...even if it's still Sunday in most parts of the world. Just, I'm on a plane all day tomorrow. It's been a general traum-o-rama here preparing to go to the UK for production on the big indie shoot. Not because of the big indie shoot, mind you; that's going worryingly smoothly. Because of "Mess It Up". First there was a moment where it looked like the video might be shelved entirely, as the band wasn't sure about some aspects of the live action footage I based it on. Then, luckily, they watched it a few more times and decided they were OK with it.
Then came The Great Paint Drama. Much as I am enjoying making a video which is at no point a computer screen-based activity, I have had it up to my chin with paint manufacturers and art supply stores. The idea with the video was to bring to mind a mix of graffiti art and the sort of sign painting you see in countries where it's sunny most of the time and the electricity isn't too reliable, so it's better to hire someone to paint things like movie posters or barbershop hairstyle examples rather than simply printing them.
So I wanted super-bright pigments. I also want some impasto, some texture to the brushstrokes so it will cause a tension in the animated images. I go buy some Liquitex Basics. Turns out Liquitex Basics are an odd mix of about 2 grains of pigment, some sand and some goo, and they're pretty much all transparent. My red backgrounds are see-through and my purple shadows read as black. I take these paints back to the local art supply store. I order the expensive Liquitex Heavy Body paints online, as they're half the price they are at the local shop. Online place runs out of stock without telling me, ships me only half the red paint I need. Plus, new, supposedly better purple paint still reads as translucent over those blacks.
Turns out that most dark pigmented acrylic paints are transparent, except for black, which isn't. Most light pigments are opaque. As I'm doing this a super-cheap way (printing out frames of live action on 11x17 white card stock at Staples, then painting over them) I need opaque.
Cue search for opaque dark pigment in the purple/blue range. The only one I can find is Navy, from the Liquitex soft body range. Great! It's not really the shade I want, more of a blue (which will add a certain political overtone to the video when combined with the red backgrounds and white highlights) but it's OK. I check with Liquitex. THEY'VE DISCONTINUED THE GODD*MN COLOUR. I try as best I can to avoid negative thoughts, but I am peeved to an unhealthy degree at the Liquitex corporation and its confusing and not opaque products. So let's pray there's enough old stock of Soft Body Navy at retailers in the US and UK that I can finish the video.
(Oh, and no way am I mixing my own shades. Try keeping that exact over 2,500 frames...)
Anyway, it looks a little like this: (nb - quick snap with digital camera, appalling mix of lighting temperatures and reflections...)
Three frames down, 2,500 to go.