Paul's film "Slocum"

[Elodie]

waah, great work !

I can't wait until the final result !

[Paul Fierlinger]

waah, great work !

I can't wait until the final result !

Three years go by very quickly!

[Elodie]

I think so ^^

I'm maybe young , but I see years flying away like feathers in the sky... oh dear, I'm only 20 and I think like a grand-ma O_o

[Klaus Hoefs]

I like the quality of composition in version 2 (which is really improved) and also it's a clever trick with the fishes (a. localizing the whole thing, b. having their own little story here) otherwise the boat would turn into some hovering sci-fi mobile. The fishes are such cuties (too much ?). But perhaps this will add pink ponytailed teenyboppers with manga baggies to your audience.

[slowtiger]

Getting pink ponytailed teenyboppers into my audience was my main reason to choose animation as a career.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Sandra knocked down the cuties too... I might either just give up on the whole idea, or simply wait till I work my way to Samoa with a prepared script. I keep forgetting that I'm not working on the film yet and just experimenting with some ideas before we even have a script or sound tracks. I don't work well that way.

Having a hired scriptwriter is a new experience to me as well -- he now tells me he will be yet another month delayed. I don't know how anyone can work in teams. It certainly is a distraction.

Here is my next little test before I go on to some other part, perhaps below decks. I've never even made a sketch of his galley or his sleeping cabin. I think my efforts with experimental water scenes has to wait for a script, particularly a script written by someone else.

http://www.video.paulfierlinger.com/2li ... m-51-3.mp4

[Paul Fierlinger]

The first, water testing sequence, is almost completed now -- it's almost 64 MB and needs a couple of minutes to download.
http://www.video.paulfierlinger.com/2li ... val-06.mp4
Notice the next to last scene, which Sandra is still working on, so it shows the layers she uses to paint water. Of course, every scene is still a series of experiments for us, so there is much lack of unity in the overall effect of the sequence and the way we handle water.

On the other hand, I do plan to introduce many modes of visual expressions throughout the story and I think of this sequence as the film's opening (or close to it) so the scene of the local fishermen running down the hill is much more "cartoony" than some of the other scenes. I plan to escalate these jumps as the story unveils, to prepare the viewers for strange visual surprises.

My theory (and firm belief) is, that every animated film over 1/2 an hr in length becomes boring unless one springs out frequent visual and musical surprises on the audience to keep their brains on their toes.

[ZigOtto]

Having a hired scriptwriter is a new experience to me as well

I didn't know that ! well, that's a big NEW thing !!!
the next step 'll be to work with a director assistant, some skilled animator leaders and a crowd of animator assistants/inbetweeners ... oh, add a couple of assistants to relieve Sandra in coloring task as well !
(>> the film on screen in 12>14 months instead of 3>4 years ...)

Here is my next little test before I go on to some other part, perhaps below decks.

this last one is way more convincing for me !

[Paul Fierlinger]

(>> the film on screen in 12>14 months instead of 3>4 years ...)

Yes, I have a co-script writer this time, mainly to help me with dialogues, but if he doesn't have time, I can't start without him. I have a new composer as well; there are a lot of things I need to change with the way I approach this story.

But you can't be serious with that thought that if I hire more assistants the film will get done in a year! To me that's like saying if one boat can cross the Atlantic in two weeks, two boats can do it in week. Look at what's happening right now; I'm delayed by two months because the scriptwriter is busy writing something else. If I hadn't the need for a dialogue type film, I'd be several minutes into the film by now -- I'd say 6 or 7 minutes.

this last one is way more convincing for me !

Do you think this is because I moved the rock away and deleted the fish, or because you get a better sense of how the gag is meant to work after seeing it tied into the following scene?

[ZigOtto]

Do you think this is because I moved the rock away and deleted the fish, or because you get a better sense of how the gag is meant to work after seeing it tied into the following scene?

deleted the fish ???
I saw all of them there (Slocum-51-3.mp4), even with their shadows on the bottom under the water ...
yes, the isolated rock + the following scene help a lot, although I would add few more (preceding) drawings before the 1rst one imo, the dinghy comes beaching a bit too quickly to my eyes, but I think this kind of adjustement must be done with the check sound-track .

[Paul Fierlinger]

This is the sequence I'm planning to complete now:
http://www.video.paulfierlinger.com/2li ... m-51-5.mp4
The true story leading up to this moment is thus: Slocum had been alone at sea for 47 days under perfect conditions, his boat self-steering day and night and when he finally arrived to Samoa, he dropped his anchor and stayed aboard for another two more days so he could finish the book he had been reading. He was clearly in an altered, serene state of mind. The house on the hill he will soon discover, belongs to the widow of the famous explorer (EDIT): Robert Louis Stevenson.
During those 47 days, as he reads, his thoughts of events of many years ago interact with the subject of the book, making for an interesting part of the movie and this intertwined story continues in his mind as he stays for several weeks with the attractive and lonely widow.

[ZigOtto]

... as he stays for several weeks with the attractive and lonely widow.

interesting, ... and new too ! it will change from your usual dog's stories ... (will it change really so much ...?)
btw, how old she was ? ... and how old himself ?

[Paul Fierlinger]

He was sixty or so, I believe, and she might have been 20 yrs younger. But the whole Samoa chapter has me worried, because unlike Tulip, which is "R" rated (one above "X") Slocum is intended to be a family film and all the ladies running around Samoa in those days were topless and in a firm way.

Samoa postcard.jpg (3.45 KiB) Viewed 971 times

[ZigOtto]

... Slocum is intended to be a family film and all the ladies running around Samoa in those days were topless and in a firm way.

Samoa postcard.jpg

nonsense ...
is american people so puritanist to bannish autochthon women breast on the TV ?

you certainly heard about this film : "Kirikou and the Sorceress", a 1998 Franco-Belgian traditional animation feature film loosely based on a West African folk tale and written and directed by Michel Ocelot,
Ocelot had troubles too with some oversea distributors, and namely the US distributor, but he stays upright and inflexible, refusing to auto-censor the nudity in his film .
so in USA, this film is unknown by children, because only broadcasted very late in the night, (reserved to mature viewers).

Distribution Controversy

The film's content of natural nudity enraged some overseas distributors. Some requested airbrushing pants on the fully naked boys and men, as well as bras for the topless women. Michel Ocelot refused; this was African culture, and he wanted to stay faithful to it. In some countries, because of the distribution fights, it wasn't released commercially until four years later.

painting bras on topless samoa ladies, or elude the samoa chapter ... is really that your only alternative ???

[Paul Fierlinger]

painting bras on topless samoa ladies, or elude the samoa chapter ... is really that your only alternative ???

The issue is a little more complex then you portray it. Photographs of bare breasted women were unabashedly printed in U.S. magazines as far back as photo print existed and even before that in etchings. In magazines such as the National Geographic, for instance ... and there lies the problem; this became a racial issue in a country where the race issue was swept under the carpet since the writing of the Constitution. Everyone knew it has to be dealt with sooner or later so it was dealt with too late by the Civil War.

When only colored natives were printed in travel magazines it was seen by blacks as degrading... would those magazines print photographs of naked whites? So blacks were OK because they were somewhere between us and the animal kingdom, never mind that little boys masturbated in front of the pages of the National Geographic?

Now I have no reason to show a naked Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson in a family film (there is no mentioning of any hanky-panky in the Slocum book either; if anything was going on between them, it is left to our imagination, which obviously we all have and see them merrily copulating under the stars)but the colored natives never had the need to invent the bra -- until the early nineteen hundreds when German and later American missionaries forced them to, which of course made them more desirable and excited all little boys.

So do I want to fall into the trap of portraying the world as it was and be censored under the guise of prudence, but in reality under the fear of needlessly stirring racial tensions? I am sure the same fears surrounded the Michel Ocelot film as well. You would have to live here for many years to understand these complexities. Most likely I will solve the dilemma by having the women partially covered by wreaths and jewelry, as Slocum's visit was happening just at the crossover to the white, European, cold climate culture.