In other news, I stayed up all night learning Anime Studio through tutorials. This is also really addicting! I spent an hour or so creating a swimming octopus that raps. This is obviously unrelated to my project, but it was entertaining. My intention was to animate in Anime Studio for this project, but now that I think about it, I don’t know if it will fit with my rotoscoping. I’m not going to rule it out, though. I may include more direct animation than I had anticipated. It’s just so cool!

This week I finished writing my voice-over, and I’m going to re-record it soon. I’m almost done storyboarding everything. There still are a few details I may change in the voice over. I met with Sally yesterday and she helped me a lot. I hope to see some of you at Shot to the Face tonight! Love!

Meeting with Jan Krawitz helped me a lot. I feel much better about my project and have a much clearer idea. She thought that 5 minutes is a good length for the piece, because less is more, and I agree. This will force me to make my narration very concise and cut down what may bore the audience. Her critique of my narration was that it was a bit clinical and I needed more of a balance between describing my physical sensations and describing my more specific, spiritual experiences. This was also an important thing to consider.

She suggested that I keep the video blog of me before the retreat as the introduction of the film, because it is a good summation of the film and gets the audience engaged. The video blog starts out saying that I’m going on this retreat over spring break, etc. and leaves with me saying: “I’m really scared because I don’t know if I will be able to make the 10 Days.” 

For the end of the film, I will include a video blog of a month or so later, and talk about the many changes that I have seen in my life. She said that it’s important to make sure I have an ending, because my film is sort of a journey film. How am I different now?

Zhana agreed to direct me when I re-record my voice-over, as Jan suggested. I am not going to include any footage or sound bytes from the previous interviews, because this would take away from the piece and raise a lot of questions that would require a lot of back-up and explanation. I’m also not going to include other Vipassana students’ interviews, because this will complicate things as well. I want to keep it simple and focused so I can spend a lot of time animating.

I have been rotoscoping over clips of me meditating in different styles, which I will post here soon. I plan on painting over glass, animating with sand, and also using direct animation for a nightmare sequence. I have set-up a time during Week 5 to do the direct animation. I’ve been writing my voice-over, which will be recorded on my marantz by the end of this week when I meet with Jan Krawitz, and I am going very very early tomorrow morning to Snoqualmie falls to film the waterfall. 

The Vipassana retreat was intense and life changing. I know that I will no longer look at certain things in the same way ever again. On the last day, they eased us back into talking. Everyone I talked to had a similar but different experience than I did, and it was very interesting to learn about. I exchanged information with a half dozen other students who were interested in meeting up in the future to meditate, and also to participate in my film.

My project is morphing, yet again, and its main focus will be my experience at the retreat. This is my story. I will still include clips or sound bites from the interviews that I shot last quarter, because they played back in my head at the retreat. You go through a lot when you sit for 11 or 12 hours a day meditating. Because I obviously did not bring a camera, I will be animating most of it using a variety of techniques. I will narrate over this animation. I will include my video diary of before and after, and also include some interviews of other students. It is my hope that someone will see this and want to do it. Anyone could benefit from this.

My apologies for not writing in two weeks, and may all beings be happy!  

The formatting issues were discouraging because they set me back a lot, but I’m confident that I can make up for lost time. This project is where my heart/soul is. I’m starting to write music for it, and I’m also entertaining the idea of asking a local musician to participate, maybe in a short on-camera live performance. It’s nice how this project keeps evolving.