The Reality Clock

Winter Render

2010-05-04T20:34:00.000-07:00

This needs to be seriously edited and composited, but here's a render with rough voice-over. The password is "Rough".

Reality Clock - rough draft with voice-over from Amanda Tasse on Vimeo.

Destruct

2009-12-02T23:12:00.000-08:00

An unedited draft of the destruction shot without fx or actor composited in the house. Sorry it took forever to post this! The password is "destruct"

House Destruction -- Draft from Amanda Tasse on Vimeo.

Good Color - early 20th c. 3 part process effect

2009-09-26T00:15:00.000-07:00

from Prokudin-Gorsky's Flickr page

Basic Lighting - Establishing shot

2009-09-19T20:57:00.000-07:00

Chris and I are wrangling the lights for the final set-up. Getting close!

Rough Animation

2009-07-26T18:03:00.000-07:00

I'm currently working on the house destruction and other miscellaneous special fx scenes. The sound, including narration, is very temp.
The password, if needed, is "reality"

"Reality Clock" rough animation July 26, 2009 from Amanda Tasse on Vimeo.

Exterior House Deterioration Reference

2009-07-01T18:15:00.001-07:00

Stage 1 (pre-deterioration, aged Folk Victorian house)

Stage 2 (collapse, sinking)

Stage 3 (boards falling, flaking off of walls, starts to reveal underlying structure, debris on the ground)

Stage 4 (only the basic structure remains, almost like a line drawing)

(skeleton image in the back)

Interior Lighting

2009-07-01T18:10:00.001-07:00

These stills demonstrate the direction of the lighting facing the camera straight on

Exterior Lighting Reference

2009-07-01T18:08:00.000-07:00

The sun is on the upper (Camera right) side window of the house. Around 5pm.

CG with high-end Stop-motion look

2009-06-28T17:36:00.000-07:00

Amazing CG that looks like stop-motion with composited stop-mo puppet here:
Javier Leon

xfrog trees

2009-05-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

For the middle portion of the exterior scenes, I may include some CG elements in addition to the time-lapse footage. Nahomi, who is freelancing over at xfrog's new L.A. office, sent me this CG Landscape design resource:
xfrog trees

Stereo & Lighting Rig

2009-05-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

Here's the final stereo rig that I found works the best. Camera shake is surprisingly minimal, considering that it's manually powered by my hand. Note the fantastic c-clamp stoppers. Perry Hoberman lent me the slider - it's from a medical supply place.

Here's a taste of the insane lighting set-up.

Dragon! (warning, lots of text!!!)

2009-05-13T21:33:00.000-07:00

I finally switched over to shooting the animation with Dragon Stop-Motion, and it completely improved my world. It lets you shoot the Left and the Right eye as different exposures. I cannot emphasize enough how much this improved the work flow. Dragon files each eye into a separate folder, and allows you to play back & onion skin only the Left eye, which is all you need when animating. It also prompts you for which eye you are ready to shoot, which is a great help because it is easy to forget when it is 4am and you're in the middle of a shot. All of this is HUGE.

Just to give you an idea. Before I was using Stop-Motion Pro, which has zero capability for stereo. They say they have capability, by indicating that you can use the Loreo Macro lens, but that's not true stereo capability, because that lens (which I bought and tried - underwhelming) doesn't allow you to adjust the interocular at all. Basically, I tried everything I could imagine, from manually hiding every other frame, to using a separate video assist, which I would try to remember to only fire off for the left eye. If you hide every other frame, you can play-back only the left eye, but when it onion skins, it still includes both eyes, which is useless. Argh! And you still have to manually go in and separate out each image and put them in separate Left/Right folders. Then batch re-name them in Bridge, and figure out where they got misaligned if you forgot to take a picture. I ended up just creating After Effects image sequences for playback.

Anyway, Dragon saved me tons of time and head-ache. They should make me their official USC spokesperson. Now if only my free demo weren't ending...

Macro lens!

2009-04-30T15:37:00.001-07:00

I love this lens...

Lighting

2009-04-23T18:51:00.000-07:00

I was able to get an awesome stop-motion DP in to help me set up the lighting. I was looking for something in the realm between these two images (from "Atonement"). It's less stylized and I still need to do some color correcting, but straight out of the camera with a slight levels adjustment, I think it looks pretty good!

Style Frame Postcard

2009-04-21T11:58:00.001-07:00

The Diving Bell & The Butterfly (again)

2009-04-16T00:23:00.000-07:00

I decided to revisit one of my favorite recent films last night for renewed inspiration. From a stylistic standpoint, "The Diving Bell & the Butterfly" has some of the most gorgeous in-camera work and directorial choices I've seen in a while. It made me realize that extended 1st person POV and visual lyricism do work. From a content standpoint, it's incredibly moving. Maybe it speaks so clearly to me, having started as a painter and sculpture and being still pretty new (2 1/2 years) to putting together films. Most especially, I appreciate his intentions:

HBO's Alzheimer's Project

2009-04-15T23:54:00.000-07:00

Just found out about this from fellow Dada student, Cecilia Fletcher, and I'm really looking forward to it:

HBO's Alzheimer's Project

Sunday, May 10 at 9 p.m. EST – “The Memory Loss Tapes”

“The Memory Loss Tapes” takes an intimate look at seven individuals living with Alzheimer’s, seeking to introduce a new understanding by sharing the devastating experience of memory loss from the point of view of the person with the disease."

Here's a message board of personal stories:
Alzheimer's Association - Living With Alzheimer's

I was able to sit in on a panel in February where individuals with early stages of Memory loss and their partners bravely described their experiences. Autobiographical accounts by Thomas DeBaggio, "When It Gets Dark", and "Losing My Mind"; and "Alzheimer's from the Inside Out" by Richard Taylor, have also been tremendous teachers about what people with Dementia might go through. In addition to increasing my sense of compassion for these people, these accounts have been helpful in writing simple and (hopefully) poetic in-the-character's-head dialogue.

The challenge is to ground my love of surreal, fantasical imagery within a subtle and human portrayal of this frightening and confusing disease. I hope that an internal experience can be expressed through external changes and emotional tone. To balance my bent towards whimsical stylization with realistic elements.

The thing is, when I used to sit with a woman with Dementia, she spoke in spirals - metaphors, both poetic and repetitive, with definitive themes. And somehow, once the desire for literal rationality fell away, she made sense on a deeper level (well, sometimes). Not with the haphazardness of dreams, but somewhere in-between...

Nick Cave

2009-04-15T23:05:00.000-07:00

I've been a Nick Cave fan since I was 15. Guess taste doesn't change quickly...

Tele-Memory Scape

2009-04-13T02:49:00.000-07:00

Here is an image from the animation installation I showed on Friday, as part of USC Vision & Voices "Animated Spaces" event. It was my way of playfully integrating physical elements from my thesis into a live-compositing situation. Instead of creating depth using stereoscopic photography, I am doing it through use of actual objects and multiple planes extending into depth. I also wanted to play with scale relationships. I juxtaposed life-size objects, such as a telescope and mirror, with their miniature versions within the stop-motion set. As the viewer manipulates the telescope to view the set at a macro close-up scale, the puppet senses he is being watched.

Maya House Model

2009-04-02T16:52:00.001-07:00

courtesy of Ben Hendricks

1st Animation Frame

2009-03-31T23:51:00.000-07:00

Here's a frame from the first animation set-up in stereo. For final animation, I am making the stereo much flatter than this (it's supposed to start out more 2D), but this one is more fun to look at. Blogger creates some compression related ghosting, but the higher-res version looks okay.

Final Puppet!

2009-03-28T19:38:00.001-07:00

Stereo Pics!

2009-03-27T10:39:00.000-07:00

The house set!

2009-03-26T00:44:00.001-07:00

Set Construction Pictures

2009-02-26T11:31:00.000-08:00

The exterior of the house and the work bench

All the walls are removable

Thru the window

Many thanks to Chris Swanson for all his expert assistance!

New Animatic

2009-02-25T14:01:00.001-08:00

Man's backyard in a box

2009-02-08T10:50:00.000-08:00

Diorama! Shot with a wide-angle lipstick camera through a peephole in a small box.

Postcard sent by man with Dementia to his younger self

2009-02-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

A style frame

Seminar Postcard

2009-02-08T10:48:00.000-08:00

Representation of World

P.O.V.'s

2009-02-08T10:35:00.000-08:00

Here are some rough frames which show various POV's:

Photographic Style Frames

2009-02-08T10:26:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of rough style frames based on time-lapse photo sequences I took this summer. I'm going to cut alphas into the panos I shot at Catalina a couple of weeks ago. Then I'll try to let the timelapse stuff of the clouds, marsh, trees, etc. show through more subtle-ly (instead of being overlays, like here). Am still working on my Victorian man puppet, animatics, etc, too.

Telescope View

2009-02-08T10:17:00.000-08:00

Basic World Structure - CTIN 532

2009-02-08T10:08:00.000-08:00

Outline of World - CTIN 532

2009-02-08T09:39:00.000-08:00

1. INSIDE – OUT
To simulate the confusing cycle of memory loss & dementia associated with aging, the viewer is taken on a journey through one man’s mind as it deteriorates, turning inside-out on itself. Memories, represented by images & sounds from places he has lived, become jumbled, distorted, and disappear as he struggles to keep hold of reality.

Genre: Magical Realism
Media (Animation installation)

2. Pictorial Landscape. The viewer travels through time, rather than physical space, as 4 separate locations are represented as overlapping stacked layers within one main world. The varied layers are revealed through animated changes in transparency, peeling away, ripping, objects falling through which break the picture plane, z-plane object depth distortions, disappearing & cracking layers, & change of viewer perspective using a lens enabler (i.e. telescope).

Locations:
1) Interior attic (look-out tower) of a house
2) Backyards - acre of land with surrounding wrought iron fenced off perimeter boundary
- Illusionary space of background matte paintings beyond the fence
- Beyond that, black space, revealed to be a floating world
a. Ohio (summer) – grass, a few trees, river rock path
b. Ohio (winter)
c. South Carolina – Spanish Moss trees, beach grass, dunes, marsh
d. Arizona – arid, desert, scattered chaparral

3. Audience
Adults
An individual personal experience - could be viewed in group format
Part 1 – 3rd person POV – cinematic narrative
Part 2 – 1st person POV – looks like interactive narrative
Part 3 - 3rd person POV and/or lack of POV (dark space)
Agency: Viewer defines & colors their experience of the man’s perception through selection & association of provided supplementary materials – chance juxtaposition of complementary hard elements (physical cards, notes, drawings) with the film

4. Motivation – Intended viewer experience
- To enjoy a physical stereoscopic spectacle
- To imagine what it must be like for one’s familiar external and internal world to become jumbled and fall apart
- To take the viewer on an emotional journey from familiarity to confusion to peace
- To inspire empathy

Character Head Sculpt

2009-02-07T10:42:00.000-08:00

More Steampunk fun

2009-02-06T23:18:00.001-08:00

More Style Reference - Modern Victorian Watchmaker

2009-02-06T23:14:00.001-08:00

Make-up

2009-02-04T23:50:00.000-08:00

I love the exaggerated make-up in "Metropolis". I would like to simulate this on the live-action character by having subtle eye shadow and eye liner (more subtle than Freder's).

Log-line

2009-02-04T10:01:00.000-08:00

An elderly watchmaker with Dementia misplaces a clock. As he goes to look for it, he gets lost in fading memories as his perceptions become increasingly distorted.

Costume Reference

2009-02-03T17:20:00.001-08:00

I am looking for a costume for the live-action young Victorian man character. Here's reference.

Puppet

2009-02-03T17:15:00.000-08:00

I am recasting the puppet's head and hands, making a hat and shoes, and adding hair this week. Rebecca Stillman made the costume.

Young Victorian Man - Character Reference

2009-02-03T17:13:00.000-08:00

I am currently casting a live-action character to represent the photographic memories of the elderly man with Dementia. Here are the Character reference images. Sean Penn (with darker hair) is close. Daniel Day Lewis with a less defined jaw line would also work well...

Character Reference

2009-01-08T10:43:00.000-08:00

A less pretty Gregory Peck

+ the Corpse Bride guy

+ Thomas Cole

= 1890s man trapped in the 1940s: Daniel Day Lewis (sans stash)?

Man With House

2009-01-08T02:50:00.000-08:00

It would be interesting to inverse the scale -- make the miniature man seem large while the real-life house looks more like a model.

2008-08-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

The Dementia Authors project encourages people with Dementia living in Residential homes to write poetry and prose. Here are some selections:

Definitions

Inspiration is something that comes on you.
Something you’ve not done before, but you’re
going to try. Something you’ve never thought of
before. Like doing this writing.

Memory is when you remember seeing two magpies.
You’re going back in time, to something you’ve seen.
If you look out the window today and there’s only
one magpie, that’s time. Time has moved on.
What you’re seeing is now.

Dementia is forgetting. I know the old words for it.
It’s wear and tear. When a person has dementia
they take time. They need you to give them time.

Robert Young

Pure White

When I looked out this morning
I looked down, not up.
It was all white.
Pure white.
There wasnae a mark on it.

I counted seven trees
Waving in the wind
Waiting for their leaves
But the weather
Won’t give them any leaves
Today.

I wanted to go out
Into all the white
But I stopped in.

It would be a shame
I thought
To put my footprints there.

May Henderson

Closing My Eyes

I’m getting peace
Sitting here myself.

I’m outside-in today
So as nobody sees me.

When I’m inside-out
I talk to everybody.

John Stewart

The Diving Bell & The Butterfly

2008-08-08T10:51:00.000-07:00

movie website

“Had I been blind and deaf or did it take the harsh light of disaster for me to find my true nature? Does is take locked-in-syndrome to make a human being conscious, to make others empathize? Do we have to get sick for the angels to appear and help us?" Jean-Dominique Bauby

I love how the landscape changes seamlessly to reflect the inner reality of the character who never leaves his hospital room

A poem from Julian Schnabel's father, Jack

General Thesis Topic

2008-07-08T10:46:00.000-07:00

An experiential journey through dementia/memory loss, as told through one man's changing perspective in 3 main movements. The man's first person point-of-view transitions from clean/photographic to distorted (scale relationships, overlapping memories, dissolution), and ends on a less chaotic note in a minimal abstracted space.

The memories are told through 4 landscapes which represent the seasons & places that the man lived. Throughout, the man examines himself & the environment through various lenses (telescope, movie projector) as he tries to make sense of the confusion & ultimately reach acceptance.

Tree Ghosting Layers

2008-05-08T10:53:00.000-07:00

Here is a quick mock-up of ghosting/superimposed layers

Sketches

2008-05-08T10:52:00.000-07:00

A man at different ages, simultaneously existing & trying to communicate with each-other.

Reality Comprehension Clock Test

2008-04-08T10:46:00.000-07:00

Taken from the official Clock Test Distribution Website

Influenced by infection

Left side neglect

Sensory Processing Deficit

Autobiographical Houses

2008-01-08T10:56:00.000-08:00

All the houses (of my parents) that I've lived in...
SUMPTER COURT
DOGWOOD TRAIL
GRANDVIEW
LEE ROAD
COVENTRY DR
LAKE HOUSE #1
LAKE HOUSE #2
RIVERSIDE DR*
NEWBURY DR
FOREST DR
COTTONWOOD???
LAKE HOUSE #3*

*bought but not inhabited, possibly haunted

Thumbnail Sketches

2008-01-08T10:55:00.001-08:00

Circular Narrative Structure

2008-01-08T10:55:00.000-08:00

Basic Structure
(substitute earthquake for storm, tornado, etc.)

First Ideas

2008-01-08T01:57:00.000-08:00

This is very much about the viewer's journey through a space, first person POV, as the main character. The exploration of the space is what creates the non-linear narrative. Elements of the environment are inspected and pieced together to form a sense of reality and identity for the viewer. It poses questions. Maybe the viewer is trying to figure out who they are through what the environment and its characters are. Or maybe who the character is is not fixed but more related to the manner in which the reality is explored.

Secondly, depending on the manner in which the space is explored, its sense of reality shifts. The physical space might morph between being representational/abstract, balance/shakey, clear/unfocused, fast/calm, mundane/fantastical, literal/psychedelic, cerebral/emotional, sterile/sensual, etc. A myriad of morphing contrasts, all of which can be used as mode of description and interpretation for understanding or relating to an environment. How would this be simulated? Are there various points of reference which lead to alternative layers embedded within one fixed main "room" or are there various spaces that are moved through, each with its own texture?