Brooklyn, New York
Today is the day of reckoning, where I reckon just how much trouble I am really in. 2008 is coming to an end and Dan Kelly is committed to fully engage all control surfaces until the mission is complete – stopping only for food, sleep and exercise. So where are we, what does the status display reveal? How far are we from total completion?
Short version – we’re not there yet. What to do?
Aside from living like a fanatical monk, my primary strategy for finishing has been slowing down time, essentially a collaborative technique. I could expand the collaboration and get some actual help, either by kidnapping alternate versions of myself from adjacent universes or recruiting other artists in this one. Kidnapping myself requires a deeper fluency with quantum physics than I current enjoy, alas. Since I don’t know many artists who are as geeky as me, I can’t delegate the tricky roto and motion graphics. There is also plenty of straight up illustration and graphic design – signs, grafitti and other visual details – needed to flesh out the DOG universe. I have beaucoup friends who can do that sort of thing in their sleep.
To get artists started I’ve got to compile a comprehensive inventory of the required visual elements and, with or without qp fluency, open a gate between universes.
… but the apocalypse didn’t happen all at once. After the initial disasters and before national governments totally collapsed, supplies were air dropped to survivors in shrink wrapped cardboard boxes – lots and lots of boxes…
That’s a sample of backstory and it’s essential that collaborating artists have it.
If a visual element is going to work, it has to fit into DOG’s universe. Real people have histories and so do objects. Designing visual elements for props requires an artist to travel to the universe that the prop supposedly belongs to, with all the assumptions and circumstances of that universe. They must be an artist in that universe, do the work there. Who is the client, what is the job, what am i having for lunch, how much am i being paid, what’s my life like? Artist/actors, how’s that for polymathic?
To help the artists make the journey, I have to give them history and context.
Enter the Book of DOG, a Design Reference, (DR for short). The DR describes what’s possible in the DOG universe and provides a history of the characters and their environment (backstory). More controversially, the DR could reveal the project’s premise (what it’s supposed to accomplish) and it’s general feel (what categories of experience and emotion are intended to be conveyed).
The premise and feel are controversial in the sense that defining an objective for art might be oxymoronic and intending specific emotions can be crass, but… when controversy comes between an artist and her bliss, she should not retreat. So with awareness of the paradoxes in play, onward.
Here is an example of a artifact or prop – a label for the disaster relief boxes.
Melonie, Eiji and I didn’t have time to make labels for the boxes before traveling to Canada in 2006, we just crammed boxes into every nook and cranny on the set. “I’ll handle it in post!”
Thanks to Mocha, I’ve been able to track the movement of the boxes in this panning shot and map the labels to them. The lower boxes on the right stack show what they looked like ‘before’. Most of the other shots with boxes are static, so theoretically this is the toughest track. Notice too there is yet to be a reflection of the topmost box in the shiny wood of the closet door. Details, details.
So far I’ve asked 9 of my favorite artists to review a list of design challenges and choose whatever interests them. They’ll start with conceptual sketches and with a little luck execute their ideas before years end.
Everyone who has contributed significantly to DOG has been paid, I won’t ask talented people to work for free. All contributors are compensated – tho it might be deferred and somewhat below their usual rate. I won’t pretend that it’s not really all about excellent friends helping me wrap this sucker! Plus it’s always impressive to have lots of names on the ending credits.
Now, let’s have a look at the current completion estimate. My August 15 estimate projected 300 (297) hours of motion graphics or 25 days at 12 hours per day. It’s almost November 30th or 105 days since I posted the list and I’ve accomplished about 30% of the tasks. If 30% took 105 days then the remaining 70% will take an additional 245 days or 8… more… months.
Something about this doesn’t make sense to me, but numbers don’t lie. We knew the August numbers were highly suspect but to be off by a factor of 4? Certainly there’s was a learning curve to climb what with AE and Mocha, but that’s not over yet.
What’s the plan then Dan? Well, that’s for the next update. I’ll probably evaluate whether there’s help to be had, if there is a faster approach than I’ve taken so far, what changes are the most important, and how much longer I can manipulate credit cards before I’ve got to go back to work.
Backatcha in December,
dk