Media Arts League

MALCal: Greg Zadrozny

2008-04-03T10:01:00.000-07:00

Session 1:
Penciled Pages
Draft of Script

Session 2:
Completed Test Page
Draft of Ocean Pattern.
Mock-up with Text

Session 3:
Finished Test Page
Finished Ocean Test

Session 4:
20 Pages inked

Session 5:
Revised Script Complete
Revised Drawings Complete
Mock-Up with Text
10 Pages newly inked

Session 6:
Finished Inking
20 Pages colored
Draft Handwritten text

Session 7:
Finished Coloring
Finished Text
Draft Cover and Design
Mock-Up of Animatic

Session 8:
Finished Book
Finished Animation

Meeting 4

2008-04-02T14:28:00.001-07:00

Gerald Lewis

Meeting 3

2008-04-02T14:27:00.002-07:00

Gerald Lewis

Meeting 2

2008-04-02T14:27:00.001-07:00

Gerald Lewis

Meeting 1

2008-04-02T14:26:00.001-07:00

Gerald Lewis

APR 10: Gerald Lewis

2008-04-02T14:10:00.001-07:00

Didn't kick up my game. At all. Wow, this was not good. Animatic was pretty hastily put together. Not much of a reaction, again. I think the .mov speaks for itself. Next session: kick some ass.

MAR 20: Gerald Lewis

2008-04-02T14:09:00.001-07:00

I'll never be happy with the script. The stuff I love -- the stuff that makes me laugh and gets me excited -- is the improv stuff Robbie does.

I made an animation test. I scripted the movements, and then created an frame renderer that has Quicktime compile frames into a movie.

Showing the video was okay - not a stir from the gang on the first showing. Not sure what that means, but one thing's for sure: gotta kick up my game.

Animation Test

FEB 28: Gerald Lewis

2008-04-02T13:46:00.000-07:00

Presented new character designs. Best feedback I got on them was that I need to put the oval patch of light orange back on Jonny's suit - it doesn't look like a costume without it.
Animation test was well recieved, though the gang wasn't totally in love with the puppet-style animation. Need to push this, or pull it back and make it more natural looking. Subtle, or exaggerated - not in the middle.

"Finished" my script. Not happy with it, still.

Revelations2 Script

FEB 7: Gerald Lewis

2008-04-02T13:16:00.000-07:00

JAN 17: Gerald Lewis

2008-04-02T13:15:00.001-07:00

Sorta kinda explained the project. I think my inability to explain the story in under half an hour means there's a problem with how I've got the story organized in my head. This is a really good indication that I need to think more about what the story actuall IS for the first episode.

Got some good feedback on the character designs. Am going to push the geometric shapes of the characters.

MALCal: Gaia Cornwall

2008-04-02T13:09:00.000-07:00

Session 1:
Bring materials I have now. GET: feedback on the story, flow, style

Session 2:
Bring 10 rough mocks. GET: feedback on them

Session 3:
Bring other 10 rough mocks. GET: feedback on them

Session 4:
Bring Completed changes to bl/wh illustrations: final illustrations, color style sketches GET: feedback on them

Session 5:
Bring 15 completed bl/wh illstrns

Session 6:
color illustrtns 1st draft and changes to bl/wh ones

Session 7:
Bring completed changes, finished dummy GET: ideas for packaging, who to send it to

Session 8:
Bring Completed Dummy, + Promo materials, all packaged and ready to go. Pitch idea for new book.

MALCal: Marylin Glinka

2008-04-02T13:04:00.000-07:00

Session 1:
Introduce plans for the next series, a continuation of the previous series, oppositions of “home”
But taking on a more abstract approach, focusing more on the materials being used in the work, not so much in visual representation.

Session 2:
Present three preliminary “sketches” for a basis of the new series.

Session 3:
Present two new “finished” pieces

Session 4:
Develop film from Colorado, working on large scale painting, 2’x6’.

Session 5:
Plans to have large scale painting almost completely, and two smaller pieces started.

Session 6:
Have several supports built (want to have a series of 10-20pieces completely by the end of MAL.

Session 7:
Have website updated for the new series.

Session 8:
Have the series ready, or going through final stages to hang in a space to show.

MALCal: Gerald Lewis

2008-04-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

Session 1:
Present project - try to explain what the hell it is.

Session 2:
Finish Script. Do an animation test. Start character designs. Finish script.

Session 3:
Continue working on character designs. More animation tests.

Session 4:
Finish character designs, start animatic.

Session 5:
Finish animatic, voice recording. Folley.

Session 6:
Create animation program. Finish up folley.

Session 7:
Do first 4 minutes of animation.

Session 8:
Finish final 4 minutes of animation. Post it to website!

MALCal: Cecily Upton

2008-04-02T12:45:00.000-07:00

Session 1:
Photographed Meena (made work prints), distributed camera to her.

Session 2:
Set up blog, Developed Meena's Pictures (made work prints)

Session 3:
Updated blog, Photographed Richard and Chip (made work prints), Distributed camera to Richard, Photographed Bike Polo (made work prints)

Session 4:
Updated blog, Developed Richard's pictures (made work prints), Had MALs identify best images from contact sheets; Made Moo Cards; Reached out to Gallery; Shot my own Holga images (made work prints)

Session 5:
Update Blog, Photograph Doug (make work prints), Photograph Myself (make work prints), Photograph Natasha (make work prints), Print past work larger

Session 6:
Will be gone. Update blog, Will have reconstructed website for review while away.

Session 7:
Update blog, Develop Doug and Natasha pictures, Photograph one new subject

Session 8:
Update blog, Hard edit, Present beginning portfolio of project

MALCal: Trisha Barkman

2008-04-02T12:40:00.000-07:00

Session 1:
Present concept to group.
Show both old and new images.

Session 2:
Refine old images.
Present one new drawing.
Show test print.

Session 3:
Refine old image.
Present two new drawings.
Show test prints with hand drawing at various sizes.

Session 4:
Continue to refine all images.
Take stock of series.

Session 5:
Bring all drawings to the same level of completeness.

Session 6:
Show small test prints, and one final print at full size.

Session 7:
Finish final printing.
Begin hand drawn elements.

Session 8:
Present six finished pieces.

2008-04-02T12:34:00.000-07:00

PROJECT Photos/Collage/Draw/Draw Again.

This work began partially out of boredom, partially because I had a job where I was learning a lot about photo retouching, and partially because my computer had become so integrated into all parts of my life. During these semi-typical circumstances for any art school graduate, I started playing around with my photographs, layering them, converting them into drawings, experiments, and tests. This was mostly about style, aesthetics, and trying to figure out if I could actually, technically pull things off.

Then, the Media Arts League came calling and I had to present....something. So, my project is a more thoughtful version of the original tests. The collages became more narrative, took on more textures, more layers, more complexity. The images are all single portraits of family members mostly collaged into pairings. I wanted to use collage to in a such way that the basic elements of design: composition, scale, amount of detail, etc. were manipulated to communicate the relationships in the family.

My final presentation will be six drawings printed digitally on photo-rag paper and then re-worked with charcoal and pencil.

devised by
Trisha Barkman
MAL MMVIII

2008-04-02T12:32:00.001-07:00

PROJECT Untitled

When you sit down to write an artist’s statement everything goes blank…. The words refuse to find their sentences, vocabulary hides under the covers, paragraphs become bashful and shy, and suddenly the work that you’re trying to introduce doesn’t feel like your own anymore. There is a loss of thought, a detachment, “how did I create this? When? Why?” You become confused by your own work, work that you were inspired at one point or another to create, and for a specific reason, Sure it’s easy to depict the fifteen or so paintings you created nine months ago when you’re shooting the shit with a buddy at a bar, but to put it into words, ON PAPER?!? Abdababababa…. Umm….. I created this because……. I…….. umm.…. suddenly I get stage fright. Sure paper isn’t stone, and neither is the internet, but now I have to make the commitment, stand behind my work one hundred and ten percent. It no longer cuts it to say, “it speaks for itself,” but did that ever really cut it?

Okay, so here I am, an artist, Colorado native, living in New York City, building a body of work on my definition of “home” I guess, really, this series began.. haha, over nine months ago, and with a lack of awareness for the definition in which I sought. Isn’t that how many series start, by accident? Hmm…. By accident, or by therapy, which is more likely my case. New York had proved to be much more than I was ready to sink my teeth into two and half years ago. Like most people who move here, the first year is a shock. Smaller space for a higher rent? Taxes? Bills? Every penny has it’s place, and rarely does that seem to be anywhere near your hand or pocket, the concrete, signage, language, cold, gray, culture, stone, lack of green, center, dirty, loud, abrasive, people people people, harsh, hard, fast paced, constant, movement, underground, toxic, busy busy busy, conflict, phew! ?!?!?! The exhaustion, the exhaust! Getting use to a constant glowing light, a constant noise, a constant bustle…. And the lack of space. I lived my first year hardly able to create a single image…. In the midst of great times, amazing new people, and the pride of living in the big apple, depression was sitting on my doorstep.

And so, naturally, what happens when you have a love/hate relationship with the city you live in? Well, being from Colorado, I began to think about “home”: clay, earth in my fingernails, gravel, dirt, warm stone on bare feet, rattlesnakes, coyotes, deer, mountain lions, elk, wolves, juniper trees, yukka, pines, snow, sun, reflection, sun wrinkles, crow’s feet, elevation, dry, thunderstorms, rainbows, magpies, creeks, rivers, whitecaps, crispness, aspens, blue, white, green, brown, red, bright, big sky, cloudless, deep gray clouds, golden grasses….a longing for quite, for clean crisp air…. I craved the opposite, and so it began. A series dealing in oppositions, based on my two “homes”: Colorado vs New York, positive vs negative, nature vs city, verbal vs. visual, natural vs. synthetic, etc. It was therapy.

Now what? I guess I am ultimately submerged in the dichotomy of my definition of “home”, and feel, even with a series under my belt, that I have barely scratched the surface. And so… I continue forward; however, there is a third element creeping its way in… a third “home”. The body. Recently I walked to the east river to photograph the flocks of seagulls and geese that reside on the waterfront. The one day I remember to bring my camera there wasn’t a bird in sight, save the one lifeless seagull I found distorted in rigor mortis. It really got me thinking about the body, our permanent home. The storage unit for our lives, the physical, the mental, the emotional. This vessel holds all experiences, shows all marks. I guess you could say I’m beginning phase two of the series, still in opposition, still in “home”, but this one primarily focusing on temporary vs permanent.

Stay tuned to see new works posted.

devised by
Marilyn Glinka
MAL MMVIII

2008-04-02T12:28:00.000-07:00

PROJECT DougLife

I moved to New York to be a great illustrator and then I actually moved to New York.

My father once told me that money is no object, cause when you don’t have it, it’s literally no object. After moving cross country twice in two years, I had no objects when the U-Haul landed in Brooklyn. Not for paint or brushes. Not for self promotion. Not for a Happy Meal, but I did have a computer. And that computer had Microsoft Word. So instead of creatively cutting on myself, I started writing.

I took on screenplays because it was visual medium that worked well with my sense of humor and I could collaborate with my best friend from back home, Steve. I self taught myself with trial, error and reading every book I could get my hands on in Barnes and Noble without getting those looks from security. After writing three of those and having them go no where, I tried my hand at the TV pilot with my other best friend Nick. My first, a pilot about a Kinko’s office fantasy football league got into the hands of some executives at Comedy Central. That led to some interest from William Morris and my very own agent named Dan. For the next two years I thought any day I was going to walk into the restaurant and spit on someone’s steak and walk out hands in the air, off to my millions.

But the story with the script was very similar every station it went. They all loved the premise and writing, but didn’t know how to sell it. In other words, “Justin Tierney is who again?”

After about a year of moping about how my agent wasn’t returning my phone calls anymore, it occurred to me that I knew enough talented writers, actors, filmmakers, and editors that I may be able to produce a show on my own using that crazy new interweb technology. I had to put something out there. Something I could point to and show people what I could do. The problem being of course that I’ve never made anything. The writing would have to be great and the acting would have to adequate, and the budget would be absolutely nothing.

So here it goes.

DougLife is about a guy whose trying to be funny. And failing fifteen minutes at a time. In six months, I need to write all ten episodes, film at least six, and fully edit four. Not to mention having a website which I can launch them on.

And then two weeks later be a comedy icon. No biggie. More of a suggestion really.

devised by
Justin Tierney
MAL MMVIII

2008-04-02T12:25:00.001-07:00

PROJECT How Do You Sleep?

To complete children's picture book Dummy " How Do You Sleep?"
IE Black and white, with two color/finished illustrations, photocopied book, packaged and ready to be sent out to publishers/agent.

Project breakdown:
16 black and white "rough" illustrations
2 of them in color.
a cover?
packaging: copy shop binding? additional promo materials: ie business card, postcard? folder?
list of publishers to contact

devised by
Gaia Cornwall
MAL MMVIII

2008-04-02T12:20:00.001-07:00

PROJECT Bikes!

I am beginning a portraiture project about NYC bikes and the people who love them, with an emphasis on the people. In this city, lots of people ride bikes for lots of different reasons--transportation, exercise, because they can't afford a car, because they're environmentally conscious, because they have a job that requires them to. I am interested in the people who ride their bikes because they simply love it. They may also ride their bikes for some of the reasons listed above, but fundamentally, the subjects I am interested in don't view riding their bike as just another form of transportation, but as an integral part of who they are and how they interact with their surroundings.

Technically, the project will involve two parts. Part one is a formal portrait session where I photograph the subjects (and their bikes) with medium format, black and white film. Part two is where I ask the bikers to participate. Each one will be given a Holga camera on loan, and two rolls of medium format, color film. They will be asked to photograph the city as they see it, from a bikers perspective. They will have two weeks and they can interpret the theme however they choose. After two weeks, they will return the film and camera to me and I will process, develop, and edit their images.

Ultimately, the photographs will be presented together, in a gallery exhibition. I will be working on the project for at least a year. In six months, I hope to have 8-10 portraits complete, as well as 2-4 images from each subject to display with their portrait.

devised by
Cecily Upton
MAL MMVIII

2008-03-18T13:01:00.000-07:00

PROJECT Revelations 2

This story starts a stupid-long time ago. Back in 2003, I was graduating from Pratt (sorta) and had no Senior film. Well, actually, I had a bunch of scripts, some short stories, drawings, random animations and video I'd done, but nothing cohesive or any good. Time marched forward despite my willful resistance to it, and with only three months before my "film" was set to premiere, I had to actually, you know, work on it. Make some decisions. Put it together.

With the pressure on, I started making progress. And it was great! It was all gut, and no planning, but I was making the right decisions and put together something that I was happy with. As the project wrapped up, I changed the name from "Revelations" to "Revelations #1". The reasons for that were two-fold. One, I thought it would funny to parody pretentious art works with names like "Sojourn #7" and "Mercy #2" (it wasn't). The second reason was that it represented a promise to myself to make more films.

It got into Slamdance, and I started talking up Revelations 2 while there (this was 2004, 4 years ago). Except it wasn't going to be a sequel to my first film, but a sequel to the Book of Revelations from the Bible (the one about the world ending). Heh.

Anyway, while I was there, I kept getting these opportunities to take the film further. Bill Plympton's producer saw it, and told me that "Bill would really like it - here's his address - send it to him when you get back." But I figured, Well, Revelations 2 is going to be so much better, and I'm going to make it really soon, so I'll just wait until it's done to send it to him.

When I got back to New York, I decided that I wanted to use more traditional animation than I had for Revelations #1. But traditional animation takes a LONG time. I had heard about Flash, and that you could do simple programming in it, and I thought that maybe I could use programming to speed up the animation workflow. I figured I could learn to code in a few weeks, and then begin animation. I spent six months barely leaving my apartment, working for 18 hours a day, teaching myself to code in Flash. Which was great, because I do it for a living now, but I didn't animate much of anything.

But by that point, I realized that it was taking too long to put coding to use in animation, and I wanted to have a lot of good research on the Bible under my belt before I made a sequel to it anyway. So I started researching the New Testament. And then, why not throw some Old Testament stuff in there? So I researched that. And then a lot of Jewish Apocrypha (religious texts that didn't make it into the bible, or that supplement it). And then Hinduism, and then the old Greek and Roman religions. And myths. Psychology. Neurology. Books on screenwriting. Books on play-writing. And on and on and on.

After months of nothing but research, I changed my mind and decided I needed to work out how to animate it first, and then do research and write it. I went back to the code-driven animation idea. But you know what would make code-driven animation even better? 3-d models! So I started learning Maya. And then Blender. And poking around at other modeling programs.

After many more months trying to learn the complicated 3-d programs, I changed my mind afuckinggain - I need a script first. But I didn't like the script writing software I was using, so I decided to write my own. script. writing. software. The kicker is that it turned out to be really complicated to write that software, and I needed something to help me outline how it would work, so I started writing an Outliner program to organize my thoughts. But I didn't have a good code library to work off of, so I started working on a code library. And a new version of Flash came out with a different programming language, so I started learning that so I could use the new code...

I think I've illustrated my problem pretty clearly - I'll do any kind of work so long as it's not actually working on my film. If I'd just started animating in 2004, devoting all the energy I'd invested into the side projects of getting the film made, I'd have a feature length film done by now.

The shape of my project has changed drastically since its inception, and it's gotten really ambitious. It's going to be 81 seven-minute shorts. That's okay. Unrealistic, but okay. I get really charged up about big projects. But I'm going to ignore that insane number for now. In the next six months, I want to have one short completed. Just one. From beginning to end. That includes:

1) Writing the script
2) Getting voice actors
3) Recording the dialog and foley
4) Character models
5) Storyboarding
6) Animating
7) Distributing it on the web (for free)

With the help of MAL, I want to recreate the deadline oriented environment that made Revelations #1 happen. I want to stop concentrating on my workflow and actually do some work. Make a baby step, and not stop mid-stride.

devised by
Gerald Lewis
MAL MMVIII

2008-03-17T18:10:00.000-07:00

PROJECT Turtle Shoes

If someone were to ask me what I thought about comics I'd be able to talk, non-stop and without pausing to breathe, probably for several minutes (though I've never timed myself). It'd be something like watching a Guinness Book World Record being broken. An event simultaneously strangely captivating and a bit sad. Like watching a man hold 10 deadly snakes his mouth and wondering "how did this guy ever figure out that he just might be the guy that could stuff the tails of a bunch of rattlesnakes between his teeth...and hold them there without assistance" (thank you Jackie Bibby with the amazing record of 10). What's the difference between sticking 9 rattlesnakes in your mouth and sticking in the 10th? Well, with 9 you're a weirdo with a strange penchant for tasting a snakes ass but with that number 10 you're a world record holder. Go figure. Its a bit of a waste holding onto just 9. So, while I'm expunging on the merits of comics as an art form, as a medium of resonance all those words are empty puffs of air. A babble about thisandthat and whati'ddoifiwaswritingastory (you see, one breath, there's no room to pause) and actually i'mworkingonmyfirstbookandit'sclosetobeingfinishedy'knowreallyclose. Really close doesn't really cut it though. 9 snakes for Jackie would've been just a half-hearted effort. The problem with what I've been doing is that no matter how hard I work I'm stuck being always closetofinished. I've been almost finished for years.

Years.

Y. E. A. R. S.

Stretch it out. Every letter representative of a year of time.

My book is called Turtle Shoes. The title itself is something that I'm almost sick and tired of carrying around in my head. The story is about a boy who loses his shoes. It's told in a sing-songy rhyme by all the other characters this little boy meets on his search. He never actually utters a word. So, the title refers to the firstcharacterthelittleboyrunsintowhichisafishermanwhoassumesthattheboysshoeswereTURTLESthat-
(deep breath, I mean I'm no Jackie Bibby.)
...RANoffhisfeet.

I've been changing it, noodling, canoodling, coddling and rewriting it for a long-long-longgggtime. So. I admit it. I'm stuck. Or my steps forward are so tentative my progress is on a glacial scale. One of the ideas that scares me is that this is actually one of the first projects I've ever done that has felt like "my work" "my voice" "my art" and whatever that might mean to someone else its been this frustrating process of figuring out what the hell saying that means to ME. With that came this feeling of paralysis that what I was doing wasn't good enough. Not good enough to show and too silly to feel so strongly about. I mean, a comic book about shoes?? These are the insecurities on the edge of everything I do.

Maybe, it's as simple as the being afraid to just finish something. The thought of leaving this one project I've been close to for so long and saying "done" and moving-on...well, the finality of it, of not being able to change it again when i notice another flaw...scarestheshitoutofme.

I'm hoping that being a part of M.A.L. helps me out of the safety of my own fears and kicks me in the ass so that i can be more productive with my work. So what if its taken me this long to almost finish the first book (of four) of my story. By the end of these next 6 months I want to see one printed book. I can't help but let my mind wander to what I'd like to imagine most: seeing a row of fat volumes of my work on someone's bookshelf, each spine cracked and read...or seeing a book of mine clutched in someone's hands, sitting on the train, reading it on their way home. Manohman. I'd like nothing more than to simply be read.

The only way to get from where I am to where I'd like to be is to actually finish something and give someone else a chance to read what I've made. Right now I'm stagnating, backward and forward, growing as a cartoonist or standing still. Fuck it. 9 snakes is bullshit. 6 months. A finished book. That's the goal.

devised by
Greg Zadrozny
MAL MMVIII