My Facebook account is officially dead. This is now the second time I’ve killed it. When I first started using Facebook a little over two years ago I felt like it was a huge privacy sinkhole. I wasn’t connecting with the people I wanted to be and was linked up to people I hadn’t talked to in over a decade. It didn’t seem like a good place for me to be so I killed the entire thing. I felt good about it.

I attempted to preach the gospel but everyone seemed intent on being Internet flashers and voyeurs alike. I was alone… Come the KWLT production of my play  A Brand New Hell I was convinced of it’s usefulness by one of my actors. It seemed to be a good solution to organizing people for projects and keeping in touch with those people. I was sucked back in.

A year and a half later I found the ground that I found tenuous to begin with continually eroding  beneath my feet. It was definitely time to kill my Facebook account again. This time for good. So I have done so. It’s dead and gone. The link from here to my profile has died along with it. I hope a reasonable replacement appears soon. As much as I like the idea of Disapora it’s still in the, “thank you for our funding,” phase. It could pan out to exactly nothing.

If you’ve got a good Facebook replacement that isn’t a thin front for datamining to be sold to anyone with a cheque book drop me a line and let me know.

david shute - 24.05.10 @ 22:03 - permalink

The Sintel trailer is looking really promising. I haven’t really been big in 3D animation or Blender but I remember when this was going on with Big Buck Bunny. I had grabbed Blender around that time. I probably noodled through about one or two tutorials before I promptly forgot that it was installed on my system.

Although it’s been quite the gap I’ve been trying to remedy that. About two weeks ago I was reminded about Blender and grabbed it again. The nice thing about Ubuntu, an apt-get later and I’m set. I started playing around in it and really didn’t remember any of the very minor things I’d picked up a couple years earlier. It was time to start from scratch.

I’ve been picking my way through some tutorials as I get a feel for the program and start getting things together. My basic process has been to open up the program, walk through a tutorial, and then play with it for awhile. Incorporate some other things I’ve learned in to the project created off the tutorial I just worked through. I still have a metric fucktonne to learn. There’s a long way to go but I can see this being beneficial.

The long term goal is to actually animate a short using Blender. Nothing wildly amazing. Quite simple and cheesy, honestly. I’m setting aside three months to learn enough to, hopefully, put together the project I want to do. I was initially intending on doing this project I’ve got in mind using stop motion and toys. Good idea but I fucking despise set building. It’s tedious and I don’t want to do it. I’ve already got the actor’s dialogue recorded. I still want to do it. Doing it with Blender gives me a good motivation to chunk through it. If it continues to serve me then it’s a good basis for creating more complex projects or to composite CG effects in to live action video.

So far I haven’t really done anything spectacular. A lot of testing and playing with features. I haven’t embarked on anything. One of the tutorials created an abstract penguin. I took it a little further and added colour. I liked what I had so I rendered out a quick desktop of it. It’s now in my rotation of desktop backgrounds.

Click the image to download a copy if you’d like. Forewarned, the actual desktop was made to fit a dual monitor setup and is 3360 x 1050 in size.

david shute - 22.05.10 @ 21:46 - permalink

Got a new pair of shoes in the mail the other day, other being Friday. Picked up a pair of the Vibram Five Fingers for a number of reasons. I really, really hate wearing shoes. I don’t know why I just don’t like them. I was the kid that walked around barefoot. A lot. It’s probably also a large part of the reason why I lean towards flat, thin skate shoes over anything else. As an adult I spend most of my time at work walking around in my socks. Even socks I’m not a fan of. They tend to come off shortly after I’m home at the end of the day.

I’ve been running a lot lately. I finished my first 5K race a couple weeks ago. Having a race in front of me has helped to keep me running, a bit of exercise I’m in desperate need of. I’ve had some problems with running. I get pretty bad shin splints. Back in December I had to stop all together for several weeks. Shortly after my race I doubled up my morning runs and had to back off for a week. Shin splints is a major issue for me.

I know it all comes down to my gait. I run like a lumbering fat guy. It’s difficult not too. My feet kick out at the sides and I slam down on my heels pretty hard. I’ve gone to both my doctor, who tells me to exercise but not to run so much, and to a running store, where I’ve been fitted with two different pairs of shoes that were to fix the problem, to no avail. This past week I’ve been working on my gait and focusing on what my feet are actually doing. The good part is that this is working. If I land mid to forefoot and don’t take as long strides I do just fine. The down side is that the shoes are actually working against me. They are designed, weighted, and padded to continue how I’m running right now.

I think, for me, the answer is running as close to barefoot as possible. That’s where the Vibrams come in. I’ve been wearing them a lot since I got them. Very comfortable. They change how I walk, how I drive, how I do everything. They’ve also pointed out that my feet are weak. The change in my gait has also exposed my calves, hips, and lower back as weak as well. All those things normal shoes are “protecting”.

It’s nice to actually have that feeling. it’s different from the shin splints and knee pain I normal get. Those pains are tendon, joint, and bone. Muscle pain, on the other hand, means shit is getting worked and will get stronger. It means I have a way to go before I can trust my body will be able to run a couple miles without the support but I’m looking forward to getting there. I have a feeling that running will be a lot more fun when I don’t have to focus so hard on how every single step lands and just enjoy being out on the road.

david shute - 17.05.10 @ 23:36 - permalink

All around, just a kick in the ass kind of day.

Woke up this morning and ran my first 5K race. I know who I am, I’m the guy who’s 60 lbs overweight, smoked for 15 years, and gets out of breath really quickly. I know people finish 5Ks in 15-20 minutes. I am not one of those people. Quite frankly I was just hoping to finish in under 40 minutes. Coming in just 22 seconds after my wife at 32:39 was a very welcome surprise.

Took some time to work on a new short script this afternoon while my wife and daughter were napping. Nothing special, just a three page short that we can shoot in an afternoon this summer. Should be a fun shoot. It’s a simple concept out in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road. Not much more to say about that right now.

Had a meeting with a new DP/camera operator about the reshoot for THE NEW FACE OF SECURITY. He brings a lot of experience with him so he picked up on what I wanted to do really quickly and brought his own ideas to the mix. We still need to hash out some details and do some test lighting scenarios on set but I think this will work out well for us.

david shute - 02.05.10 @ 22:05 - permalink