Desktop Warfare

After almost an entire year of production/procrastination, Desktop Warfare is complete. I had a lot of fun with it actually. I shot the film last year, and unfortunately I forgot about all about it. It wasn't until I found it squatting in my hard drive that I began to finish it. And I am really pleased. The effects look decently real, and the collaborative sound effects are just as good. The only thing I regret is the camera I used. In some scenes it looked like I filmed it with a potato. It was my webcam. I was experimenting with onion skinning which I must say was WONDERFUL, and the only way I could do it was with the webcam. Unfortunately the webcam is the only camera I have that can hook up to a computer. It was so much easier and looked so
much better between frames. The issue will be resolved eventually. As some people say: baby steps.

Desktop Warfare from Trellis Haynie on Vimeo.

Why I Prefer Stop-Motion

     I'm a big fan of stop-motion animation for two reasons:
a.) I thoroughly enjoy it
b.) I don't have to put up with actors
Even with the short films I've always been doing over the years, there has consistently been a problem of the actors/grips not giving a flying f#$%. I'm not much of an extrovert, so this generally does drain a lot out of me to constantly have to keep everyone else focused. It's exhausting for me. Therefore, I like using stop-motion. I don't need to get my actors rides to the set, I don't have to pretend to care what they are talking about between shots, and I can start and stop shooting whenever I feel like it. Not a single person in my way except me, which in itself is still quite a task. I have a lot of ideas I would like to put into paper, but in many cases I lack something that makes me rethink it completely. Whether it is the right camera, proper materials, or even sometimes the things I am using breaking. It's extremely frustrating on a lot of occasions.
However, it beats having to deal with other people.
Other people just annoy the living daylights out of me.

InkBlood

Over the past week in my graphics art I've been working on an image, and it's finally finished. What started out as a bored sharpie doodle evolved into something AWESOME. It wasn't too complex: just your average four-armed ink alien. I drew it on paper sometime in July, during one of the many hours I spend barred in my room. I started with the head, as I always do, and soon the rest of the body followed suit. And frankly, I've been fussed at before by multiple people for doing that. Of course, I try to follow their advice; drawing a quick basic sketch-skeleton and then merely adding details. Unfortunately I seem to draw worse that way, and drawing the head first gives me almost a theme for everything that follows. I feel it's almost a much more fluid system of channeling ideas to paper. Almost like a comedian performing improv. Sometimes the best ideas hit like a train with no warning or preparation. I'm proud of it frankly, no matter how much the rest of my family laughs at the connection I have drawn between the phrase "ad nauseum" (latin for 'to sickness'). The black ink reminded me of death and illness, and also the black plague, so i figured it was perfect for the title.