Skin

Skin

Purple light
skin exposed
I see you
when my eyes are closed

    hard to remember
    hard to forget
    I can feel it
    it's in my sweat

Purple light
skin exposed
do you know me
do you know

    do you know me
    do you know
    do you know me like I thought I did

    I remember how it felt
      With your hand on my skin
    I remember how it felt
      With your breath on my neck
    I remember how it felt
      With your lips on my flesh
    I remember how it felt
      I remember I remember I remember I remember

    do you know me
    do you know
    do you know me like I thought I did

Purple light
skin exposed
I see you
when my eyes are closed

Purple light
skin exposed
do you know me
do you know

Purple light
skin exposed
I see you
when my eyes are closed

Purple light
skin exposed
do you know me
do you know

    There's something about the smell
    the smell of vanilla jasmine
    it shuts me down
    and nothing is real
    The world around me is shapes, colors
    Faces without meaning,
    hands attached that aren't my own

    Red and green
    Streaks of light, streaks of sound
    flashing orange, solid white
    following lines on the ground

    Blue waving from below
    each blink something new
    a tingle across my body
    shivers and burning through

Go

    It's been five years
    Five long years
    It's been five years
    Since I was alone with me

    Where have I been
    Where did I go
    Where was I

    I, I, I
    I can see me
    I, I, I
    I can see me
    I, I, I
    I can see me

    Where have I been
    Where did I go
    Do you know me
    Do you know

    Where have I been
    Where did I go
    Do you know me
    Do you know

And the sun rises day after day
The mountains stand firm even out of sight
The rain still falls whenever it may
So much of my life has been taken by night
I'll let the next rainfall wash it away

    So fragile
    Living for today
    Looking at tomorrow

    Where was I
    I was all alone
    Do you know me
    Do you know

    Do you know me
    Do you know
    Do you know me like I thought I did

    Go keep going
    go just go

    Do you know me
    do you know

    Go keep going
    go just go

    Go keep going
    go just go

    Go keep going
    go just go

Graduation

I'm graduating from my outpatient day program in four weeks. I feel good about it, mostly, but I'll miss the people a lot. I'm hoping to maintain some connection to some of them, they're practically family, but it'll take some work and I expect I won't stay friends with most of them for long after leaving. We're like the breakfast club. In group we're super close, but when we leave we go our separate ways.

Anyway, I recorded some music last night.

  Night music  by  Lilyology

  Effect beat  by  Lilyology

I enjoyed playing them. Next time I'll use my new audio input though. I couldn't last night and it was sooo disappointing - I hadn't installed the driver.

I finished it. It's pretty cool, though it's really hard to balance. I should have made the feet bigger, that would have solved it for sure. I may just glue a wood block to the bottom of the feet. Damn, should have done that.

The other problem is it's fricking huge. I dunno how that happened.

Anyway it's cool to have finished it.

My weekend.

Spent the weekend back in MA. Helped a friend move, and painted her bedroom. It was nice to spend some time with her, and I'm totally exhausted. I'm waiting for the bus, I can't wait to sleep on it. I'll post this when I have wifi on there. Modern technology is crazy.

Here are some pics of the room as it started.

With the base coat.

In process.

 

And with the final finish.

We did a faux finish, started out as a color wash but became something different as we went, because color washing was too subtle.

I've been coming to terms with the idea that I may be bipolar. That's my diagnosis, along with a few others. Bipolar II. It makes sense. Some of my behavior can absolutely be described as hypomanic. I don't see what was bad about it, I didn't make so many bad decisions, I just worked like there was no tomorrow, which oftentimes was a possibility. I have depressive episodes for sure, and mood stabilizers seem to be helping with those, I haven't had many days where I just can't summon the willpower necessary to get out of bed.

The disconcerting thing with bipolar disorder is that I'd never get better from it, that I'd have it my entire life. I still don't fully believe it, but I suppose the fact that Lamictal helps is proof enough.

I've been considering writing, more seriously than usual. I'd like to write a novel. I think I have a voice that would be worth listening to, opinions that would be worth sharing, and a life that has given me enough experience that I can empathize with all sorts of troubles a character may face. I wouldn't do a biography, because that's just lazy and my life is too open-ended and long-winded. There are just too many significant details, it would be hard to whittle down to one story, or hell, one theme. I've lived too many lives, and all of them have been extraordinary in their complication.

I wonder what I'd write about. I think in symbols. I don't know.

I'll think about it on this bus ride. Maybe I'll get back to you :)

SC-HMX20C

View it full screen, it's in HD!

Isn't it absolutely beautiful? That's shot on my new camera, just a basic camera test. You HAVE to see this next one.



Slowww motionnn!

This is another slowmo test. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWh6L5jVpgw

I shot it again in HD with the night settings turned on. It looks funny because the camera takes each frame and overlaps its exposure so there's no grain.



I'm in love. And it takes good pictures too!

 

 

Grow description

“Grow” is an experimental multi-media short film which combines high definition video of a choreographed dance sequence with a stop-motion animated character and abstract video footage. It is set in a forest of topiary sculptures accentuated by hand drawn animated elements. An original musical score is being composed by post-punk indie rock band Modern Moonlight.

The message of "Grow" is that great challenges, even deep psychological damage, can either nourish personal growth or bring destruction. It chronicles the psychological and emotional journey of a rape survivor who searching for an identity after hers has been stripped away by trauma. It follows an abstract narrative told through gestural modern dance, featuring one key dancer as she interacts with her environment. Human-shaped topiaries, their poses representative of the emotional states and personalities of those around her, serve as potential new identities. She mimics their poses but realizes that she must find her own life. Her anxieties plague her, and in her journey she is twice overwhelmed by a relentless adversary represented by black swirling ink and hand drawn animation. She is thrust underwater and needs to find the will to escape and survive, to fight for her life despite her feelings of hopelessness and displacement. Once she has made the decision to confront her trauma and expose herself fully to it, her identity is freed from the trauma. She gains the strength to overcome her anxieties and is able to grow through the experience, taking on a pose of exultation and freedom. The topiaries symbolize the continuous growth of all beings. The menacing adversary is a flood of water, which nearly drowns the dancer but at the end feeds her vines as they sprout on the wireframe identity she has found.

Grow updates

Drew this in my moleskine. It's a bunch of ideas as to how I can construct a wooden form for my wireframe to be built around. I've come up with a system involving wooden ball caps and 1x3 lumber. There will be holes cut in the ends of the lumber, and I'll sandwich the ball caps between two boards, resting in the holes. To keep them together I'll put bolts through the boards in the open space behind the balls, with wing nuts so I can adjust the tension easily. This will squeeze the ball caps into place. It's like a ghetto ball bearing. And since they're ball caps I can fit a dowel into them and it will have a lot of freedom to rotate.

I've been agonizing over this one, debating all sorts of joints and manufactured ball bearings, but I couldn't find anything that worked the way I want it to. I even went so far as to buy some online and they turned out to be completely useless, no tension at all. I mean hell, even earlier today you can see in the first picture sketches that involved rotating dowels instead of using wooden balls. I had given up on ball bearings.

This was all a back burner concern anyway since at first I figured the wireframe could be animated on its own, but that's unrealistic. This will provide a much better support, and maybe will actually do the job it's designed for. I give it 50/50 odds. If it doesn't work I have backup plans, but they'll be a pain in post. I could make a marionette but that's hard to animate, I could make a 3d model but that'll look like a 3d model, I could rig up an after effects model based on images I take but that will take forever to set up and will look slightly off. The AE model is what I'll do if live action doesn't work at all.

So much technical stuff lately. That's why I haven't been posting often. I do have a new version of the animatic, though.

"Grow" animatic

This is the animatic for the film I've been working on. I haven't been posting much lately, I'm not sure why. I've had plenty to talk about, I guess I've just had other outlets to do it.

I'm dying to work on this thing, to sit down and hash it out and really step into each scene with a fresh set of eyes. There's so much potential, but it needs to be so carefully weighted so as to not miss out on the bits that will make it work both narratively and visually. At the same time I just need some validation that it's worth making, that I'm not speaking to myself. Hopefully that's what I'll get by having other people get into it with me. I can't do this alone, it's too big a project and I don't finish things if they're left to just me because I get what I want out of them and move on.