My initial idea was simple, something I could execute quickly. Then I started researching, trying to find film clips that were royalty-free or in the public domain, and coming up with nothing. Not only that, but the project starting turning into one of those endless games of Internet hopscotch, and my ideas were getting more and more complex until the whole thing was utterly unfathomable.
The thing that really stumped me was, not being a filmmaker, I didn’t know how to make the thing look coherent, rather than just a bunch of separate, found bits I chewed up and… Well, you get the idea.
So it occurred to me that I should draw something. I’ve always doodled, and for a long time people have been saying I should make an illustrated book. I don’t particularly want to, but in this instance it struck me that doing an animated book trailer might be a good way to give everything a coherent look while underscoring that Finitude is, yes, about climate change, but it’s not intended to be heavy or moralistic.
Okay. So I was going to do that.
But then came an old problem: getting my drawings into the computer. Sure, I can scan them, but scans never look quite like what I drew, the lines end up fuzzy (antialiased), and I wind up spending all kinds of time fixing them to look right on-screen — which never really works to my satisfaction.
So I went out and bought a graphics tablet (no, not that Apple thing, a graphics tablet). I was taking a chance, but it paid off, ’cause these things have really improved in the last 15 years.
I know, I know. In computing terms that’s a funny idea. The last one I used had a proprietary Apple connector because we didn’t have USB yet. Still, though, some things (like scanners) haven’t really improved that much since I started computing.
My first attempt was this (a promise that my novels are “100% Vampire-Free”):
I was amazed: I could actually, you know, draw with this thing! With the old one, the proportions were always wonky; it wasn’t as bad as using a mouse (which is like trying to draw with sponges strapped to your hands), but it never quite represented what I was trying to do. But the new one — just like using pens and markers, but with none of the fading, feathering, or bleeding that shows up in a scan. (I was also reminded that computing with a pen is infinitely more comfortable for me than using a mouse or my fingers, which goes counter to the current trend, yet reinforces the fact that I draw with pens rather than finger-painting.)
Okay, so the next test was to try to animate something. (My projects always seem to involve this element of having to pick up new skills to complete them.) This isn’t the style of animation I’ll be using for the book trailer, but old-fashioned “cel” animation, where you keep re-drawing the same thing with slight variations. It’s horribly time-consuming and pretty rough-looking.
