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one more clip from my mm-project, in which mm is remembering his time as a pilot.

MP4, 8MB with sound: http://www.inf.fh-flensburg.de/hoefs/+m ... nPart2.mp4

Things I notice that you might not mean that way: Is there something wrong with one of his hands? When he first appears in the sky he looks as if he has just one hand and later, when he gets up from the table it looks as if one of his hands is stiff and just hangs by his side.

There is much confusion in the sky and the combination of the music and the intonation of the voice over with all the flying around makes me think that he is having fun, he is not having fun because these are war memories, he liked being in the war... he was a wild and crazy guy...and there is no war in the scene. I was left with confused thoughts and felt that much is escaping me... is this what you are after?

I still have trouble understanding everything you say because the endings of some sentences get drowned by the music -- perhaps all the music volume should be in general mixed lower.

I liked the most the scene with the dripping faucet because it balances out the hectic flying days and begins a promise of an interesting story being revealed. Should much of the animation still be slowed down, still needs more inbetweens? The last scene which seems to combine both smoke (or clouds) and water works well even though it's CG generated. I think it works because it doesn't change the color scheme.

The pilot-scene is meant as a dream sequence in which are the young pilots playing at first.

Although being damaged (mostly psychological visualized as physical. So the arms of the pilot are viable when he starts the joy of flying) they are having fun on their playground because they love to fly.
But then the situation slips even more in chaotic complexity and "under-fire-confusion".
Finally friends are erased, then substituted, then erased again (mm is the one with the blue jacket).

Isn't it many times this way, that you're stretching yourself with shifting up limits more and more going blind just to do the things you love to do ? - but it turned -the pilots find themselves in a situation of loss and dead.

This scene is meant as being hectic, less logic but more a accumulation of emotions and memories vanishing into a burning water/sky.

Your critic made me think again and maybe I should slow down tempo.
But to increase the contrast I think it is better to add more smooth inbetweens to the room-scene in which the pilot-dream is embedded and then go with a rough sketchy pilot-scene.

I had a problem with "reading" the pilot in this dream scene. Took me a while to recognize that it was just his upper body. I think this could be fixed with just a hint of two more lines indicating that there's a lower body either.

Klaus,
Lots of vigour and vim (freedom)- keep it rolling. Great sky and slow drip.
All the best,
Jules.

Klaus Hoefs wrote:... vanishing into a burning water/sky.

I could't get the story (mainly I think because I miss a big part if not the whole narrator's speech)
but the visual is breeding a soulfully blast .
about your burning sky, how did you make it, technically ? ... optical-flow-FX ?

Although being damaged (mostly psychological visualized as physical. So the arms of the pilot are viable when he starts the joy of flying) they are having fun on their playground because they love to fly.
But then the situation slips even more in chaotic complexity and "under-fire-confusion".
Finally friends are erased, then substituted, then erased again (mm is the one with the blue jacket).

Isn't it many times this way, that you're stretching yourself with shifting up limits more and more going blind just to do the things you love to do ? - but it turned -the pilots find themselves in a situation of loss and dead.

This scene is meant as being hectic, less logic but more a accumulation of emotions and memories vanishing into a burning water/sky.

Why waste an original concept by making it hectic and illogical? This alone reads like a wondrous treatment for a little film all of itself -- which you are actually attempting to do here. I think you should put any further progress on your film aside until you get just this film within a film right. Perhaps it would be worth adding a few new stanzas to the lyrics to help walk the viewer through the changing emotions. Right now you have a fast-forward run through the episode; now would be the time to make it work. Your description which I quote above leads us through several dramatic mood shifts, yet your music and timing makes everything sound and look like a rushed, hard to follow sketch -- the great way you have written it deserves a better execution, in my opinion.

ZigOtto wrote:

Klaus Hoefs wrote: about your burning sky, how did you make it, technically ? ... optical-flow-FX ?

No, I didn't use the TVP-SFX but some 3D-technologies. In fact I used PMG Messiah for building up animated procedural textures with a shader-node-system. It took a long time for getting the results (Here is a link to the test-files:) http://www.khoefs.de/mess_clouds/cloudsTest.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Indeed it is 2D mapped on plane background. And it also could have been done with 2D-procedurals from TVP-SFX (Rendering/Perlin Noise ...)

Paul Fierlinger wrote:... Perhaps it would be worth adding a few new stanzas to the lyrics to help walk the viewer through the changing emotions. Right now you have a fast-forward run through the episode; now would be the time to make it work. Your description which I quote above leads us through several dramatic mood shifts, yet your music and timing makes everything sound and look like a rushed, hard to follow sketch -- the great way you have written it deserves a better execution, in my opinion.

Well, now I understand much better what you meant. Seems that I always standing close to a subjective inner approach and it makes me turning my back to the public and you have also the audience in mind to which the film has to be successfully communicated. Guessing that it has sg to do with biography.

Sorry to not have made myself not that easy to understand-- by saying you wrote well I meant this (and the rest of that paragraph earlier).

The pilot-scene is meant as a dream sequence in which are the young pilots playing at first.
Although being damaged (mostly psychological visualized as physical. So the arms of the pilot are viable....etc.

Further, I think there is still a lot of the painter of canvases in you and not enough of a story teller. You rely on conveying impressions through painted (or drawn) impressions, the way you are acquainted with when you paint and I'm sure it works well because anyone interested can stay with the painting as long as they feel drawn into the story told within a single canvas.

But as much time as you spend drawing your scenes, you give us only a time restricted, hurried glance. For most of us It becomes difficult, if not impossible, to decipher your intentions -- especially for a theater or TV audience who can't stop the playback and go back a scene or two and watch it again. So then what's left to do is what you did for us here -- just say it; explain it in the narrative so we know what is going on.

If the words are clear and well written, and the picture of itself unique to watch, but not as clear to follow, there is nothing wrong with filling in the gap with a narrative to make the film communicate. But that's just my opinion, stemming from my own experiences; I always see my animated drawings function merely as illustrations which accompany a narrated story. There are plenty of people, and maybe you are one of those too, who prefer not to have to depend on language but believe pictures alone can tell a complete story, but to that I ask, how much can it hurt to supply both because audiences are made of people of mixed sensibilities?

Klaus, I find your animation refreshingly enjoyable to watch as a viewer.

Ben, do you feel that way about all things you come across or Klaus' work in particular? By this I mean, will you read books cover to cover without having the need to unravel the full 'meaning' of what you are reading in a literal manner, sit through a lecture without comprehending the full meaning, happy to know that it is the lecturer's personal vision on the subject while you enjoy the timber of her voice? Do you really mean it when you say you are surrounded by unanswered questions and enjoy the freedom of finding your interpretations of which way to City Hall and which way to the bus station...without any curiosity about how you're going to get home before night falls?

Paul Fierlinger wrote:Ben, do you feel that way about all things you come across or Klaus' work in particular?

I feel this way about visual art, yes.

My critique was an extension of some e-mail conversations I had exchanged with Klaus previously and I happen to know that he is targeting the festival audiences, but you couldn't have known that. Your points are well taken.

Interesting discussion.
I think it's sg like it is with the difference and similarities of poems and short-stories (and novels, also stageplays). One loves poems for their mood, rhythm and the feelings which are coming to the audience with one tip of a single word. Often the goal of a poem is to speak the unspeakable and many have no "timeline", a must-have for shortstories. Much more people are keen of (short-) stories.

Looking at "Tulip" it is clearly story-based (also in the sense of Montaigne)- but looking at it stronger, there are also some poem-like techniques embedded- e.g. a dog's black snout lurking from between the legs of his tall owner. I think that's were Tulip tries to push sg in a rather uncommon direction in the field of animation-festival-circuit. For me the film is also about pushing things to further advance.

I am just coming from that poem-side (doesn't mean that I have to be stucked there), as I had implied ("biography") - so for me it is to get out of my own drawer.
To be honest, I am also very curious about what kind of results may come out going this way.