D'days, B'days & frogs

Well, as far as I can tell, we seem to have survived the forecast end of the world. I can tell you how much this pleases me, as I would have felt like a complete idiot having spent the world’s last week, writing grant applications (speaking of grant applications, stay tuned for some VERY exciting news in the next few days).

The frogs however would do well to listen to the words of nut bag kooks like Harold Camping.

I did these sketches for a project a while ago (for a project I’ll hopefully be talking a bit more down the track) and today seemed as good as any to put them up. It may not have as much to do with god as he thinks and his dates may not be spot on, but (with about 170 species lost in the last decade and 1,900 species on the way) for frogs on the whole, the end is nigh. Unless something fairly miraculous happens.

It bothers me greatly me when people talk about biblical proof for the end of the world, or some god or other intends this or that. If the world ends any time soon it will almost certainly be at the hands of humans, and it would be good if we (as a species) would face up to that, be perhaps just a little bit accountable, and stop point fingers in stupid places. Now I realise that sticking a bunch of half-arsed scribbles up on the web isn’t going to do a whole lot for the frogs either, and frankly I’m not sure what is. Frogs are just one good example of the sort of actual real problem that I wish people were spending more of their time and energy looking into than stuff like judgment day.

And on a final note… Jill, who’s birthday it is today, was also very pleased to see that the world didn’t end on Saturday. Happy Birthday Jill.

Animated clips from Hamilton Inspire project

I found a couple of (very brief) clips from the Inspire project in Hamilton




...none of the paint on glass bits though which were my favourite.

Here is a clip of the paint on glass animation by the students from Balomoral on its own but I couldn't find any of it when it was projected onto the building.

Inspire: Hamilton

I've been recently involved in a project down in Hamilton, working with Trevor Flynn and a group of students from some of the local high schools to create a bunch of animation. A real mix of animation styles, drawn, paint on glass, stop motion and the whole thing then got projected onto the side of one of the buildings there as part of the Promenade of Sacred Music Festival. Happily the weather held out and we got a nice warm evening for the occasion.

Here are a couple of stills...

And a shot of me faffing around with the computer in the background...

There were a few people there with decent cameras so I will upload a snippet of video if and when I manage to track one of them down.

Pearls Before Swine - Game Trailer

Here's a trailer for the new iPhone app

Just how addictive is Pearls Before Swine iPhone?

Pearls Before Swine for iPhone

Finally, we've got it together to release a version of Pearls Before Swine for the iPhone.

 http://itunes.apple.com/app/pearls-before-swine/id398894917?mt=8

I have been eyeing off the iPhone app market since it first happened but just been too snowed under with other projects to do anything about it. I made the original version in flash back in 2001 (it was the first game I made in flash) so it seems appropriate that it should be the first thing to be ported to the iPhone.

Hopefully people are into it. I have lost track of how many million times it has been played since it was first released and if just  a small percentage of them go for the iPhone version I've got a swag of other game ideas to follow up with. I've been bottling them up for the last few years now and I'd love to spend a bit of time bringing them all to life.  If this idea excites you as much as it excites me... then get along to the app store now and buy yourself a copy of pearls (even if you dont own an iPhone)

 

And finally... Hooray for Bart Pindor who did all the recoding to get it up and running on the iPhone. Without a bit of external motivation and coaxing from him it might never have happened.

Nati Frinj Festival

Ive just been setting up a blog to help promote the upcoming 2011 Nati Frinj Festival and thought while I had the embed vid code in my copy buffer I might as well put it up here too.


The show "Space and Place" was performed on the side of the Natimuk silos as part of the 2004 Nati Frinj Festival. Y-space did the aerial performance and Transience (mostly me) did the animation. I know these days every other building you see has got some sort video installation taking place on the side of it but back in 2004 when we did this I think it was at least vaguely innovative. Also I think the combination of aerial performance and video projection is a niche that still has a lot of potential. We are hoping to develop a new Silos show for the 2011 festival but it is still very much "funding pending" at the moment. Ive got a whole lot of new ideas Im pretty excited about....just need a few dollars to make it all happen.


Also of note...this is the show that inspired the"silo" scene in the Rhyme of The Ancient Merino.

I have been involved in a few other projection type shows as well...I will try and get myself organised to finds some links to a few of these also.

goats on the silos..at night..in the cold

Another Merino update...just some raw stills at the moment...these shots are going to need a fair bit of post work to remove all the people before they are usable. I carefully took a clean plate of each of these shots but because of the spotlight and shadows cast its not as simple as just "cutting out the people".

We filmed these bits a little while ago at the local grain silo (mostly). Some shots were done with a green screen but, where possible, Ive tried use the actual silos. All had to be done at night...was bitterly cold....and needed lots of helping hands to pull these shots off (thankyou Paul, Doug, Greg, Jac, Kate, Calum, Hannah, Mary, Lynne, Tash).  I really hope I've got everything I need here. I do not want to go through all that again (or put anyone else through it).

For all the potential for stuff to go badly wrong...there weren't that many complete disasters...a couple of expensive bulbs blown. And one puppet dropped from about 10 meters up the silos and smashed to a thousand bits...I'm getting used to completely reassembling them so this was just a one day set back (luckily nobody was underneath it when it happened.)

GrainCorp who own the silos were very generous and very good about letting me access the silos, hang the puppets off them and use their power for the lighting. Thankyou.