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“How many rainbows can light create for the untutored eye?” – Vine and Me

| Paul Greer

Yes, so I got a bit excited when they released Vine for Android. It suddenly seemed the whole inventing smart phone thing suddenly had an actual purpose for me. I could make animated journal type entries actually on the go, without having to record everything and go back to base to put it together.

A real stroke of genius for me is that you can’t upload previously made movies, you have to go live, so creating animation becomes a superpower of being able to tap the screen with sufficient deftness you only trigger one frame and then some people go to the next level with using external lenses and tripods and things.

Unfortunately my phone is at the menders (dodgy power socket on those Samsung Galaxy Mini’s apparently), but the only thing I am really missing is the Vining.

I began by deleting a lot of early attempts but then came to the conclusion it’s best just to put it all out there, because often there’s a quality that comes out of the Vine you were not expecting, and the imperfection of it is the best thing.

Most of these have sound, and it’s usually relevant.

These next three are taken at various stages of making my way home after the pub.

(The title of this post is a quote from the mighty mighty Stan Brakhage)

Week Off Ramblings

Image | | Paul Greer

image

I just ended a week off, coinciding with the half term break. I assembled a basketball hoop, learnt some more Max and generally took it easy.
I took a lot of pictures and made a few image sequences which I posted on G+, they only work on there so I can’t embed.
(One day there’ll be Vine for Android then I can take over the world.)
I have also made some progress on the very slow burning stereoscopic project I’ve been working on for too long.
Rise of the Continents hits BBC2 next weekend, so I might have to put something on here about that.
I just started Remains of the Day, the phrase “mistaking the superficialities for the essence” really stuck with me.

Moving In

Aside | | Paul Greer

Due to my concerned over putting all my internets in one basket and the fact that Google miffed me off because they’re closing Reader, I decided to port my slowblog onto WordPress.

I don’t have much time so the operation has been a tad clumsy.  I also decided to prune some of the weaker posts so some of the links might not work, but eventually it should get there.

Kettle’s on, make yourself at home.

(PS – if you can see the ad, apologies, I’ll get that sorted in due course. Early days.)

10 Reasons Why Animators Should Make GIFs

| Paul Greer
1. They’re quick to do. 
Animation is traditionally a lifetime torturefest of pain, self-doubt and confusion. You can make a nice GIF from just a few frames and that’s the end of it.

2. They catch the eye.
There’s nothing like a moving image in a sea of search results to make people look twice. (We’re living in an attention economy, people).

3. You can provide a nice teaser to your Vimeo page.
Like worms for fish.

4. No-one will ask you to explain the sub-text.
Which is especially good if it is not in your best interest to tell people what exactly that is.

5. People rarely click and watch a video on Tumblr.
With a GIF, TOO LATE!! They already watched it.

6. It’s down with the kids.
Kids love GIFs, GIFs love kids.

7. You can do self portraits and no-one has to look at your ugly face.
I’ve been participating in the Guest Directed Self Portrait project initiated by Molly Peck. I think I am only recognisable in 1 of my 7 submissions so far made.

8. You can try stuff out and get quick feedback.
Nothing says something works by a tsunami of reblogs.

9. You learn the virtue of brevity.
There’s nothing worse than a time waster.

10. You can recycle old work.
Remember that crappy piece of work you did years ago that you’re too ashamed to show anyone? GIF the good bit, bin the rest.

Author raises $1m to self-publish Order of the Stick webcomic book

Quote | | Paul Greer

“Unless you have the marketing department of a large corporation behind you, you’re not likely to get enough people to take a chance on your unknown property, even through Kickstarter,“ Burlew said. “On the other hand, if you give it away first, people will form their opinion of you and your work before you ask them for money. And readers are a lot more likely to spend money on things they know they like than things they hope they will like. People want to own what they love, so rather than selling access to the content, sell the permanent incarnation of it – be that a book or an ebook or a DVD or whatever. The best thing about giving away your content first is that when it comes time to sell the final product, you’re going to have almost 100% customer satisfaction. No one is going to complain that they didn’t like the story they bought, because every one of your customers knew they liked it before paying.”

— Rick Burlew

“Curating can take the lead in pointing us towards this crucial importance of choosing.”

Quote | | Paul Greer

“Lately, the word “curate” seems to be used in an greater variety of contexts than ever before, in reference to everything from a exhibitions of prints by Old Masters to the contents of a concept store. The risk, of course, is that the definition may expand beyond functional usability. But I believe ‘curate’ finds ever-wider application because of a feature of modern life that is impossible to ignore: the incredible proliferation of ideas, information, images, disciplinary knowledge, and material products that we all witnessing today. Such proliferation makes the activities of filtering, enabling, synthesizing, framing, and remembering more and more important as basic navigational tools for 21st century life. These are the tasks of the curator, who is no longer understood as simply the person who fills a space with objects but as the person who brings different cultural spheres into contact, invents new display features, and makes junctions that allow unexpected encounters and results.”

— Hans-Ulrich Obrist

(T)

This is the Electronical Rattle Bag…

| Paul Greer

I’m Burningfp.

I work at BDH making CGI for television programmes, and in my spare time I play with animation.

There is a scrapbook where I collect interesting things I like from the internet, but there is some of my stuff here too.

There are some house rules.

The nature of what I do means there is often not much to show because I only finish a handful of things a year, therefore I tend to remain overly cagey about what I get up to. That is not deliberate, it’s just the way it turned out.

I intend to show a bit more of what I do here, personally and professionally, so for people following me for my excellent taste in people and art, be warned, there will be a substantial shift in quality of this feed.

I also tweet, Google+, and there is a Facebook page if you like that kind of thing.

If you need any work doing you can contact my employer.

Alternatively you can ask me questions here, or email me, if want to keep it secret (I don’t guarantee a response).

I wish all followers the very best for the next few weeks, I know late December can be unbearable for some people, for so many different reasons. Try to believe in yourself and don’t let people control how you feel. Do that and we should all get through it in one piece.

Kind Regards.

P
x

‘Poems are a form of texting’

Quote | | Paul Greer

“The poem is a form of texting … it’s the original text… it’s a perfecting of a feeling in language – it’s a way of saying more with less, just as texting is. We’ve got to realise that the Facebook generation is the future – and, oddly enough, poetry is the perfect form for them. It’s a kind of time capsule – it allows feelings and ideas to travel big distances in a very condensed form.”

– Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy: