Luis' Illustrated Blog

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Work is going really slow. I worked on the same scene all week last week and kept on working on it Monday and Tuesday and most of Wednesday. It was really complicated and it had a big crowd. It was sooo annoying.

Reply to Bill Ho’s comment from “Drowning in stuff“ article. (Bill is an old friend of mine from the Rowland Days [for Rowland reference, see ‘In the shadow of greatness‘] and he worked on the Simpson’s show for a few seasons. He now has his own business with his best friend Raul Aguirre [who is an ex-Disney animator]. They recently wrote boarded and directed a short cartoon for Nickelodeon. You can check out their site at www.illegalaliensproductions.com. Thanks for commenting Bill.)

I agree with Bill that if the writers didn’t change things, our jobs would be shorter and we’d probably have hiatus much sooner. Funny that Bill mentioned that because Tommy Tejeda and I had a very similar conversation one night a few weeks ago. Tommy came to the same conclusion. It’s a very good way of looking at revisions.

Now I’ll respond to Bill’s comment about the Cintiqs. Bill wrote regarding my friend and co worker Paul Wee’s blog article. Paul was “Character Layout Lead” on the Simpsons Movie (which meant he was in charge of all Character Layout on the movie). If you read his article he writes that he no longer has his Cintiq anymore. Actually the Cintiqs are still being used by the studio. They took Paul’s away because he went back to regular layout like me, therefore he no longer needed the Cintiq. There is talk that perhaps next season we might start using the Cintiqs for layout. I hope this happens, it would make life much easier. Of course this would mean re-tooling how we do the shows. We’ve been doing the show the same way for about twenty four years. It could potentially become a huge mess to try to go digital. Especially since many of the artists don’t know how to use Photoshop. Yikes!

MY WEEK

The “incident” happened. I’ll write about it in a few paragraphs.

We finally moved in to our new place. I don’t even know how to begin telling you what a pain it has been. The place we bought is brand new. It was still in construction last month. The problems began after the construction crew didn’t meet the Aug. 15 deadline. There was also lender hassles, to deal with as well as bad money management on the part of the Title Company. Since the construction was late we weren’t allowed to get our keys. We had told the landlord of my apartment that we would be moved by the 30^th. Turns out they weren’t going to give us the keys till the week after. Meanwhile the landlord had already rented the apartment so we needed to get out. Not only that but I was gambling on having the keys quickly because I only had four days of unboxed clothes.

We ended up moving twice. We move once from the apartment to my parents house and then when we finally go the keys, we moved into our house from my parents house. It really sucked. The move from the apartment to my parents was horrible. The truck we had gotten was not big enough but I had made the mistake of not reserving a truck sooner so I got what they had. Also, there were so many little odds and ends in the apartment that it really was more of a hassle than in should have been.

Not everyone that told us they would help could show up and the people that DID show up, showed up late. To make matters worse, my wife had made an appointment to have the cleaners come in and do a vacancy cleaning on the same day we were moving. This meant we had a deadline! There was no way to pack the truck by the time the cleaners would be there so we just moved everything out in front of the apartment just to have the place vacated. We packed the truck as best we could, dropped the stuff off at my parents, which meant unloading the truck, then we came back to get the rest. I had started the loading of the truck at 9:00am (by myself) and we didn’t finish until 9:00 pm. We were really stressed and tired by the time we finished. It was horrible.

The next morning I unloaded the truck (because we were too tired the night before to do it) mostly by myself. Then I drove it to Laguna beach, which is an hour and a half away, to drop off a really heavy entertainment center, we didn’t need, at a friends house. From there I drove to Sunland, which was an hour away, to get a table and some furniture from an aunt. Then I drove back to my parent’s house, forty five minutes away. Unloading the entertainment center was, by far, the worst of it. The day this happened, I had no energy left at all from the day before and still, I did these things.

Then, the incident happened. Thing is, my parents house didn’t have enough room for all our stuff. We had to leave all our furniture outside in the backyard. My parents don’t really have much of an overhanging roof in the backyard. In fact, they don’t have one at all. They bought a tent like portable gazebo thing and that’s what they have as a roof. Well, it really wasn’t a big deal that my furniture was in the backyard. My dad turned off the sprinklers so everything was fine. Dad was a little concerned about the furniture because he heard on the news that it might rain but the weather here had been hitting 105 F so that really wasn’t a realistic concern.

We were staying at our parents waiting for the house people to give us the keys. One night having gone to bed, a sound woke me up. At first I wasn’t sure I heard right, so I just listened. There it was again. I couldn’t believe my ears. I sat up and looked out the window. Sure enough, a flash of light followed by thunder. It was a thunder storm but it had not hit us yet. I started counting the flashes and thunder and to my horror, it was getting closer. I looked at the time. It was 2:00am. I looked down, out the window were I could see the furniture. Most of it was under the gazebo thing but not all of it. The furniture I went to get from my aunt’s house was too big to put under the gazebo and it wasn’t covered up. It was going to get ruined and we needed that furniture. I had to do something. The storm was getting closer and I didn’t have much time before it got to us (unless I was wrong and it had already started to rain). I got out of bed and ran outside.

To be Continued…

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

The madness is over. We actually managed to pull it off. We finished the Animatic for show 8#. An Animatic is a pencil and paper version of what the show will look and sound like before it gets cleaned up and colored.. The Animatic is shown to the writers and producers and they make changes according to what they see is working or not working.

We managed to finish it. We ended up more than doubling our crew to do it and they even had to move the deadline over one more day because the show was just too big. I managed to finish what I had but only with help from some of my co-workers. I had thirteen scenes to do by Wednesday at 2:00 pm. I gave away six of them which helped out a lot. I ended up actually finishing early so I helped some else finish their scenes. I was working late every night and I had no time to do anything. I promised people drawings and I haven’t even had time to get around to them. It was crazy. I worked a little during the weekend too, but only two hours because I needed to be at home to help pack.

What a relief it is to finish. The thing about these Animatics is that we work really hard on scenes and sometimes the jokes don’t work, even though it’s a sequence you worked long, hard hours on and they just get cut. It’s heart breaking but that’s what they pay us for. I hope the Animatic screening goes okay because if it doesn’t, there will be a lot of changes. That means, doing new scenes instead of finessing what we already worked hard to get right the first time.

Now that I have time I might actually be able to start drawing for myself again…although right now drawing is the last thing I want to do.

Actually, there is a possibility that there might be another show that’s in trouble and we will need to help them out. When one show is behind, it tends to cause a snowball effect. I hope that doesn’t happen. I’m really tired.

MY WEEK

So I’ve gotten a lot of responses about the Italy diary. I’ve decided to put it up in black and white. If I color it, it will be just for my personal satisfaction because doing that will take a while. In any case, I’ll put it up on its own page when I get the chance (and after I check it for typos). I will let everyone know when I do. I’d like to thank everyone who commented about it.

I would also like to thank, everyone that “Dugg” me. I have four Diggs now! Woo hoo! Techdiva left a review at Digg.com. Maybe she’s the only one that’s “Dugg” me because I can’t seem to find anyone else’s review. Anyway, if anyone else “Dugg” me, thank you and I’d like to thank Techdiva for leaving a review. Yay!

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And while you’re at it, please Digg me too.