypse, avenues, bliss projects, canyon princess, clients, climate change, Colorista, colorista ii, commando kill, comps, control, eternal opus, firefox, ganesh, h.264, indy producer, motion graphics, obsession, painter, painting, physical reality, power mask, precomp, safari, schlock, secret blog, upload, uturnpike, youtube
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Selling Canon Vixia HF-S10 and HF-S100
Every year or two, I replace and upgrade gear to stay current with emerging technology. I used the Vixia HF-S10 exclusively for the 2009 and 2010 expeditions of Around Lake Michigan, Search for Sustainable Civilizations, shooting 100s of hours of … Continue reading
The clean shaven look
I did it. Redesign and radical simplification of http://ondesire.com has been implemented. There’s more to come but the major scaffolding is in place. Here’s the landing page. Pretty sparse eh? The idea is push some of the complexity deeper into … Continue reading
Posted in Around Lake Michigan, software, story, technique, workflow
Tagged blog, bounce rate, design, fred oeflein, landing page, movies, navigating, ondesire, overwhelm, structure, tamarack software, views
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I’ve cloned myself
Just over a year ago I started cloning myself. I am amazed to announce that the process is complete, pretty nearly. As long as I am alive and ever changing my clone is also a work in progress. Last night … Continue reading
Posted in Around Lake Michigan, Daughter of God, hardware, people, real life, technique, time, workflow
Tagged Archive, clone, cloning, conquistador, credit card, firewire, SATA, terrabyte
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Bounce rate rebounds
Jonathan, Luke, Steve and I were looking at analytics for ondesire.com last night. After posting the Premise page on Friday, bounce rate shot back up to 40%. The point of looking at bounce rate is to see how effective the … Continue reading
Posted in Around Lake Michigan, people, real life, story, technique
Tagged analytics, bounce rate, dan kelly, Jonathan Kelly, landing page cross post, lucas kelly, steve kelly
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Deconstructing doom
Jonathan has been questioning the veracity of the doom assertion in the ALM / artifact premise. A premise or pitch is a shorthand introduction to a project – typically delivered in less than 15 seconds (and often in an elevator). … Continue reading
Posted in Around Lake Michigan, people, real life, story
Tagged ALM, alm guide, Around Lake Michigan, artifact, consumer, dan kelly, delusion, disconnection, diy, doom, elevator, Jonathan, Jonathan Kelly, pitch, premise, survivable, sustainable, toxic consumer culture
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Meeting 10-03-06 ondesire landing page
We’ve had two dream team meetings, in Brooklyn (Faisal, Erica and Dan) and yesterday in Beulah (Steve Elrick, Melonie, Jonathan, Lucas Kelly and Dan). Inviting collaboration and contribution was the focus of Saturday’s meeting. Components of the ask package for … Continue reading
Posted in Around Lake Michigan, Daughter of God, people, plan, real life, story, technique, time, workflow
Tagged androgenous, artifacts, blog, confuse, dan kelly, definitions, erica velis, Faisal Azam, future sustainable civilization, Jonathan Kelly, lucas kelly, media, melonie, music, steve elrick
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Action for everyone
Sign a petition and help Michigan’s Attorney General Mike Cox to protect Lake Michigan by closing the locks in Chicago. http://StopAsianCarp.com
Posted in Around Lake Michigan, real life
Tagged asian carp, attorney general, carp, Lake Michigan, mike cox
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Faisal’s world
Faisal dropped off his edit of DOG. In the spring of 2009 he had offered to bring out the “David Lynch ambiance” while simultaneously loping off “atrocious performance”. He felt that DOG depicted a quirky, off kilter world that was … Continue reading
Posted in Around Lake Michigan, Daughter of God, people, real life, story, Uncategorized
Tagged ALM, Daughter of God, david lynch, DOG, edit, Faisal Azam, feature, short, working cut
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Pancakes and scrambled tofu hash with Erica and Faisal
Erica and Faisal came over for pancakes on Friday, 10/02/19. Faisal’s version of the DOG edit, ostensibly the reason for our reunion, remained untouched. Instead we talked… about advancing our craft, social presence, Around Lake Michigan, redefining projects, new collaborations … Continue reading
Three blogs
With three blogs, when will Dan have time to make movies? This whole blog experience has been startling. I’ve scribbled my life away trying to sort out my feelings, document flashes of genius and decrypt the future… but my audience … Continue reading
Trickster Pictures Collaboratory
Meanwhile on Earth… The internet is a global conversation. A variety of strange web entities have appeared to enable this – forums, chat rooms, voice over IP, and even video conferencing – Jonathan recently posted his take on this. The … Continue reading
Getting the lads to blog
This is mostly directed to Jonathan with a heads up for Patrick, the other 2 directors on the motion graphics reel. This is all issues we’ve discussed before, eg documenting lessons and process. The car renderings must be 3968×2288, not … Continue reading →