“All of this stuff may or may not happen to be in a new version of After Effects at some future point in time, maybe.” That was the legalese they produce at Adobe… But at any rate, there are A FEW EXCITING THINGS you can look forward to:

Light Falloff -
Tired of those pesky lights being unrealistically bright and not conforming to our sketchy understanding of the physical universe? Worry no more! Now there is a built in slider that will simulate light-fall off from spotlights and more, so you can have murky shadows…

Rack Focus -
Possibly the coolest thing I’ve seen. They took a video of a boy pretending to hold something in his hand, animated in a ball of fire, separated the hand (foreground) from his face (bkgd) and then applied a rack-focus-map to all the layers. Then you just slide back and forth and viola, simulated rack focus!

Source Code -
all videos will be coordinated and you can switch between any source code you want… I’m sure editors are happy about that

Image caching -
each layer will individually cache their data, so if you change one little thing, it will take less time to update the whole image

Multi Ram Processing -
didn’t actually understand this, except that when you use it, limit the number of virtual CPUs, use a smaller amount of RAM, and disk caching will now default to 20gbs, and u should use it with an ext HD.

3D Glasses -
apparently they already had this filter, but now there will be a one click 3d-stereo-camera rig you can set up and different preview options to try out all the diff kinds of 3d glasses that exist today

RED film -
raw film data can be processed in AE, just like those snobby fashion photographers instantly color correct their pics on set

and finally…
WARP STABILIZATION & SUBSPACE CONTROL!!!!!
A new stabilization filter that uses a default cloud of 500+ tracking points to stabilize an image. We got to see all the crosshairs, but that won’t be available in the future. They had no idea how to term their controls, so one is actually called Subspace. It is all to reduce artifacting and warping around the edges of stabilized footage. Also cuts back on the amount of scaling and cropping. A vast improvement, but not universal for every shot. Personally I think it might cause a little motion sickness, but you’ll have to judge for yourself.

I was going to include a video preview of the Warp Stabilizer, but even though AENY promised it would be up the next day, all my Google efforts produce nothing but Star Trek engine designs…  but keep an eye out!

Tron has been aging on a disconnected hard drive for the last 28 years. A Western Digital My Book, from the looks of it.

The first Tron has inspired countless (every?) animator alive today. And if you need to check the changes in the world from the ’80s, remember the oft-quoted fact that Tron was not qualified for special FX awards because “using computers was cheating.” A while ago I re-watched Tron on my Mac laptop, via a possibly torrented movie file from a friend. In the ’80s, computers looked like this:

an '80s computer

The whole idea of Tron was inspired by this machine, and the possibilities that came with it. Enter static flickers, black lights, spinning disks (direct technical influence) and motorcycles. Would it have been too much to ask for a new Tron that was equally influenced by today’s world of Apple, Sony, Facebook, and Google? Do we not have an equally inspiring technical society today, that looks good even in plaid and thick-rimmed glasses?

The story of Tron Legacy is clearly meant to capitalize on the current generation of artists who were so inspired by the first film. (Capitalism: Disney’s rewriting the past so that every boy had Tron action figures and posters in their bedroom.) Since the target audience is kids who grew up, a father-son story works perfectly. A confused wayward child seeking adulthood/closure travels to a fantasy realm to find the answer to life’s persistent questions. This never fails to introduce a fantasy world but neither is it very original.

SPOILER ALERT
Traveling to Tron myself, I expected a hell of a lot more. But as Joseph Kosinski explains, Tron has been running on Jeff Bridges desk since he mysteriously disappeared, and it had no internet connection. My heart died a little when Jeff Bridges seriously asks: “What’s wi-fi? Oh, I invented that in 1985.” Really? Because it should have been part of your world and made it more interesting. Mr. Kosinski failed to distinguish Tron Legacy from any of the countless other sci-fi movies in this post-Matrix world. (Constantine, Matrix 2, A Scanner Darkly, and Titan AE come to mind.)

My personal problem with the film concerns the party scene. The people were supposed to be avatars of computer programs, and I really expected a variety of characters surpassing the diversity of Mos Eisley’s cantina. But instead, I got a stilted world where every girl has the same shiny black bowl haircut, and wore the silver astronaut dresses. Strangely, Daft Punk fit perfectly into this scene, having kept their style the same for years from the original Tron. They kept to their tiny DJ box, smartly avoiding everyone.

Tron has a highly specific artistic style that was reinterpreted by a first time architect/film director, who hired fashion designers, car designers, and other architects to work for the first time in film design. They did a beautiful job modernizing all of Tron’s concepts: the game arena is ingenious, and Jeff’s house is a perfect blend of 2001-Space-Odessey and iPod sensibility. And the action sequences are pretty exhilarating… arcade games inspired the 2D blocking of the light cycles so I suppose the Xbox inspired the 3D blocking of the light-jet-thingies.

I interpret this sudden rush of good-feeling towards Tron Legacy as Christmas cheer, but maybe it means that the movie is not all bad, and that many people will enjoy it anyway. If you needed one reason to watch: go for the young CGI Jeff Bridges. (Mr Kosinski tried to say something about how there are special relationships with Jeff Bridges and his real son versus his digital son, but I have no idea what he’s talking about.)

It’s the Electric (boogie woogie woogie woogie) Company! A few nights ago I went to an ASIFA-East panel starring some producers, writers, and animators of this funky new revival. I… am too young to have been emotionally impacted by the original Electric Co, but not so many many other people. Let’s see if I learned anything from them:

The original TV show aired from 1971-1977 and had over 700 episodes. They were a sketch comedy show for kids starring the talents of Joan Rivers, and the Hubleys (a cute animator couple who inspired John Canemaker) among others. It was a “melange groove tune” for “people who like to scratch things.” That is “it’s a TV show not for kids, but for little people,” says Karen Fowler the executive producer. She is a very LOUD happy person who wanted to combine pop culture, righteous music, comedy and ‘the freedom to make mistakes’ to recreate this show. PBS Kids was lucky to receive a “Ready to Learn” grant to kick off the business, but ‘favors’ still had to be called in to get over 80 different animations done cheaply for the first season. On top of new animated segments, and a new narrative storyline, a special emphasis is placed on vocabulary skills. Hear hear.

Pat Smith was wrangled to do some shorts (he has awesome ones about drinking potions and ripping people OUT of your throat) but for some reason didn’t test well with kids and this apparently is enough to get him replaced. The new animation consists of typical-movie-monsters with ethnic accents, and some Reggae accented guy who is supposed to be teaching young kids how to speak English properly. Le sigh. As for the narrative stories, the 4 ’superheroes’ are as WonderBread as the cast of Barney, but the ‘prankster’ is everyone’s favorite crazy friend from prep school! She was very exciting, and the animation worked into live action footage only helped her glow.

A last note about ASIFA East… which is an animation club for those who might not know. It is always nice to see cute people secretly sketching others, but I am sad that I never see any NYU fellows. And finally… despite the accusations of certain unshaven hippies in the audience, The Electric Co is a show that embraces all cultures and ethnicities, even IF everyone on the panel is white. Linda Siminsky, exec producer, went on to say that some parts of middle America were worried it was ‘too urban’ (ha!) The point is, when you teach kids how to read and what “terrarium” means, they won’t grow up to be bigoted.

The end.

Last night I attended the 6th Tom Stathes’ Cartoon Carnival, a periodic cartoon festival with a 1930s theme and a penchant for naughty old animation.  Skipping the god awful commute to Queens (I wrote out all the directions for the M train but stupidly decided to take the 7 instead and got lost) the location, Attic Studios, was gorgeous.  A vast white loft with two full walls of windows showing a view of the bridge (ONE of them anyway) and the Manhattan skyline.  Many white plastic chairs and a big screen for the 16mm film projector.  And a small roped off area where you can buy drinks, get free popcorn, and flirt with the cigarette girls who offer raffle tickets, ciggs for $1 and candy ciggs for a $1.  I was super excited for the raffle and they wouldn’t tell me in advance what the grand prize was.  It turned out to be a 16mm print of an Oswald the Rabbit cartoon, and I was sad I didn’t win it because I would have digitally scanned it and attempted to restore it.  The runner up prize, in case you didn’t know what to do with a print, was a kiss on the cheek from the cigarette girl.  I raise my eyebrow.

Down to the cartoons themselves.  Out of the collection of Terrytoons, Felix, Mickey Mouse, and various old-men-visit-savages, my favorite was “Felix in Two-Lip Time.”  Many people have told me that exclamation points and question marks are cop outs, but Felix wrangles punctuation and ties it up with his flawless acting.  Imagine Charlie Chaplin meets After-Effects puppet tool.  Two intermissions gave me a great chance to wander, socialize, and explore, and the whole thing was wrapped up by a raucous sing-a-long of “Minnie’s Yoo-Hoo.”  HEEEEE HAAAAW!  I noticed a new story genre in animation that I think should be revived: a conscious interaction between animator and his creations.  Usually the cartoons give the artist some lip but he gets them back by animating them in outrageous circumstances.

The festivals float around on notorious email-lists and semi-private Facebook events, but you can just Google it and sign up.  Cartoonsonfilm.com

The minute the opening credits started, I thought about what I was dealing with.  Was this a return to scratch film animation, or was this some how closely reproduced in a computer, with some heartfelt scratches and paint added in some new way.  Did that matter?  Then the movie started.  What is up with Canada, I thought?  It seemed like The Discrete Charm of the Hipster Bourgeoisie.  But that quickly passed when the music animation began.  Ghostly blended comic book stars and stripes representing one medium in another.  The basic shapes were an interesting change from the usual abstract Apple visualizer or hippie trance that one often sees as “music art.”

And then came the first evil ex-boyfriend.  What an effin’ awesome adventure.  I haven’t read the books. I had no idea what was going to happen.  Poor guy doesn’t know how to read emails, crashes at his gay best friends bachelor pad, and gets stalked by a Catholic Asian school girl who looks like she walked straight of your nearest EGL web comic.

Each increasingly awesome battle was separated by the introduction of the characters who dain to orbit about Michael Cera and his Punk chic girlfriend.  Like *SPOILER* the crazy goth lesbian, the angry girl drummer, and my favorite, Aubrey Plaza from “Parks & Recreations.”  Scott Pilgrim vs the World is a computer game, with a nod to ATARIs.

3 things you need to know: 1) One fan stabbed his friend in the eye with a pen for a seat for “Cowboys & Aliens” 2) Stan Lee made out with two chicks simultaneously in the Marriot hotel lobby on Saturday night, and 3) this will all be in documentary by Morgan Spurlock

Comic Con

Check out the album for my Top 5 Cosplayers, all the runner ups, and photos from events!

Click to read more about Comic Con secrets!

Ugly Americans – never saw the show but I went because I liked the subway advertisements.  produced by Augenblick studios, their new season seems to be based entirely on characters pulled from background shots from previous episodes and the tv posters.   probably a good idea, got to see the whole animatic process which is entirely Flash based with hand drawn B&W tablet images roughly motion tweened.  10 month turnaround on the new episodes?

ASIFA Hollywood -panel chaired by Tom Sito, who later labeled East coast animation as urban and indy, and west coast as mass media with lots of heritage.   strong emphasis all around on technology bringing the animation industry from NY/LA/London/Japan to other parts of the world like south america.   recommended “The Missing Lynx” as a new Spanish cgi movie.  gaming industry called fastest progressing animation field, cited one lifetime to take a re-programmed Cold War computer to draw a line, to get to the movie Avatar.

Creature Design for Avatar – Alex Alvarez of Gnomon went from concept sketch of a personal project to full animation integrated into live action footage in 6 F***ING DAYS.  He also puppet animated a scanned drawing in Maya which I’ve never seen done before.  when designing creatures, concentrate on the profile or silhouette and make multiple versions to pick which one works the best for the film.   “what about this new creature will entertain you?”

Writing for the Animated Feature -apparently scripts are just rough or basic, and storyboard artists get to do whatever they want with their scenes anyway.  this leads to lack of continuity but also reworks and fleshes out the whole film.  the guys who wrote How to Train your Dragon said it took 7 months for the storyboard guys to play around and then come back to the original script

Leverage -never heard of it, but apparently in it’s third season, sat thru this to get to…

Venture Brothers – The creator Doc Hammer’s skin glitters in the sunlight.  He also loves the movie “Incognito” about a Rembrandt forger.  Patrick Warburton is a hottie but a douche who asked for too much money and was written out of the series temporarily.  #24 is still alive.

Simpsons -just caught the end.  apparently there is so much TV trivia that Matt groenig was unable to answer a question about the Itchy & Scratchy video game

V – the entire cast was there!  so much sexiness concentrated in one room!  Anna is now BLONDE!  Her mother will appear in season two, as Diana, or DIE-ANNA!  V-wine is nicknamed Malinga!  V’s might be made from multiple species, and may have already influenced human history!

Fringe -Anna Torv in real life has an english accent!  A fan snuck on stage and was arrested!  “Altered States” inspired Fringe, where Nina Sharp was naked multiple times!

Welcome to the Future: Are you sure you want to stay? – teh awesome.  a discussion about optimism v. pessimism in speculative science fiction.  “a person from 50 years ago would love the iPod but hate whats on it.”  got to ask my fun “why do magic stories villianize technology” question and the general answer was that ‘magic is organic technology, technology is magic we understand, and it is the people who use either that make it good or evil.’  see Princess Mononoke.  “beware of any technology that is inherently out of balance or unsustainable”  “consumer technology will go the way of Starbucks”  “you will need a digestive tract upgrade in order to process the new corn”  “we should be worried about the axis of evil (a vast blank tear in the middle of the galaxy right next to a super concentrated cluster of stars)”  Reading List: Radiant Dawn, Dark Reflection, David Weber, The Unincorporated Universe,

LGBT in Comics – met Zan Christensen, who self published the first gay graphic novel, which was an adaptation of the first gay erotic novel, possibly by Oscar Wilde “Teleny & Camille”.  the first panel was OK, they talked about how they made their own works but I didn’t really learn anything.  The second panel sunday morning was way more intellectual than I expected and was really interesting.  A discussion of how intimacy in Taiwanese all girls schools produced a lesbian-comics artist who later won comic artist of the year of Taiwan.  A modernist historiography of “Northstar” following his creation, his coming out, his mysterious sickness, and current state which is accurately summed up by “Northstar isn’t gay, he is just a fairy.”  And a great look at classical Greek Ironic Pederasty vs Japanese Aesthetically Ambiguous Shonen-ai, and why the Greek lit are banned from schools but Japan manga isnt, along with the explanation of ‘quaternionic structure’ and ‘ritual vocal combat’ in “Loveless” and “Phaedros,” wrapped up with an analysis of eye contact with Socrates and whooshing anime lines in anime (WTF WTF WTF????!!!!)

San Diego Film Festival -  one good animation about wax people with great subsurface scattering http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFZ5ryNwlII

I also bought my first ever Sandman T-shirt “You get what everyone gets… you get a lifetime” and awesome Sandman figurines.

Any movie where you find out the name of the lead female is Ariadne is bound to be good. “Inception” is an action packed and beautiful blend of psychological and physics experiments. Brush up on your Einstein elevator experiments, Mobius strips, Escher drawings, infinity complexes, and more. I wish I took more than Pysch 101 in college because I’m sure there were references I missed. The movie is rife with important nouns: totem, architect, forger, chemist, labyrinth, inception, and limbo. Joseph Campbell probably has a boner in his grave.

The special effects stream flawlessly into the movie, and the story practically flows around them. The casual destruction of a cafe, Fred Astaire inspired anti-grav battles, and creation through infinite mirrors are just a few examples. “Inception” confidently gives the audience a lavish feast of the ideas of it’s own universe. Whether or not you really understand or agree with all the rules is up to you. An old gentlemen sitting next to me was confused about whether or not you die in real life if you die in their dreams and I told him “It depends if they are on drugs or not.” He replied: “Oh, well you can never understand people on drugs.”

The heart of the movie lies in Cobb’s (Leo d Caprio) tortured past. The concept is so romantic, original, and basic that you wish Nolan had actually developed it more. However, I get that this is an action movie and at 2.5 hours there might not be time for a Dostoievski-an look at the implications of a pair of lovers in… well you’ll see. This movie probably requires multiple viewings (altho in this economy I’ll wait till Netflix, or till someone asks me out). You will definitely have a lot to ruminate on and argue with other geeks. Bottom line: Go see this movie if you are a NY Geek. And stay to the end of the credits.

Non… je ne regrette rien…

1. Sophisticated buildings will be made of mud.
2. Coral Reefs will be devastated.
3. The catch of the day?  JELLYFISH
4. New cars will be given away, free.
5. Industry will generate energy in space.
6. Oysters will save woles from climate change.
7. 2,000 new mamal species will be discovered.
8. It’s CURTAINS for the world’s rarest dolphin.
9. Farmers will plant spinach in tall buildings.
10. The nation will meet the tests of the century ahead.
11. The heartland will rise again. (The US gains 100 million people)
12. The top US Social problem?  Upward mobility
13. By 2050, one out of three US kids will be Latino
14. World War III will begin.  IN SPACE
15. Most Americans fear for the planet’s health
16. Unless we conserve, more people will go hungry
17. An ancient grain, fonio, will fight starvation.
18. Afganistan risks turmoil for 40 years
19. Glowing squid will lead to new antibiotics.
20. Health workers will eradicate malaria.
21. Science could enable a person to regrow a limb.
22. Astronomers will discover life beyond earth.
23. How will we avert the dinosaurs’ fate?  Telescopes
24. Brain scans will illuminate the infant mind
25. Artists will run the world
26. Novelists will need a new plot device
27. Everyone will make his own music
28. Secrets will reveal if young JFK was “vacuous”
29. James Cameron will still be making movies at 96
30. Stand-up comedy will no longer kill
31. Native American youths will revive their culture
32. US-Muslim relations will improve
33. Evolution will continue, in reverse, humorist says.
34. A medical lab will fit on a postage stamp
35. Viruses will help build machines
36. Goodbye, stereo, hello hyper-real acoustics
37. Electricity will be harvested from your skin
38. Crucial Energy will be generated with mirrors
39. Your refrigerator will talk to you
40. Reading will become an athletic activity.