For a year or two I have been looking at animations on Vimeo, telling myself I'd love to try animating a story one day, instead of a website's flying menus or buttons. But without a story I had a dawn good excuse to procrastinate on my project. Then last summer I heard You're So Beautiful written by Dean Vivirito. Many images came to my mind as I listened to the song for the first time and I thought hey, there's my story! About four months into it, here's the first of the song's four scenes, which takes place in Paris.

The artwork is done using a mix of manual and digital approaches. From the sketches I trace shapes which are then cut from various textured papers. The shapes are scanned into the computer and then cleaned up and treated digitally with Photoshop. I originally thought of using Flash to animate since that's what I'm familiar with, but Flash is best at animating digital artwork. With scanned images After Effects was a much better choice. This means I have to learn it as I go, but it's something I wanted to do anyway, so I just jumped in. Thank goodness for tutorials!

I had a very full and fun day today making a diorama at the Machine Project space in Echo Park (coincidentally next to the Fretted Frog where I take ukulele lessons). There's nothing like having people around working on their stuff and a clock ticking to stir ideas you never knew you might have. I came in with only a vague idea of doing something inspired by Murakami's Wind Up Bird Chronicle and walked out with a complete diorama, I'm amazed. Normally I would have probably dragged it over a few days. Artist Amy Jo Diaz and architect Casey Hughes were super helpful both with inspiring suggestions and hands on assistance. Thanks!