Roll that thing.. there... yeah, that.

Holy moly dear blog!

You are s sad.... and cold... and ignored.

Ive been traveling around the East Coast doing animation and enjoying life. I have made new friends in Boston and Fl. I finally went to NYC. I finally put my film online.. And its strangely listed on IMDB. But I'll take that!

Im working on a deadline right now so I'm going to make this coffee break/update fast. 

Where we last left our hero... I presume she was living in Atlanta and having a rough time with the city. She moved a lot there. It got old. There was a lot of flying from ATL to TPA for weddings, funerals, and just plain getaways. Then she moved to Tampa to save some cash. A month later she got in house freelance in Boston, MA working for Clambake animation on "Southies". I was granted the gift of an air mattress at a friends and after a month probably wore that welcome (I still feel bad it took so long). Another month was spent living next to Havad. I saw many a museum, and it was good. 

Contract ended so back to FL weeeeeeee. A few weeks later got an in house contract job back at ol David and Goliath doing some design and some media projects. The later are still in the works and therefore shall be silenced by the golden bond of cooooonnnntraaaactttts (spooky voice). 

Last week (feels like months ago already) I went to Dragon*Con in ATL. Got to see some old friends whom I love so much. Dressed as Bill The Butcher. Fake mustaches rock.. until you have to take them off. ow. I was even so silly enough to do the Friday costume contest with my buddy John. However it wasnt until I was walking onstage that I released how many people were watching. *Gulp* Ive youve ever seen on of my awkward Q&As then just take that, and put a top hat and mustache on me.

OH! Since the blog seems to have a pulse on Curtains.. sorta.. It was picked by ASIFA to be shown at the High Museum as part of "Persistence of Animation: 21st Society for animation studies conference". Big thank you again for that great honor!! 

Annnd I think thats about it! Ive updated the website amandagoodbread.com and ive been so silly enough to spread myself across the interwebs and can be found on twitter. I still havent linked this blog to my website because for some  reasons in my head website is professional use only and this s more free flow thoughts on production and whatnots. Yet if you google me both show up.... not that I'm googling myself or anything... 

Updates Id like to see to come soon: Voice animation with a clip from There Will Be Blood. 

Animation?

So I graduated... right in the middle of a depression...

Currently Im doing the coffee gig while saving and some freelance here and there. Ive decided to make the move to LA with John and Jeorge come February. Its a bigger job market, and from what most people are telling me, the place I "need" to be. Im pretty excited to get out of Atlanta in all honesty. There just isnt enough work or things to inspire me.

My film Curtains had won Best Local Student Short in a festival not too long ago. Apparently something else I worked on won Best Animation at another festival but I had no clue. Its nice to get recognized.
I was also contacted for a possible hand in a TV thingamjiggerdoda but heres crossing my fingers.

I had stopeed doing art shows here for a while so i could work on my skill rather than just producing w/o thought. I did do the golden age of cartoon show and feel pretty happy with my piece. I did a UPA inspired piece based on the short "Rhapsody of Steel" which was about how much we rely on steel in our life and to buy more. Eyvind Earle and Maurice Noble had a hand in it. This is series of stills from the short (but an epic in its category) which were later printed in book form. If you click on it a larger image will apear showing detail.
Oooooooof course no one was familiar with it it seemed. It would have been more interesting if someone knew what i was inspired by I suppose as it would appear much less generic than just "1950s animation".Titled "the future of steel". Get it...? Shes made of steel...and we once thought by this point in time we would have our own robots. Har har! But yeah, guache background which is more detailed close up and a cel overlay to add texture variance and more "authentic" look.
The show went well, great turnout and I had fun.

So yeah. Other than that ive been just doodling to get a better sense of caricature. I really need to get to a scanner.

To end, heres some contempt with my current "in between job". But hey, I DO meet some interesting people that I get to draw... while staring deep into the depths of the dark eyes of the soulless. So beady...

On Earth As In Heaven

So so so. "Curtains" my senior film that I slaved over for a year and a half (and technically am still re editing) has been stretching it's legs around town.
I had gotten the rough cut to Brett for Roll Yer own about four hours before the event. I felt terrible about it, but I'm such a perfectionist that I needed to keep working on it. Roll Yer Own fell on the same day finals were due so it was literally hot off the presses that morning.
They were kind enough to show it at the end of the festival and I sat back and watched the audience react to my work. After all the film grew as I created it to become an experiment involving audience reaction to the sound design. It was a philosophical piece with psychological elements, best described as "conceptual animation", made to make to build a connection with the viewers and create thought rather than an idle viewing of moving images.

Animation to me is only a medium I have chosen to use to explore art and self expression. Philosophy, sociology, psychology, etc are areas I choose to explore in my art. Of course yes I do create "funny" animations and paintings as ways to explore my medium(s) as well and most of those are available online. I'm not a machine that ONLY creates serious works after all. I refuse to upload my entire film "Curtains" becuase I unfortunately have copyright fears and do not wish to see my film run away from me. It's my baby and I'm and over protective mother :)

SCAD has certain rights to my film since I created it while attending. Yet I own the creative rights and credits for it, so it is still me film exclusively. SCAD however is a great institution and is helping me distribute my film to different festivals across the US and World. During production a professor had told me if I stuck to my ideas and drove myself to create my vision it would be festival worthy and I could have the chance to travel to different destinations for its screening. I had lost sight of that during the final few months of production perhaps becuase I had been so stressed with bigger things, and had been so familiar with my work that I failed to see its potential.

That being said I was extremely surprised when I got word that after Roll Yer Own my film was picked to screen at Animation Attack! an international film festival housed in Atlanta as part of the "Festival League" series. Be still my little heart, my film will be shown on a movie screen in front of (I hope) hundreds of people. This is all happening rather fast and it's got my head spinning, and luckily not inflating.
The first showing at Roll Yer Own had re gained my confidence as being able to create my vision, but this news has reinstalled my confidence that I am a filmmaker.
I cant state enough how excited I am about this opportunity. As I told Brett "Its like winning a beauty pageant...". If that makes any sense. I can only hope that this is the first in a series of festivals to pick up my work and show to audiences around the world.
As I stated earlier I am back in the edit room with the film, just cleaning up a few parts that I felt needed some polish so this screening will be a little different and even closer to my vision. They say a filmmaker is never done working on a piece. This may be true, but I need to let it go after this edit round and move on.

I began planning my second film a week I walked in graduation. I was on summer break and planned to relax finally and just watch some movies but my brain wouldn't quite and I began to think of ideas for new films. I have decided to go with another psychological subject I have encountered in life that bothers me to no end. Perhaps this quote by Jack London best sums up the idea of the film:
"To remain here is to commit suicide...the trouble is that suicide of this sort is so easy." -From The Night-Born.
Haha I realize the "suicide" theme between this film and my last, but worry not, this one does not include such a scene.
I plan on this film to be no more than 10 minutes in length. It will be live action shot upon green screen. I will do costume design for the actors, as well as build model sets to film and composite but I may build sets solely in 3D animation (still back and forth on this idea). I will also include 2D animation and hopefully some puppetry. Oh, and of course the soundtrack and editing. Thats one big project and I'm still in early stages of preproduction. Ive got some script that I'm playing with but not settled on as well as some story boards, character ideas and one style frame so far. But as I said its very early in the stages of development so it has lots of room to grow. I'm giving myself about two years to work on it, but that may grow as I start working.

Here is a rough first draft of a style frame:

Right now I'm still waiting to hear back from Turner about a job I applied for. Perhaps I got too eager for that position that I havnt been applying to as many places as I should have. I feel terrible about that but technically I'm still in school for another month. Im "cleaning up credits" as I like to call it - taking History, English, and an Elective- all online so I could work will finishing my degree. This week I will finish my CV and get packages ready to send to Canada, the UK, and Australia. Also I will be sending out my resume around town here and also to NY and LA. Apply everywhere, as the worst that will happen is a no thank you. I have the confidence that my work is good enough to not leave me high and dry with my degree and I believe in SCAD and their ability to help me find a job if I did somehow find myself "high and dry".
Hopefully one day I will aspire to my dream in this arena and get to travel the world and create films. Whether this be in the position of production design, a dream job of mine since I discovered it was a job at age 7, or to be the producer/director myself but thats of course top of the top goal.

Theres also the dream of having my own farm and spending my days painting and listening to records in the sun. I want it to be a self sustained farm somewhere in the mountains but with nearby water so I can go sailing and fishing. Maybe make it a bed and breakfast... But thats more of a retirement plan.

Fast days under the sun light

What an interesting day. I spent the first half relaxing, enjoying my coffee and all that "normal adult Sunday stuff".
I then looked up at the sun light in my room and said "Hey! What a GREAT day! Think I'll take myself around town and do some drawings." So i slathered on the sun screen, grabbed a blanket, and headed out for some guerilla drawing.
I called my group of artsy pants friends to see if they would like to meet up at one point in my journey and set foot to the natural grocery which i had never been to and got some wonderful tofu sandwiches and ginger juice.
After a hellish time of driving really slow in fast traffic I found a parking spot near the park and got my gear together. I climbed the hill trying to find the best possible composition for my sketches, sat down and suddenly the wind started to blow, the temperature dropped, and i watched a dark shape move across the ground quickly towards me, and suddenly the sun was gone. Figuring it would pass I enjoyed my meal (while shivering) and opened up my sketch book. Then the wind REALLY picked up and i found myself fighting the pages and trying to see through my hair.
What was odd is i looked around and everywhere else seemed to be more sunny and calm. And then I began to wonder how odd it must have seemed that I had chosen to sit atop the dark spook hill wrapped in two jackets fighting with my book, while others below me laid in bikinis enjoying the day. After an hour of attempting to fight the elements I decided it was time for my next drawing spot. As soon as I got to the car, the weather was nice again.
I went to the coffee shop and did some sketching and then went home. My art friends had all been busy and I wanted to be back in my nest.
I then proceeded to read about food dye that makes kids hyper and discovered what squishy peas are.

I apparently fell asleep reading about said peas becuase I awoke in bed, face down on the keyboard. Then proceeded to the store to buy donuts and candy to make a makeshift birthday cake for my friend and art colleague Thom and delivered it to him at work. It just happens that my old art troupe "Atlanta Hand Job; live art experience" was meeting tonight there to discuss their next events so I got to catch up with those art friends who were too busy earlier today to draw around town.
It all came full circle, and was a nice warm meeting of friends.

Now what does this have to do with production you ask? Simply I am putting together yet another application-this time for a Pixar internship, and thus why I am feverishly doing art around town this week [and all the adventures that come with it]. This is aside from the film I am finishing, the short film I'm starting, benefit paintings I'm working on, and the squeaky clean 100% together portfolio for the full time deal I'm compiling.

But the latest news is that the stress factor has been lowered tremendously this past month as I finally have unpacked after living out of boxes for 4 months (I moved twice in those 4 months), and do a lot of soul searching. The break I've taken from local art shows has been helpful as I become a creepy bed dwelling hermit and continue to work on my personal style. I feel like Charlie Bucket's Grandparents some days.

I've also discovered through the power of KNOWLEDGE that my films and ideas lately seem to teeter on the verge of "1960's European Avant-garde". I suppose thats what happens when "deep powerful meaning and expression" are lost in my brain and then regurgitated to some sort of physical media.

Line dancing on the moon.

That about feels like what ive been up to the past few months.

Ive been busy balancing school with my internship with Turner Inc. and a splash of one art show a month to that.
But its been a lot of fun, a great learning experience, and Ive made many great friends along the way.

My website thegoodbread.com is near death as I contemplate renewing it, or sticking strictly with this blog and maybe a flicker. Not so professional yes, but helpful bill wise, yes.

Pray for Horatio. He sustained significant water damage in my new house and his underside has cracked. That makes me sort of sad.

I feel like decorating today. I think I will go make some curtains.
Good day.

Dance with me

Between school and doing paintings I teamed up with the Lillie B Ross Society to create an entry into the Heinz Top This TV Challenge.
We had a meeting and said "Heeeeeyyyy...this one idea is kinda catchy", and thusly it was given upon me.
Check it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmwtU0z87uU

Unfortunately it can only be entered by one person. Since LBR 'wrote' the story it was posted under them. Since I did the work, i got a little tag there under the info. You can see it if you click "more"...
No one ever said there was glory in advertising.


Ive got some paintings I'm actually finishing right now for a show tomorrow. I'll post some pics soon of those. However I think i may pull one from the show as im not in the least bit happy with it.
I did many an animation for school, all but one are on my youtube.

Heres some guest art:
Mr. Thom Foolery (http://thomfoolery.livejournal.com/) did this awesome portrait of me at the diner super late the other night. I think its fabulous. I'm working on a return portrait of/for him which im actually taking time on. Ive found a weakness in my skills in trying to create his likeness... I needed a challenge anyway ): )

Aherm

I was just sitting here working on something when a slew of projects side swiped me.

However i did promise some sort of update some time ago. shame.

so here we go! the website itself needs a one over, but until i find myself with a few days of free time i will direct you to my youtube area: http://www.youtube.com/user/agoodb20

i will attempt to add to that as i crank this stuff out. Also in the mean time here are the professional pictures of Horatio:

Just a little FYI. He was done for character development class, and is made of clay and then hand painted.


and this mountain i did for the environment design section of the class:
I had to give the mountain a name for the catalog but it was more of a mix of random letters that came together as something far more nerdalicious than I imagined.


Also the skate deck i did for Go Skate at the Doo Gallery sold. It was a rather exciting event for me seeing as how it was my first show. It is the "hamster singing opera". Because i had so much fun doing it, and it was received well i have decided to do some more shows around here. The next show is Tiki Tiki. Ive really stretched that idea until it hit a chord i can sing too. I only hope the gallery sees where I am going with it. Also I have begun planning a very cool show with James Stevens from the Lillie B. Ross Society. I can't mention much now, but if it works out it will sure as pie be amazing.




Lately I've felt as though i have had a Pterosaurs stuck in my head.