Day 35

This would be my 35th day at Hyper Island, and my 1st weblog entry here. For a more straight to the point productionrelated weblog go to acetate.elapse.se

As im not a fan of this medium i might be abit cynical about the whole idea from time to time but as things look now i will still try my best to entertain you and meet the purpose of this site wich is more of an assignment than something id choose to do myself. Its a rough trip to balance a personal place like this between what you want to write but cant cause it hurts people, what you cant write but do anyway and what you write that doesnt interest anyone but yourself. If anything it might be a good way to get stuff off my chest i wouldnt put anywhere else. If someone find themself in this blog presented in a way they cant agree with please tell me and i will adjust the content accordingly. That being said, onward...

The first module, information societies and the motionweek ontop of that, is both coming to a close. My first AfterFX-production is done and so is the one made in my group.
Took me a good part of the weekend as i had a ton of other stuff to produce. And i had to learn the software aswell. I really love the adobe syndication thats been going on since mid 2000. If you know one of their programs your learningcurve with the others is pretty nice.

Its been a tough two weeks adjusting to peoples general level of skill. Im not used to working with and around people that has no clue what to do and when not told exactly that its a hit and miss game where they just end up standing around doing nothing. I dont mind helping people with software but after a couple of weeks i see myself becomming the one dude to ask about just anything. Makes my skin crawl when some individuals just goes straight to the questioning without eaven spending a minute to think for themselves or just google whatever.

Added to this my espresso order from switzerland is now 3 weeks due and im obliged to return to the perculator. Lack of coffe, lack of sleep and lack of general productionquality in the teams all adds up to one cynical erik. Its been a rough 2 weeks with this module overlaping the motiongraphic assignments. On average id say ive slept 5 hours a day if not less. A regular day is usually starting around 8:35, then its shower and breakfast at school close to 9. Lunch at 12 just or later just to avoid the crowd. Back to producing or in reality, just spending countless hours setting people straight and on track. Then its the daily hassle trying to interpret the often confusing and missdirected briefs from the staff, keeping people out of the room, trying to eat in an orderly fashion and not fall back into my old habits of vegetarian junkfood after 3 years of descent living. Around 8 the place is usually emptied of the more flagrant students and the rest of us gets more productive. Ive really come to like that enviroment where the same 20 people stay around untill 12-03 in the night just doing what they like the most. Creating. So that usually concludes my night and i return to sleep for another 5 pretending like i dont need more.

In general the motionweek and the related stuff has brought to my attention a better world of cgi than ive previously moved around in. Its in a way what i always wanted to do but never got around to. Its not been around for long but i remember when the first talented people moved from flash animated motiongraphics to AfterFx around 2002-2003. I wish id jumped on that train then and gotten on par with what the good people do now. But i ended up animating UI:s in flash and sticking to print graphics. The irony of all this is that just when ive gotten my interest peaked for this motiongazeebo my biz in printed posters and flyers start to pick up. Within two hours today i got offers from some big names in france and canada to get gritty with some heavy production. My old canadian asociates aproached me with offers of a 2-3 flyer a week deal for some major clubs over there. Not big money but descent for just doing what i love most. Its largely in the line of what that i used to do in 99-03 wich is a style alot more technical and digitaly oriented than the vintage grungestyle ive gotten into lately. In a way ive missed it cause its more of what i feel i developed for my own as its what i did during the early years of online digital media and not as scene-influented as my latter prods. Its gonna be really nice getting back to that underground houseclub style again with a million layer and some fucked up coloring. I got a bunch of fonts ive wanted to put to good use for a while now.

Anyway.
The week is already comming to an end in a way becuase both modules deadlines wed-thursday wich leaves me friday - monday off to get back to some work ive been pushing ahead. Looks like im gonna detour back to gothenburg on sat aswell to pickup some stuff i conviniently packed into 3 shoecartons marked "important stuff" but ironically got left behind. Its not my ideal weekend to gun myself on that train for 4 hours each way but i have to at some point. Looking forward to a good thursday out if anything, as the previous ones more or less turned out brilliant. Other sidetracks this week is getting dubmood some more webmaterials, doing some research in what people might be interested in getting a bigger place to live in together. And added to that, almost finishing the gibson book a started 2 months ago. If my delayed espressopods would arrive prior to the weekend or atleast waiting for me on my returning, sunday, this would be a descent week. Up till now its just been a long, drawn out test of my patience in unorthodox productionmethods and lack of sleep.

Well i guess that concludes todays lesson kids. Excuse me for the bizzare sentences aswell as the spelling. Lifes been rough on me theese past weeks. For the productions i mentioned previously, check the stuff below.

A take for the data airlines festival site:

720x576 25fps version here.