spotlight effect

I've been thinking a lot about that spotlight effect.

I just rendered a test image in maya.

It took a couple hours to get it the way I wanted it, but now that I've relearned how to do this sort of stuff it won't take nearly so long for the actual project.

What I want to do is render a spotlight in maya to follow the dancer, and I'll do a 3d mockup of the topiaries to cast shadows on them. For the dancer's shadow I want to film her with a two camera setup, one to act as the 'spotlight' and one to be the main capture. The spotlight will be stationary way up above her. It doesn't have to be super high resolution since I'm just going to use it to key out the bg and use the dancer for a shadow. I'll put it on a plane in maya and set it to cast shadows but be invisible when it renders.

This is going to be so technically complicated but it's worth the effort.

The Dancer

Here's a script I wrote for the project I've been dreaming up the past couple months.

THE DANCER

by

Lily Gist

12/2/09

EXT. TOPIARY FOREST, NIGHT

A pale indigo moonlight casts shadows amongst a sparse forest of large topiaries, surrounded by a spacious black void. A Chinese dragon in topiary form looms in the distance, with a topiary cockatiel perched nearby. Flower children holding vases and pots are frozen in abstract poses, and various other whimsical shapes quietly preside in the darkness.

A young and lithe human DANCER, 20s, stumbles lost through the vast Topiary Forest. She anxiously braces herself against the still creatures, as though they could come to life at any moment. Lit by a spotlight which follows her every movement, she seems lonely and small. The forest overshadows her with its cold stillness.

CUT TO:

EXT. TOPIARY FOREST – DEN OF THE ENTRAPPED, NIGHT

An ENTRAPPED figure lays on the ground. It is hollow, only the suggestion of a form, and is bolted to the ground. A spotlight shines over it, its shadow a mesh of lines and shapes permeated by light.

It struggles to stand, pushing itself off the ground, but the bolts limit its movement.

CUT TO:

EXT. TOPIARY FOREST, NIGHT

The dancer moves from shape to shape, investigating and dancing fearfully around them, approaching and backing away. She is searching for something without knowing its appearance.

Her spotlight fades and a darkness envelops her. A low, clashing growl is heard in the distance and glowing eyes and teeth appear, scowling cruelly at her. The MENACE approaches, a mess of dark colors and scratched lines.

In abject terror The Dancer frantically tries to escape. A cold blue light flashes from The Menace, showing only glimpses of her in the darkness.

When she is on the brink of madness, huddled fearfully in the fetal position, The Menace moves on.

Slowly she catches her breath and composes herself. Her spotlight fades back in.

She hears something nearby and is startled, falling backwards.

She seems ready to run, but still walks forward. A wall of branches and trees surrounds an obscured figure, illuminated by a spotlight. She makes her way through the trees and comes across The Entrapped.

It is scared by her, and she by it. Their movements mirror each other’s. The Dancer circles The Entrapped, reaching to touch it.

Suddenly their spotlights cut off and The Menace appears. Light strobes over them, their movements visible only in flashes.

They clutch their heads, terrified, trying to hide but the trees grow thick to keep the dancer in. The Entrapped pits all its strength against the bolts, trying desperately to free itself. The Dancer sees this and anxiously tries to help it, falling back and pushing forward. She frees one arm, then the other, then the legs and finally the head.

The flashes of light intensify, strobing more rapidly.

The Entrapped collapses to the ground. The strobes reach a blinding intensity, filling the area with white light. The sounds of the Menace are gone.

A moss starts to grow inside The Entrapped, and vines wrap around its ankles. The trees around it sink into the ground as it fills. The Dancer steps up and merges with The Entrapped, growing into it with green moss and life. She stands up and exuberantly dances, each movement filling the air with color. She jumps to the sky, freezing in a pose of joy and freedom.

It is daytime in the Topiary Forest, and of all the topiaries, The Dancer is the largest and most revered. A light shines over her like no other, and colors fill the sky around her. She is forever joyful, and her only purpose is to grow.

Who do I make art for?

I've been thinking for all this time that I'm making art for myself, that it's a selfish act, but I know that's not true. I make it for other people, to try to get them to feel what I've felt, to share my experience and the inspiration I get from it.

And that's why my marble is somewhat flat. It's cool, don't get me wrong, but it has no feeling.

Maybe I'll get some in there somehow.

 Happy Black Friday! This is from last night.

I'm working on a stop motion project.  You can see by the picture on the left sort of what it's like. I've built a wireframe skeleton, and I'm going to router the base so I can move threaded rods around and animate it. The threaded rods will allow the parts to move up and down. It'll be a pain and a half to animate but it should be worth the trouble.

That's going with this whole concept of growth and struggle. I'm going to be working with a dancer, who will be wearing a dress soaked in paint that will splatter everywhere as a symbol of progress and making a mark. As the short progresses, animated plants will start to surround the dancer. Eventually she'll grow into a topiary, a symbol of constant growth and emotional stability.

 This is a big project. It'll take a while to do but I have a potential team to help me.

Oh, and here's the marble I'm working on.

And these are the tools I'm using! Sort of. Not exactly the same, but close. The hammer's the same-ish.

228 days

228 days ago I was brought to NYU Medical Center.

208 days ago I got out.

46 days ago I went back in.

16 days ago I got back out.

Tonight I'm depressed. Earlier today I was laughing. Before that I was motivated, carving marble. Earlier still I was depressed.

Yesterday I went to an art gallery opening, Lucia had stuff in there and there was a chance I would have an animation playing too. I don't know if he'll play it eventually or what but it wasn't playing for the opening so it doesn't matter.

I used to be a pro at schmoozing. Now I don't give a fuck, I just want to make stuff. I used to know the value of it, now I could care less.

I'm tired.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I don't know where I'm going.

I'm so tired.

This is an animation I did yesterday. It was satisfying to paint and left me competely depleted.

Here I Am

I'm dying to sculpt in marble. Dying. Positively actively deceasing.

So, I asked my parents if I could get a christmas present consisting of these tools and these classes at the Art Students League.


Isn't that exciting? And I'll probably be taking some good art history classes at SVA, since I'll be a FINE ARTS MAJOR! Can't wait for that.


God I'm so moody. I get depressed so easily, trapped in a gradually derailing train of thought which often ends in, "Well, I'll just kill myself" or sometimes, "Well, I'll just cut off contact entirely." Sometimes those are the easy answers. It's extreme black and white thinking, something we talk about often in therapy and DBT.

I hate being like this. I hate being not sane. Radical acceptance. It's okay to have a pity party for a few minutes and then move on. The whole concept of sanity is incredible to think about, as always. Einstein said, to paraphrase, "Insanity is doing the same things over again and expecting a different outcome," so sanity must be learning from your mistakes, by his logic. I do learn, but I still keep making the same mistakes. I'm trying to learn as much as I can through indirect methods like DBT and therapy, but I can't learn from my mistakes directly since I don't understand fully why I make them, or even recognize that they're happening.

Pity party finito.

Jessica's performance yesterday was just so gorgeous. There will be a webcast of it up some time, maybe a couple days from now. I'll post when it's up. But seriously, it was absolutely astonishingly beautiful, the program was perfect, enthralling. I didn't want it to end, and I teared up six times.

I also took a ton of pictures, and while we were at the zoo and such I got a bunch of pictures taken of me. I'll post them here when I get them.