Week 2: Wrap Up

Thus ends my most successful week yet, because I did everything (compared to the one other week). It was a pretty easy week what with two theory activities and only one practice, but still.

First of the week was my write up on artist Stanley Donwood. I'm pretty happy with it. I don't often, or ever, write about art but I think I was pretty clear with my points and examples. I really liked looking back through his work. Good artist. Go look if you haven't read that post. Or don't.

Next up was "Write about anything", a loosey goosey activity with 0 guidelines. I chose to write about the fear of failure, something that's been pretty dominant all my life and especially recently. I think it's pretty good. I actually think I did a decent job about being honest and still entertaining. There is no real organization in it, and I mostly wrote stream of conscious which I like to do. If you don't like that though, beware. I don't know. It felt nice to write about.

Lastly was my late, but only because of a prior engagement and not because I'm bad, "Work on Jonesy and the Big Chap". I didn't get as much done as I wanted, but it was insightful and I think I'll be better for it going forward on this side project. Who knows if it'll ever happen.

This week I watched a few things for once. I watch The 13th, a documentary on Netflix - it was great everyone should watch it. Lauren and I also watched through all of Stranger Things. I wasn't sure if it was going to live up to the hype, and while I have my gripes and nitpicks it was an amazing show. I was pleased that it wasn't just "HEY REMEMBER THE E I G H T I E S???" which was a big worry going in. But no, it actually had a reason and used the setting well. I also watched all available episodes of FX's Atlanta. I was quite charmed, so I'll be keeping up with episodes as they come out. That was all the media I consumed.

Now for the rolls.
3, 5, 20 (which requires the roll of a D6, which was a 1)

That is, analyze on of my favorite album; analyze on of my favorite songs (hopefully I'll be better at analyzing music this week), and the third will be a bit of a mix. A year or so ago me and a few friends recorded a role playing game, and I never got around to editing it. Here's the plan, it'll be a mix of "record a podcast" and record a radio play". The podcast is recorded, but the parts that are "in the game" I will treat like a radio play, sound effects and all.

I plan on spending a lot of time on that activity, but if I have extra time I rolled one more time and got 17 (another Music Video sans music). So we'll see if I have time for that, no promises and I don't necessarily feel obligated to do that.

Looking forward to this week. See you out there.

Week 2: Work on Jonesy and the Big Chap - Storyboards 1

Jonesy and the Big Chap was an assignment I made last year for my VFX class. I was really proud of it - still am - but I always wanted there to be more than just the one scene. So that's what this activity is meant to be, time for me to work on a little "passion project". But as it is an animation, I need to do a lot of pre production before I get to actually animate. I need to figure out how I want to tell the story, research the scenes I want to do, storyboard, make the characters, rig the characters, design the sets. I decided to start with storyboarding, which was a bad idea. Because storyboarding is where I have to decide a lot of stuff - including story points and set design, both of which are really important. But now I know.

So I didn't get a lot of shots mapped out, because I basically immediately realized that I need to do more work before I get to boards, but here's what I got.

I was really happy with my first frames and then I had to draw the cat and I remembered that I suck at drawing. Look at his face, wtf is with his face?

It was at this point that I realized that I need to do more decision making. Obviously this isn't a lot to present to you. So I'm gonna post my boards for the original short to feel better about myself. Prepare for some bare minimum drawing talent though.

Sooooo yeah. Sorry this post is late, I was busy last night being an actor. My wrap-up post will be up later tonight too.

Week 2: Write about anything - Fear of failure

I'm gonna talk about something that isn't funny, entertaining, insightful, or even interesting. I'm gonna talk about my fear of failure.

Pretty much since I was in middle school I've had a crippling fear of failure, a near constant anxiety that I won't be able to "achieve". That's fine, a lot of people have a fear of failure, and in some ways it might be a good thing(?) and drive you to work hard and break through that fear. That's never been me. In fact, I constantly fail. I'm often so afraid of failing at something that I find myself too anxious to even begin to try. Of course this is a horrible habit, and will obviously lead to the exact failure I'm trying to hide from. - and forgive me, this is pretty much all coming straight from my brain, I'm not gonna worry about formatting or even making a point. - But I'm sometimes (often) so afraid that I'm one mis-step away from the edge, that I'll simply not move (this is an allegory). The saying "the only way to win is to not play" only really applies in really rare and often bad ass situations wherein the hero has outsmarted the villain. No, usually when I get afraid and stay still, the ground beneath my feet crumble beneath me and I fall into the sarlac pit of failure (wtf, that's a nerd thing, get that outta my rad post). I'll give you an example, and this isn't something I've advertised to a lot of people (I think?).

When I transferred to GFU my Sophomore year I had a hard time. I wasn't in any CMCO classes, just gen-eds. I fell behind in a lot of ways, in most classes I got so far behind that I stopped going. I was afraid and embarrassed, but didn't know how to proceed. I couldn't see a way out - I'm going back up there and putting a paragraph break, this is ridiculous. There. - I couldn't see a way out and so I froze. I ended up only ever going to like 2 or 3 out of 6 or seven classes. At the end of that semester I only went to one final (to be fair I had written down the wrong time for one of them, but also to be fair that excuse is like bucket with a hole. It doesn't hold water. nailed it.) I failed every single class that semester, except for sociology which I got a D minus in. Which goes to show how serious of a class that is. I am on it right now. (Side not, I just took the time to google "who is johnny carsons sidekick" to get that vid.) The point of this story is to show you how lame school is all I wanna do is skateboard, baby what it looks like when I wallow in this fear. Quick wrap up on that story is: through taking classes each following summer - and with a little luck - I managed to graduate on time. Happy ending, yay.

Guh, what am I trying to say here? What was my next point?

Recently I've been feeling this anxiety creep up on me again. It got really bad toward the end of the summer, and I batted it away, but now I can feel it coming back. Creeping up from my diaphragm, slowly clawing it's way up my esophagus (wow I had zero clue on how to spell that). That's kind of what this blog, this whole project, is about. Giving myself something to do, to keep that anxiety at bay. I feel myself falling back off the edge; putting off things that could potentially be great, but am too afraid to pursue just because of the thought constantly at the back of my head.

"What if it doesn't work out?"

That's not even the big one, though.

"What if it works out, and you screw it up?"

Even thinking about those two questions, really really sucks. But they're always there. Always in the back of my head. Even for little things. Lauren and I were gonna go try a Thai place down the street that we've never been to before and I was so nervous about it. When we got to the door I said we should go somewhere else (granted, we went to the Lebanese place a block away and it was phenomenal. The shwarma, to die for. And there was a free huge thing of pita bread. This is besides the point.) What is the point? I don't know.

There is no resolution here. No advice I can give. Because I'm in the middle of this thing. I wouldn't even say I'm past The Approach to the Inmost Cave and I can't even see The Return with the Elixer, but somewhere out there I will eventually have to face my Atonement with the Father (who else is just loving this Hero's Journey parallel) and until then, I'll be here. Trying to be a good boy. And probably missing the entire point of the Hero's Journey

Hey that was a pretty decent closing.

Week 2: Write about an artist - Stanley Donwood

This one is pretty open. What kind of artist do I mean? WHAT IS ART?

Well I don't know what art is, but I'm gonna talk about Stanley Donwood.

Stanley Donwood is the nom de plume (nice) of UK based artist Dan Rickwood, best known for his work with Radiohead. That's right baby, two weeks in and I'm already talking about Radiohead. But don't worry, I'm not really gonna talk about his work with them. Also, this is gonna be a link heavy post.

Stanley Donwood has done it all. Screenprinting, illustrator, wood block/linoleum prints, paint, the whole shebang. He even had a film showing recently. But he's recently been doing more screenprinting.

What I consistently love about his work is it's other-worldliness. Whether it's a print, painting, or illustration, there's always something strange and off yet identifiable. Be it a fence, a forest, or power lines - he has mastered the uncanny valley. Things can be too perfect, too imperfect. The mystery in his pieces really draws me in to look in each nook and every cranny to ensure I don't miss anything.

His use of color and texture is also one of my favorite features of his work. In his screen prints he'll often use silver and sometimes gold leafing. His selective use of colors also stands out in his usually monotone prints. Some of his paintings are bombastic in their use of color, while others aren't.

He works with so many different medias and does so many different things with his pieces but they all look distinctly Donwoodian to me. A lot of his work also seems to take a lot of tedium, like how this eventually becomes this. And that's something I really admire, and enjoy seeing.

I guess it would be unfair to completely ignore his work with Thom Yorke and Radiohead. But I've been such a good boy for not mentioning it so far that I'm gonna now talk about it. His work on all these album covers really fit into the "familiar but otherworldly" nature of his work and would fit easily within his "main" body of work. And I think it's because the covers are just more art pieces, perhaps meant to be viewed within the context of the music, but art. They aren't marketing, they're a visual extension of the music in ways.

That's about all I think I can squeeze out of this post. Sorry for the barrage of links, but I wanted to keep the body of this post mostly free from clutter. Also if you enjoy Donwood's work I plugged his website and Instagram up there, but now I just did it again for you. And if you particularly enjoy this style of his, check out this dimentionalization I did of it in college.