The Adventures Of Percy Possum

So, here's my final Flash animation! Click the link below, then give the big yellow buttons a little flick and gaze in awe as you take full control of a pixelated possum!

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/600/theadventuresofpercyposlz6.swf

A Tribute To The Artwork Of Black Sabbath

Our blogging challenge this week was to analyse an image, what it says, means, conjures up, etc. etc., so I thought I'd tip my hat to the masters of atmosphere, Black Sabbath. Here's a look at all of Sabbath's albums (post - 'Never Say Die' is absent, because remember ; without Ozzy and Bill Ward, the sacred quartet is broken and the entity that is Black Sabbath relinquished it's power) and the sleeves that accompanied and represented them.

'Black Sabbath'

The very first impression of Sabbath, certainly for those lucky enough to witness their rise and doubtless for countless others too, would have been this striking cover. But where to start analysing it? The vaguely psychedelic, washed out colours? The creepy old house? The gorgeous, almost regal looking yet still distinctly B-movie style logo? Or, the terrifying centrepiece, that mysterious woman. Who is she? Why is she dressed all in black? And, ah, why's she staring at me? It's that moment in 70's horror films where the camera pans across a bare landscape, then back and suddenly zooms in on some disturbing looking vagrant. It's chilling, engaging, slightly surreal in feel and one of the most perfect album covers in history.

So much so that, amongst various other artists, Japanese psych-noise freaks Acid Mother's Temple (in their 'Acid Mother's Temple And The Cosmic Inferno' form) spoofed it for their album 'Starless And Bible Black Sabbath', an acid munching tribute to King Crimson and Black Sabbath.

'Paranoid'

Hmm, an odd one, this. After label disputes over calling the album 'War Pigs' due to 'public sensitivity' at the time, the album art was also changed at last minute without much input from the band. The band's original artwork was a lot more grim, a deranged, feral wildman lunging for the paranoid protagonist perhaps more appropriate than the faintly ridiculous, bright pink replacement. Nonetheless, many still view this as a classic album cover, and although not their finest visual moment, the cover still includes some awesome visual cues. The tree in the shadows adds a kinda creepy 'forest at night!' vibe. Listen to 'Planet Caravan' deep in the woods at night, and it becomes apparent that maybe this cover is more appropriate than it initially seems.

'Master Of Reality'

And thus, the world become a heavier place to live in. This logo is nothing short of iconic, it's mysterious wave running down the letters conjuring up images of the words floating about inside the thick goop inside lava lamps, or perhaps being written on the side of some enormous flag blowing in the wind as it's strapped to the back of a huge, elaborately painted caravan... It's so simple, but beautiful. Big, bold and beautiful.

More spoofery for this one too, as Ministry's Al Jourgensen took on Sabbath's 'Supernaut' and mutated it into a bizarre, stompin' industrial mess under the name 1000 Homo DJs...

'Volume 4'

Well...this one just speaks for itself. Ozzy's outstretched arms, his flowing sleeves, the garish orange/red/yellow (depending on the pressing) glow he gave off, the darkness surrounding him, a joyfully bouncy logo and the immortal 'Vol 4'. The image is the equivalent of Jesus nailed to the cross for those who worship at the holy altar of The Riff, proudly displayed on homes, chests, at places of work. Ozzy's stance is almost biblical, his looming figure both a provider of hope, a beacon against all the world's impurities, a solitary 'peace' sign raised in the darkness. Was this, as some have suggested, a more pessimistic outlook than the hippy generation, or was it a more defiant gesture of love whilst acknowledging it's bleak backdrop? Don't ask me, I wasn't even born yet!


Once again, the cover has been lovingly mocked by many bands, with the legendary Sleep blatantly stealing it for the cover of their EP 'Volume Two', which also contained a cover of 'Lord Of This World'.

'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath'

Woah, things got scary again! The sight of a man being attacked on a curiously Satanic looking bed by floating demon babies with the ground breaking, none-more-metal lettering of 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' makes for yet another striking addition to Sabbathian lore. The fact that the words 'Black Sabbath' themselves were written right underneath in lower case is testament to the fact that they didn't need to rely on phony theatrics - this is heavy shit, and as it's all going on and descending into chaos, sat smugly, right at the heart of it all, is Black Sabbath.

'Sabotage'

This curious cover depicts the band in full rock-star posturing mode, (check out Bill's red trousers!) against a magical reverse mirror, with smoke circling around their feet. Many have written this off as a result of way too many drugs, but another more interesting explanation is that it's a wry comment on the level of fame the band had accumulated by this point, that all this hype is just 'smoke and mirrors' amidst a series of carefully manipulated images. Theories that people who believe this are on almost as many drugs as the band themselves are perhaps a little cruel.

'Technical Ecstasy'

As Sabbath's sound continued to experiment and venture into weirder territories, so too did the artwork. 'Technical Ecstasy''s extraordinarily literal interpretation of the title features, in Ozzy's words, "two robots screwing on an escalator". This is the first cover not to adopt a mainly black colour scheme (the first album didn't really either, but still looked dark - this one's wighter than wight!), and as the music here draws a lot more from rock'n'roll and blues than it does from the occult, it's kinda fitting.

'Never Say Die'

Hmmm, another very odd one... As Sabbath's final album with the original (only? It's OK, we can admit this now) line-up, it's definitely an awesome note to end on. But the cover? Two guys in masks against a plane and a blue sky? Rumor has it that's Ozzy and Bill in those two masks, which, if true, lends the cover a new sense of meaning. Half of Black Sabbath is ready to take flight, to leave, "freedom fighters sent out to the sun", but despite this end of an era, despite what's to follow, we should never say die. Black Sabbath will live on forever not only in our hearts, but in the ringing in our ears, the cramp in our necks, and the very centre of our souls.
But it is still a pretty odd cover...

Flashy Possums And The 'Conference Of The Birds'

Today, I learnt a little more about how Flash works. My interactive game/video/thingy was entitled "The Adventures Of Percy Possum", a nice, imaginary Game Boy game.



I managed to finish this off, but couldn't quite get my head around rendering, as per usual. I made it into a Flash animation file, but can't seem to play this on anything, a Windows Media file that just played through the frames at superspeed, and as a series of still images. Maybe I'm just being dense, so point me in the right direction if this is your particular area of expertise.

Secondly, I thought this was worthy of a mention, the album art from the band Om's album 'Conference Of The Birds'.



Now, I'm not totally sure (I couldn't even find the name of the photographer! Another reason why leaving your CD collection at home and bringing a hard-drive of music instead sucks) but I think this is done using similar kinds of pin hole magic that we used. It perfectly fits the still, meditative nature of Om too. No title, no words, no ego, just a glimpse at the fragile balance that lays at the centre of things. Or hey, maybe their low frequencies are just making me come over all pretentious? Their new album 'Pilgrimage' has just come out, so keep 'em peeled!

SketchUp and FrameForge 3D

I had a go on FrameForge 3D and SketchUp today, which both seem like pretty cool programs. On FrameForge, I made a little green dog attack a guy in a suit, but didn't actually save it. It looked a little odd in places, but I guess that's because I was just clicking about and not really investing any time in it, I reckon I could do some cool stuff on that program.
SketchUp is also pretty cool, although I didn't find it quite as interesting as FrameForge. I made this happy little chap with it, and then came home to eat some sausages :

Pixelation

Here are our first attempts at pixelation, the first is the video I edited along with some jaunty music I found on a CD lying next one of the computers in the Waverley Building, the other is the same video but accompanied by Agoraphobic Nosebleed's 'Mosquito Holding Human Cattle Prod', for my own amusement more than anything else. I think the first piece of music fits a little better, but the second isn't a total disaster (more like a partial disaster...)





We learnt many valuable things about the art of stop-motion here, like not to move the camera unnecessarily, not to alternate between portrait and landscape shots, the fact that things have to move really gradually for it not to look jerky, etc. On a personal note, I learnt that the inside of the bins outside the building smell really bad.

Lego Rodents!

Me and John wandered over to the Lego workshop at Waterstones a few days ago, and hours of slowly nudging Lego blocks culminated in this -



I edited this at home with Pinnacle Studio rather than in uni on Premier, which had it's ups and downs. Knowing how to use Pinnacle Studio, where everything is and what all the little icons do, is obviously very helpful, but I'm sure that I'll figure Premier out given time. It would have been a lot quicker to edit (and possibly have made a smoother looking movie) on Premier, as Pinnacle doesn't have the handy little function where you can tell it that a series of photos are meant to be played as one continuous chunk, so I had to drag and drop each photo in and then shorten it...which took some time!

No mice were harmed in the making of this movie. However, I almost tripped up a small child.

Whiteboard Animation

Here's a compilation of everyone's animations, I think the one I worked on is about the 9th one on there. It's the one where the box morphs into a little fat alien, wiggles about a bit, then realises he's actually too lazy to walk, so sends out a call to his extra-terrestrial buddies and gets them to beam him up and over the tree.
This was a lot of fun to do, and has made me appreciate the hard work that goes into animation even more (I'm sure Disney have never resorted to conveniently placed UFOs to transport their characters about)! I'd love to give this another go with more time on my hands, it's really satisfying to see characters you've drawn actually moving around.

Pinhole Cameras

Alright! I'm Kez, and this is my first blog post, which I guess is quite an historical occasion...

Anyway, here's the photo I took with my Guinness can camera -

Embarrassingly enough, this was actually my best attempt. The first was just a blank piece of paper with a little black smudge, and the second was a kind of big grey smudge with little white speckles. The object in this photo was actually a pretty modern looking bike stand, but here it looks like some kind of giant, ethereal floating sausage. Interesting fact - The little spots and smudges all over it were caused by my own grubby little fingers and the final dregs of Guinness lurking at the bottom of the can!