turbo radness

The colour and texture of film with the Mini Diana F+

Leo — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:44:20 +0000

I’ve been running plenty of rolls of film through my Mini Diana F+ over the past few months. I’ve been quite experimental with black and white and colour film, and some colour rolls I have cross processed. Some shots I’ve structured the composition, but many have been just quick snaps without thinking about it too much. This spontaneity is what the principles of lomography are all about, which I like because they are more about a creative philosphty rather than technical stuff. Shooting spontaneously puts a smile on my face, but has drawn me to notice some of what I call ‘happy accidents’. This is where you capture something great unintentionally. When scanning my film after developing, I discover what I have actually got on the film. Sometimes what you hoped for doesn’t work out as desired, but a lot of the time wonderful things present themselves, sometimes bold, sometimes subtle.
Check out some of my photos below. Click on the images for an enlarged view:
Remember, these were taken on a tiny camera, with a fixed plastic lense, and often the film likes to scratch as it’s wound along…

These shots were taken using lomography’s 100 iso redscale film.

These two were taken with the standard 100 iso ‘lomo’ film from lomography, which has good colour saturation and contrast.

These last three shots were taken with Rollei “crossbird” 200 iso film. This is print film put through a regular C41 negative process. It did weird things, but I like some of the results. Different delicate bits of detail present themselves, along with gritting celluloid grainy, blobby bits like on the edges of the frames.

These are taken with Kodak TMAX 400 iso, black and white negative film. There’s something about the shots that I really like. They’re a little soft, and not with the full range of contrast, but there’s an abstract appeal I think. They almost look like really old paintings.

Some drawing…

Leo — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:18:24 +0000

I’ve felt a little out of touch with my drawing of late and haven’t been able to devote much time towards it. Sometimes I like to get back into the groove by doing some life drawing, still life, or in this case just some drawings from pictures that I like. Some may discredit this, because it is just replicating an existing image. I understand the argument, but I like to use it as a technique for getting my eye and skills back, analyzing the image and recreating it with a pencil.

Here are three of my latest pics.

Animation test for Jeff Raglus

Leo — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 08:21:18 +0000

Here is a looped piece that I animated in flash for Jeff Raglus, a Victorian based artist and musician. Jeff has exhibited his art all over Australia for many years, and he was one of the original kooky artists that helped bring the popular surf brand “Mambo” to fame.

This animated piece has been achieved using flash’s “tweening” morph-like animation techniques. I’m afraid to say that I found these methods very unintuitive to use, often difficult to edit and results can be unpredictable. I’m still getting used to how flash works so maybe I’ll get used to these techniques more and find it easier next time!

I have been a fan of Jeff Raglus’s art for sometime now. We have talked about the idea of animating his work quite a few times, often in the surf, where our high powered meetings take place. He showed me a couple of his paintings from a recent exhibition he had at Qdos Art Gallery in Lorne. Here are Jeff’s paintings that this piece is based off:

Jeff and I are potentially developing his character “Schnorky the Wave Puncher” into a small animated series. We are still discussing which techniques of animation are preferable, and will continue various tests. It’s still very early days, so we’ll just have to see what transpires!

Watermark your images with python

Leo — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:55:24 +0000

I set about making a tool in python that can place a water-mark identity image over my pictures that I wanted to put in the public domain -(i.e on my website or through email ). Using python means I can make a tool that can batch process image files or folders quickly. I think it’s a good idea to watermark your images. This way people know where they come from, so it is less likely that due credit is lost.

Download the watermarking toolkit here.

The download bundle above has 2 tools (LB_picturePrep.py and LB_watermarker.py) for batch processing your images with options. These scripts have been made for command line usage.

LB_picturePrep should cover all that you would need to do when preparing smaller resolution images, with the option of watermarking. It has the revamped functionality of the image proxy making tool I made a while ago. The script is optimized further, and will now automatically orient your images (shot with a digital camera). This way you can make smaller web ready files that are watermarked, all in one operation. Alternatively, if you aren’t interested in making smaller resolution files, then LB_watermarker does addresses the orientation and watermarking with no image resizing.

The requirements for using this toolkit is of course python, an interpreted scripting language. I also use the Python Image Library (PIL) module, which you will need in order to run either of these 2 scripts.

Here are a couple of examples of image results (click to enlarge):

You can see that the tools can position the watermark in different positions, with varying opacity. The image to the left has a black and white watermark file that was ’screened’ over the image. The image to the right has a watermark with an alpha (transparency) channel to allow for a composite ‘over’ operation. Either mode will allow for varying opacity.

See below for the details of the 2 scripts, and how to use them.

LB_picturePrep is the main, more versatile script, and has these features:

- will automatically attempt to orient your images correctly.
- will create lower resolution ‘proxies’ with presets for “web” (640 pixels along larger dimension),”1k” (1024 pixels along larger dimension) or otherwise will take a divisional ammount to create the smaller images.
-has the option for applying a watermark to your images once they have been reduced in size.

There are 2 modes for completing this. If your image has an alpha channel, this will be used to create the transparency of the composite ‘over’ the source image. If no alpha is found the script will ’screen’ the brighter values onto the image. So you create your watermark image file to cater for your composite mode preference.

**You will need to add the file path to your watermark file at the top of each script.** This is hardcoded, so you can just set and forget.

As for positioning the watermark, there are 5 options, initiated with the “-p” flag and a number from 1 to 5.
Number 1 being the top left and other position counted around clockwise from here.
So 2 is top right, 3 is lower right, 4 is lower left, and 5 is the centre.

HELP / INSTRUCTIONS:

PROXY-MAKER FLAGS:
-d or –division

Sets the divisional ammount to create the new smaller res files. The images will be divided by this number.

-t or –type

Will maintain the file format of the original files -otherwise will default to jpeg.

-w or –web

-1 or –1k

WATERMARK FLAGS:
-m or –waterMark

Enables the watermarking, once proxy making has taken place.

-o or –opacity

Sets the opacity level of the watermark. Default is 70 (percent) if this value isn’t specified.

-p or –position

Sets the position of the watermark file from 1-5. These positions are listed numerically from top left heading clockwise. The 5th position is centered.

-i or –invert

Inverts the watermark image when in screen mode, handy if you havent had time to prep the watermark properly.

and of course -h or –help will display the HELP / INSTRUCTIONS listed above for either script.

Usage example:

LB_picturePrep.py -d 2 -m -p 4 -o 50 /Path/To/File/Or/Folder

this example will make half resolution proxies with a watermark in the lower left corner at 50% opacity. Much like the first example image above.

LB_watermarker is the almost the same as LB_picturePrep. It just has scaled down functionality to cater only for orientation and watermarking. It will not create lower resolution files. It will still require that you set the path to the watermark file, within the script itself. This script uses the same flags as the LB_picturePrep tool, except for any of the proxy maker flags or the “-m” that enables the watermark for that script. Again running “-h” or “–help” flags will display the usage.

Usage example:

LB_waterMarker.py -p 3 -o 75 -t /Path/To/File/Or/Folder

this example will place the watermark in the lower right corner of the images, with opacity set to 75%, and maintain the original filetype of your source image.

Happy watermarking!

Portraiture in Illustrator test

Leo — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 06:37:54 +0000

I was messing around the other night with Illustrator. So many people use Illustrator and rely on it in their line of work, and It’s funny that I have always worked in the raster based world of film and I have never really had the need for vector based art. It’s quite a luxury knowing that you needn’t worry about resolution when working in Illustrator. I had a play trying to create a simple vector-based portrait of myself from an old daggy photo of when I was a Film Loader. Here is what I came up with:
Though I couldn’t help finding the result a bit sterile, so I resorted to what I know and messed with the image a bit in photoshop, ending up back in the rasterized pixel based world. I’m still very used to more freeform paint style when creating pictures. Oh well, it was an interesting test for me.

The Lost Thing wins best short at the 2010 AEAF Awards.

Leo — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 00:30:54 +0000

I just heard that The Lost Thing won the Short Film category at this years ‘Australian Effects and Animation Festival’ Awards, held in Sydney. There were 12 films in contention for this award, most of which I unfortunately haven’t yet seen. I look forward to checking them all them out in time. It’s important to support Australian work, and it is certainly exciting to win this award here in Australia. Here is the press release to read further about the winners and nominees of all other categories.

The Lost Thing wins the Grand Prix for Best Short Film at the Melbourne International Film Festival

Leo — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 08:25:34 +0000

Last Sunday the awards night was held for the short films of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF). It was at the end of a weekend of shorts programs, that showed almost 100 films in total. There were films from all over the world in many different styles, including documentary, fictional, experimental and animation. Melbourne is my home town, and where The Lost Thing film was created, in a room above a laundromat. I have been to the MIFF many times in years past, and it was exciting to have a film that I had animated screening in the festival.

I finally saw the film Angry Man, which I liked very much. I have quite a deep appreciation for the traditional methods of stop-motion animation that Anita Killi used so beautifully in this film. During the awards announcements I was a little crest-fallen at first when we missed out on the award for best animation, although I understood why Angry Man had won. It is indeed worthy of the award. Thinking that our award window was then closed, it was an incredible surprise when the last award was announced – The Grand Prix for Best Short Film, awarded to The Lost Thing. I’m not sure exactly, but it must be one of the first times (if not the actual first) that an animated film has won overall against all other shorts, including live action. It is a great honour, and needless to say we, the small Lost Thing team, are pretty chuffed.

Leo Baker (animator and editor), Sophie Byrne (Producer) and Shaun Tan (Creator and Director)

Here you can read the press release of all the short film winners.

The Sneaky Rafter returns in “Nelson-land”

Leo — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 06:29:59 +0000

A while back I did a little test piece of animation of the “Sneaky Rafter” of Nelson Beer for The Taboo Group. They asked me to do another conceptual piece incorporating the 4 different iconic designs of the beer labels. The main icon being the “Sneaky Rafter” spider-monkey type creature (designed by Sonny Day and Biddy Maroney), as well as the “Rinzen Eye”, the “Trimapee” fashion label design, and “The Temper Trap” (band) head icon.

The characterization and animation of these 4 designs was created in 2 weeks. It’s not as well presented as I would have liked, but I’m glad I managed to output the concept of ‘Nelson-land’. I hope you can appreciate it for a piece completed in such tight time constraints.

Nelson Land from shredFest on Vimeo.

The Lost Thing is runner up at Palm Springs

Leo — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 00:40:10 +0000

Just got news that The Lost Thing was runner up to the winning film Angry Man under the category of best animated short, at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. I haven’t seen Angry Man yet, but am looking forward to catching it at a festival somewhere -It looks very intriguing indeed. It’s great to have the continued exposure for The Lost Thing! Congratulations to both films!

The Lost Thing wins the Yoram Gross Animation Award

Leo — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 04:34:48 +0000

The Lost Thing recently screened at the Sydney International Film Festival, which I attended for the first screening. It was great to see the film on the big screen amongst a public audience and hear their reactions.

At the end of the festival the awards were announced and The Lost Thing received the Yoram Gross Animation Award! It means a lot to win such an accolade in my own country. Here is a press release through Inside Film of the Award announcements for the 57th Sydney Film Festival.

Now I’m looking forward to the Melbourne International Film Festival!