M dot Strange's blog

I've been so busy the past month or so I haven't had time to write in this blog- I'm now just about halfway through lighting/sending shots to render for I am Nightmare- so about 700 shots lit/sent to render so far- Rendering is moving along- slowly but surely- about 280 shots have rendered so far- I stopped working on that a few days ago to do a music video I got hired to do a video for Mindless Self Indulgence- that will be finished tomorrow- seems I can do a minute+ of animation for a music video type thang a day as thats what I'm doing for this project- so 3 days work for a music vid- Speaking of music- M dot Strange composer/music guy has to finish the music I'm doing for a homie's film called "Welcome to Normality" soon as well- going to have to fire up Ableton and my dusty hardware for that one- On the strange news tip I had a meeting with the enigmatic musical genius Endika last week- we talked about working on a new project together-

I always laugh when I see "filmmakers" debating and complaining about current camera technology- making all these excuses like the technology isn't good enough to capture their grand, epic visions. Acting like they're Kubrick shooting 2001 or some shit ^_^ You have to become a MASTER filmmaker/storyteller before technology becomes a limitation because until then YOU and your filmmaking skills are the weakest link- I say this from personal experience- I am not a master filmmaker and I know that the technical things are NOT the weakest link in my work- I am- so I don't worry so much about the technicalities or use them as an excuse to NOT make my films- I use what I can get my hands on and appreciate its awesomeness and low price compared to what filmmakers before me had- Acting like the technology is their limitation- like the technology is going to make or break their project is just a lie people tell themselves- Today at a time when filmmaking/animation

I literally have ZERO "making of" documentation for I am Nightmare- since I do most everything myself I haven't had the time or ability to document anything since I'm too busy working- There was hours of Heart String Marionette making of stuff that you haven't seen yet but I hope that will change in the future- I guess the only making of that could be created for I am Nightmare would be to fashion something out of interviews of the voice actors, myself and Mad Dashiell? So it would be something like- conducting video interviews over skype or something similar and cutting them together to make some sort of narrative- whatever documentary types do ^_^ So if you have some documentary/interview experience and this is something you'd like to do please contact me at mdotstrange@gmail.com I love making of stuff myself so I'm sort of disappointed that I didn't create any as I went along for the new film- but I'm just one guy and making the act

If you've followed this blog you know that I use quota's in all phases of my filmmaking- So this month I'd like to light and send 1,450 shots to render- That equals out to about 50 shots a day that I need to get through- so I made up and printed out these sheets- So as long as I cross out a block of 50 boxes a day I'll finish on time- So I got through the first day of boxes today- but it wasn't easy 0_0 Having those worksheets seems to quiet my anxiety and nervousness about being able to finish on time- I know that as long as I cross out a bloc of those boxes a day then everything is alright and I don't have to freak out and work 24 hours straight haha- So now my render PC is rendering away- My workstation renders about half the speed as my render node- I optimize my shots so that they render at like 30 seconds to 2 minutes per frame on my workstation- so that means they render from 15 seconds to one minute per frame on my render PC which is rea

(Thanks for all the kind words and good energy for Boo- I stuck a mini katana in the ground where I buried him and burn incense there to honor the little guy) “We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” ~Kenji Miyazawa Now today I start the first phase of I am Nightmare post production- I'll be taking the shots that have been animated and edited using hardware renders and I will light and render them- All 1,439 shots have been animated and the offline edit has been locked- the final film with titles and all is 2 hours 6 minutes long as you can see from the master timeline below So my one render server/render node is waiting to start its major work ^_^ So I'm going to try to light and send to render all 1,449 shots this month which would mean I have to get through 50 shots a day- I just have the one render pc so I know its not going to be able to keep up with the number of shots I'll keep adding to it everyday- I'm scheduling 60 da