Shot this vid before taking down the lights. Too many lights? Pah! No such thing. You can never EVER overdecorate a Christmas Tree. It simply cannot be done.
We even had a Christmas Table this year…

Hah, we win for biggest fire hazard!

In the spirit of the season, the Christmas decorations came out– which, of course, included tidbits of my childhood: crafty assignments based ’round pastes, construction paper and cleverly-written haiku.

For those of you who find 3rd-grade handwriting illegible, I’ll transcribe:

“Roots are not on tree.

Presents are under our nice tree.

Carots are very nice.”

10 points for getting five solid  syllables in the first line. 200 points for running out of subject matter and delving into the contents of lunch– complete with a misspelling!

Hey all you animators that just took off for home and plan on working on your films but don’t have fancypants desks that lift up at angles! This one’s for YOU!

I figured I wanted to animate and clean up in comfort, so I scavenged around and found a backing to an 18×24″ Biggie pad that was sitting around, waiting to become useful. I came up with this contraption, which requires no more than said piece of cardboard (non-corrugated, this is really tough stuff!), a box-cutting knife, packing and duct tape (though you could probably get away with just good ol’ duct tape).

1. Here’s how it works. Take the cardboard and cut strips approximately 2.5″-3″ thick strips down the long way.
2. On one side of these, make a light cut into both ends, approximately the width of the packing/duct tape you’re working with. Fold the board on these light cuts; now, turn over the board and make a light cut exactly in the middle of the strip. Fold the board back on these new cuts. You should have your strips shaped as you see in the following illustration, by the massive “x2″ (as you’ll make two strips like this, one for the left, and one for the right).
3. Get your packing tape ready! line up the “feet” of the strips vertically with one of the long edges of the remaining part of the board that you originally cut the strips from. Tape the feet on flat. Now, with the strips bent in an upside-down V, place your disc on them and figure out a distance (with the board pushed to the edge of a table against a wall you plan on working against) that you’re happy with your disc being propped up at. Translation: figure out the angle that you want the strips to be bent at; an angle that you’re comfortable with. Once you’re happy with the angle, make sure the remaining “feet” are about lined up and tape them in place… when you tape the feet, tape them on the front of the board and wrap the tape to the back. (Hence the overhang in the illustration).
4. Now, get a little sliver of duct tape and fold about half an inch of it over itself and tape it down lined up with the start of the angle of the bent strips. This piece of duct tape will hold your disc in place.

That should be it! You’ll work with the entire “contraption” pushed up against a wall so it doesn’t slip away, though I’m sure you could tape it down to a desk instead. There’s plenty of room for a desk lamp to be used as a backlight as well, which also helps weight down the entire setup.

Improve on it as you wish; this is the first thing that popped into my head and it’s working so far (though I’m only on day 1 with it!) Feel free to post comments and suggestions– I hope the instructions are clear!

So I figured I’d inform the blogosphere about current cube life.

My film this year (which shall remain a secret as to surprise said blogosphere come late April) has 51 scenes… including full-color and dialog! Yippee! (Not yippee that there are only 130 days to do all this! AAAAAAAAAGHHH!!!) I figure I can do 5 scenes a week and have a month saved up for post production (translation: technical difficulties). I’m really excited about this year’s film, but still… That April 26th deadline is scaaaaryyy! (just for comparison, last year’s film, VALUE BLiND, had 19 scenes and it took me an entire 2.5 months from start to finish– and I completed a week before films were due, hooray for avoiding crunch time!) This year’s film has 32 more scenes and an extra minute of animation! But, this marks the last week of my third semester at CalArts! I can’t believe how quickly this semester passed! And I’m sure it’ll only get quicker!

Anyway, here are some shots of my cube in its current state of filmness.

Completed scenes are hanging out on the left side, field guide in the middle and a life drawing on the right.

Progress of a scene that got completely redone!

Scenes to-do and notes on the work-in-progress scene… Along with a mini candy cane!