8250

snow in Warsaw

I've been travelling alot through Poland recently. now i'm back home in Edinburgh, which stays covered with snow. it's not even that cold, and looks beautiful. or maybe, nothing's cold after two weeks in Poland.

atheist christmas eve party we had in Warsaw

drinking amzazing coffee that my flatmate Georgi is so good at making, thinking of the summer. a while ago me and one of my friends had this idea of going for a trip around the world. as we obviously don't have that kind of money, we decided to start with Europe to get some experience. back then, his girlfriend was really against that madness so i think i kind of gave up on the idea, but now it changed and i got excited again. it would cost us both alot of money that any normal student should be saving up working during the summer, but we're only young once.

it's snowing alot again, my window overlooks the Meadows, it look great.

what i really should be doing, is the essay, and the animatic for my next film. i also have a lot of work behind the bar, as the festive season is rather busy. way too much work, so i drink coffee and walk the dog in the snow. i like it.

i've been nominated for RTS Student Award Scotland. i somehow hope i'm not gonna get it (i'm well bad with gettin awards, i always get extremely shy and probably seem like a dumb child), not yet, but i'm excited for the trip to Glasgow. the truth is, i have never been to Glasgow before.
happy hogmanay.

8217

i don't remember being interested in storytelling at any point of my life. i wanted to be many things: the prime minister, a scientist, an antiques renovator, a teacher, a bartender. nothing to do with storytelling really. maybe because i've never could speak properly, in a literal and metaphorical sense.

i like walking with my eyes closed. i like listening to things, and feeling them. i do feel a little bit uncomfortable, sometimes, lost in the darkness. i'm not as worried about hitting something or falling over, as i am about other people. i'm scared of getting too close to someone accidentally.

i try to work on my next film, but Uni work, part time job and the lack of motivation in general get in my way alot. that's something to be changed.

i haven't mentioned, i got into 6th London Short Film Festival (8th – 17th January 2010, mine's on the 13th), as part of the "Trick of Light" screening. cool.

8210

living in the world where there's no right or wrong, how can we be asked to take that responsibility and draw the line to define these? and yet, we are.
in the big Anything-Goes world, we're being asked to have an idea of the future. there's nothing to fight for, nothing to rebel against, nothing to embrace or neglect, nothing that would make any voice of opinion valuable.
and you asked us to make up some rules. again.
i find this uncomfortable.

after experiencing life as a human for a while, in which i failed miserably, i decided to go back to being a film making machine. it's quite a sad thing to do, if you think about it, but i try my best not to think about it, so it's fine.

here's s wee test for my next (hopefully) film (project working title: train). i really want to make a film in this kind of style, but i'm not sure if it's really gonna work. esp. that the story is quite long.

ps. i liked "the men who stare at goats". i actually liked a film. that's strange. more about films coming soon, as the year's coming to an end and the oscars are approaching.

8205

the Red Eminence told me the secret to life. it's pretty much like the secret of the Soylent Green.
i happened to confirm that i was a monster. film making, blue eyed monster.
it's pretty bad, if you think of it.
it's not that bad, if you don't think of it. thinking of stuff makes you go mental, they should have combs that you can comb the things IN your head, as well as on the surface.
i haven't been to the cinema for more than a week now. i'm beign to feel anxious. that is an illness of some sort.


i should be doing the only thing i can be doing: films. i should. i can never be forgiven if i try to do anyhing else.

this Wednesday my film's being screened at Manchester Exposures. cool. i was supposed to go, but i couldn't in the end.


- my colouring of Will Anderson's drawing, since he's scared of colour.

8190

it all started to feel as if it was playing too fast. "i don't like your pacing", i thought to my life.
all the wonders and amusements i had during this way too long weekend, including seeing people having sex on the bus stop, one couple kissing, that looked alot like that shot from 'spiderman', only that the guy wasn't upside down, then one man pissing, but completely naked, and some more strange people. then the rain was getting heavier and heavier and i drunk too much. i mean, not that much, but i was supposed to work on the storyboard, and i'm not able.
then again i had some guy giving me his number. again - it doesn't happen every day, but often enough for me, who doesn't do that at all.
i don't really get it, if i were to have a relationship it would so not start with exchanging phone numbers. i am a helpless romantic. i would never go out with someone just for his look (or wouldn't respect a guy who does for her look).
i mean, if you just want to get laid, there's so many more drunk women in the bar, you don't go for a barmaid who obviously won't be able to go with you that night cos she's working.
and if you're after something more than simply sex, then it's well shallow to do it that way.

if i were interested in someone, i would talk to them. i would talk to them again, i would look for a chance to talk, i would want to find out so many things about them and tell them about me before i'd even think of giving them my number and suggesting "i've got a double bed and it feels empty there".
i probably am a helpless romantic and can't find my way in the modern world.
that's how i never really look at this numbers i get.

in general, it wasn't the best weekend i ever had...

8188

'the present is only intelligible in the light of the past'

'pin the pegbar on the animator' - postmodern collage: A. Mason & D. Holwill by N. Gibson, 2009. 'so playful'

Donald Holwill - the wizard, the head of the animation department at Edinburgh College of Art. the head of animation. on the second year we developed the theory that he really is a ghost, the great puppet master behind the shell of a body we encounter in animation department. and he shall be there immortal.

Donald Holwill is definitely a wizard, i am attending a school tutored by real wizards! i mean, i always knew eca animation was special, but i wouldn't expect that (i wouldn't expect it cos i would never think of it. and that's my arrogance at its best).
i may tell you why at some point, but not just yet. and i'm not sure if the great wizard himself would like it if i did.


these are few of many reasons why animation at eca is the best place to be.
(the main reason is obviously - because i am attending there)

this post may not make much sense.

8182 on the way to the station Nowhere we encounter funny places.

i am a bad, bad barmaid. what i wrote some time ago about the licencing law getting more and more strict, and all the discouraging from drinking idea... i feel a bit like a devil watching my customers through the night, how someone comes for just one pint early on, and ends up barely walking at 4 am.
i've been unfortunate enough to see some bad films recently. or - so to say - highly acclaimed shite.
probably the best of the worst was hertzfeldt's 'meaning of life'.
i used to hate his films, i refuse to remember his name (i copied and pasted it from wiki up there) - i feel like i'm absolutely from different planet there, because i don't find his films funny at all. i find them stupid and vexatious, like when in a train or something you have to listen to some culturally retarded teenagers' conversation.
but i was made watch all of his dvd in college. that was a disturbing experience. i found myself in the room full of people laughing at something that was making me feel sick. it was an interesting thing indeed - made me think of how awful human nature is and how much i don't belong there. intentionally or not, i've learned something valuable from his films.
ay, about 'the meaning of life' - that actually was funny, because this film, as i thought, wasn't meant to be a comedy, yet people were still laughing. the audience is a vicious thing, indeed.

god, i've got some hard character design (i properly suck at that) and a story board to do, then - i'm quite busy at the bar as well, and i'm so sleepy. and the project at uni to do as well, it's not bad, but it seems like that would take quite alot of my time. and so much is happening on the computer, i don't like working on the computer that much.(drawin by Cat Bruce, coloured by me again, i like our collabs)

8168

i don't have the thing for any new film recently. looking through many stories, some of them may be good if i give them more thought, but it just doesn't grasp me. sometimes i get a little kick for a day of two, but it doesn't last long. and it needs to last hell long for an animator.



there is one story i originally thought of as live action, but i think it may be interesing in animation as well. kind of 'romance', but without love really. interesing? i may talk it through with Bruce (meaning: i would talk and talk and she would drink tea or irn bru not necessarily listening, but simply talkin would make me realise what works and what doesn't. i can do it without Bruce really, but it makes me feel more insane to talk clearly to myself. i need her around as an excuse).
then, i wanted to so stop motion for a while, but it doesn't feel like stop motion at all.

my computer's falling apart as well. that sucks.

the film i'm working on right now, it's more of some experimental play than a film really. and i find myself well random when the big question (delivered by the devil himself - Alan Mason) arrives: "WHY?".
why - behind every little choice i make.
in this particular project i would say - "why not?".
that seems to be an answer for a while.
it isn't really.
it's more of an excuse.
i may try to use it for time being, simply because i seem unable to find any answers recently. but i won't give up.

8162

my pc crashed again and i started browsing apple online store (one day, one day...).
current project can't get me excited at all.
and i don't give a shit about professor Mason saying that it's the student that makes the project exciting. embracing everything as it comes and giving it all - that feels like mental whoring for me. life's too short and if i were to give it all to every single project, it'd be even shorter. i enjoy sleeping and wasting it as well.

high on cream soda (another thing Bruce got me into), and i think i've got a cold. i find it so much easier to work directly on the computer, but then it becomes pointless to go to college. i like going there for social reasons. so i end up going, wasting all that time and not having any work done.
autumn looks pretty in Edinburgh. i even went quite ok with money. at least till the end of this month. another thing i became so British at: feeling so mighty after Friday when i get my wages.

maybe that's how it should be: crashing, your computer gives you an excuse to drink another coffee and write something on your blog.

8151: uni started again.

i was as negative as i can, you can always count on me when it comes to that. it actually made me feel sick. all that enthusiasm, many loud people, new, "exciting" projects, all overflowing with happiness. i'm probably alergic to happiness.
and the banner project: i want to be a film maker, not a banner maker. shit happens, i have to do it.
i've been thinking of animation schools recently. you know, many people complain about Edinbrurgh College of Art, that nobody really teaches us anything etc. isn't that life, that you only get what you reach out for? that there's nothing really given?
there probably are schools that produce amazing, tiny cogs to fit into the animation studio machine. people who study all these tricks to make an animation look more real than live action. people who absolutely succeed in that. people who don't seem to have anything to say.
when i'm watching their work, it looks so much more mature than our silly things. and i can't see a single personality showing in these. just the massive monster of the industy conventions.
i'd rather wish to see animation "reach into places where live action doesn't go", really.
in the end i don't mind not being that skilled in portraying motion, because that's not what animation's about. whatever it is about, i can't be sure. but it's just what i make it, and i make it much deeper.
i'm happy to be attending ECA, where animation dep looks pretty much like the Toon Town from Rogger Rabbit. no matter how much i feel sick there sometimes, with all my alergic to happiness, there isn't any better place to be.



"why do people want to fly?"
"because they can't?", Bruce answered.

8137

i was thinking alot, what the hell is love. i heard many people talking about it, so i though it must be something important. sadly, i couldn't think of anyone who would know what love is. i texted Bruce, i though that from all the people, she would know.
she answered:
"a type of fruit u can buy only in ALDI... only in ALDI..."
clown.
i sometimes think i would like to be human, and they seem to be about love, so i wanted to know.
i don't think it would be an easy one.

what is love?
i am seriously looking for any answers because i have no idea. simply no idea.

8135

end of festival season. edinburgh international festival fireworks:

like that, and many other, for an hour yesterday night. feels like Walt Disney movie.
recorded with one of the crappies cameras ever.
note to Santa Claus: i want a new camera. i just remembered that the one i'm using isn't even mine...

8130

i found a watch, quite a nice one. nice enough for me to keep it. i like how its face has similar design to all these scary clocks in the old part of London. and it has one wee window with day of the month in it, that's god damn useful for someone like me (September really surprised me this year, i was sure i had at least 10 days of August left when it was the 1st already).
i fixed it.
but i can't wear it. it just feels wrong, as if my hand were cursed by some "time-measurin" monster.
it is beautiful, but scary at the same time.
fixing it, when i think of it now, it was kinda like giving the life to something that shouldn't be alive.
isn't that the filthy job of an animator?

1st of September was also changes in drinking policies in Scotland. it is really, really bad. as if drinking weren't so expensive already, you've gotta ID everyone under 25 (bloody 25), now you can't have deals on alcohol (no 'happy hours' in pubs then, no buy 1 get 1 free in TESCO... that makes me sad... we're only having 'sad hours' now). but you know what pissed me off most? that me, as a bartender, in the holy name of "discouraging from drinking" can't suggest "the same" drink to the customer. i can't ask: "same?" and serve the drink the customer was drinking here for years, because that encourages drinking. honestly, that's how we make tips. and that's the pub culture. o my god, this world's going nuts.

well, let's make the legal drinking age 25 then, and double the prices, oh yeah, because that's gonna fix everything.

8127

i've got way too much work. at work. and at home with animation.
"someday were both gonna die, our bodies will rot and maggots will live in us, so lets be happy" (Robert Benfer, he's no authority, i just liked this silly song)

8112

yesterday (today morning, actually), something past 6am, i met one drunk woman. she wasn't even that bad. she started walking next to me, telling me how she gad that argument with her father, i got to know her whole family story (quite a complicated one), her tattoos and god knows what else i was fine without knowing.
first, when she started, i let her talk, i though - if she needed that, i can half listen on my way home. but then i got pissed off. was i a green fairy again?
you know, that happens, you get to listen to whatever the drunken men at your bar have to say. green fairy - some mysterious creature keeping the alcoholic's company, listening to his stories.
i'm not a fairy.
i'm not a piece of furniture one'd talk to.
i don't feel like carng for anyone's dramas. i can only make films based on some more interesting ones.

it pissed me off, because - like most of them - she never cared about me. never cared if i wanted to listen or not, what was i doing there at 6 am. never cared if i even existed, treated me like a thing, a simple thing to talk to. i don't feel like listening to such people's dramas.
if i were a green fairy, i would eat them afterwards.

8109

i only got this blog so i can comment on other people.