Monday, November 18, 2013

John Lewis Christmas 2013 Advert

Animation is such a magical way to tell a story, and I love good animation.  I went to college with dreams of becoming an animator and working for Disney so I have a strong appreciation for the craft.  Two of my favorite things, animation and Christmas, come together in this gorgeous short film for the Christmas campaign of John Lewis – a famous UK department store chain has become a symbol of the start of the British holiday season.



I loved this little film and was awed by the use of traditional animation over what I thought was live action footage.  Then I learned that this was done with stop motion animation!  Oh my goodness!  My love for stop motion animation is deep.  It bring together animation and theater (another one of my favorite things) with often amazing results.  The hand drawn figures were cut out of a ridged material so that they could be placed within the 3D models of the sets.  Utterly amazing.



To work on a stop motion film is another dream of mine.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Procrastination

I often say that I put the pro in procrastination.  I excel in putting things off until tomorrow, and I rarely feel badly about it.  But lately I have been feeling badly about it.  There are places I want to be, things I want to do, goals I want to achieve, but I keep putting it all off until later.  Until I have the time, until I have the space, until I have the equipment, until my website is finished, until my blog is set up perfectly.  Excuses, I've got a big box of them.

Starting something is always the most difficult part.  Well, no, keeping up a habit is difficult too.  It's all difficult.  I'm awesome on a deadline.  I'm terrific at getting a project done at the last minute when I know that it HAS to be finished and people are counting on me.  What I'm not so great at is keeping my own deadlines, counting on myself to finish something for me.  Accountability, I suck at it.

What am I to do?  One thing I won't do is apologize.  I know that there is nothing to apologize for, but it would be so easy to start by saying, I'm sorry that it's been so long since I've posted anything.  Besides, I'm the only one reading this right now, and it's just me taking a step.  I can't apologize for a step.  There have been lots of steps taken leading up to me writing this post.  One step at a time.

So why today?  I'm sitting at work frustrated.  I'm frustrated with the policies, I'm frustrated with thinking that I've finally gotten caught up only to have work returned to me for more information.  I'm frustrated at being frustrated that I don't do something change my situation.  Usually I embrace my friend procrastination, but today I didn't feel like a visit.  So today it was, not tomorrow.

What's in store for tomorrow?  I want to be one step closer.