Animated Thoughts: TAIS Workshops in the time of COVID

Because of the lockdown, the Toronto Animated Image Society had moved all their workshops and courses online--with many of the workshops offered free to TAIS members. While there's nothing like an in-person workshop at the TAIS offices (and an "animation tour" visit to Toronto), taking a couple workshops online was a very cost-effective way to learn some new skills.

As I was in the middle of  the Montreal Stop Motion Film Festival, the timing of this TAIS event was very fortuitous as it provided a very nice break from the screenings. As much as I enjoy screenings and panels, sometimes you want to get your hands dirty and interact with the subject matter.

My current workspace

This particular workshop was really interesting and rather unique. Titled 'Stop-motion in Small Spaces: Setting up a home studio', Neil Burns ran a session dealing with the challenges of stop-motion animation production -- not of making a film on a limited budget, but of having a limited space where you could animate. So, in the preceding week, we all sent in photos of our home studios (or the spaces that we had to work with) and then Neil helped us come up with solutions that would allow us to best utilize the space that we had to film a stop-motion production -- both using a downshooter setup as well as using a 3d set.

Over the next three hours, Neil provided some excellent critiques of our workspaces based on the films we wanted to produce, the animation techniques/visual styles we were going to use, the equipment (and software) we had available to us, and the lighting issues we would most likely face in our setup. Unfortunately, while he had some good suggestions for (re)organizing my workspace, there was one issue none of us could solve during the workshop: my carpeting is really soft and plushy so it tends to make tripods, lights, and sets move slightly when I'm navigating a stop-motion set and animating.

A lot of workshops I see (and attend) deal primarily with filmmaking techniques: storyboarding, scriptwriting, animation software, and animation styles (2d hand drawn, replacement, etc). However, not too many deal with some of the peripheral (yet still very important) production issues, like financing your film, managing production assets, and--in the case of this workshop--designing an efficient workspace that meets the needs of your production. Workshops like this one hosted by TAIS helps fill in some of the gaps in our filmmaking knowledgebase. While trial-and-error can work, and the internet is a vast well of information, it's nice to talk to someone who has actually been there and can provide hands-on experience directly to your personal situation.

Animated Events: Gen Con Online

Gen Con was kind of wild card this year. I had purchased the online badge and rolled over my in-person badge to next year in order to help out the convention. The online badge was only $20, but I opted to have a physical copy shipped to me. Just because. But I was left wondering if there would be anyone running events that I was interested in. Well, I shouldn't have worried. Like I do during in-person Gen Con, I chose to split my time between events that would help me grow as an artist as well as some fun stuff--usually shopping and gaming.

Turns out that Amazon was running a heavily discounted special on the three core rulebooks for D&D 5e, so I took the plunge. I bought the Beginner boxed set when it first came out back in 2014, but wasn't impressed enough with the set to want to get back into it, and every attempt afterwards stymied my efforts -- including when I tried to get into the local D&D Adventurer's League games only to find out that everyone was running them on Wednesdays at 5:30 p.m. (I usually get out of work around 6-ish). But, the price was right so I plunked down the cash, and when they arrived, I was very pleased with the purchase. The foil covers were nice, but I think I might get another copy of the Players Handbook--a standard edition so I won't get upset if the cover gets dinged or dented. During this time, I looked into registering with Zero Session and playing a beginners game of D&D online. Zero Session is a group of tourguides and actors down in New Orleans who are also gamers. When the lockdown hit, they went online and now, for a modest fee, run RPGs for people all over the country who are also in lockdown. My experience with them would prove fun enough that I started looking into playing D&D solo until I could find a group in my area that could accommodate my wonky work schedule--even if it means I have to start DM-ing again. The "History of D&D" panel and the "what led to the downfall of TSR" panel pretty much sealed the deal for me. Before the con was over, I ordered the Essentials boxed set, one setting book, two adventure modules and a pair of the splat books. Even after forty years, D&D is still in my blood.

The drawing session that Gen Con hosted was okay. Unfortunately though, because the models were streaming video from their homes, and there was a wide variety of cameras and lighting, it didn't exactly go smoothly as one would hope. A lot of the lighting really didn't work for the cosplay outfits that the models had chosen. And it was sad too, some of those outfits looked like the cosplayers put a lot of effort into them. I also liked how the organizers had selected models across a range of ethnicities and body types. It was really nice to get a little variety in my sketchbook.

Well, at this point, I think I'm through with the Gen Con animation panels. They're usually hit-or-miss for me, usually more miss than hit. But this year was pretty much the end. One of my big pet peeves is when you have a fifty minute panel to cover a topic and you bring in more than three people (not including the moderator) and you spend most of the time introducing the panel speakers by having them talk about themselves and their careers. It usually leaves about ten to fifteen minutes where they talk about the subject and then open for questions. Idiotic. Needless to say, when the guy who dominates the conversation during the panel is a live-action filmmaker whose only experience is watching anime with his kids--and he gets most of his comments about the Japanese animation industry and the production process completely wrong--well, it's time to move on. Add to that: the "Production Sound" panel was totally forgettable. No more film and animation track at Gen Con for me. I'd rather go back to the "Author's Avenue" cause at least there I'll learn something useful about developing relatable characters or building believable worlds or how 'print-on-demand' is changing the publishing industry. As much as I want to learn things at Gen Con that further my animation career, sometimes you just have to cut your losses and move on.

One of the high-points of the con was the poisons and toxins panel for 5th edition D&D. Run by an actual doctor, he gave a good summary of the types of poisons and toxins out there in the real world, how they are classified, and what effects they have on the human (humanoid) body. Then, he converted them into a nuts-and-bolts version that was directly applicable to 5th edition D&D campaigns complete with suggestions for how DMs could "simulate" the effects of being poisoned over time on a Player Character who missed their saving throw. His presentation was so good, I immediately signed up for the same panel that he would give on the following day.

Now, with regards to gaming, I had the chance to play both Senet and the Royal Game of Ur with a bunch of people over Zoom. Both games were very much like Backgammon and both were very enjoyable games. I put them down on my ever growing list of games to buy (once I find someone to play them with). Online virtual gaming is... interesting. While I had a good time playing the card game "Sushi Go" in an online venue that will eventually be a VR gaming environment, I don't think they're ready for primetime yet. But it will be interesting to see how it all shakes out once VR is more widespread as a gaming interface.

And thus, Gen Con Online 2020 came to an end. I can sum up my experience in one sentence: Online Gen Con may not be best Gen Con, but it is much better than no Gen Con.

Hopefully next year we can all meet up again in Indianapolis for the best four days of gaming.

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Animated Events: ASIFA Central 2020 Animators Retreat

Well, holding our annual ASIFA Central Animators Retreat online this year provided the best numbers we've ever had at an event. As per tradition, we opened the event up to anyone who wanted to attend -- members or not (we're cool like that). And since we held all of our events on Zoom, we had people from all over the world attending.

 

All of us feverishly taking notes on James' talk.

We had 'Zoomed-in' some great guests this year, starting with James Suhr. James discussed his career in the Hollywood animation industry working as a storyboard artist, then provided some great point-by-point advice for students (and professionals) about managing their careers.

The next day, there was kind of a downer with one of my events. I was in charge of running the "Saturday Morning Cartoons" block, where we all got together with our favorite bowl of sugary cereal (or granola) and watched a playlist of vintage and current animated shorts that I put together on YouTube. Well, wouldn't you know it, halfway into the second cartoon, YouTube shut the stream down for technical reasons so we all had to log into YouTube on our browsers and start up the show individually. A bit disappointing as it meant that we couldn't all watch together as a group--like an Amazon watch party, but regardless, everyone seemed to enjoy the films that I had curated.

 

Zoom Pixilation

Next, we did our yearly microtalks followed by afternoon workshops. I attended Julie's 3d world-building using Maya workshop. But a number of the other attendees worked on a cut-out animation group project, others created a pixilation animation using Zoom.

Seder Masochism

And afterwards, we had an evening with Nina Paley. We screened a copy of Nina's film Seder Masochism and afterwards, Nina was available for a Q&A session. For the better part of an hour, she fielded questions about her career and production process, as well as her other feature Sita Sings the Blues.

 

On Sunday, we held our members meeting where we all met up in a Zoom conference room and discussed the ASIFA Central charter, what it is/is not, what it states regarding personnel positions and election procedures, and all of the proposed changes that were made based upon prior discussions. All told, I thought it was a very productive meeting--and I'm not just saying that because I was the person who was running the meeting. As I'm one of those people who believes in transparency within an organization, I think that it's always good for our members to know how the organization is run, who is doing what, and how funds are being spent.

One of the highlights of our yearly retreat is when Jim Middleton does a talk explaining current public domain law, changes to public domain, and lists out some of the films and music that has entered the public domain. Jim did a five minute microtalk on Saturday talking about public domain resources for music then expanded upon it during his Sunday lecture.

On Sunday, our final guest, Chris Sullivan, discussed his current feature film project 'Orbits of Minor Satellites' and showed us clips of his progress.

It was hard to capture the energy of an in-person ASIFA Central retreat, not going to lie. But it was fantastic to have so many people showing up from all around the world and it brought it's own energy to the event.

Can't wait until next July.

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*Photos from the ASIFA Newsletter, used with permission.