ReFueling Inspiration

As always, and especially with personal non-profit projects like Caravan, I think keeping one's self inspired and perpetuating the feeling of continued growth and creativity through a project is key to keeping on track and maintaining a love for the work beyond simple determination and elbow grease. In the spirit of continuing to fuel my inspiration with Caravan, yet another portion of my time in recent weeks has been spent taking another dive into discovering and collecting new nuggets of inspiration. I've been photo-taking, camping, browsing the net, and low and behold, the exercises in sparking little bits of intrigue here and there are paying off, and helping me maintain - and oftentimes refuel - my ambitions.

The current view, shotgun, from the family RV.

Campfire and wind-chimes at the current campsite.

The above photos were both captured at whim fairly recently from my parents' current campsite. Staying with them at any length is a perpetual, peaceful, very wonderful way to re-ignite my love for this project. I'll undoubtedly be hopping on over to visit them frequently throughout the summer - always a wonderful prospect.

Music, as always, and as I think is pretty readily apparent throughout this blog so far, is another huge source of inspiration for me artistically. My buddy Kate recently introduced me to the Black Rebel Motorcycle Gang. Apart from being rather entertaining tunes in general, a number of their songs have now ended up on my Caravan-inspiration playlist on itunes. Here's one of said songs:

	Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Ain't No Easy Way .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Just today, actually, I found the footage below on YouTube, and I absolutely love it; European-based Romany travelers, filmed in the early 1960's. Now granted, my little fictional group of travelers in Caravan are both American-based and geared more towards the late 60's, early 70's, but I couldn't help but be struck by the beauty of this little film and its relevancy visually to my own inspiration - people persevering through an undoubtedly difficult lifestyle.


More again soon,
♥Mel

Scene 2 Storyboards and Update

Caravan: Scene 2 Forest EXT

To think Caravan, at one point, was just a fleeting idea in my head, let alone a couple of pages worth of storyboards in my sketchbook. Now, it's a fully rough-animated film, halfway on its way towards life in technicolor. I was thoroughly entertained to find this scan of one of my pages of boards filed away in a very random location on my computer, and thought I'd share. Mia meets Kelsey, from scene 2 of the film.

At the moment, I'm one week into the two week break I have has scheduled for rest and re-compiling of thoughts/sanity/personal health, fresh after Graduation from CCS. At the end of those two weeks, I'll pick right back where I left off with the film, smack in the middle of clean-up and coloring process. I look forward to that. Until then, I'll stick with my gardening, camping, freelance and personal art projects, a couple of which you can follow over at my art blog, if you'd like.

Also, because I love it so, here's one of the latest tunes fueling my Caravan inspiration: "White Summer/Black Mountain Side" by Led Zeppelin. I can just imagine the entire convoy trekking up a country back-road to this somewhere, pitching camp one late summer evening... little miss Mia in tow, of course. Love it.

	Led Zeppelin - White Summer/Black Mountain Side .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

See you in a week, Caravan!
♥Mel

Half Way There :)

Mia: ORLY? from Mel Miller on Vimeo.

I thought I'd share another animated clip of Mia, wherein she realizes that, in fact, Kelsey doesn't bite after all.

I do apologize for the scant updates over the past few days, but there's really nothing new to report - I'm still working tremendously hard on the film, almost to a fault at times - proper rest is a scarce commodity. It's nearly halfway complete however, which is fantastic. I also plan on compiling an up-to-date leica reel of the film this upcoming weekend, and I'm quite excited for that. All the while, oddly, I've gotten completely and unabashedly hooked on Lost (started from season 1 this past weekend and am already halfway through season 2!) It's proven consummate, albeit rather strange company while I animate.

Also for he fun of it, my new favorite tee, which gets worn to Senior Studio quite often:


Onward and upward!

-Mel

Another Glimpse of Caravan

A Glimpse of Caravan from Mel Miller on Vimeo.

Another set of completed shots for Caravan. We're still tweaking these here and there with timing in terms of the SFX, but they're definitely coming along! The music included is bay the wonderful mister Larry Larson, whom I am privileged to know - used with permission.

Work on the film remains steady, and entertaining as ever, and while I rest little, I'm maintaining confidence and excitement in the project as a whole. Having great friends to work alongside while they chip away at their own films is also a plus. Good company most certainly makes the more stressful times much more pleasant to deal with.

... Even if your buddy in question is a total creeper.
Oh, silly Patar.

Last but not least, the latest tune to receive chronic airplay amidst Caravan's production? "Caravan" by Van Morrison. Sadly, I cannot seem to find a video copy of the original recording anywhere online to share with you here, but this will certainly do for now:

"Caravan" by Van Morrison

Cheers,
Mel

Caravan Girl

Curious Miss Mia from Mel Miller on Vimeo.

Shot 009, rough & clean animation

Clean up from today. I still have a few alterations I want to make to the final line here before I shoot it for color on Friday, but, it's well on its way, at least! :) Mia is so terribly cute when curious. Also, just for the fun of it, here's the tune I was blasting on repeat in Senior Studio today: Goldfrapp's aptly titled Caravan Girl.

And so it goes,
- Mel

Latest Inspiration Tunes, and Updates

A couple of quick updates:

• Shot 19 is now complete in its composited and ready to be plunked into the final film edit! Shot 30 is pretty much complete as well, though I'm going to have it passed around a couple of critique sources before I call it "fully done" just yet. When it's gotten the seal of approval, I'll post that here. So, that's two down - plenty more to go. Niles is doing a fantastic job putting these together though, they look just as I envisioned. We're both incredibly excited!

• Next of the list of things to do for compositing - Niles is going to start working on the SFX for both seasonal transition shots in the film. I'll likely end up posting a couple of test runs for that here.

• Meanwhile, I've only got 3 and a half backgrounds to complete out of 65. The proverbial home stretch on those. Awesome. The general thought behind getting all of the backgrounds done this soon is to allow us to get shots composited as the animation is completed, as opposed to having the massive, time-wasting lag between completing the animation and waiting on backgrounds to be completed after that, as my original schedule suggested. Completing shots entirely on an as-they-go basis leaves for more time to have them viewed, critiqued by others, and improved.

• I'll post more completed BG's soon. ♥ There's plenty. Last I counted, I've completed 40 backgrounds since last Tuesday. Not half bad.

Just for the fun of it, I thought I'd post two of the latest tunes that are serving as on-repeat brain fuel for the Caravan project. And the lucky winners are...

"Not Fade Away" by the Rolling Stones. Niles and I were joking just this morning, actually, that if Caravan were altered into an animated series, this would be the perfect theme song... mostly because neither of us can visualize Stu Bogey jamming to it behind the wheel of his truck without completely cracking up.


"Jesus Don't Want me for a Sunbeam" by the Vaselines, as revisited by Nirvana. I enjoy its chipper derision.

♥Mel

Inspiration: Larry Live

I mentioned a while back that one mister Larry Larson and his lovely guitar were kind enough to agree to helping me create the music score for Caravan. As well as being an inspiration as a professor and a great guy as a whole, Larry is an absolutely wonderful musician - I enjoy his music immensely, and he was the first person I thought of when considering how to go about creating a sort of bluegrass Celtic inspired sound to the film. I'm so looking forward to January, when I reach the point that we can record the tracks!

This evening, my roommates, other half and I visited the Gaelic League to see Larry play live. It was a wonderful time, and Larry was even kind enough to play Edmund Fitzgerald for me - a track of who's guitar/harmonica instrumental sections are set to comprise the last 30 seconds or so of the Caravan film: Inspired the film's ending montage, at that.

A brief clip of Larry playing one of the many great tunes from his CD "One Twelve String Guitar"

Mia's reaction to the whole lovely evening.

Doodles! Patrick and I had fun sharing a sketchbook page - including my various doodles of Mia, Kelsey, Stu Bogey, Hoobler, myself, and my other half, Niles. Pat drew... three questionable fellows, two of which were himself.

Niles did a quick, adorable little doodle of Hoobler. Had to share!

And one last image for the road - thanks for a great show, Larry!

Cheers,
♥Mel

First Completed Backgrounds!

Well, I managed to complete color renders on three backgrounds in downtime during one four-hour work shift today: A good sign for productivity on these to come! Here's my first three fully completed backgrounds for Caravan The top of of which has flat colors was posted here, for the curious)

Shots 031, 031 &032

I've mentioned previously my affinity for musical inspiration throughout the creative process. Two days ago, I discovered yet another lovely track from the August Rush soundtrack (Never seen the film, hence the delayed discovery) that has so many textural similarities to how I want Caravan to feel visually, it, frankly makes me rather giddy. So, I had to share.

• Dueling Guitars from the August Rush Soundtrack
  

More again soon,
Mel

More Camp Site Inspiration

I spent the day at the camp site that is currently "nearest and dearest" this past Friday, and took a number of photos to look back on while working on Caravan. It's late in the season for casual visitors by now - slowly but surely, the long-term residents (whether by choice or unforseen cercumstance) are being weeded out from those left. While I love these shots, fall is in the air - I'm admittedly rather ecited to get another photo op when the entire woods are on fire in whatever shades of crimson and gold.

One of the various things I love about visual camping aesthetics: even the propane tank gets a little love. It becomes more then an unsightly white heap. It's part of "home" wherever home may be at the time. Flower pots and decorative wiring give it a little spirit of its own.

Indoor decorative rugs on hard-packed dirt, bonfire smoke, and a slight chill in the air.

Dad.

Dad is a tremendous inspiration for Charlie Kavenaugh: The gentle spirit, relentless protector, steadfast supporter - well traveled, and road weary, who's strength of spirit and compassionate smile have inspired me for as long as I can recall.

-Mel

Sights and Sounds: Inspiration

Countless things have contributed to the inspiration for the aesthetics of this film as a whole. Family, life experience. A tremendous love for camping. he feeling of renewal that comes with each change of season - something I only discovered in the past decade or so, having grown up in the deep south. One of my greatest artistic drives personally, at all times, tends to be music. I find that, for myself at least, music - the sounds and textures of it moreso, even, then lyrical content - has such an incredibly visceral feel to it that so often lends itself to furthering ideas or even spawning them in little notes of inspiration.

Every original personal project I take on tends to land itself with a playlist of its own - a sort of psuedo soundtrack that gets a positively unreasonable amount of airtime on my MP3 Player whenever I'm working on the piece. Caravan's, at the moment, is over two hours long; intermingled sounds of bluegrass, acoustic guitar, violins, and the occassional banjo. For fun, here are a few selected tracks from that current playlist, if for no other reason, to share the visual, visceral texture from the sound that I'm hoping to lend to this film.

• Ritual Dance from the August Rush Soundtrack
• Smoothie Song by Nickel Creek
• Road by Nick Drake
• Please Read the Letter by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
  

I mentioned camping. For reasons I will not mention here just yet - perhaps not ever, for the sake of those involved - I have had a tremendously intimate, extended, and dually unexpected amount of time spent residing amongst the deep sting of campfire smoke and the perpetual swatting of mosquitoes that camping in the woods lends itself to over the summer. Every bit of this has, in turn, infused little bits of inspiration into this project... least of all, through the occassional snapped photograph.

-Mel