Lessons Learned
A couple of months ago I produced around 20 minutes or so of animation for a client. A little on the project experience later as the most striking aspect of this project was, to me, in this seemingly ubiquitous age of the internet, the near impossibility of getting high quality images of First Nations peoples - Canada’s indigenous population - for use in creating 3D facial models.

Of course I could find some images but they were mostly antique frontier photographs from the turn of the previous century. My search went on for several weeks until, at one point, a First Nations production team member volunteered to provide some portraits but these too ended up being sepia prints from the turn of the previous century.

The Government of Canada recently apologized to the First Nations for its blatant policies of cultural genocide (”assimilation”) that created our country’s forgotten generations. However, my internet image searches were not constrained by geography and the global results always tragically empty - a seeming Social Darwinist style trend.

(With hindsight - and budget - we could hired some real life models/actors but we did not suspect for moment how little image documentation of First Nations peoples there is…or isn’t.)

Video Production Notes
Firstly, there is no such thing as “final approval” and revisions to creative previously approved were requested right up to the last possible moment. Par for the course when dealing with clients and a fixed budget. As a result though production and post-production time got super squeezed and I was basically left with a month to film and edit it all (script written by client).

Here is a video of some early concept footage to show some of the traditional designs I created for the project as well as my animation style. I shot this in Second Life as this was the quickest way to gather content and express my ideas. Except for one shot, the production animations were then done in iClone as iClone uses a timeline and I knew there would be client revisions so the ability to exactly recreate a shot and only change one thing about it (face, prop, hair, etc) was essential.

Burning the final files to DVD for the client with literally 5 minutes to spare, I managed to deliver my final animations as part of a larger online educational and training manual. The concept behind using machinima here is to provide engaging case studies for people to consider in the larger context of the training manual.

Here is a direct link to the 3 ‘web plays’.
1. Introduction
2. John’s Story
3. Mary’s Story

Discovered on YouTube: rare live footage of HatHead Rickenbacker performing live on Hammond organ with his most favorite band ever!

Talk To Me (Like You Talk To Your Brother)

Reefer Smoking Blues

*Breezin’

* it is true, the entire place was full of almost entirely women that night, which is of course awesome! So come on down every Wednesday night from 9pm-1am!!